The Liberation of Brigid Dunne

by Patricia Scanlan

  “Why, where will you be?” Brigid sat up and blew out the candle so that only the pale lemon light of a waning moon illuminated the pitch-dark night.

  “Far from here,” Imelda retorted tartly.

  “Huh!” Brigid sniffed, turning onto her tummy and burying her face in the soft, downy bolster. Where did her sister think she was going to end up? Imelda had such notions. Her parents had spent a small fortune on today’s gathering. Things would be tight for a while now and they’d need more of her small wage. There was always something that stopped her from saving enough money to leave Ardcloch.

  And then a thought—like a Divine revelation—struck her, lying in the bed under the eyes of her martyred Saviour. There was an escape route! Father O’Connor had mentioned that some Missionary nuns were coming to Ardcloch. French nuns! Soeurs du Secours Miséricordieux—the Sisters of Merciful Help, he had translated. They were seeking nuns to join their Order.

  If she joined the Missionary nuns, she’d get to travel far from Ardcloch and escape a life filled with little opportunity. Brigid had recently overheard her parents discussing Granny Dunne’s failing health. “Brigid can go and live with her,” Elizabeth had said firmly. “We don’t have enough room for her to move in with us, and if Brigid’s with her, we won’t have to be worrying about her being on her own at night.”

  Brigid had nearly had a heart attack. While she was very fond of her grandmother, her small cottage was dark and pokey. The toilet was down a winding path and not outside in the yard, like the one they had at home. Granny still boiled her kettle on the hook by the turf fire and baked her bread in the cooking pan hanging on the other hook. She was afraid of the electric, as she called it, and was adamant she wasn’t going to have it connected up. Brigid would be stuck in the Dark Ages, reading by candlelight, if she was to end up living with her grandmother.

  If she left to work in Dublin or Galway, Brigid knew she would be turning her back on her parents. She wouldn’t be able to do that to them. She would be riddled with guilt. Unless she’d a vocation. She knew she didn’t have one right this minute, but she could soon develop one; she was certain of it.

  “Sister Brigid.” It rolled off the tongue. And she would be the best nun the Order ever had, so that perhaps, when she died, all her sins would be forgiven.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I want to become a nun,” Brigid announced firmly as they walked home from early Mass two weeks later. It was a biting cold morning with the frost crackling underfoot, her breath a wispy film in front of her as velvet darkness began to give way to a soft light in the eastern sky and Venus sparkled over the dark hills.

  “Arrah, everyone wants to become a nun when they hear the Missionaries speak,” her mother retorted. “I’d like to become one myself, listening to them, instead of having to go and help your father milk the cows on this wicked cold morning.” She pulled the collar of her good Sunday coat up around her ears.

  “No, I do, Mammy; I really do. I gave my name when you were in the shop getting the paper and the ice cream. They’re going to write to me,” Brigid assured her earnestly. This was her chance. She must take it, or a life of bitter regrets loomed ahead of her.

  “Well, for goodness’ sake, Brigid. You can’t make up your mind just like that—sure she can’t, Tom?” her mother appealed to her husband, who was walking alongside them enjoying his Sunday-morning pipe.

  “I think the best thing to do is see how you feel in six months’ time. You’re excited hearing the Sisters talk about helping the black babies in Africa,” her father advised sagely.

  “But, Tom, this is nothing more than a figary—you know it and I know it. Don’t be encouraging her,” Elizabeth said crossly. “Honestly, Brigid, you’re up and down like a yo-yo these past few months. Where are you getting your notions from?” her mother exclaimed in exasperation.

  “It’s not a notion, Mammy. It’s what I want. God is calling me!” Brigid exclaimed in desperation.

  “Well, how come we haven’t heard anything about Him calling you before now?” Elizabeth demanded. “I’ve never heard one word of you wanting to become a nun. Ever.”

  “I felt the Holy Spirit descending upon me at Mass,” Brigid fibbed, hoping that she would not be struck dead for her lies.

  “Maybe it’s because you’re hungry. When you’re fasting from midnight to go to Communion, the mind can play queer tricks on you. Mass was much longer than usual this morning because of the Missioners,” Elizabeth said firmly. Brigid knew what was behind her mother’s opposition and could see her chance to escape from Ardcloch diminishing with every footstep they took.

  “Mam, I read the Lives of the Saints every night. I pray to the Little Flower that she will make me selfless like her—”

  “I’m sure the Little Flower didn’t dance around the kitchen singing ‘Rose, Rose, I Love You’ and ‘Tennessee Waltz,’ ” Elizabeth said drily.

  Brigid was stumped. She was so frustrated she began to cry.

  “Stop that nonsense,” her mother ordered.

  “I can’t help it; I want to become a nun,” Brigid wept. She cried easily these days. She’d heard Patti Page singing “I Went to Your Wedding” at the gramophone recital in the parish hall after Christmas and been so overwhelmed with emotions she’d had to slip out the side door and sob silently behind the gorse bushes, trying hard not to make noise.

  The memory of that made her cry even her harder now.

  “There, there, lassie.” Her father patted her shoulder awkwardly. “If that’s what you really want to do, we’ll think about it. Stop crying now, like a good girl. Pray about it. Talk to the priest. You don’t have to rush into anything.”

  “Tsk, Tom, don’t be encouraging her.” His wife threw her eyes up to heaven.

  “Wouldn’t we be proud to have a nun in the family, or if one of the boys wanted to become a priest?” her husband said in his slow, measured way. “And not a lay nun, like Margo O’Farrell. They don’t get well treated, those lay nuns, I hear. Mind you, Tom O’Farrell was glad she entered, no matter what, because they have five girls to support and he doesn’t have to worry about her anymore, or feed and clothe her. Five of them would never make a good match here, there’s so few men staying put on the land, and those two youngest are a dawny-looking pair. They’d be lucky to find a husband,” Tom remarked.

  “Stop that! They’re nice girls.” His wife scowled at him.

  “But not good-looking like our girls.” Tom winked at Brigid. “The O’Farrells have one down and four to go. Would you be wanting that, Elizabeth? We won’t close the door on the idea of Brigid entering. She’s got a good education—that will help, too,” he added firmly.

  “There’s that, I suppose,” Elizabeth agreed reluctantly. It was rare for her husband to put his foot down. She usually ruled the roost. A nun in the family would be seen as a great blessing. But she had plans for Brigid.

  “I wouldn’t be letting you go in as a lay sister, now, Brigid,” Tom assured his daughter. “I’ll pay your dowry and that will safeguard your future with the Order, if it comes to that.”

  “Oh, Daddy, I hadn’t thought about that.” Brigid was instantly contrite. “I’ll go in as a lay nun. I don’t want to put you to expense.”

  “You’ll never get to the Missions so.” He puffed a stream of smoke into the frosty air, the scent of tobacco mingling with the whiff of sea breeze. “You’ll spend your life scrubbing floors, cooking and cleaning and minding the sick if you go in as a lay nun. Sure, you could do that at home—isn’t that right, Elizabeth?” he said jovially.

  Elizabeth pursed her lips, reminding Brigid of Imelda when she was annoyed. “If she’s going to enter, she’ll enter the proper way. I won’t have the neighbours talking and saying we hadn’t the money for a dowry. I have that money I was saving for the new churn—”

  “Oh no, Mam!” Brigid exclaimed, horrified, feeling utterly selfish. Her mother had been saving her egg money for a new metal butter churn to replace t
he old wooden one she’d had for years.

  “Don’t worry; I’ll sell some stock,” her father replied easily, and Brigid had burst into a fresh bout of tears, overwhelmed by her parents’ self-sacrifice.

  “Stop your crying there now, like a good girl, and give me an extra sausage for my breakfast—and give yourself one, because you won’t be getting rashers and sausages in the convent,” her father joked when they reached the farmhouse, before he and Elizabeth had gone to change out of their Sunday best to go and feed the animals.

  Brigid’s brothers were already home, chopping wood for the range. Imelda, as usual, was dawdling with her friends so she wouldn’t have to help set the table. Typical, Brigid scowled, lacing slices of bacon in one pan and a pile of sausages in the other one for the weekly fry. While they were sizzling and spitting, she got knives and forks from the dresser drawer and set the table. It might be one of her last Sunday breakfasts with the family.

  She was going to be a nun and dedicate herself to God, she thought, a little bemused by the suddenness of her decision, as the smell of the fry filled the warm kitchen. She was going to work in a country where people lived in mud huts with thatched roofs, and wild animals roamed the edges of the villages, and the rainy season turned scorched land into a lush green oasis, where dates and oranges and figs grew from the trees, ripe and sweet and plentiful.

  How far more exotic a life would that be than cleaning the Murrays’ house and going to live with Granny?

  I’ll be bringing the word of God to pagans. Could there be a better thing to do in life? Brigid thought, filled with a newly discovered missionary zeal. The early morning sun burst up from behind Hensley’s Hill, and Brigid knew it was a sign that she was on the right path, and freedom beckoned.

  * * *

  “You are going to be a nun!” Imelda’s pinched little face grew even tighter when she heard Brigid’s news. They were doing the washing-up after the breakfast, before peeling the spuds for the Sunday dinner.

  “Yes, I am,” Brigid said, wiping the grease out of the big cast-iron pan before putting it in the soapy warm water she’d boiled up on the range.

  “Don’t you have to be pure, to be a nun? You’ve kissed boys, and probably more,” her sister accused slyly.

  “I will make my full confession, Imelda,” Brigid said tightly. Sometimes she hated her sister. “I didn’t know I was going to be a nun when… when… Well, I thought I might get married. I didn’t have the calling then.”

  “You don’t have a calling now, either! You’re only pretending to have one,” Imelda observed astutely.

  “Shut up, ya little cow,” snapped Brigid, stung that her sister wasn’t fooled by her reason for taking the veil. “I spoke to one of the Sisters and she told me I seemed like a bright girl who knew her own mind, and I was well educated. It’s what I want and Daddy says I can.”

  “I think you’re very mean, putting that expense on Mammy and Daddy. They’ll have to pay a dowry, I bet. They won’t let you go in as lay nun like Margo O’Farrell and I’ll be left here to do everything!” Imelda said furiously, upon hearing this unwelcome information.

  “Well, that will be a first. You get away with blue murder,” Brigid retorted. “And anyway, there’s nothing to stop you entering.”

  “Oh, shut up,” her sister snarled.

  “Ignorant bitch.” Brigid glared at her.

  “And you’re the one who’s going to be a nun, with language like that! They’ll throw you out when they find out what you’re really like and you’ll have to come back with your tail between your legs,” Imelda jeered, and it had taken all Brigid’s self-control not to slap her sister’s smug face.

  One good thing about going on the Foreign Missions, if she was lucky enough to be chosen, was that she would have little to do with Imelda, who really was the most obnoxious creature on earth, Brigid comforted herself, wondering if the Little Flower had ever had to endure a sister like Imelda.

  A month later a letter had come, addressed to Miss Brigid Dunne.

  Written in elegant script, in a posh cream envelope, she knew straightaway it must be from the French Missioners. Brigid slid out the single cream page and read it eagerly. It was an invite to visit the Reverend Mother and Mistress of Novices in the convent of the Soeurs du Secours Miséricordieux in Dublin, to be interviewed to see if she was suitable to become a postulant, and then a novice.

  “I got called for an interview!” Brigid exclaimed breathlessly, her heart thumping. “I’ve to go up to Dublin to meet the Reverend Mother. I’m going to become a nun!” She was beyond excited, and more than a little apprehensive. But utterly relieved. She would not be trapped in Ardcloch forever and a day. A new life was opening up for her. She would never look back.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Brigid’s heart beat a fast tattoo against her chest when the grounds of the convent came into sight. She took in the high and forbidding grey stone wall, the black iron gates with their sharp pointed tips leading on to a gravelled drive and immaculately kept gardens. Once they drove inside those gates, the sound of the city traffic became muted and a silence, broken only by birdsong, enveloped them.

  “Last chance to run, Brigid.” Her father smiled over at her, and for one wild moment Brigid was tempted. But where would she run to? Back to Ardcloch and a life too mediocre to endure? She’d been sent off to Dublin with the good wishes of the parish ringing in her ears. Her pride would not let her turn back.

  “This is what I want, Daddy,” she said firmly.

  “Grand,” he said. “Let’s go so.” He got out of the car, lifted her brand-new brown case out of the boot, and they walked in silence up the steps to ring the bell beside the big wooden doors.

  A nun in a black habit with a white veil let them in. “Hello, and welcome to the house. I will bring you to the visitors’ parlour, where you will wait until I come to collect you to bring you to the Mistress of Novices,” she said quietly, before leading them to a small parlour along the hall. The lay nuns wore white veils, Brigid learned. She would be wearing a black one when her novitiate was over.

  Brigid and Tom sat side by side on two hard antique chairs, hardly able to speak. Brigid was her father’s pet. She knew that, and it broke her heart that she would soon be saying goodbye to him, especially when there was no knowing how long it would be before she’d see him again.

  “Write to us when you can,” he said eventually, to break the silence.

  “I will, Daddy. I’ll tell you everything that’s happening; I promise,” Brigid assured him, hoping she wouldn’t break down and upset him.

  A light knock on the door made them start, and once again the lay nun came gliding in. Did you learn to walk like that, in the convent? Brigid wondered distractedly, dreading the moment of farewell. “It’s time to say your goodbyes now,” the nun advised, and her grey eyes were sympathetic.

  “Goodbye, Brigid; we’re very proud of you,” Tom said, getting awkwardly to his feet. He put his arms around her and she was in absolute turmoil when she hugged her father one last time and smelled his familiar, reassuring scent of pipe smoke and tweed.

  “Bye, Daddy; thank you for everything. I’ll be the best nun I can be,” she said, muffled against his shoulder. She would have liked to tell him that she loved him, but they didn’t do that sort of thing in the family, and he might have been embarrassed. “You’re a great father,” she said instead, and his arms tightened around her and then he let her go, nodded to the nun, and followed her out to the great wooden doors. When Brigid heard them clang shut, she knew she was on her own.

  Taking deep breaths to steady herself, she waited until the nun came back. Walking out of the visitors’ parlour and passing beyond the white doors that led to the silent convent beyond, Brigid acknowledged that her past was now behind her and her family no longer her concern. She was God’s property now. The lay sister gave her a sympathetic glance from under her veil as Brigid wiped the tears from her eyes, but no words were spoken.

/>   The Mistress of Novices, Mother Agnes, a tall, angular woman from Cork, informed her that she would be leaving all her worldly goods behind, except for the rosary beads and missal her parents had given her. “You have a new life to learn now, Brigid. You must plant your feet firmly on your chosen path and devote every thought to self-improvement. You must give of yourself to the Merciful Works of God.” When Mother Agnes spoke the words “the Merciful Works of God” her voice took on a most reverential tone.

  Would she, Brigid wondered with a despairing heart, ever speak of or think of the Merciful Works of God with such fervour? She’d entered the convent under false pretences; she would have to work even harder than her fellow postulants, whoever they were, to convince the Soeurs du Secours Miséricordieux that she’d heard the call from God, just like they had.

  Mother Agnes silently motioned her to a chair in the small, parquet-floored room where the new entrants divested themselves of their worldly attire and dressed in the habit of the postulant. Brigid sat down and saw the nun pick up a large pair of scissors. Her lower lip wobbled. She was proud of her luxuriantly rich, shiny hair and had always taken care to brush it a hundred times a day. Her crowning glory, her granny called it. The shock of hearing the harsh rasp of the scissors, and the feel of it tugging at her tresses, then seeing the long mane of auburn hair lying on the floor at her feet, and the unaccustomed lightness she felt, suddenly made her realise that her life truly was now changed forever. She was no longer Brigid Dunne, with dreams of love, marriage, and children, no longer daughter, sister, friend. She was female, but no longer a woman. Her family were no longer her focal point. Her parents no longer her protectors. She’d a new family now and a new identity to show the world. Owned by God.