12 The Family Way (13 page)

Conversation turned to other matters but the seeds were sown. Now all I had to be was patient. I spent two days as a model prisoner, lying with my feet up, even finishing the back of the tiny jacket with not too many dropped stitches. I made an attempt at a watercolor painting of the roses. I read a book. I helped pick raspberries for jam. And all the time a thought was nagging at my brain.
When can I go to the convent and find out what happened to Maureen?

Then on the afternoon of the third day I received a letter from Gus.

Molly, as usual you make the most brilliant suggestions. As Sid said, we have already enjoyed the ocean this summer. It should surely now be the turn of the river and the way you describe it, it does sound inviting. Added to which we can visit you and take a trip upstream to relive our happy time at Vassar. I seem to recall we spent the night once at a delightful little village called Tarrytown. It had a magnificent view across the river where it widens into the Tappan Zee. I presume the inn is still there—can’t remember its name, but it was something charmingly romantic and rural like Green Gables or Sleepy Hollow—didn’t Washington Irving live nearby? Either way, I’m sure we’ll be able to locate it, or one like it. So expect to hear from us in a few days. I can’t remember how close you are to Tarrytown. Would you be able to take a look for us and see if our inn is still there?

By the way, we finally saw your industrious husband and told him that we were thinking of staying on the Hudson ourselves. He said it was a capital idea but we were to make sure you did nothing too strenuous. So you see, Molly, we have been charged with watching over you.

I heaved a sigh of content. Now that my friends were expected in a few days, I permitted myself one small stretching of the truth.

I came out to the porch where Mrs. Sullivan was resting on the swing after another session of jam making. I sat beside her. “You remember my friends—the two women who were my bridesmaids? Misses Elena Goldfarb and Augusta Walcott?” I mentioned the names to remind her that Gus came with family connections and my strategy obviously worked as she nodded and said, “Of the Boston Walcotts, wasn’t it? Such a charming young woman. Such good manners.”

“Well,” I continued. “I believe I mentioned to you that they were thinking of coming to stay on the river nearby. I’ve received another letter from them. They wondered if I could check on a little inn they remember in Tarrytown. Unfortunately they can’t recall its name but have described it to me. Tarrytown is not too far from here, is it?”

Mrs. Sullivan’s lips pursed in a gesture I had seen all too often. “Do your friends know of your condition?”

“Of course.”

The pursed lips remained in place. “I don’t call it very considerate of your friends to want you to go running all over the place for them in this heat.”

“Oh, I’m sure they wouldn’t want me to exert myself,” I said hastily. “It’s not as far as Irvington, is it? Only a mile or so? So if you could spare Jonah one morning, maybe I could do marketing for you at the same time and thus save you a trip into town.”

She was still frowning but at last she said. “Well, we are running low on sugar. And there is a butcher in Tarrytown who provides excellent chickens. I thought we might treat ourselves to a roast chicken after our industrious jam making.”

“I’d be happy to run those errands for you,” I said. “Would you like me to go in the morning?”

“I think that would be all right,” she said. “You could take Bridie with you. You know how she loves the river and she has been such a willing little helper with the fruit picking.”

I could find no good reason not to take Bridie, but I didn’t want her reporting back to Mrs. Sullivan that I’d been to a convent. Maybe I could send Jonah off with her to get an ice cream while I snooped around. But at least I’d succeeded in the first part of my plan. By this time tomorrow I’d know the truth about where Maureen O’Byrne had gone.

Thirteen

I chose to set off early so that we would be back before the heat of the day. It was another pleasant ride, shaded by trees the whole way. Bridie chattered excitedly about what we were going to see and whether one could swim or catch fish in the river.

“We don’t have no fishing poles with us,” Jonah said, “but I’ll ask the mistress if I can take you fishing someday, if you’ve a mind to learn.” Clearly Bridie had become the favorite of the household.

Tarrytown was another of those charming riverside towns with clapboard and brick houses lining narrow streets that descended to the river, which had here begun to widen into something closer to a lake. Jonah said it was called the Tappan Zee, presumably by the early Dutch settlers in this region, and today it sparkled in sunshine, with the hills on the distant Jersey shore adding to the pleasing appearance. On the shoreline was a ferry dock and beside it a low white lighthouse, presumably to remind mariners heading downstream that the lake diminished into a river again just beyond. I soon found not one but two charming inns with views of the river, checked out the bedrooms and inquired about availability. I bought sugar at the grocers and paid for a chicken at the butchers, to be collected on our way home. Then I suggested that Jonah take Bridie down to the riverfront and let her look at the fishermen, and at the ferry crossing to New Jersey while I ran some personal errands. I also slipped him some money and suggested an ice cream.

Now for the real business of the day. I inquired about the convent in the dry goods store, where Mrs. Sullivan had asked me to buy white baby ribbon, and was given directions—up on the hill in North Tarrytown.

“Is it within walking distance from here?” I asked.

The woman behind the counter looked at my figure, then shook her head. “It’s a mile or more, I’d say.” She turned to the man serving at the other counter, “Wouldn’t you agree, Seth?”

Seth nodded. “More than a mile,” he said, gloomily, “and uphill too. A good way out of town.”

The shopkeeper was looking at me with interest and I sensed that she was trying to decide whether I was one of those fallen women, in need of the nuns, or not. I was about to say that I was looking for a young relative who had gone there when I hit upon an absolutely marvelous idea.

“I’m thinking of offering one of those young women employment as a maid,” I said.

She nodded with enthusiasm. “I’ve heard of folk around taking the girls into service afterward,” she said. “That’s a good Christian act, for you.” She glanced across at Seth again, whom I presumed was her husband. “You were going to make that delivery of the canvas in North Tarrytown, weren’t you? You could run this lady up to the convent.”

“I was going to wait until later,” he mumbled, but the woman said firmly. “It has to be done sometime and it might as well be now.”

He sighed, took off his apron, and started for the back door, glancing back at me. “Come on, then,” he said. “Can’t wait around all day.”

So I rode beside the uncommunicative Seth through the town and up the hill until the houses gave way to meadows and small farms. Then we left the road for a narrow rutted track, bordered by tall somber evergreens until we turned a corner and there before us was a grim building of rough-hewed gray stone. It was only about two stories high at this point, but it had square towers at both corners facing the river and I glimpsed a higher sloping roof of what was probably the chapel on the far side, adorned with a simple cross. No windows looked out toward us, but in the middle of the wall was a big wooden door. It was about the most uninviting building I had ever seen and reminded me of the medieval strongholds of my childhood in Ireland.

“This’ll be it then,” Seth said. “How long do you reckon you’ll be?”

“Not more than fifteen minutes or so,” I said, eyeing that foreboding door. “Will that suit you?”

“I suppose so,” he said grudgingly. He didn’t offer to help me down, so I clambered down from the seat none too elegantly, I suspect.

“If I come out and you’re not here, I’ll walk up the track to meet you,” I said.

“No point. I have to come this far to turn the cart,” he said. “You’d best wait in the cool until I get you. And don’t let those nuns lock you in there.” He gave a dry chuckle. “There are some as say that girls go in there and aren’t seen again.”

I could tell that this was his attempt at humor, but all the same I felt a chill run down my spine as I walked toward that massive door with as much bravado as I could muster. I rapped firmly on the knocker and waited. I heard Seth turning the cart around and then the horse clopping away before suddenly a panel right in front of my face slid back and a voice from the other side said, “Can I help you?”

I handed my card through the dark slot to an invisible female person. “Mrs. Molly Sullivan of New York,” I said. At the last moment I decided to keep to the story I had invented. “I wonder if I might have a word with the mother superior. I’m in need of a servant and I understand that there might be a young woman staying here who would fit my needs.”

“I’ll see if Mother is available,” the voice said. “Please come in.”

The enormous door creaked open and I stepped into cold darkness. After the bright sunshine I could hardly make out where I was, but gradually the figure before me came into focus. She was a young girl, wearing a light-colored pinafore that failed to mask the large round belly beneath it. She looked absurdly young to be having a child, no more than a child herself, and she smiled at me shyly.

“I’ll take you into the parlor,” she said. “This way please.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“It’s Katy, ma’am. Katy Watson.”

She held open a door for me and I stepped through into a dismal, Spartan room. It had a vaulted ceiling and a stone floor like a dungeon, and the dungeon effect was completed with a small barred window, overlooking a courtyard with a kitchen garden and beyond that a high brick wall. The furniture in the parlor consisted of a table with a Bible on it and a couple of shabby upholstered chairs, both the worse for wear. Katy indicated that I should sit on one of them.

“I’ll go and tell Mother that you’re here,” she said.

It smelled old and damp and musty. No sunlight came into the room and I shivered as I sat there. I hoped the quarters for those poor girls were a little more cheerful than this—or perhaps the object was to make sure they knew they were being punished for their sins. At least they were only here for a short while, whereas the nuns—

“Dominus vobiscum,”
said a voice right behind me, making me jump. I hadn’t heard the door open and looked around to see I was still alone in the room. “Don’t be alarmed, my child,” the voice said again and I saw that a shadowy figure, draped head to toe in black, had appeared behind a carved wood grille built into the wall.

“I’m sorry, Mother.” I laughed nervously. “I hadn’t expected the wall to be talking to me, like a confessional.”

“I’m not the mother superior,” she said. “She’s at her prayers and we didn’t want to disturb her. I’m Sister Perpetua, her second-in-command. And surely you knew that we are an enclosed order.” The voice was soft, gentle, ageless with an Irish lilt to it. “We keep the grille between ourselves and the outside world.” Even though she spoke in little more than a whisper her voice echoed around that dismal room.

“What about the girls who come here?” I asked before I could stop myself. “Do you keep yourselves shut away from them?” I spoke louder without meaning to and my voice howled back at me.

“As much as possible. There is strict division between our convent life and the life of our charges. The young women essentially take care of themselves and sleep and eat apart from us. It would not be wise for our sisters to see the babies. It would remind the younger ones too much of what they have chosen to give up to enter here. Now how can I help you?”

“I have two reasons for coming here,” I said. “I understand that when the girls leave here they are sometimes placed in domestic service.”

“That is correct. Are you looking for a servant at this time?”

“I am.”

“Any particular type of servant?”

I was tempted to say “under-parlormaid,” but I replied, “Just a maid of all work to help me in a small New York household. The work would not be overly taxing but I would want a reliable, cheerful girl.”

“Of course you would,” she said. “I’d have to confer with Sister Jerome, who is in charge of these young women and their babies, but I don’t think a suitable candidate springs to mind at the moment. We’ve a couple of lovely young women who recently delivered, but they have both expressed a desire to enter the convent.”

“Does that happen often?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Quite regularly. You see these girls have experienced the unfairness and cruelty of the outside world and they compare it to the tranquility of our lives. It’s an easy choice.”

I decided to take the plunge. “You had a girl here called Maureen O’Byrne,” I said. “Is she no longer with you?”

“Maureen? Why, no, my dear. She left us more than two months ago. Was it Maureen you particularly wanted to hire?”

“Not particularly, but I’m acquainted with her family back in Ireland and they wrote to me expressing concern about her. So I hope to be able to give them news of her. Do you happen to know where she went?”

“I understood she was going back to her former place of employment.”

“I’ve been to visit Mrs. Mainwaring, her former employer, but Maureen did not return there.”

“Oh, how strange. Of course I have no direct contact with the young women but we sisters are certainly privy to what is happening on the other side of the grille. I could swear that she left to go back to her former employers because we sisters were cheered by this woman’s generosity and Christian charity.”

“I see,” I said. “Is there perhaps one of Maureen’s particular friends still here in whom she could have confided a secret plan she didn’t share with the sisters?”

“I’m not sure if any of them are still here. They are usually required to go back into the world as soon as they are fit and strong, so that we have room for another girl to take their place. Unfortunately there is always more need than we can fill in our small way. It’s a wicked world out there, as I’m sure you know.”