12 The Family Way (23 page)

“I suppose not.”

“When is your baby due, my dear?” she asked.

“Another month,” I said, stretching the truth a little.

“Then we’ve still a little time. I expect Sister Jerome can come up with some money to keep you going and as I said, I’ll write letters for you. We’ll need a forwarding address.”

“I’ve nowhere,” I said. “I stayed at a cheap lady’s boardinghouse when I arrived. Just next to the docks.”

“And how did you hear about us?”

Ah.
I hadn’t thought that one through. “When I heard that Joe had gone I was distraught,” I said. “A pair of nuns saw me crying in the street and asked what was wrong. They told me about this place.”

“Did they? God bless them. Yes, they’d be from the Foundling Hospital. Sometimes one of our babies has to go to them, when we can’t find a family right away to adopt the little dear. They do wonderful work. So many abandoned babies in the city. So much sin.”

I lingered, my hand on the doorknob. “I shouldn’t detain you any longer then.”

At that moment the doorknob was wrenched from my hand. I almost lost my balance and stepped hastily out of the way as another nun came barging into the room. She was very tall and thin, with high cheekbones and a beak-like nose and her head jerked in a bird-like fashion as she looked around. The impression was of a large black crow and it came to me that I’d seen her before.

“Blanche tells me an Irish girl has shown up on the doorstep,” she said. I recognized the strident tones of Sister Jerome. The bird-like gaze scanned until it focused on me, standing to one side of the door. “And here she is,” she added. “With hair as red as the morning sunrise.”

“I’ve just been telling her that I’m afraid we have unfortunately no room for her, and a long waiting list too,” Sister Perpetua said.

Sister Jerome was looking me over. “Well, we certainly can’t send her away in this condition,” she said. “It wouldn’t be right or charitable.”

“But you yourself said that we’ve no more beds,” Sister Perpetua reminded her.

“We’ll just have to make room,” she said. “A couple of the girls are malingering, claiming they are not well enough to leave when I know perfectly well that they’re simply afraid of going back into the world again.” She looked back at the door. “That girl Blanche is one of them. It’s high time she was gone.”

Sister Perpetua looked worried. “Really Sister, I don’t think we should force anyone to leave before she is ready. Blanche has been through a most difficult time. Giving birth to a stillborn child must be a devastating experience for a girl who has carried that baby for nine months. Healing has to be in the heart as well as the body.”

“Nonsense,” Sister Jerome said. “They’ll be going back into a tough world. We’re not helping them by shielding them and spoon-feeding them for too long. I know you mean well, Sister, but you’re too softhearted. The girls and the babies are my province, so you just leave it to me. And I say we’ll find a place for this new arrival somehow. What’s your name, young woman?”

“It’s Molly, Sister.” I looked down and didn’t meet her eye. There was something formidable about this nun. I felt distinctly uneasy in her presence. Why was she so keen to turf out other girls to make room for me? She hadn’t come across as the compassionate kind.

“Well, come along, Molly. No sense in dilly-dallying.”

I was now feeling distinctly uneasy. It was one thing to have gained a way to snoop around, but another to be responsible for turfing girls out of their beds.

“Oh, listen, Sister.” I held up my hand. “I don’t want anyone to be moved because of me. I’d feel terrible. Maybe I should just go.”

“Don’t be silly. We’ll make room somehow. I daresay it will have to be a cot squeezed in between the beds for tonight, but we’ll sort things out tomorrow.”

Sister Perpetua had half risen to her feet. “With all due respect I think you should talk to Mother first before you expel any of our girls until she feels strong enough to leave.”

“May I remind you that Mother has placed the running of our maternity ward in my hands, Sister,” Sister Jerome said firmly. “And in her delicate state of health it would be most selfish of us to cause her any worry or distress. I assure you I will pray fervently before I make any decision about any of the girls in my care. Come, Molly. I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping, and find you some clothing that is more suitable for hard work than what you’re wearing.” She held the door open for me to pass through. “Sister.” Sister Jerome gave a hint of a bow and closed the door behind us.

Twenty-three

Sister Jerome led me down a long hallway with a polished stone floor and vaulted roof. On one side were closed doors, on the other the arches of a cloister opened onto a quadrangle. It was a pleasant spot—with the sun spilling in, benches under shade trees, a statue of Our Lady in one corner, and a fountain splashing in the middle—but I decided it would be horribly cold in winter with the wind whistling in. Before I could comment on it Sister Jerome turned back to me. “Come along,” she said sharply. “It is not fitting for you to be here. This corridor is actually the province of the sisters. It houses our offices, our refectory, and common room. Our cells are upstairs. Outsiders are not permitted here at any time, is that clear?”

I nodded. “Yes, Sister,” I muttered, hoping to sound suitably humble and penitent.

She paused as we had reached the end of the cloisters. She opened the door before us and we stepped from daylight into darkness. As my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom I could see that we were in a square area such as one would find in a corner tower of an old castle. To my right a spiral stone stair ascended and to my left a similar stone stairway went down into blackness.

Really, I wondered, what possessed people in the New World to build something so hopelessly outdated and uncomfortable, and then what inspired the sisters to select it for their home in America? It must have had something to do with suffering and penance. I grinned to myself. We took neither the staircase up nor down, but went straight ahead to an arched doorway in the rough stone wall.

“Now I’m going to give you a look at the chapel,” Sister said and opened the door. I stepped inside and found myself in a high and narrow chapel. Its lofty, vaulted ceiling melted into darkness. Tall, narrow windows of colored glass threw strips of light onto the stone floor and the single wooden kneelers dotted around before me. Each kneeler had a hassock worked in crewelwork with religious symbols—a lamb, a lily, a cross. There were around twenty of them, indicating that the convent currently housed that number of nuns. The smell of incense hung heavy in the air, mingled with the smells of furniture polish and damp.

“This is the sisters’ chapel,” she said in a whisper, although we were the only people present. “No outsiders are permitted here, not even the priest who comes to say daily mass. I only show you to satisfy your curiosity. You girls sit on the other side of the screen and enter from your own part of the building. Our two worlds meet as little as possible. I am the only bridge between them.”

I saw now why the chapel had seemed so narrow. It was divided in half by a wall in which there was a carved wooden screen. Through that screen I could make out rows of pews. Both sides faced the high altar with its tall polished candlesticks and an alarmingly real-looking crucifix.

“You may come to the chapel to pray whenever you have a spare moment,” Sister said, ushering me out again. “We hope that will be frequently. We expect the girls to atone for their sins while they are here, and contemplation of the Blessed Sacrament is the best way to do that.”

Now she led me past the upward stair and opened a door in the far wall, inserting a key that hung from her belt. “We pass now from the sisters’ sanctuary to your quarters,” she said, turning to lock the door again behind her. She led me down a small dark hall, vaulted like the first one I had entered. “This is the entrance to your side of the chapel. Mass is at eight. Then we have laundry room and supplies,” she said, “and ahead of us the maternity wing. We like to keep the mothers and babies separate. It is important that you girls have as little as possible to do with babies. It makes the separation easier in the end. Now here is where you will be spending most of your time.” She opened a door and I stepped through to a very different hallway. This one was light and bright. Windows down the whole length opened onto a kitchen garden and orchard, enclosed by a high brick wall.

She set off down the hallway, her shoes making almost no sound on the stone floor so that she appeared to glide with no effort at all, like a ship sailing over a calm ocean. She looked back at me and I quickened my pace to catch up with her. “Here is your kitchen.” She nodded at a closed door but did not open it, “And this is where you will take your meals.” She opened a door to reveal long scrubbed tables, set with simple metal plates and forks beside them. A smell of boiled cabbage lingered in the air. She closed the door again. “Mealtimes are posted on the wall of your dormitory. Make sure you arrive promptly. Tardiness is not permitted. And now here,” and she opened the next door along the hall, “is your common room. The girls gather here in the evenings to do their sewing and mending while they are allowed a brief time to chat together. There is no place for idle hands or frivolity here.” The room housed one decrepit sofa and several wooden chairs. There was a fireplace at one end and a bookshelf containing a few volumes, all of which looked like religious titles.

The memory of my mother’s quote flashed back into my head.
Satan finds work for idle hands to do.
Clearly they were making sure that Satan could not find a chink through which to enter this sanctuary.

“All the girls are expected to do their share of the labor, in return for our kindness in taking you in,” Sister said, shutting the door behind us. “They will all be hard at work now. You’ll find yourself working in the laundry, the kitchen, or out in the garden, depending on your physical state. You look like a good strong girl. From a farm, were you?”

“Yes, Sister. We lived on an estate owned by an English family. My father worked in the fields for them.”

“And how did he feel about that?” she asked. “Working for the enemy indeed.”

“I don’t know how he felt,” I said. “We never discussed it. As far as I know our family had always lived in that cottage. That was just the way things were in Ireland. Most people owned no land of their own.”

“Do you think that’s right?” she demanded. “Do you think we should be subjected to the tyranny of overlords?”

“Of course I don’t. And my own brother is working for the Republican Brotherhood, putting his own life in danger for the cause.”

“Is he? God love him,” she said. “I took to you from the moment I saw you. We’re going to get along just fine, Molly, I can tell.”

“So are you from Ireland, Sister?” I asked because her accent sounded American.

“I count myself as Irish although I wasn’t born there. My family came here during the great famine and I was born two years later. Thrown out of their cottage, they were, and do you know, the landowner had his men tear down the cottage, stone by stone, so that they could never return. They were already starving to death and yet the landowner saw fit to destroy the home before my parents could get out all their possessions. My mother said it broke her heart to see her china teapot smashed. She begged them for just a minute or two, but they didn’t care. They just pushed her out of the way. That’s how they treated us in our own country.”

“I know,” I said. “There have been some terrible wrongs. My little brother was sold into servitude by the landowners, after our father died and there was no one to look after him.”

“Terrible.” She shook her head. “We must do all we can to right these wrongs, Molly. Of course all I’m able to do is to pray, but you can do your share, once you’re free of this burden. Can’t you, my dear?”

“I’ll do what I can,” I said cautiously, because her face had become so intense and dangerous looking.

“I can put you in touch with people who are working for the cause,” she said. “It is good to find meaning in your life when you’re trying to get over the sad business of giving up a child.”

I was tempted to ask if she had sent Maureen on a quest to save Ireland and Maureen had heeded the call, but I decided to keep quiet until I knew more. But one thing I had to ask.

“Sister, I believe I saw you when I was in New York,” I said. “You were walking alone through the Lower East Side.” The image came into my head quite clearly. Me stepping out of the shadows on the crowded sidewalk and almost bumping into the nun with the beak-like nose. But she had been wearing a different kind of habit.

She shook her head. “Not me. We are an enclosed order. Part of our vow is never to leave the convent again. Our nuns never go outside these walls. We are even buried here.”

“I must have been mistaken then,” I said. “But I saw a nun who looked very like you. Although I’m sure many nuns look alike when all one can see is the face.”

“I tell you what,” she said. “It was probably my sister that you saw. Folks say that we look alike, although I’ve not seen her for several years so I can’t tell you how she looks now.”

“Is she also a nun?”

“She is.”

“In your order?”

“No. Not in the same order. Our parents thought that I was suited to the contemplative life and my sister could face exposure to the wickedness of the world. I don’t know if that was a correct assessment of our personalities. We were too young to know what was good for us and nobody gave us a choice. Shipped off to the convent, we were, when we were sixteen. I think I would have been well suited to life outside these walls. But I have made full use of my talents here. The other sisters have no notion of the outside world, no head at all for business or organization. I make sure this place runs as it should.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to suggest that pride was a sin. But she seemed to have taken to me and I had to make the most of that. I nodded in agreement when she looked at me.