The Family Way (Molly Murphy, #12)

“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.”