The Family Way (Molly Murphy, #12)

I found myself smiling with satisfaction as I took the train back to Tarrytown. It all made sense now. Maureen had been heard to say, “You can’t make me. It’s cruel.” And she’d meant going back to a situation where her child belonged to another woman and where she was at the mercy of a master with lustful ways. I remembered the way he had looked at me, almost undressing me with his eyes, in spite of my condition. Perhaps when she ran off angrily she had gone straight to the mother superior and appealed to her. And that good woman had decided to spirit her away.

It was still early in the day. Sid and Gus would hardly have had time to buy a bathing costume for Bridie and go swimming with her yet. They wouldn’t be missing me and wouldn’t want me to interrupt their fun. Which meant I had hours of freedom ahead of me. If I went up to the convent, I could ask to speak to the mother superior and nobody else and surely she would tell me the truth—maybe even let me speak to Maureen and give her a message of reassurance from her family.

But what if they brushed me off again, as they had certainly done last time? If those two nuns I had seen before claimed that the mother superior was busy or at prayer again, what then? If I told them I wanted to interview girls for possible future service in my household would they let me in? Let me chat with the girls? Wouldn’t they be suspicious that I had returned after questioning them about Maureen—and if there was anything to hide, they’d simply get rid of me as quickly as possible again. And there would be no way I could look into what really happened to poor little Katy.

Then suddenly I came up with a brilliant idea, one so daring that it made my heart beat faster. I actually had a way to get inside the convent and see for myself. I put my hand on my belly. If I arrived on the doorstep as a fallen woman in need, surely they’d take me in. Then I’d have a chance to look around, to speak to Maureen, and when I was ready to leave, I’d simply tell them that I’d changed my mind and I wasn’t going to stay.

The only people who had actually seen me clearly before were Katy and the novice, and Katy was now dead and the novice in the solitude of retreat. The nuns had only been shadows behind the grille to me, so presumably they’d only seen a similar indistinct impression of me in that dark little parlor. And I’d been sitting down when they came in, so they’d never have seen that I too was in the family way. All I had to do was to let down my hair and broaden my Irish accent. Daniel always said that with my hair down I looked no more than fourteen. It was worth a try and the very worst they could do would be to tell me that they had no room for me. In which case I’d let on that I was Maureen’s cousin—and we’d see what happened then.

I sat impatiently until the train came to a halt. Outside the station I looked around cautiously, just in case Sid, Gus, and Bridie happened to have chosen that moment to walk from the town to the waterfront. But the station yard was deserted, apart from a horse and buggy standing in the shade, the horse with its head down, half asleep. I went over and asked if they were for hire. The driver also looked sleepy but grudgingly agreed. However when I asked him to drive me up to the convent, he stared down at my bulging stomach then gave me a pitying nod.

He held out his hand and helped me climb up. “I’m sure you’re doing the right thing, miss,” he said. “The nuns will take good care of you.”

Once I was seated in the buggy I remembered to remove my wedding ring and tuck it into a pocket at the back of my coin purse. Then I took off my hat and unpinned my hair. It cascaded over my shoulders, blowing out in the wind as the horse got up speed. This had seemed like a brilliant idea in the safety of the train compartment, but when the forbidding wall of the convent came into view, I began to have second thoughts about what I was doing. Was I running a risk going inside those walls? Maureen had vanished. Katy had revealed secrets to me and Katy had died. But then I reassured myself that Maureen’s disappearance would now have a simple explanation. And Katy’s death would probably turn out to be a sad accident, but an accident nonetheless. It was a convent, after all, I told myself. Full of holy women doing a charitable service.

But I couldn’t shake off the thought that Maureen had come to me in a dream with Katy. It was fine for Gus to deny that dreams could come from the beyond. She had never lived in Ireland and had neighbors whose dear departed relatives often came and spoke to them in dreams. That thought made me sit up rigid. Had Maureen been a voice from the beyond? If she was happily at the convent now, why had she come to me in the dream, clearly asking for my help?

The buggy came to a halt. The driver jumped down and offered me his hand to help me from the seat. I almost said, “I’ve changed my mind. Drive me back to the town,” but my pride wouldn’t let me. The driver refused to take any money either. He gave me a sympathetic smile and a pat on the back. “It will all work out for the best, you’ll see,” he said. “Good luck to you, miss.”