The Family Way (Molly Murphy, #12)

“So you came to America to find him,” she continued.

“I did. I scraped together enough for the fare and when I went to the address Joe had written from, he wasn’t there.”

“He’d gone off somewhere?” She was looking at me with great sympathy.

“Yes, but not what you think,” she said. “It turns out they came around recruiting laborers to go down to Panama and dig the new canal. Good money, they said. And Joe signed up right away.” I put my hand up to my mouth. “So I don’t know if he’s alive or dead or where he is,” I said. “I’ve no way of getting in touch with him, and no money to go back home. Not that my father would allow me to come back. Terrible strict he is on matters like this.”

“I’m sorry, my dear,” she said gently. “I hear stories like yours all the time. And I wish we could help you, but we have our full complement of young women at the moment. And a waiting list too. Girls write to us from all over several months before they need to come and we have to turn so many away.”

“You mean I can’t stay?” I asked, hoping there was enough desperation in my voice. “Where else would I go?”

“I can write to other convents on your behalf,” she said. “There is no other order around here that devotes itself to our mission of charity, but sometimes there is a spare bed to be had and the good sisters will welcome a stranger in time of need. I can’t guarantee anything, of course. There is so much need these days. So much suffering.”

I wondered what I should do next. In a way I felt profoundly relieved that I wasn’t going to be admitted and I could go back to join Sid and Gus and Bridie at the riverside, where we’d laugh and eat ice creams and enjoy ourselves. They were right. I really had done all that could be expected for a girl I had never met.

I got to my feet. “Thank you, anyway,” I said. “I’d better go, then.”

“I hate to do this,” she said, “but if I took you in, it wouldn’t be fair to a girl who has waited months to come here and her confinement is imminent, would it?”

“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.”