The Family Way (Molly Murphy, #12)

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?”