The Family Way (Molly Murphy, #12)

I went downstairs to get a bucket and mop from the scullery, but I’d only gone halfway along the downstairs hall when something struck me. Sister hadn’t locked her door behind her. And she’d be safely over in the maternity ward for a while yet. It was a chance I couldn’t resist. I tiptoed back along the hall to Sister’s room and turned the door handle. The door swung open and I stepped inside, closing it quickly behind me. In the candlelight there was nothing outstanding about the room. Exactly what I would have expected from a nun’s quarters, in fact. Simple in the extreme. Narrow bed, chest, and wardrobe. No sign of decoration on the walls, only the obligatory crucifix. There was a desk in the corner. I went to that and opened the drawers. Nothing incriminating that I could see.

I opened the top drawer of her chest, feeling most uncomfortable at this prying, and saw only neatly folded black lisle stockings and undergarments. The other drawers contained nothing of interest. However, in the drawer of her bedside table I found a surprise. Among the rosaries, prayer book, and holy cards was a pretty little enamel brooch-watch and some good pieces of jewelry. Surely nuns weren’t allowed to wear jewelry? Where did she acquire it, and did she ever wear it under her habit?

Then I saw something that made me pause. A pretty little statue of Our Lady, hand carved in wood. I knew with absolute certainty that it was Maureen’s statue. Katy had said she found it in a wastebasket, so sister must have taken it from Katy’s things, unless Katy had handed it over. Why was Sister keeping it? Just because she liked the look of it? Or because she didn’t want anyone else to see it? I closed the drawer quietly and went over to the wardrobe. An ordinary, coarsely woven habit hung there, plus a dressing gown. Again nothing unusual. Then on the top shelf I noticed an attaché case. I brought it down carefully, put it on the bed, and opened it. It was full of papers. They seemed to be letters. I held the first one up to the candlelight and read.

Again my wife and I wish to express our deepest thanks for our lovely baby girl. She is all we ever dreamed of and more. As agreed I am enclosing a check for a thousand dollars …

I put the letter down. Elaine had mentioned generous donations, but I had thought in terms of one hundred dollars at the most. A thousand dollars was a fortune. The convent could run happily on it for years. They could afford to install electricity, proper heating, to repair the crumbling outside of the building. I went through other letters, all promising large sums and expressing satisfaction with the baby they had received. This was a veritable business, and a very prosperous one. At the bottom of the case I came to an oilskin pouch. I opened the clasp and gasped. It was full of money—a lot of money, possibly thousands of dollars. And I knew right away that the money donated to the convent was never seen by the other nuns. Sister Jerome was keeping it for herself, for reasons I couldn’t fathom.

I stood with the envelope in my hands, wondering what to do next. Should I report what I had seen to the police? Then I reasoned that she hadn’t committed a crime. Those babies had been legally obtained and the couples had paid up willingly. Her only crime was a moral one—exploiting desperate girls for her own ends. And cheating her sisters out of money they could certainly use. And it struck me that Maureen might have posed a threat greater than just wanting to reclaim her own child. Perhaps Maureen had figured out Sister’s neat little business and had threatened to go to Mother if she didn’t get her child back. And had possibly made a fatal mistake in doing so.

I had sensed that Sister was a ruthless woman, but it was only now that I appreciated the real extent of the danger I was in. I was safe as long as I behaved like an obedient Irish peasant girl who was about to deliver a red-haired baby. But if Sister had stumbled upon that letter to Sid and Gus by now, and had worked out that I was here undercover, spying on her, then my life wasn’t worth a fig. I was suddenly alert and afraid, imagining Sister standing on the other side of that door at this moment, observing everything I had done, and then quietly entering the room to silence me.…

I stuffed the envelope back into the attaché case, put the letters back on top of it, and returned it to the top shelf before I half tumbled out of the room, almost knocking over the candle in my haste. The downstairs hall was dark and silent. I remembered the bucket and mop, found them and cleaned up the floor as instructed. The other girls had either gone to sleep or were feigning it. As I mopped I could hear screams coming from the other wing. A new fear added itself to the others: I had always known that childbirth was an uncomfortable business. My own three brothers had been born at home and I remember my mother moaning and invoking the saints, but it hadn’t seemed too terrifying. But in this place Blanche had experienced complications that led to a dead baby and now Aggie was still screaming. Was this what I had to look forward to in two months’ time? My hand went to my belly and I felt the reassuring little flutter of a kick against my fingers.