Dreams Can Come True

by Vivienne Dockerty

  At least though, Maggie was walking into civilisation. A row of cottages and a shebeen had appeared – and was that a church in the distance? Well, something to do with religion, as the Holy Cross was up on the roof. She decided to make for the church; no man of the cloth would refuse to lend a hand.

  “Can I help yer in anyway, Missis?” A small girl pulled back the grill in the heavy oak door and peered at Maggie through it. She looked anxious and a little suspicious. It was not often a fine lady travelled along that way – not that Maggie was looking like a fine lady. Her hair had come down and her face was smeared with mud, but her clothes were of the best quality. No skirt made of common drugget for her.

  “Could I speak with someone in authority? It’s urgent I find help fer me husband. He’s lying in a ditch some miles away.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Mary and all the Saints,” and the girl crossed herself piously. “The Sisters are all getting ready fer Vespers, but I’ll go and find someone fer yer.”

  With that she shut the grill and left Maggie on the doorstep to wait impatiently. As Maggie looked around she saw then the statue of Mary, standing on a marble plinth in the small gravel garden, and realised it was a convent she had come to. Maggie had never had anything to do with nuns, though she had seen them in the town of Ballina, usually walking around in pairs.

  Heavy footsteps began to sound coming towards the doorway, then the door swung open to reveal a woman dressed in black from head to foot, except for a white wimple framing her face. She looked to be in her fifties, tall and large boned. This was the person in authority that Maggie had asked for.

  “I’m Mother Immaculata, in charge of the convent. Matilda said something about your husband being in a ditch somewhere.”

  “Yes, Madam,” and Maggie curtsied to the woman. “We were set upon by two vagabonds and the driver of our carriage and me husband were beaten about the head. Then the men took our transport and the driver away, leaving us in a ditch beside the roadside. Me husband seems terribly injured, his eyes were closed and he has a cut above his eye.”

  “And you left him like that to get help? How far away was that? There were cottages all along this way who could have given you a hand.”

  “No one would help us. Oh, I’m sorry, each moment that passes means he could be in terrible danger. Will someone here help? Does anyone have a cart or something that he could be laid upon?”

  “Well, of course I would like to help, dear, but we are about to start Vespers. Just a moment, I’ll see what I can do. Perhaps some of the girls from the dormitory can assist you. One or two are due out any day.”

  Maggie was left on the doorstep again, to puzzle why she should be helped by girls from the dormitory. Perhaps it was a boarding school and the nuns were all teachers; perhaps some of the girls were due to leave any day. It was chilly standing there anxiously waiting, with desperate thoughts of Jack and Hannah. How much colder must it be for them?

  “Hey up, Missis!”

  Maggie turned to see a small wagon pulled by a brown and white pony, being driven by a plump girl in her twenties. The girl drew up in front of the convent gate and beckoned Maggie to climb aboard.

  “Which way are we goin’? That way or this? The old woman said you’d been set on by the Fenians, the buggers are living up there in the hills. They’re forever robbin’ decent people. Folk round here are terrified of them, though she encourages them. Always feeding them from the back of the kitchen door. I’ll be glad when I can get back to Galway; there’s no sign of the troubles over there.”

  Maggie directed the girl onto the road out of the village and soon the wagon and its occupants were bowling merrily along. Maggie learnt that the wagon was used to convey the vegetables that the Sisters grew to the market at Ballina. She also found out that Bella had been a naughty girl and had just given birth to a child.

  “That’s why I’m at the convent, me and a few like me are there. Got sent away by me lovin’ parents, to return with a flat belly and a bit of religion as well. Baby will go to a childless couple and I’ll be welcomed back to the fold. ‘ Til I get found a husband that is. How far along here did yer leave him? Good job yer found the convent; no one else will help yer in this God-forsaken place.”

  Maggie agreed with the girl wholeheartedly; she had been beginning to despair of any help at all. Visions of being left to die at the roadside had been uppermost in her mind.

  “Mother, oh Mother, thank God you’ve brought someone to help us.”

  Hannah ran towards the wagon happily as she saw them coming along.

  Maggie got down as soon as Bella had stopped the pony and ran to Jack who had his eyes open this time.

  “How’s he been, Hannah? Do yer think we can get him to the wagon between us? This kindly young woman has come from a convent to collect us, though I don’t know what’ll happen when we get there.”

  “Oh, they’ll take yer in, like they do with all waifs and strays,” imparted Bella. “They’ll cluck around yer ‘til he’s better, then they’ll put yer out again. As long as nothing interferes with their Matins and their Vespers, they’re there to dole out good to the less fortunate. I’d help yer with himself, but as yer know I’ve just given birth.”

  Hannah gave a shocked glance to Maggie, who gave her stepdaughter a look that said “don’t ask”. Between them they managed to lay Jack down in the wagon, then they hauled the trunk up together. Hannah had put back the contents while Maggie had been away.

  “They’ve taken Papa’s money belt and most of his clothing. I hadn’t noticed until I was picking everything up that most of his things had gone.” Hannah was close to tears again, as Bella turned the vehicle round to head for the village.

  “I wish we had never come to this hateful place. Now we’ll be stuck here forever or at least until Grandma hears about us and sends some money for us to get home.”

  “Shush Hannah. Everything will be all right again, don’t you worry.” And Maggie lifted the hem of her skirt to show Hannah. “There’s twenty golden sovereigns in here.”

  “Thank God,” whispered Hannah. “And Papa’s looking better, though he hasn’t said anything yet. He just keeps staring ahead.”

  “We’ll all be fine when we’ve been looked after for a few days in the convent. Then we’ll continue on our journey, as we wanted to before. Don’t yer worry about anything anymore, Hannah. God works in mysterious ways, but His plans are not fer us to see.”

  Chapter 7

  The wagon drew up in a courtyard at the back of the convent’s main building. It was almost dark now and from some of the windows came the flicker of candlelight.

  On their arrival a nun came out to greet them, dressed in her habit and an all-enveloping white pinafore.

  “I’m Sister Agatha. The Mother said she’d instructed Bella ter bring yer in. Is he dead, the manny? Let me take a look at him.”

  Maggie and Hannah gasped as they took in the import of her words. They both fell on their knees at the side of Jack. Surely he wasn’t dead, though he was staring upwards with a vacant look in his eyes.

  “Help me get him down, will yer,” said the nun briskly, after she had climbed on board to feel Jack’s wrist and satisfied herself that he still had a pulse.

  “He’s to go to the infirmary seeing he’s not dead and I’m ter be his nurse. Bella, these ladies are ter be housed in the west wing. Put the horse back in the stable, then come up and take them to their room. Ready ladies? One, two, three. I’ve got him, steady, steady, now take his head and shoulders. That’s it, now it’s this way.”

  The three women carried Jack with difficulty, up two flights of stairs into a large, cheerless long-windowed room. The nun directed them to one of the six iron bedsteads, where they placed him carefully onto the clean mattress made of ticking, then placed a bolster under his head to support him. They were all breathless from their exertions. Sister Agatha had to sit for a moment on a wooden chair that was placed at the side of the bed.

  “I’ll loo
k after him, don’t you worry,” she said, when she had got her breath back. “You’ll both feel better after a good night’s sleep and you can look in on him in the morning. Now, here’s Bella, go with her and she’ll see you’re comfortably settled. Let’s pray that the good Lord looks down on him with His favour and delivers him whole again.”

  They followed Bella to a small room on the first floor corridor. It was bare, except for two narrow beds. There were no curtains at the window or a rug on the wooden floor.

  “You’re lucky ter be given a room with only two beds in it,” remarked their escort, when she saw their dismayed faces.

  “What did yer expect, a comfortable hotel? I have ter share with five others, in a room not much bigger than this one and if yer stay more than a day or two they’ll be after you helping out with the chores.”

  “Mother,” said Hannah, after Bella had gone. “What kind of place is this that we’ve come to? You heard that girl saying before that she’d just given birth.”

  “Well, we’re in a convent, Hannah. A place where nuns live together and pray for the souls of those who live in this world. They seem ter be taking in fallen women. Those girls who have got themselves in the family way, but are not married. Their parents must have sent them away from home, so as not to bring shame and disgrace to their good name. I feel very sorry for Bella. She was telling me that her baby will be given away to a childless couple; she didn’t say if it was a boy or a girl. Now, let’s not talk about things that don’t concern us. We should be grateful that the nuns have been kind enough to take us in. And yer father will be fine once he’s rested, then we can continue on our journey. Look, someone has brought our trunk up, we can change our clothes for some that are cleaner, though there’ll be muddy marks on a lot of them.”

  It was hard to sleep that night. Maggie lay awake worrying that Jack might not recover. Hannah was concerned about her father, but finding out that the convent was a place for fallen women had brought her guilty secret to the fore. It had been easy to forget her condition while they had been travelling, but the tale of Bella and her illegitimate baby made her fear that she would be sent to such an institution too. Both her and Maggie’s stomachs began to rumble, as no one had been sent up to their room with something for them to eat. They had heard some bells ringing in the distance then all had gone quiet.

  Next morning came quickly, though it seemed to them that they had only been asleep for a couple of precious hours. A bell woke them first of all, then they heard the pattering of many scurrying feet. Maggie sat up quickly, wondering initially what she and Hannah were doing there. Then it all came back with swift remembrance. The theft of their carriage and driver and her husband lying upstairs in a hospital bed. She thought for a moment of Keva. Was he lying alone somewhere beaten senseless, or was he in on the kidnap, covering his tracks from the authorities? Whatever, it wasn’t her problem. He had put them all in danger, carrying those rifles as well as them.

  “Mother, I have to go to the lavatory. They don’t seem to have provided us with a chamber pot and not only that, I’m beginning to feel sick again.”

  “Oh no, Hannah,” Maggie replied, feeling a little exasperated. “If it wasn’t that we are already in a place fer fallen women, I would be suggesting as a joke that you must be one of them.”

  Her heart nearly came up in her mouth to choke her, when she turned to Hannah to find that she wasn’t smiling as well.

  “You’re not are you? Expecting a child? Hannah fer God’s sake, is that what’s the matter with you?”

  She ran her fingers through her hair in complete bewilderment and looked over at her stepdaughter who had turned her face away.

  “I might be.” The girl started to whimper. “Oh, Mother, it was just the once. He told me he loved me and wanted to marry me.”

  Hannah started to cry properly then, remembering her hopes and dreams of marrying into society, then finding Jeremy had only used her. It was Catherine Lydiate he was set on plighting his troth to.

  “How many courses have yer missed?” asked Maggie, clinging on to the hope that Hannah was only late, perhaps due to the excitement of their holiday. “Only when I was your age I never kept track of when me bleeding was due.”

  “Well, only the one, but I have had a lot of sickness since we started our travels. Perhaps I’m not expecting. He did say no one fell for a baby when they did it the first time.”

  Hannah began to look a bit more cheerful, though she couldn’t quite bring herself to meet her stepmother’s eyes.

  “Oh, Mother, I really do need to find a lavatory. Can we talk about this later, after I’ve managed to find one?”

  “We certainly will, young lady. I thought you understood what happens when yer lay in bed with a young man, when we had that talk about the birds and the bees. What yer father will say when he knows about it? I’m assuming that it was that Eddie from the tavern?”

  Hannah was spared from answering Maggie’s question as someone came crashing through the bedroom door. Bella stood before them, smiling cheerfully.

  “Top of the morning, ladies. I see the Angelus has already woke yer up. They’re all over in the chapel. Nothing much changes here. The Angelus three times a day, breakfast at six, dinner at noon and in between they get on with their duties. I’ll be glad when I’m gone from here, I wouldn’t make a good postulant anyway! Sleep well, did yer? Breakfast in the Refectory in ten minutes, so look sharp.”

  She began to walk back through the door, then remembered.

  “Oh, the lavvies. You’ll be needing them. On the right at the bottom of the corridor.”

  Later Maggie sat with Hannah at the long wooden table in the place that Bella had called the Refectory. Her mind was in an anxious whirl as she brooded on the consequences of Hannah’s revelation. What was Jack going to say? What would they do with Hannah? How were they going to hide such a scandal in the small village where they lived? Well, if it was true that her stepdaughter was expecting, then she would have to marry the boy from the tavern. Though what a waste of that expensive education Hannah had just completed, to have to marry such an uncouth lout of a man.

  She looked around at the other people present. There seemed to be a pecking order amongst the women who sat there on the benches. Mother Immaculata at the head of the table, Sister Agatha to her right, another older nun on the left. There were four other nuns dressed in black habits and two young girls dressed totally in white. Then came the “sinners” in various stages of pregnancy – or not, as in Bella’s case. The two visitors, Maggie and Hannah, were placed at the bottom of the table and of course were to be served last. Maggie cast her eyes over the nuns as they sat there, heads bowed and hands together, as they waited for their Superior to begin her prayer of thanksgiving. Each wore a wooden cross on a length of twine around their necks, along with their necklaces of black rosary beads. The young postulants, or candidates to become “Brides of Christ”, sat serenely, the light of their eager devotion shining from their eyes. Not like the other girls of around their age. One girl whose stomach was quite enormous seemed full of misery; another was giggling to her friend. Mother Immaculata shot her a look of disapproval and silence began to reign in the hall.

  The grace was said, then a servant came with a huge platter of potato cakes and disappeared to bring fried eggs and soda bread for everyone. She served the head of the table first with her breakfast, then the platters were passed along for everyone to help themselves.

  The soda bread seemed to be sticking in Maggie’s gullet. By the time the pot of butter had reached the end of the table it was empty and no one seemed anxious to ask for another one. The bread was very dry, so she dipped it into the egg that was beginning to congeal before her. She felt like crying; those damn Fenians had a lot to answer for.

  Maggie looked at Hannah, who hadn’t yet touched a morsel; she just kept drinking from a pewter mug, her shoulders hunched, her eyes downcast. Maggie felt a certain sympathy. Who wouldn’t, towards a girl who had
been taken in by a young man’s glib and lying tongue. Like the others sitting there, persuaded no doubt, to give away their innocence with the promise of marriage, or to prove to the man their undying love. They were left with the shame and consequence to be shunned as easy women in their communities. But, Jack would go mad if Hannah was expecting; his little princess who could never do any wrong. There would be hell to pay and Maggie would bear the brunt of it. She was the one that people would point at; the gossips in the village would have a field day. How could Hannah let this happen? They had such high hopes for her; possibly she would marry someone like the Adshead boy. A gentleman, to say the least, who would rise through the ranks in the Army and Hannah could have had it all. Maggie began to feel angry; she would take the blame for Hannah’s action. People would say that she had spoilt her, letting Hannah’s luxurious upbringing go to her head. Well, Alice, Jack’s mother would anyway. Alice would say, what do you expect from a girl that was illegitimate? Fancy clothes and an expensive education won’t change the truth of the matter. Hannah had her mother’s blood.

  Maggie tried hard to pull herself together. Didn’t Miss Rosemary used to say, never trouble trouble, until trouble troubles you? Hannah would have to miss another month of her courses before she was going to let it trouble her. For the moment it was Jack who needed her attention, though if he didn’t get better in the next few days, what was she going to do?

  She was summoned to the Mother Superior’s office an hour or so later. Hannah was left with Bella, as Maggie hoped that some of what the poor girl had been through would be discussed with her stepdaughter if the two of them were left on their own.

  “I don’t have your names, my dear. Oh, Margaret Haines, Jack Haines and your daughter, Hannah. Thank you.” The nun wrote their names carefully into a large brown book on the table in front of her after Maggie had given her reply.

  “Sit down for a moment, will you. I have to keep an account of the money our community spends, to show our benefactor. A devout man and a Christian but a businessman just the same. Now, you can see your husband after our discussion, but from what Sister Agatha tells me, there is little change in his condition since you brought him here. He has control over his faculties, but his mind seems to have gone to a different world. Maybe that is well, if he has been set upon by vagabonds, but if there is no improvement in a day or so, I’ll send for the local doctor. He will advise you on what to do, because as you can appreciate we cannot give you sanctuary for long. We are not an hotel. Each person here has to make a contribution towards the running of the place and I’m sure I cannot see you or your daughter scrubbing the floors on your hands and knees.”