by Tara Hyland
At first she was too scared to sleep, in case James found a way to get in. Instead, she thought about Niamh. She realised now what was wrong with her friend. She too had been subjected to James Buchanan’s attentions, but unfortunately she hadn’t been lucky enough to escape. At least now that Cara knew the whole story, she could finally do something about it.
The next morning, Cara only emerged from the bathroom once she was sure the rest of the house was up. She wore her own clothes down to breakfast, which was served in a beautiful glass room with a view across to the lake. Virginia and James were already there. Virginia greeted her enthusiastically, clearly having no inkling about what had gone on the previous night. James was also cheery, but it seemed forced to Cara. The cook brought in a full Irish breakfast, with black pudding and fried toast. It smelled delicious, but Cara found it impossible to eat.
Virginia noticed and looked concerned. ‘Not hungry? Are you feeling all right?’ She came over and felt Cara’s forehead, as Sister Agnes had for Niamh the previous day. ‘You seem fine.’
Cara had been about to use being ill as an excuse to go back to the orphanage. Now, feeling that she couldn’t, she said reluctantly, ‘I’m okay.’
Virginia brightened. ‘Good. Then, what would you like to do today?’
‘I don’t mind.’ All Cara could think about was how to get out of here before tonight came round.
‘Well, why don’t we take you out to see the horses? I’ll go up to change.’
Not wanting to be left alone with James, Cara followed her out of the room. As she left, she saw the look of hatred that James shot her, and knew that she had to escape from here. Following Virginia through to the hallway, her eyes settled on a pretty blue and white china teapot sitting on the occasional table. An idea came to her.
‘I like this,’ she said, picking the ornament up.
‘Oh, be careful with that,’ Virginia warned. ‘It was left to me by my mother.’
That confirmed everything Cara needed to know. Offering up a silent ‘sorry’ to poor, clueless Virginia, she allowed the china teapot to slip out of her hands.
‘No!’ Virginia cried, rushing forward.
But it was too late. All she could do was watch in horror as the ornament smashed on the floor. And that was when Cara started to laugh.
It was decided that Cara should be returned to the orphanage straight away. Virginia was too distraught to travel back with them in the car, and she implored James to stay behind with her. Cara could tell he was furious. She imagined he’d wanted to have some time alone with her, to warn her not to say anything. But Virginia was insistent, so Cara was sent back with the driver. He had been given a note to explain the events of the morning that had resulted in her early departure. Unfortunately for Cara, Sister Concepta was the one who took receipt of the letter.
The nun was so delighted to have had her opinion of the girl vindicated, that for once she seemed uninterested in doling out punishment. Cara was equally unbothered by the consequences of her actions. Now that she knew about James Buchanan, all she wanted to do was speak to Niamh.
Up in the dorm, Niamh was there, waiting anxiously for her. As soon as she saw Cara, she rushed over to her.
‘What happened?’ she wanted to know.
‘Nothing. He tried, but I got away.’
Niamh’s face crumpled. ‘I’m sorry. I tried to warn you . . .’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Cara was brusque. ‘At least now we can both speak up.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, we have to tell someone what he’s doing.’
Niamh looked horrified. ‘I can’t. He said he’d kill me if I said anything.’
She began to cry then, sobbing as though she would never stop. Cara cried with her, tears of shame for not looking after her friend, mingled with anger at a person who could do something like that to a child.
Chapter Thirty-four
In the two years that she had been at the orphanage, Cara had never seen Sister Concepta so furious. Her face had gone red, and Cara fancied that if she had been a cartoon character, smoke would have blown out of her ears.
‘You wicked, wicked girls!’ she snarled. Picking up a belt, she began to wrap one end around her hand. Niamh shrank back, but Sister Concepta caught hold of her, pulling her back within reach. ‘How dare you!’ Whack! The strap came down and caught Niamh’s arm. ‘Telling lies like that about those lovely people!’ Whack! This time, the blow was to her shoulder.
Cara couldn’t stand it any longer. It had taken a long time to persuade Niamh to speak up about what James Buchanan had done, and now not only was the Sister refusing to believe them, but they were actually getting punished for what they’d said. She grabbed the nun’s arm and pushed her away, coming between her and Niamh.
‘Stop it!’
Sister Concepta’s eyes blazed. ‘Don’t tell me what to do.’ She struck Cara across the cheek. It was a stinging blow, but at least the nun’s attention was diverted from Niamh. ‘I bet you were the one behind all these lies, you little troublemaker!’
Whack! Whack! Whack!
Cara crumpled to the ground, but the beating didn’t stop. The pain was almost a relief. At least it kept her mind off feeling guilty.
Cara woke up in her dormitory bed. Her head ached. Sister Agnes was sitting in a chair by her side, reading. She explained what had happened – that Cara had fallen against a wall and blacked out.
‘You’ll need to take it easy for a while until we know whether you have concussion,’ the nun said.
But Cara’s first concern wasn’t for herself. ‘Is Niamh all right?’ She struggled to sit up in bed, looking round for her friend.
Sister Agnes couldn’t meet her eyes. ‘She’s not here.’
‘Where is she then?’
Finally, the nun looked up, and her expression was troubled. ‘She’s gone to the Buchanans’. They called and insisted—’
But Cara was already on her feet. Hurrying to the small turret window that looked out over the driveway, she was just in time to see Niamh walking down the driveway to the waiting car. With her shoulders hunched and her slow, stiff walk, she looked like a condemned woman. Cara put her hand to the glass, aware that her friend couldn’t see her, but wanting to pass on her strength to the other girl anyway.
The weekend passed even more slowly than usual. When the others went into town on Saturday, Cara decided not to go. She felt too worried about what was happening to Niamh.
On Sunday evening, she waited anxiously for her friend to return. As the hours went by, she grew more concerned, a bad feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. It wasn’t helped by the fact that the nuns were rushing around, their faces white and drawn. Clearly something was up.
Cara caught Sister Agnes as she rushed by. ‘What’s going on? Is it to do with Niamh?’
Sister Agnes looked as though she wanted to say something, but hesitated. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I really can’t tell you right now. Just – just say a prayer for her, will you?’ Then she hurried off.
There was no more news that evening. Cara lay awake all night, wondering where Niamh could be.
First thing the next morning, all the girls were called together in the assembly hall. From the grim expressions on the nuns’ faces, Cara could guess what they were going to say.
She was right. Niamh was dead. Late Saturday evening, she had found her way out of Castle Glen. From what the police could tell, she’d been trying to make it into town. She had tried taking a shortcut across the lake, and the ice had broken. Sister Concepta kept the details to a minimum, only letting the girls know the bare facts. But over the next few days, rumours began to filter through from the outside world, carried in by the lay workers and delivery boys who came up to the orphanage. One over-excited scullery girl, who was being courted by a young garda, told Cara and a group of ghoulish gossipmongers that Niamh had accidentally fallen into the lake and drowned, but that it had been so cold during the
night that the water had refrozen afterwards. That meant the police search went on for hours before anyone went to look at the lake. When they did, they immediately saw her body, trapped beneath the ice and staring up at them, like a frozen Ophelia.
‘It’s a tragedy, that’s what it is,’ the girl said with fake gravity, delighted to be the centre of attention, the thrill of the event providing a break in the monotony of her dull life. ‘Lord only knows what she was doing out on such a cold night, when she could have been in that lovely house.’
‘No doubt sneaking out to meet a young man,’ the cook said sagely.
The others murmured their agreement, marvelling at the seeming stupidity of youth.
But only Cara knew the truth. Niamh had been trying to escape from James Buchanan.
The funeral for Niamh was held two days later. Cara was too numb to react: first her mother, then her grandmother and now her best friend. It seemed like everyone she cared about had been taken from her. None of Niamh’s family bothered to come over for the occasion; instead, they would be having a Mass said for her at their local church in England. What made it hardest was seeing the Buchanans there. Cara glared at them as they walked up the aisle to take their place in the front pew.
The priest stood to say the Eulogy. He spoke for a few minutes about the seeming senselessness of a young life being taken, and the plan that God has for everyone, telling the congregation to take comfort in the fact that the child was with her Father now. Even though Cara wasn’t sure how much of this she believed, she found it easy enough to listen. It was only as he got deeper into his sermon that the latent anger that had been bubbling within her for days began to spill over.
‘We will never know what was going through young Niamh’s mind that terrible night,’ he intoned, from his place in the pulpit. ‘The Buchanans,’ he paused to smile benevolently at the couple who sat in the front pew, as James wrapped a protective arm around his crying wife, ‘the Buchanans were generous enough to give the girl a break from the orphanage. Who knows the vagaries of young minds, but for whatever reason she chose to spurn their hospitality and go out into the night alone. If she hadn’t, perhaps this terrible accident would never have happened.’
Cara couldn’t bear the hypocrisy any longer.
‘It wasn’t an accident!’ she shouted out suddenly, before she could think about what she was doing. The priest stopped talking and the whole congregation turned to look at her.
‘Cara!’ Sister Agnes hissed, putting a restraining hand on her arm.
But Cara knew there was no escaping from her actions now. She got unsteadily to her feet, determined to get this off her chest. ‘She died trying to get away from you!’ She pointed at James Buchanan. ‘Because she couldn’t stand what you did to her. Her death is on your conscience. And not just yours.’ She waved a hand at Sister Concepta. ‘It was your fault too, because you wouldn’t listen to her. She tried to tell you what he did, and you sent her back.’
She was sobbing now, struggling to speak through her tears, crying so hard that she didn’t notice Sisters Jude and Bernadette sneaking up behind her. ‘Niamh wouldn’t be dead if someone had listened to her earlier,’ she went on. ‘If I’d listened to her. We’re all to blame. I should have tried harder with her—’
The nuns chose that moment to grab Cara by the arms. She was so drained by then that she hardly put up a protest. As they half-dragged her out of the church, she kept saying over and over again, ‘It’s my fault she’s dead. It’s all my fault.’
Sister Agnes was worried about Cara. After the incident in the church, Sister Concepta had ordered the girl to be locked in the Quiet Room. She’d been in there for four days now, and all she’d been given in that time was water: one cup three times a day. Sister Jude had been put in charge of administering the punishment, so this was the first time Sister Agnes had been able to sneak in to check on the girl. But she could see that the harsh treatment had taken its toll. Cold sores covered Cara’s mouth, and she was hardly coherent. Unable to even lift her head, Sister Agnes had to hold the cup of water to the girl’s mouth. She drank it down greedily, and then coughed some of it back up.
The nun was by nature a simple, God-fearing woman, who believed in the inherent good in people in general, and the Church in particular. But the events of the past few days had shaken her faith in humanity. For whatever reason, Sister Concepta seemed to be hell-bent on destroying Cara. The girl was half-starved and dehydrated, and needed to be seen by a doctor. Sister Agnes had tried reasoning with her superior earlier, but the woman refused to listen. Which was what brought her here now.
‘You need to leave, Cara,’ the young nun whispered urgently. ‘To escape. Tonight. And I’m going to help you.’
The plan had been forming in Sister Agnes’s mind for a while. She had a brother, she explained now to Cara, who worked as a docker. He’d agreed to sneak Cara onto his ship, and take her over to England. As the nun spoke, for the first time since Niamh’s death she saw a spark of fire in the girl’s green eyes.
‘How will I get out of here, though?’ She looked towards the locked door.
Sister Agnes took a deep breath. This was the part that required her to have courage. She would come back tonight, she told the girl, once everyone was asleep, and open the door for Cara. It would look as though she’d forgotten to lock it after taking Cara her water. At the back of the cellars, there was a secret tunnel that led out past the orphanage’s walls. Cara could escape through that and then once she was outside the gates, Agnes’s brother, Declan, would be waiting for her. From there, they would drive to Cork, and then leave on the next boat for Liverpool.
Seeing how weak Cara was, the nun knew that the girl had to leave tonight, or she’d never be able to make the journey. While she was a little afraid of what would happen if anyone ever traced the escape back to her, Sister Agnes was sure she could make it look enough like an accident that no one could ever prove otherwise. No doubt Sister Concepta would have her suspicions, and make her life a misery, but the young nun could put up with that as long as she knew that she had done the right thing.
Cara stumbled down the stairs to the cellar, gripping the handrail for support. Everything was as Sister Agnes had told her. Although the lack of food had weakened her, the thought of escape had given her an injection of strength. Sister Agnes had managed to slip her some bread, and she’d eaten it before she left. That had given her enough energy to make it.
The tunnel was dark and dank; stagnant water pooled on the floor, and the walls were covered in wet moss. Rats scuttled by, brushing against Cara’s legs; she tried not to scream. Emerging into the cold night, she breathed in deeply, taking in the fresh air and the freedom. But she couldn’t allow herself to relax for too long – she hadn’t reached safety yet.
Stumbling away from the orphanage’s walls, Cara looked all around. There was meant to be a car here, waiting for her. Her eyes squinted in the darkness, trying to see if she could make out any shapes. But there was nothing. Just as she was beginning to panic, she heard a voice hiss through the night.
‘Here. Over here.’
She followed the sound, each step making her feel weaker and weaker, until a hand reached out and grabbed her. Looking up, she half-expected to see Sister Concepta there, ready to drag her back to the orphanage, but instead it was a stocky man with orange hair and skin that had once been white, but was now burned red from days on the deck of a boat. It was Sister Agnes’s brother, Declan.
‘This way. I couldn’t park close, in case anyone heard the engine.’
It was another a couple of hundred yards to the car. Declan kept looking around, as though he was expecting someone to be following them. Cara had a stitch in her side, and had to stop to catch her breath. Finally they reached the car. Declan rustled in the back seat and pulled out a bag.
‘Here.’ He threw some clothes at her. ‘Put these on.’
As she changed out of her orphanage uniform, he began to warm up the car
.
‘Get in,’ Declan said, once she was ready.
So far, all he’d done was bark orders at Cara. She got the feeling he wasn’t happy about having to help her. She didn’t blame him, of course: he could get arrested for his part in her escape. As they set off, Declan made no effort to speak to her. So instead Cara turned back to watch the dark shadow of the orphanage growing smaller as she got further away. It was a satisfying sight.
Dawn broke over Cork. A storm began to brew, the dark Atlantic Ocean churning, the wind rattling the corrugated roof of Declan’s quayside shack, making it impossible to sleep or hold a conversation.
The boat couldn’t sail that day. It took forty-eight hours for the storm to dissipate, and the waters to become calm enough for the voyage across to England. Even then, the passage was choppy. Stowed away in the bowels of the ship, Cara was forbidden to come up on deck, lest any of the crew see her. Afterwards, all she would remember of the journey was the incessant seasickness. Declan had cooked them dinner before they’d come out, a steak and kidney pie with mashed potatoes, and as the boat lurched from side to side, so did her stomach, and soon she’d thrown up everything she’d eaten until all she could do was dry-heave.
By the time the boat docked, Cara was itching to get off. But she had to wait until the cargo had been unloaded, in case anyone spotted her.
The docks of Liverpool were loud, noisy and dirty. Large, rough men threw bags to each other, carried barrels and crates, told crude jokes, laughed and sang.
