The Brightest Day, The Darkest Night. Brendan Graham

‘We’ll offer up the Rosary – the Five Sorrowful Mysteries.’

      Ellen, in reply, said nothing until between them then, they exchanged the Five Mysteries of Christ’s Passion and Death.

      The Agony in the Garden …

      The Scourging at the Pillar …

      The Crowning with Thorns …

      The Carrying of the Cross …

      The Crucifixion.

      Passing over and back the Our Fathers …

      ‘… forgive us our trespasses … as we forgive those who trespass against us.’

      And the Hail Marys, ‘… pray for us sinners …’ the words taking on the mantle of a continued conversation.

      Like a shielding presence between them, Ellen counted out the freshly-hewn beads, reflecting upon the Fruits of the Mysteries – contrition for sin; mortification of the senses; death to the self.

      Afterwards, in unison, they recited the Salve Regina. ‘To thee do we fly poor banished children of Eve, To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping … and after this, our exile … O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary! Pray for us … that we may be made worthy …’

      When it was done they sat there, unspeaking. Ellen, the great weight partly uplifted from her; Mary, unfaltering in compassion at the enormity of what had passed between them.

      ‘I will tell Louisa myself, Mary,’ Ellen said. ‘Then I must find Patrick … and Lavelle.’

      The younger woman stood up, made to go and stopped. Turning, she embraced the shoulders of the other woman, pulling her mother towards her, the fine head within her arms. Gently, she stroked the renewed folds of Ellen’s hair. As a mother would a damaged child.

       SEVEN

      The following evening Louisa came.

      With mounting trepidation, Ellen heard the flap of Louisa’s habit, the whoosh of air that preceded her adopted daughter. Everything but flesh of flesh, Louisa was to her. How frightened the child must have been all those years to have so stoically maintained her silence. That, if she had spoken, she would again have been shunned. Left to the roads and the hungry grass.

      Ellen awaited her moment and when Louisa had removed the poultices, caught her by the wrists.

      ‘Sit for a moment, Louisa!’

      Slowly, agonisingly, Ellen fumbled for the words with which to tell Louisa. Almost as soon as she had begun, Louisa stopped her, putting a hand to Ellen’s lips.

      ‘Mother, dearest Mother, you needn’t suffer this … I already know,’ she said, causing Ellen to startle. ‘I suppose I’ve always known,’ Louisa continued. ‘You almost told me once … in word and look. That last time I played for you … the Bach … the loss of Heaven in your face …’ She paused. ‘… and then, the book.’

      ‘Oh, my dear Louisa … you never …’ Ellen began.

      ‘No, I never said anything.’ Louisa answered the unfinished question. She gave a little laugh. ‘In my silent state I didn’t have to!’

      ‘You never condemned me?’ Ellen asked.

      ‘Condemn you, Mother? You who saved me from certain death? Who loved me as her own?’ Louisa held her tightly. ‘Condemn you?’ she repeated. ‘I thank God every waking moment that He at last restored you to us.’

      The Vespers bell tolled, calling the Sisters to evening prayer. Still embracing, Ellen and Louisa fell silent, each making her own prayer … for the other.

      Ellen explained what she still must do regarding Patrick and Lavelle.

      ‘You must do as conscience directs,’ Louisa answered.

      ‘It would be my dearest wish to first remain here a while, with you and Mary,’ Ellen replied.

      The prayer bell stopped. Louisa waited a moment for Ellen to continue.

      ‘What restrains me is that by remaining, it may reveal me and so force you and Mary to finish your work here. So, I have decided to take my leave quietly and avoid that possibility.’

      ‘How will you live, what will sustain you?’ Louisa worried.

      ‘The Lord will sustain me – as He has up to now.’

      

      Next afternoon Sister Lazarus came to visit Ellen. She could not see how closely the nun studied her, as she complimented Ellen on her wellbeing. ‘Doing nicely, are we? Doing nicely! Thanks be to God and His Holy Mother.’

      The following day Sister Lazarus again visited her, this time with Louisa and Mary in tow.

      ‘Mrs Lavelle, or Mrs O’Malley or whatever it is we are calling ourselves today …’ she began. ‘You and your daughters have practised a great deceit upon the Sisterhood of this house.’

      Ellen started to speak, but to no avail.

      Sister Lazarus, once risen, was not for lying down again. ‘It came to me at prayer – the occasion when some six years past you called to the door of this holy house. I would have uncovered you sooner but for your dilapidated state. But God is just. As He has restored you, so has He revealed you,’ she said, in the manner of those to whom God regularly reveals things.

      She then gave the two younger nuns a dressing down for their concealment. They would first have to go to Reverend Mother, then prostrate themselves before the entire congregation and profess their wickedness.

      ‘You have betrayed the moral rectitude with which our work amongst the fallen is underpinned. Without moral rectitude we are nothing. Nothing but chaff in the wind.’

      Sister Lazarus then ordered the young nuns to ‘fall on your knees in the Oratory.’ She forbade them to attend upon Ellen until ‘Reverend Mother shall make known her decision.’

      

      Reverend Mother, a solemn, no-nonsense nun whose singsong Kerry accent long flattened by years in America, spelled it out clearly and succinctly.

      Firstly to Ellen.

      ‘When your eyes have been given whatever restoration God may decree, you must leave here … and may God grant you forgiveness for in what jeopardy you have placed His holy work.’

      A certain sadness creeping into her voice, Reverend Mother then addressed Mary and Louisa; ‘Sister Mary and Sister Veronica, you have broken trust with God and with your Sisterhood. That there can be no scandal attached to the work which we do here is the rock on which we are founded. Therefore, can neither of you remain here.’

      She paused, letting the import of the banishment sink in. Then raising her Reverend Mother’s voice, pronounced the full edict of what this would entail.

      ‘There is now a great calamity upon this, your adopted country – a “Civil” War, they name it. For its duration, whatever length that be, I charge you to bind up the wounds of those fallen in battle. You will carry out your duties without fear or favour to either side. You will at all times remember that those who oppose each other, irrespective of uniform, are God’s creatures and created in His eternal likeness.’

      Again she paused before making the final pronouncement.

      ‘You will be dispatched South to the battlefields and may God bestow upon you both the necessary fortitude for that work – a fortitude which, thus far, you have so inadequately failed to display.’

      Ellen was bereft. What ignominy she had now visited on Mary and Louisa. To be banished. Better they had never found her, left her there to die on the dunghill of Half Moon Place. She could not speak.

      They,