‘I’ll be here when you want your ride back.’
Ettie felt nervous as she walked down the street. Just a short distance away was the market where she had visited so often with Sister Ukunda. A short walk on and she would arrive at the high walls of the convent. What would it be like to see the nuns again?
As if her blessing was continuing, the late May sunshine spilled down on the narrow streets, tracing a golden pathway for her to follow. There was no market held today, but the traders’ stalls were collapsed and leant against the dirty walls of the terraced houses. Stray dogs and mice scurried here and there. Street urchins in their tatty caps and torn breeches sat on the upturned sides of barrows. A rank smell of rotting vegetables rose up with the briny odours of the docks.
Making her way through the rubbish-strewn lanes and smoke-tarred terraces, Ettie came to a long road that she knew so well. At the end of it was the convent of the Sisters of Clemency and the orphanage where she had lived for the most part of her life.
And where she was returning today.
Chapter 29
The old gate was tied with a length of rope, its frayed ends tucked into a plank of wood that substituted for the broken lock. The squeak that the gate emitted was loud enough to send a wild tabby cat shooting out from the bushes.
Ettie now not only felt nervous, but apprehensive, for the long path leading up to the convent and orphanage was now completely overgrown with weeds and briars. She lifted her skirt to avoid them catching on her hem and studied the way forward as best she could. One trip and she’d end up in the undergrowth or a prickly bush.
Breath held, she advanced slowly, noting that it was impossible to see very far ahead or either side of her. The tall, slender trees that had once provided an elegant entry to the grounds were now a dense wilderness. Mother Superior had always insisted that the gardener’s priority was the entrance to the convent. For it was here that the bishop arrived, driven on the sandy path in his elegant coach right up to the doorstep, where a carpet or rug was placed down for him to walk on.
But this might be another world altogether, Ettie thought, as she negotiated the clumps of dandelions and tall grasses that had invaded the driveway.
When at last the convent came into view, she stopped abruptly, her eyes opened wide at the unrecognizable scene. For the beautiful pale brick building and belfry had changed beyond recognition. Every window had been boarded or was partially covered, though not in a very secure way. Some of the glass was exposed, with needlelike fragments that revealed a bare interior.
The belfry itself had collapsed, and lay at a twisted angle above the broken slates, as if any moment it might fall in on itself. The roof was a puzzle of exposed timbers, that had attracted a community of pigeons.
Taking a hesitant step towards the entrance that was now entirely covered in ivy, the smell of dampness and decay emitted from a broken window. Carefully she picked her way towards it, recoiling at the obnoxious rotting smell.
Keeping her distance, she tried to peer inside. Where was the heavy, ornate door that led to the chapel? Her eyes adjusted slowly and to her horror she saw there was nothing there. The chapel or what was once the chapel was now just a space in which vegetation grew over what remained of the altar. Stepping a little closer, Ettie stared at the ravaged interior. The rows of pews had vanished, the beautiful glass windows and holy pictures were now just crumbling walls. A stranger would never know that this was once a place of worship.
With her heart drumming under her ribs, she retraced her steps over the weeds and took a side path to the schoolroom and dormitory at the rear. But as she came upon the place that she knew so well, tears filled her eyes.
Burned timbers pointed upwards where once the desks had stood in their neat rows. Blackened rafters lay crisscrossed on the earth between piles of ashes. Over all the chaos had crept a bright green lattice of ivy, clinging to even the smallest fragments of debris.
‘How could this have happened?’ Ettie questioned as she carefully negotiated the derelict site, her eyes scouring the charred remains of what had once been her beloved classroom. Had she not known that it had been a schoolroom once, where children had occupied the wooden desks and learned their lessons from the books the nuns so lovingly preserved, then she would not have recognized it at all.
With a sense of foreboding she picked her way over the thistles and briars towards the dormitories. Even before she reached the annexe that housed the boys’ and girls’ sleeping quarters, she guessed that she would find very little of the home she remembered.
But to discover the skeletons of a dozen broken and rusted metal bedsteads piled one upon the other in an overgrown thicket was almost more than she could bear. There was nothing that remained of the dormitories but a scrapheap reclaimed by nature. Ettie could no longer hold back the tears. Her heart felt again as though it was breaking. Where was the home she so loved and fondly remembered?
It was some while before she thought of the laundry. Drying her tears on her handkerchief she made her way slowly down the incline to the outhouse where she had worked summer and winter alike with Sister Ukunda and Sister Patrick. Afraid to discover another ruin, she could barely bring herself to look for the ancient building that had accommodated the nuns’ ancient wash house.
So, it was with some surprise that she discovered a clearing where the laundry still stood. It was a little more ramshackle than it had been almost two years previously,
