‘Hello? Who’s there?’ she called.
The sound of shuffling footsteps and the door creaking wide caused Ettie to hold her breath.
An old man stood there; silver-haired, bent and bearded, but with a stumble he came forward and squinted into her face.
A shaky smile went over Arthur the gardener’s lips as he said in a gruff whisper, ‘Well bless my cotton socks, if it ain’t the O’Reilly girl! She said you’d be back one day, and she was right.’
Chapter 30
Ettie looked fondly around the laundry’s interior, which had never been in the best of order but had always felt homely as if the many years of washing and scrubbing had become part of its character. The ancient washtub and dolly – now unused – lay on its side, fallen from the bricks it was once steadied on. The glass windows that had run with steam were now crudely half-boarded to preserve the glass and the ceiling rack on which the nuns’ wimples had dried, was missing. But Arthur had made a home for himself here, she could plainly see. There was a chair that was holed and missing its stuffing, a few pots and pans piled on the wormy dresser and a stove of sorts that somehow heated his food.
‘The fire from hell broke out not long after the nuns left,’ Arthur told her as they sat together by an old table. ‘As if the devil had been waiting to make his mark.’
Ettie felt the hairs on her neck stand up as he described the event that had ended the convent’s days. The gardener’s lined face was barely visible under his silver cap of hair that straggled over his ears to join his unkempt beard.
‘Sister Ukunda took ill, see,’ he continued as he gestured with his arthritic hands. ‘She lay on her bed and never got up again. They found her one morning, cold as ice. We buried her ourselves, the two nuns and me, down the hill by the convent wall, just as she said she wanted.’
Ettie’s eyes were moist with tears. ‘What happened then?’
‘The bishop sent ‘em packing, the poor cows.’
Ettie wiped her eyes again. ‘If only I’d come before.’
‘Wouldn’t have made no difference. The land was sold from under the nuns’ feet. Just as if it wasn’t a sacred, holy place that had stood for years doing good and giving kids a start in life. But the new owners got their comeuppance and went to the wall. Some say they was cursed for what they did. Some say the bishop was cursed an’ all. ‘Cos he died an ‘orrible death in the fire.’
‘The bishop died in the fire?’ Ettie gasped.
‘No one knows why he come back here that day. But rumour has it that the greedy old fox came sniffin’ around to see if there was anything left valuable like. When they found him after the fire, there wasn’t much left, just his shoes. Always wore the best polished leather. Don’t matter about the starving kids on street corners with nothing but bare skin on their feet. Oh, no, don’t matter about them!’
Ettie shuddered. It was hard to believe the bishop had died in such a gruesome way. Had he really been cursed?
‘I lost me old nag this year,’ Arthur continued. ‘So I retired and made meself at home here. Rozzers don’t mind. I keep an eye on the place for ‘em.’
‘What will happen to the land now?’ Ettie asked.
‘Who knows?’ Arthur shrugged. ‘They say it’s been nabbed from Rome’s coffers by the revenue men.’ He poured her tea from an ancient tin pot and handed her the chipped mug. ‘No milk, but it’s hot.’ He leaned back in his chair and pleating his silver eyebrows, he told her again, ‘She knew you’d come back.’
‘Sister Patrick?’
‘Said you was like her own kin.’
Ettie felt weak with a deep sense of loss. ‘Did she leave a message for me?’
Arthur nodded vigorously. ’Said you was to go to the chapel and there you’d find her letter on the pew.’
‘But that was before the fire?’
‘I wish I could tell you otherwise.’
Ettie bit her lip hard so that she wouldn’t cry. When she thought of that precious letter going up in flames, it was almost a physical pain.
‘I miss her,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘I miss them all. The sisters and the children and the convent.’
‘Was a terrible deed that bishop did to the nuns, not to mention them poor kids. If you want my honest opinion, I reckon it wasn’t just the earthly flames that got him, but another kind, that don’t ever burn out.’
Once again Ettie shivered at the bitterness in the old man’s voice. What good would bitterness or anger do now? The Sisters of Clemency had given service to God for many years before the new bishop arrived and made his fatal directive. Whatever God’s intentions were for the nuns, they had avoided the dreadful fire that had claimed their beloved convent.
‘There was an orphan boy called Michael Wilson,’ she said suddenly. ‘Do you remember him?’
‘The one who’d been in trouble with the law?’
Ettie nodded. ‘Has he ever come back?’
‘Not that I know of. But doubt I’d recognize him. The old mince pies are not what they were. I’ll have to get meself one of them spyglasses.’
This made her smile as it brought back her childhood and the happy days she had spent in the care of the nuns. ‘Sister Patrick wore little round spectacles on the tip of her nose that misted up as she worked over the washtub.’
Arthur sat forward and narrowed his gaze. ‘If my memory serves me right – which it don’t much these days – you was always around them nuns, trailing after ‘em and working like stink in this very laundry. I
