‘Arthur is just our gardener, child. He’s not a farmer, just as we are not builders.’
But Ettie would not give up. ‘We could learn to be,’ she insisted.
Sister Patrick shook her head sadly. ‘Shh, darlin’ girl. Rome’s decision is final.’
Ettie hung her head. It was hard to keep her tongue silent.
‘Life changes,’ Sister Patrick tried to soothe. ‘We must accept God’s will.’
‘But Sister Patrick,’ Ettie burst out, ‘I can't live without you.’
The nun looked lovingly into her eyes. ‘My child, you have all your life to live without me.’
Suddenly Ettie realized that something or someone far greater than either herself or Sister Patrick was now governing their lives. It was a frightening discovery. Ettie's heart, which usually overflowed with love and gratitude, felt heavy and lost. At last the dam broke. Her sobs echoed in the big room like loud claps of thunder.
‘Hush, my dear one,’ comforted a loving voice. A voice that she had trusted all her life. A voice as close to a mother’s voice as she had ever heard. ‘We have spent many happy years together. God only loaned you to me. Now I must give you back.’
Ettie heard someone wailing. The cries were lifting right up to the rafters. They bounced on the sharp glass of the broken windows and against the faded holy pictures on the walls.
These noises couldn't be from her, of course they couldn’t! But they weren't from Sister Patrick who was trying to console Ettie.
‘I'll never leave you,’ Ettie heard herself insist. ‘Never!’
‘Wherever you go,’ Sister Patrick murmured calmly, ‘I'll always be in your heart.’
Ettie felt the pain so violently, it felt like an earthquake inside her. Yet nothing could alter the look of defeat on Sister Patrick’s face.
Whether or not the nuns approved of Rome’s directive, it had to be obeyed. But it was such a dreadful, unkind and heartless directive! It tore people apart and caused such loss, that Ettie, for the first time, questioned the faith on which she had built her life.
Chapter 3
The convent’s schoolroom was very old, with brown-painted walls and ink stains smudging the desks and floor. A grey and depressing light seeped in from the broken windows. In the very same manner as Ettie had held tightly to Sister Patrick, the little girls held fast to Ettie.
‘We don’t want to go,’ they wailed, cuffing the snot from their noses.
Ettie had just delivered the news. She wanted to tell the children herself. They had to prepare themselves.
‘I want to stay here with you,’ Kathy insisted.
Ettie lifted the little girl's chin. ‘Say your prayers. Jesus will look after you.’
‘We’re being got rid of!’ accused Johnny Dean, scratching nervously at one of his disfigured ears.
‘The nuns don’t give a farthing about us,’ agreed Michael Wilson, who looked very angry as he clenched his fists. Ettie always smiled when he bragged that he was older and wiser than her. Though tall and skinny as a rake, he was very strong. ‘We’ll be turfed out on the street,’ he declared. ‘Or sent to the workhouse.’
Ettie looked into his rebellious grey eyes. ‘Where is your faith, Michael?’
‘The only faith I’ve got,’ he shouted dramatically, ‘is in myself!’ His face darkened as he poked a finger at her. ‘Can the nuns stop the rozzers from nabbing me the moment I step out of this place?’
Ettie felt her tummy turn over. He could be right; for it was only the nuns’ intervention with the law that had prevented Michael’s arrest.
‘God will provide,’ she promised. ‘He'll answer your prayers.’
‘He’s never answered them before,’ he retorted. ‘Why should he answer them now?’
Ettie wanted to remind him that it was only because of the nuns’ request to the police that he wasn’t now incarcerated in the boys’ reformatory. But she knew this would upset him even more.
From the smaller children there were sobs and gulps as they listened to this harsh exchange. How could she reassure them?
‘Let’s say our prayers,’ she said and obediently they kneeled on the floor. All, except Michael.
‘May God surround us with His light,’ she prayed fervently. ‘May He enfold us with His love. May He protect us and guide us, so that forever we will remain safe in the palm of His hand.’
‘I’m clearing out,’ interrupted Michael, kicking his boot against a desk. ‘While I’ve got the chance.’ He grabbed his grubby cloth cap from the chair. ‘Good luck to all of you. You’ll need it.’
The younger ones began to cry and Ettie went to comfort them.
‘Michael, don’t go,’ she pleaded.
‘Why should I stay?’ demanded the angry boy, his cheeks burning as he stood at the door.
‘I don't know exactly, but please think again.’
He pulled on his cap over his unruly dark hair. ‘I'm off while no one's looking.’
The door banged behind him and the orphans wept even more.
Ettie followed Michael into the cold passage. ‘Michael, you can't leave,’ she called after him.
‘Who says I can’t?’
‘But where will you go?’
He gave a careless shrug. ‘I'll manage.’
‘But how?’
‘Listen Ettie, you don't understand the world. You've lived in the convent too long. You don't know what life’s like on the outside.’
Ettie agreed she had led a sheltered life, but how bad could the world be? Hadn't Michael learned to trust the nuns even a little? Tears bulged in the corners of her eyes.
‘Crikey, Ettie don't cry.’ Michael looked confused. He put his arm around her.
‘You're making me sad.’
‘I don't mean to,’ he said, squeezing her shoulder. ‘You and the other kids, well, I like you all.’ He added in a gruff tone, ‘You, mostly.’
Ettie stared up at him. Suddenly he seemed much taller and older than she was, though only one and a half years separated them.
‘I’ve never said that to a girl before.’
‘Really?’ Ettie sniffed.
‘It means something special when you tell a girl you
