Читать книгу The Brightest Day, The Darkest Night - Brendan Graham - Страница 10

It was some hours before Louisa returned.

Ellen, startled by the commotion, awoke and feverishly embraced her. ‘Oh, my child! My dear child!’ Then she clutched the two of them to her so desperately, as though fearing imminent separation from them again.

Along with the clothing, Louisa had brought some bread and some milk. This they fed to her with their fingers, in small soggy lumps as one would an infant.

Ellen alternated between a near ecstatic state and tears, between sense and insensibility, regularly clasping them to herself.

When they had fed their mother, Mary and Louisa prepared to go, bestowing God’s blessing on Biddy for her kindness.

‘I don’t need no nun’s blessing,’ was Biddy’s response. ‘D’you think He ever looks down on me … down here in this hellhole? But the Devil takes care of his own,’ she threw after them, to send them on their way.

Out in the alleyway, they took Ellen, one on each side, arms encircling her. As they passed the old blind woman on the stoop, she called out to them. ‘Is that you, Ellie? And who’s that with you? Did the angels come at last … to stop that blasted singing?’

Ellen made them halt.

‘They did Blind Mary, they did – the angels came,’ she answered lucidly.

‘Bring them here to me till I see ’em!’ the woman ordered, with a cackle of a laugh.

They approached her.

‘Bend down close to me!’ the woman said in the same tone.

Mary first, leaned towards her and the woman felt for her face, her nose, the line of Mary’s lips.

‘She’s the spit of you, Ellie. And the hair …?’

‘What’s this? What’s this?’ the blind woman said, all agitated now as her fingers travelled higher, feeling the protective headdress on Mary’s face.

‘A nun?’ the woman exclaimed.

‘Yes!’ Mary replied. ‘I am Sister Mary.’

‘And the other one? Are you a nun too? Come here to me!’

Louisa approached her. ‘I am called Sister Veronica.’

Again the hands travelled over Louisa’s face, the crinkled fingers transmitting its contents to behind the blindness.

Louisa saw the old woman’s face furrow, felt the fingers retrace, as if the message had been broken.

‘Faith, if she’s one of yours, Ellie, then the Pope’s a nigger,’ Blind Mary declared with her wicked laugh.

Louisa flinched momentarily.

The old woman carried on talking, her head nodding vigorously all the while, but with no particular emphasis. ‘I’m supposin’ too, Ellie – that you never was a widow-woman neither?’

‘No, I wasn’t – and I’m sorry …’ Ellen began.

The woman interrupted her, excitedly shaking her stick. ‘I knew it! I knew it! Too good to be true! Too good to be true! That’s what my Dan said afore he left to jine the cavalry … for the war,’ she explained, still nodding, as if in disagreement with herself … or her Dan. ‘ What was you hiding from, down here, Ellie?’ she then asked.

This time however, Ellen made no answer.

It was a question that resounded time and again in Mary and Louisa’s minds, as they struggled homewards. Out under the arch they went, drawing away from Half Moon Place, the old woman’s cries, like the stench, following them.

‘The Irish is a perishing class that’s what!’ Blind Mary shouted after them. ‘A perishing class … and my poor Dan gone to fight for Lincoln and his niggerology. This war’ll be the death of us all.’