Читать книгу The Brightest Day, The Darkest Night - Brendan Graham - Страница 13

‘Sit still, Mother!’ Mary chided, as she unfettered Ellen’s eyes.

‘Mary … I have something …’ Ellen began, wanting at last to tell her.

Mary, remembering the tone her mother adopted when she had something to say to them, knew it was pointless resisting. She put the used poultices on the small table, fixed her attention on Ellen’s closed eyelids … and waited.

‘I … I have … something to confess to you … a grave wrong,’ Ellen began, falteringly.

‘Have you confessed it to God?’ Mary asked, simply.

‘Yes, Mary … many times … but, in His wisdom, He has directed that you and Louisa should find me – so that I should also confess it to you.’

Mary took her mother’s hands, bringing Ellen close to her. ‘If God has forgiven you, Mother, then who am I not to?’

‘I still must tell you, Mary,’ Ellen said, more steadily.

Faces now inclined towards each other, mother and child, priest and penitent, Ellen began. ‘I committed … the sin of Mary Magdalen … with … Stephen Joyce,’ she said quietly, her long hair forward about her face, shrouding their hands.

Mary uttered no word. Remained waiting, still holding her mother’s hands. Ellen, before she continued, opened her eyes and peered into Mary’s. Into her own eyes, it seemed.

‘I betrayed you all: Lavelle, a good man and a good husband; you, my dear child; Patrick … Louisa.’ Then, remembering Mary’s father, Michael: ‘Even those who have gone before!’

Ellen knew how the words now struggling out of her mouth would be at odds with everything for which Mary had held her always in such loving regard. She trembled, awaiting her child’s response.

‘Mother, you must keep your eyes closed … until it is time,’ Mary said, without pause, putting a finger to her mother’s eyes, blessing her darkness, protecting her from the world.

Mary then fell to anointing the fresh coverlets for Ellen’s eyes. She said nothing more while completing the dressing. Then, Mary left the room.

When she returned she pressed a set of rosary beads into Ellen’s hands.

‘One of the Sisters sculpted these from an old white oak,’ Mary explained. ‘Louisa and I were saving them for you until the bandages came off … but …’ She didn’t finish the sentence, starting instead a new one … ‘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.