Page 151 of The Missing Sister
‘I’ve no idea,’ James sighed helplessly. ‘I’ll need to send word to Father Norton in Bandon and see what he would suggest.’
‘I’m not meaning what will happen to her eventually, I’m talking about now!’ Ambrose raised his voice. ‘Ah, baby, how can a tiny mite make such a loud noise!’
Just as both men were on the verge of panic, there was a knock at the study door.
‘Who on earth is that at this time of the morning?’ Ambrose demanded.
‘It must be Maggie, my domestic help on Mrs Cavanagh’s day off. Come in!’ called James.
A pair of large, emerald-coloured eyes, set in pale Irish skin dotted with freckles, appeared around the door. She had glorious red hair that tumbled across her shoulder in ringlets, held back by a headscarf.
‘Hello, Father...’
‘Come in, Maggie, come in,’ said James. ‘As you can see, we have a guest. She was left in a basket on the doorstep some time in the night.’
‘Oh no!’ Maggie’s eyes opened even wider in shock and surprise.
‘Did you... do you know any young women locally who may have, um, well...’
‘Got themselves into trouble?’ she finished his sentence.
‘Yes.’
Maggie frowned as she thought about it, and for the first time, James saw the beginnings of lines etched on her young face – brought there by the sheer physical hardship of the life she lived. He knew she had four small ones at home and was pregnant again. He noted also that the skin around her eyes was reddened, as if she had been crying recently, and there were dark patches of exhaustion underneath them.
‘No, Father, I can’t think of anyone.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ she said, looking him straight in the eye. ‘That young ’un needs feeding,’ she commented on the obvious. ‘And that cord needs seeing to.’
‘Do you know of anyone who is nursing presently around these parts? And would be prepared to take on another just until we find a place for her to go? That is, if we can’t find her mammy.’
There was a pause as Maggie stared at James. ‘I...’
‘Yes, Maggie?’
‘Oh Father...’
James watched as Maggie put her face in her hands. ‘My babe passed into God’s hands only yesterday, so...’
‘Maggie, I’m so very sorry. I’d have come up to give last rites. Why didn’t you tell me?’
When Maggie looked up again, James could see the fear in her eyes.
‘Please, Father, I should ha’ told you, but me and John, we couldn’t afford a proper burial. She came a month early, see, and she... she breathed her last inside me, so...’ She took a deep, gasping breath. ‘We... put her in with her brother who died in the same way, under the oak tree in our field yesterday. Forgive me, Father, but—’
‘Please.’ James’s ears were beginning to ring from the racket the baby was making, and the horror of what Maggie had just told him. ‘There is no need to ask my forgiveness or God’s. I will come to the farm and say a Mass for your baby’s soul.’
‘You would?’
‘I would.’
‘Oh Father, I don’t know how to thank you. Father O’Malley would have said the babe’s soul was damned to hell for not being buried in hallowed ground.’
‘And I will tell you, as His messenger on earth, the baby’s soul most assuredly is not. So now, Maggie, are you telling us that you have... milk?’
‘Yes, Father, it comes as if she’s here and waiting for it.’
