Chapter Fifty-Seven

At last the great day arrived for Aggie to enter the convent and to give her life entirely to the God she had always loved. She dressed quietly and without fuss, putting all that she would require into a small suitcase and looked around the room. The walls echoed her sentiments as she reflected on life as it had been with her family in this lovely new home that Tom had provided for them, but her thoughts returned to the memory of yesteryear and to the times when they were all very poor. to the times when she had to share a bed with her mother in the house that was too small for them all to have a bed of their own, let alone a room of their own. To the endless washing and ironing and days at the factory, but most of all to the heartache she suffered in her yearning to become a nun and the seemingly impossible task of being able to leave her family as she had been the breadwinner for so many of those years. These thoughts all flashed through her mind. Tom had been instrumental in helping her to realise her ambition and now, it seemed that everyone was happy for her. She lifted her suitcase and left the room slowly. She would never walk those floorboards again and the crucifix on the wall above her bed, bid her adieu. It was only as she passed Charlie’s room that she stopped and her fainthearted fingers lingered on the door handle, but she did not go in. Much of Charlie’s things were left just as they were when he was with them and her mind wanted to hold the memory of things as they were then. She choked back a tear as she released her grasp on the door handle and touched the wood panel with her forehead.

“Pray for me Charlie pray for me, Darlin’” she whispered and went downstairs.

Mary was sitting in the lounge, waiting nervously to see her daughter for the last time; her heart pounding with excitement and fear. This was the day she had dreaded and yet she held her daughter’s vocation with such pride. She came shyly forward and embraced Aggie. Both were nervous as they tried to talk through their obvious fear of unknowing and of the unknown.

Willie came into the lounge and glanced first at his sister and then at the suitcase. He had his lunch box under his arm, ready to leave to go to the building Site. She looked at him with great affection and saw again, the young boy she had known so well, now developed practically overnight into a strikingly handsome young man and she blushed at the sight of him.

“Will we ...Will we be able to come to see you Aggie,” he stammered and there was a lump in his throat.

“Of course you will...”she said, but could say no more. Her feelings were deep and loving for the family she was leaving and although she had envisaged this moment time and time again, it was all so different now. The practice run had been so calculated; so barren; all so neatly cut and everything in place ... except the heart ... She wanted this moment to pass as quickly as possible as her younger brother shifted uneasily from foot to foot in his dust-covered working boots, looking at his sister again and with impulse, threw himself into her arms.

“Oh! Aggie, Aggie ...I’m going to miss you terribly,” he sobbed and wiped his tears with the back of his hand. Like her, in his times in the past when he knew this moment would have to come, everything was so different now when that moment had actually arrived. There were so many things he wanted to say to her but each word hurt as he tried to speak it. He wanted to tell her how lovely she looked and how proud he was of her. He wanted to tell her of the many lovely thoughts that were playing havoc in his mind.

He could hear himself speak strange, mysterious words and he wished he could have swallowed them.

“Charlie and I will miss you,” he had said. How could she have known that Charlie was inside him at that moment, screaming to get out; to add his love to that of the family? How could he tell her that? He held her at arms length, knowing he was about to break down and cry if he waited a moment longer and with one last, passionate embrace, he tore himself away from her and left the house, but as he walked along the street, towards the building Site, his tears fell warmly down his flushed cheeks. His eyes smarted and he licked the salted tears with his tongue,

“Oh! God How much more can I take?” he muttered, “How much more?”

***

Aggie got into the car with Mary and Tom and they drove to the convent in silence, arriving at the appointed time and a young nun ushered them into a sparsely furnished, but immaculately clean parlour. It was a small room with one large casement window at the side, where the sun shone down on the highly polished table and threw shadows over the walls as the trees blew their leaves about in the light and carefree wind outside and where a large crucifix with the figure of the dying Christ, gazed down soulfully, pleading as it were for the new arrival to stay with Him and be with Him for all eternity. The young Sister bowed her way from the room and left the trio with the agony of their thoughts. In front of them they became aware of a large, curtained area on the opposite side to the window. It too, was a window of a sort, but there was no glass instead they saw a grille of iron, with rough looking spikes, staring at them and daring anyone to pass beyond, into the inner sanctuary, where no man dare tread and where Christ alone ruled supreme amongst so many gallant and heroic women.

Suddenly in the silence that encompassed them, they could hear the noise of a door opening and closing behind the grilled curtain, before the thick dark veil was opened slowly. Even the silent swish of its movement was deafening in the eerie tomb-like silence of that small room and in front of them, on the other side of the grille, crouched down on the floor, sitting obviously cross legged, although it was impossible to see because of her long, brown habit, sat the Reverend Mother Gabriel. She lifted the veil from her face and let it fall loosely over her head and down over her shoulders. Her face was thin and pale, but remarkably smooth and without a wrinkle and her eyes were bright and sparkled with warmth as she smiled her greeting to her guests.

“Welcome to Carmel, my Dears. It is lovely to see you and I hope you are all well.”

She put her fingers to the grille inviting the family to touch them and Aggie’s heart best faster as she reached out to touch her thin fingers, where she could see a silver ring on the fourth finger of the nun’s right hand. Mother Gabriel spoke for a short time exclusively to Tom and Mary, but she smiled at regular intervals to Aggie to show that she did not preclude her from the company, but that her time would come. She spoke of the rigours and the joys that were experienced in that life that the nuns led in the convent and gradually, with a little joke thrown in her and there, Mary was quite surprised to realise how ‘human’ this holy nun appeared to be. She made funny remarks about some of the silly things that the nuns did and elaborated on the very human side of the contemplative life where they were totally enclosed and led a life under the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

A bell sounded briskly in the distance and the Reverend Mother rose from her squatting position and bowed to her audience.

“Now it is the time for us to receive you, my daughter,” she said

as she turned to address Aggie and pointed to a narrow door at the side of the grille. “Good-bye my Dears. Don’t worry about your daughter. She has chosen the better path of life and God will take great care of her.”

Aggie kissed her mother and Tom before she entered through the narrow little doorway and the doors closed behind her. Mary could feel a surge of cold air running through her veins which chilled her whole body as Aggie disappeared from her sight. The scene reminded her of the crematorium where her first husband had disappeared in his coffin into the unknown. Tom took her hand. He was warming to the touch and they left the room together but Mary cried all the way home in the car. Tom drove in silence, looking ahead with pride and sadness in his heart over the scene he had just witnessed and Mary reflected on the sign that she had seen written above the grille

‘Carmel is a garden, where grows the blossoms that adorn the table of God.’

She sighed wearily and dried her eyes.

“Good-bye, my little flower...” she said softly, “If you serve God as well as you have served me, you will be the most beautifully perfumed bloom on His table.”