‘She called you a child of sin. She didn’t want you and me living here. She was the only one of the congregation to raise an objection when I came back to Ireland, pregnant, and Brigid asked if I could stay in the Four Winds until you were born. She was here the day Brigid asked the staff if it would be OK by them. When she was overruled up in Dublin, Emmanuelle took her complaint to the bishop. He told her she should be more Christian like her Sisters. She never came back to the Four Winds until you and I had moved to Dublin,’ Keelin said flatly.

‘Oh!’ Marie-Claire murmured. What a horrible woman this nun seemed to be. ‘A cranky old boot indeed, Una.’ She tried to lighten the mood, although she was gutted for her mother.

‘Oh she was something else, that wan. But RM let her have it that day. I never saw anyone skedaddle out of here as quick as she did. Of course, she was always jealous of RM, especially when she got promoted. Emmanuelle never made it to the top like Brigid – and why would she? She hadn’t a Christian bone in her body and she was as thick as a plank. A plank with notions, I might add,’ Una scowled, pouring out the tea for them.

‘Stop it, Una,’ Keelin murmured. ‘Don’t say things like that.’

‘Indeed and I will, and I’ll be giving her the lumpiest bed in the house, too. I have me ways and means,’ the housekeeper said crossly.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Why did she have aching shoulders, Imelda wondered drowsily, stretching luxuriously in the warmth of her double bed. She yawned and turned sideways to glance at her alarm clock and got a start when she saw it was almost midday, and sunlight was peeping through the top of the curtains. What on earth was she doing sleeping in until this hour on a Saturday morning?

And then she remembered. She should have been waking up in that nice little hotel in Butlersbridge, having celebrated Brigid’s eightieth and retirement party. Her heart sank.

No wonder her shoulders ached, she thought wearily. Driving through the torrential rain and gusting winds on those winding country roads until she got to the motorway had been nerve-racking. At times the rain had been so heavy the wipers couldn’t cope and she felt she’d been driving through a waterfall, unable to see where she was going.

Imelda got out of bed and threw open the curtains. It was a sparkling, clear-skied, sunny day, all traces of yesterday’s stormy weather erased. The blackbirds were feasting on the apples she’d left out for them; the robin was perched on the birdbath surveying his territory.