‘You don’t have a calling now, either! You’re only pretending to have one,’ Imelda observed astutely.

‘Shut up, ya little cow,’ snapped Brigid, stung that her sister wasn’t fooled by her reason for taking the veil. ‘I spoke to one of the Sisters and she told me I seemed like a bright girl who knew her own mind, and I was well educated. It’s what I want and Daddy says I can.’

‘I think you’re very mean, putting that expense on Mammy and Daddy. They’ll have to pay a dowry I bet. They won’t let you go in as lay nun like Margo O’Farrell and I’ll be left here to do everything!’ Imelda said furiously, upon hearing this unwelcome information.

‘Well that will be a first. You get away with blue murder,’ Brigid retorted. ‘And anyway, there’s nothing to stop you entering.’

‘Oh shut up,’ her sister snarled.

‘Ignorant bitch,’ Brigid glared at her.

‘And you’re the one who’s going to be a nun, with language like that! They’ll throw you out when they find out what you’re really like and you’ll have to come back with your tail between your legs,’ Imelda jeered, and it had taken all Brigid’s self-control not to slap her sister’s smug face.

One good thing about going on the Foreign Missions, if she was lucky enough to be chosen, was that she would have little to do with Imelda, who really was the most obnoxious creature on earth, Brigid comforted herself, wondering if the Little Flower had ever had to endure a sister like Imelda.

A month later a letter had come, addressed to Miss Brigid Dunne.

Written in elegant script, in a posh cream envelope, she knew straight away it must be from the French Missioners. Brigid slid out the single cream page and read it eagerly. It was an invite to visit the Reverend Mother and Mistress of Novices in the convent of the Soeurs du Secours Miséricordieux in Dublin, to be interviewed to see if she was suitable to become a postulant, and then a novice.

‘I got called for an interview,’ Brigid exclaimed breathlessly, her heart thumping. ‘I’ve to go up to Dublin to meet the Reverend Mother. I’m going to become a nun!’ She was beyond excited, and more than a little apprehensive. But utterly relieved. She would not be trapped in Ardcloch forever and a day. A new life was opening up for her. She would never look back.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN