Tears slid silently down her cheek and Mother Agnes handed her a fresh handkerchief and said kindly, ‘The first time leaving the country is always the worst.’ In the seat across the aisle from them, Orla was weeping into her cupped palms. The jet propellers began to whirr faster, the engines roaring into life, and then they were racing down the runway and, suddenly, with a heart-jolting lurch, the plane was hauling itself off the ground. Below them, Dublin shrank until it was lost amid a patchwork of green and brown fields. Brigid got such a fright she’d nearly pulled the curtains closed, but she slid her hand into her habit pocket and felt the St Christopher medal her father had given her and her fingers curled around it as they flew across the sea towards France.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

1960

Brigid lay prostrate on the cold tiles at the foot of the altar as the sound of her congregation singing the Magnificat soared through the convent chapel. For he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden . . . She was indeed a lowly handmaiden, but at least, she was no longer in a state of mortal sin.

Six months before taking her final vows, Brigid had taken a late lunch during her shift in Hôpital des Enfants malades and gone to confession in Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-la-Médaille-Miraculeuse. The Mistress of Novices would have frowned on her independent behaviour but Brigid had decided, the first day she’d joined the nuns, that she would not be confessing the sin of impurity to any of the priests who ministered at the convent; the thought of having to look her confessor in the eye when discussing her vocation and enduring the mortification of his knowing glances on a daily basis would be intolerable.

Thankfully, only a handful of penitents were waiting to confess that day. Brigid knelt with her head in her hands, praying earnestly to be given the grace to make a good confession. She was sick with nerves. Receiving the Body of Christ while in a state of mortal sin, as she had for the past few years might be grounds for excommunication. What would she do if that happened? Her mouth was dry and her voice trembled when she began her ‘Bless me, Father . . .’

‘Daughter, God is merciful, there is no need to be nervous,’ a kind voice came from behind the grille.

Brigid burst into tears, thrown by this unexpected response. ‘Father, I received Communion many times knowing that I was in a state of mortal sin. A boy once . . . he . . . I . . . Well, I said no, but he didn’t listen . . . and there was sex, Father, even though I did try to push him away. I didn’t deliberately lead him into temptation and be an occasion of sin for him,’ she gabbled, the words coming out of her in a torrent of French and English.