Christmas Child: an absolutely heartbreaking and emotional Victorian romance by Carol Rivers (classic english novels txt) 📕

‘I owe my life to Sister Patrick,’ Ettie insisted. ‘She found me in my dying mother’s arms just outside this laundry on Christmas Day. Her name was Colleen O’Reilly and she was born in Dublin, a place named Henrietta Street, after which I’m named.’

‘ ‘Enrietta, Street, eh? You ever been there?’

‘No, but one day perhaps.’

The old man rose to his feet with a rheumatic groan. ‘Got something for you, gel.’

Ettie watched him hobble to the washtub. He beckoned her over. ‘Can’t get down on my knees these days. Reach inside and you’ll find something there.’

Ettie knelt and put her hand in the dark space filled with cobwebs.

‘Right at the back it’s hidden.’

At last she felt a package and drew it out. Brushing off the dirt and dust she handed it to Arthur.

‘It’s yours,’ he told her.

Ettie slowly unwrapped the faded newspaper covering. Piece by thin piece the layers dropped away until she held in her hand a shining silver crucifix.

‘Belonged to that bloody so-called bishop,’ Arthur wheezed. ‘Found it ‘afore the coppers came, buried in all the – well, what remained of the blighter. Reckon it’s got to do someone some good. Might as well be you.’

Ettie had forgotten that her purpose in coming here today was to ask the nuns for a crucifix. It was as if Heaven itself was answering her prayer.

‘I’ll give it to someone who needs it,’ Ettie said as she thought of Clara and the baby and the space on the nursery wall.

‘You do that. Hope it brings better luck to them.’

Ettie tucked it in her purse. ‘Arthur, would you take me to the place where you buried Sister Ukunda?’

‘Give me a minute to put on my coat and boots.’

When Arthur was dressed in his long overcoat and hobnail boots, he led the way from the laundry and down the incline to the bottom of the slope. There in the shade of the trees was a small hump of grass, bearing a hand-hewn wooden cross.

‘I carved it meself. Don’t read or write see. By the time I got ‘round to puttin’ it in the ground, the nuns had gone orf. But she knows it’s for her as I keep the grass short. Nice little spot, like she wanted.’

‘Thank you, Arthur.’

He gave a throaty cough and Ettie listened to him walk away, his heavy, laboured footsteps the only sound to join the song of the birds.

Ettie closed her eyes tight as she stood there and thought of her life with the Sisters of Clemency and the children of the orphanage. The tears that squeezed through her eyelids were ones of gratitude and love for the nuns who had taught her to put her trust in the Lord and to believe that there was always hope, no matter how hard the obstacles in life were. And though her faith had been tested, it was only dented a little.

Just a little.

‘Rest in peace, dear Sister Ukunda,’ she whispered. ‘I miss you. I miss you all. Amen.’

It was growing dark as Ettie made her way to the tavern and found the driver sitting outside the stables with a group of carmen and their horses.

‘Did you find what you was looking for?’ he asked when he saw her.

‘Yes, but the convent and orphanage burned down.’

‘Waste of your money coming all this way, then,’ he observed but Ettie thought differently. For the crucifix was tucked in her purse and she believed, had come to her by miraculous means. The fact that it had previously belonged to the bishop was a little disconcerting. But, she intended to hang it on the wall in the nursery, where it would do far more good than it had ever done in his possession.

Her driver stood up and bid farewell to his acquaintances, then led Ettie round to the stables. The little pony was munching on the last of its chaff and gave a snort of recognition when he saw them.

Ettie climbed up into the trap and settled herself for the long journey back to Soho. By the time they reached the Commercial Road and then Aldgate, the sky had become stormy with clouds hanging in swollen grey pouches. The Tower looked even more menacing. The River Thames had turned to gunmetal, whipped into white crests as the tide bore in from the estuary.

But Ettie’s thoughts were no longer on the scenery. They were with Sister Patrick and Mother Superior who were now far away in another land. She saw in her mind’s eye the charred embers and rusting bed frames that were the only remains of the convent and orphanage; a place where homeless children had found sanctuary, just as her mother had on that Christmas Day in 1880. It had been a refuge full of love and hope even though the life there was hard. The orphans had known that the nuns cared for them in a very special way. Ettie considered herself the most fortunate of all in having the affection of Sister Patrick. What had been written in her letter? Ettie wondered. What personal sentiments had it expressed?

She would never know. But Sister Patrick had considered it important enough to leave word for her and that in itself was enough to comfort Ettie.

As the cab turned into the city and followed along the shadowy banks of the river, her thoughts travelled to a small green mound at the bottom of the hill where Sister Ukunda was buried. It was as if, no matter what happened in the years to come, there would always be a guardian angel to watch over the holy space that the convent and orphanage had once occupied.

Chapter 31

A letter of a far different kind arrived later that month. Though the handwriting was Lucas’s and there was no mistake it was from abroad, Ettie felt there was something disquieting about its presence on the mat.

She held it in her hands for a few moments, before