A Complete Story

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 22, 17 June 1925, Page 11

A Complete Story

There had been a good deal of discussion in the committee-room before the Sisters of Charity were allowed to visit members of their Church who were patients at the Alexandra Hospital, but eventually the sensible and broad-minded members had their way and the black veils and habits of Sister Joseph and Sister Anne became familiar to the patients in which ever wards a Catholic happened to be,. I As a rule, a list of those they might visit was given to the Sisters at the office, but it was little Mary Rooney, the wardmaid, who whispered to Sister Anne one day as she passed by, that the child in the bed next to the patient they were about to visit was the bearer of a name as Irish and as Catholic as her own. ! So, whilst Sister Joseph spoke with their own sick woman, Sister Anne smiled across at her small' neighbor and asked her how she was. . . • .. . I "I don't want ye," cried the child, as though terrified. "I can say me own prayers." ; V' i The Sisters did not need to be told any more. It was self-evident what Bridey Brady's past had probably the child of a mother whom poverty, or drink, or sin haul made willing to part with her baby body and soulfor the sake of what she could get for —one of the countless souls who are bartered away by poor and bad and drunken and dissipated mothers for a share of the £40,000,. which the Irish Church Missions count as their approximate annual income. A child brought up to revile and fear the Church which Christ has endowed with Truth for ever, though that Truth had been her birthright. And the next time the Sisters came a little wicked face 5 gleamed maliciously behind the curtains of the bed, and a shrill litlle voice, only modulated, for fear that someone in authority would interfere, mocked them. ?t>uM; llt was not:in the beautiful airy wards of the Alexandra that the Sisters came, for the

BRIDEY BRADY

third time, on Bridey Brady. The week after they had been .serenaded by her musical effort, a strange face lay on the pillow where her poor little ignorant one had been and the Sisters learnt that, discharged as incurable, the poor little "Bird's Nestling" had been taken to the Union —to die. At the Workhouse Hospital there were not the same restrictions as held good at the Alexandra, and making an excuse. for a visit, the Sisters found the little girl. But even here, in spite of the fact that all her surroundings were strange and that the Sisters' were faces she had seen before, the cruel untruths she had been told about nuns clung to her and nothing they could do succeeded in making friends with her. The nurses told them the child was growing weaker, but young life is vigorous and the end might still be many weeks away. And yet, though there were no more wishes for the perdition of the Pope, neither were there any signs whatever of making friends. One day, however, after many unsuccessful attempts, Sister Anne thought she saw a light on the little face, so pinched and small now, and growing even smaller, that she had never seen before. * j '■■■ • Someone had given Reverend Mother a bunch of grapes, and it was when these were taken from the Sister's bag and laid, with their juicy coolness, on the lips of the sick woman in the bed by Bridey's, that the child's eyes showed here was something she coveted. . . '•• ' /: '■• ' " "Are you fond of fruit, Bridey ?" Sister Anne seemed to ask the question casually, but at last the vulnerable spot had', been found. Poor little dying Bridey's. pride could stand no longer against the lure of — grapes, and, she nodded her head. : "Next' Tuesday we shall come again and , you ", shall have a bunch,"! all, every one, for yourself, Bridey." ■ |;--' " nl — m^f* Tuesday came and with it a November day of blasts and squalls and driving rain. Rev-

erend Mother,; suggested that the weather was* too bad even for visiting the poor. 3But Sister; Anne ; >thought^of^; : Bridey and lier grapes and she begged to be allowed: to | take them as she promised, In the Infirmary "Ward Bridey lay and-watched the ; rain, | shivering- and shuddering even under the blankets of her bed. The wind moaned and •; shook the casements of the Infirmary Ward, but what seemed to terrify the child who lay and watched it was the rain driving along in sheets and pouring on the window | frames as though water was being thrown on |. them from a bucket. | But the great eyes in the little shrunken | face did not.see the scene before them, but something rising out of the past that fright-1 ened, almost appalled her. • "i Long, long —so it seemed to her § when Bridey, like other children, had a mother, there had been a wet day just likof this one, and that dimly remembered mother had come into the dark, bare room, which was the child's only idea of a home, and bad taken Bridey into her arms. Even still she could almost feel the arms that were about —the only loving arms she had ever known —and the rain had been as wet on the shawled shoulders under her cheek as it now was on the window-panes| of the "Ward. The. next remembrance was of a cough,| hard, racking, tediousjust such another as shook her own poor little frame. After that everything seemed blurred, until the spotless j wards and classrooms of the Bird's Nest j had taken away all meaning for Bridey from the familiar word "home." There was no consecutive thread of reasoning in the child's mind, only heavy rain and thick, sodden garments conveyed to her still the most awful I thing she. had ever knownthe loss of her-: mother. That anyone should go out in the rain unless driven to by sheer necessity never struck her for a moment as possible, so she put from her the idea of the Sisters; taking her the fruit they had promised. After all, they probably would not have given j her the grapes in any case. The Bird's Nest training was very strong, and according to its teaching no Papist, more especially; a. nun or a priest, was to be trusted. Still the rain came down, and Bridey, with theterrible- feeling of loss and desolation upon her, fell into a fitful doze. Suddenly she; awoke, but she thought she still was dreaming, for-by her side stood two dark figures whose white caps and smiling faces alone relieved the gloom, and cloaks and veils and black serge habits, all were sprinkled, nay, more, in places sopped with rain. - . "Well, Bridey"—it was Sister Anne who spoke"did you think we had forgotten you and your grapes?" . She took the purple bunch from her basket, dark borer and there where the bloom had , been rubbed off, and holding them towards the child, : she detached one grape and began preparing it to be eaten. '. But Bridey's eyes were not on the grapes 8 they ; were glued to the rain-drops that 1 sparkled^oni the Sister's: veil ;". and cloak. ' «Timidly < she <stretched►. out a little clawlike hand and then, for the first time, she addressed the nun directly.

?"You" came out in the rain to in gme grapes!" She v; could hardly bring herself to ; believe, even though she said it and saw it."'< .1; Out in the rain! _ And only to bring her fruit! Suddenly at this one human touch, the whole edifice of falsehood that years of Bird's Nest teaching had built up, crumbled • to dust. '■![' "Then''the girl spoke quickly, quite dei cidedly— " ' twas .lies, they , told jme] at school. •. They said that 5 -Papists/ and 'more*especially nuns,' was cruel and bad." Then she went back to the part she could hardly believe. ; "But 'twas lies, for you came in the rain to bring me grapes." |j There was something in the little face that sent Sister Anne upon her knees. ; Something, she knew not what, drew her down and made her draw the .child close to her, despite the rain upon her cloak, and for the second time in her life Bridey Brady knew the feel of wet, .but loving arms. u So the ice was broken and afterwards things came quickly right. What the Sisters had guessed of Bridey was true. After the Bird's Nest had come a few months' servico in a Protestant tradesman's house. Then the cough, the hospital, the Unionto die j in—at fifteen. But there was no one to object when the Sisters begged for Bridey to. go to them, to die. So her next home was the Hospice. A white-curtained bed; everything about her made as pleasant to look upon as could be. Only two occupants besides herself; no more herding like sheep in a school dormitory or a workhouse ward. Every care that loving hands and hearts could give to God's chosen ones, for body and for soul. Child, almost baby, though she had been ■in her mother's life, the prayers she had I learnt then came back to her. Her strength rallied; she was able one wonderful day ! to get to the chapel" to make her First Com- ; munion. -,.-' ■' . i; : " -J-. '■:•"• " ,3 "Pray for what you want most," Sister ,] Francis had told her "when Our Lord comes into your heart for the first time." """ "•'""' And Bridey prayed not for health, though, ; like all consumptives, she thought until the •; end that she-was "better."..' No, her prayer I was —"Never let me leave this place until ! You have a place for me in heaven." The | world had not been so kind to Bridey Brady | that she clung to life. Her greatest regret ; was for the cruel lies she had ; been taught and had, in lier. ignorance, repeated.. J Then, with the coining of Spring, her | newly acquired strength gave way and the lend came very ; quickly.. But with; the Holy I Oils upon her, with the priest's words of \ forgiveness in her ears, with Our Lord Him-' . self in her heart as food upon her journey, | the little rescued Bird's Nestling passed on, I unafraid. — The Cross. % i£-31T%.