The Good Left Undone(57)
“Va bene! Hundreds. Thousands. But the girl you want is only one girl. And only one girl can save you.” Antica rang the bell on the cart and pushed it toward the pier. “The Cabrelli girl. Her name sounds like a bell.” Antica pulled the string attached to the bell on his cart. “Bellissima!”
CHAPTER 22
Marseille
JULY 1939
The Garden of the Angels at H?pital Saint Joseph was a haven for the Sisters and a source of additional income for the order’s purse. Inside the walls, the nuns grew vegetables and lavender, prayed the rosary at the shrine of the Blessed Mother, and cultivated beehives for honey. The bee colonies were housed in black wooden boxes set in a row along the back wall, where graceful orange trumpet vines crawled up the bricks behind them.
“Nurse Cabrelli, over here!” Sister Marie Bernard called to Domenica before lighting the smoker.
Domenica shielded her eyes from the sun as she walked through rows of lettuce, cucumbers, and yellow peppers. She saw a flurry of black snow in midair; on closer look, it was a swarm of bees hovering over their hive. Sister fanned the hives with the smoker, a rusty can with a spout. When lit, the smoker burned cedar chips, producing a clean white smoke that forced the bees back into the hive like soldiers into a foxhole.
“Don’t you love the scent?” Sister said as she closed the trap on the can. “Reminds me of my dear father who smoked cigars. Cedar burns like tobacco, you know. Quick and clean. Is your father a smoker?”
“No. He takes snuff once in a while.”
“So he enjoys the occasional tobacco. Which is what God intended. Here and there, it does no harm, but a daily habit of it, no good.”
“I don’t smoke, Sister.”
She smiled. “Good for you. I wish you would convince your fellow nurses to drop the habit. But a day off, a pub crawl, and cigarettes seem to go together. Nurses need their diversions too.”
“Smoking keeps them slender. Or so they say.” Domenica chuckled. “Mother Superior asked me to meet with you.”
“I’m sorry to report that the Sisters of Saint Joseph won’t be running this hospital any longer. The Mother Abbess has requested we move our hospital back to the motherhouse outside of Tours. I wish I could take you with me, but that’s not possible. There’s a position at the convent in Dumbarton, Scotland, where you can work off the remainder of your punishment.”
“Please, Sister. I don’t want to work in Scotland. Send me anywhere else.”
“It’s the only position we can offer you. The Sisters run a school called Notre Dame de Namur. They need a school nurse. Mother Superior has made the arrangements.”
Domenica Cabrelli was not in control of her own life as long as she had to work off a debt to the Holy Roman Church. Fate was toying with her. Scotland was the last place on Earth she wanted to go. She had written faithfully to McVicars and received nothing in return, not one letter. Clearly, he had changed his mind about her. She felt foolish having fallen for him. Any thoughts of McVicars triggered a spiral of regret, which made her feel worse about the emotional letters she had sent to him.
“We’ll give you a proper habit for travel, with the Red Cross insignia. We will purchase the tickets you need, including the ferry across the channel. We plan to move you out on Bastille Day.”
“Thank you, Sister.” But Domenica wasn’t grateful; she felt manipulated. In her mind, the position in Scotland was another punishment. Perhaps the order banished her once more because she had told the Mother Superior that she would not become a postulant, the step before taking final vows. But now that the captain had abandoned her too, she wondered if she had made the right decision.
* * *
Domenica walked back to the hospital in a fog. She didn’t hear the birds in the garden, or the horns of the automobiles, or the music that swelled as a convertible sped past the hospital. She would soon be uprooted again, without her consent.
It would take a few more weeks for the nuns to close the hospital and return to the motherhouse. There were patients to transfer, packing to be done, and paperwork to complete.
The nurses of Fatima House would also depart, returning home or, like Domenica, reassigned to another city. One by one, like pearls off a broken string, the young women scattered in all directions. Domenica said goodbye to Josephine and Stephanie, who took positions in London. They promised to stay in touch. The Sisters arranged official letters and passports, sought permission, and made arrangements for each of their nurses. Domenica wished she could have convinced just one of the girls to go with her to Scotland. The heartache of losing her friends was as devastating to her as having been ignored by the captain. She believed she could get over a failed romance but wasn’t so sure she would ever heal from the loss of her friends.
As Domenica Cabrelli boarded the train in Marseille for the first leg of the journey to Scotland, she wore her nurse’s cap and a red cross on her uniform. A train took her to Paris, and another to Calais, where she would board a ferry across the English Channel to Dover. She would take another train from Dover to London, and finally north to Glasgow. It would take fifteen hours from Marseille to Glasgow. With every turn of the wheels on the train, she was farther away from home. Italy was just a dream now.
Heavy rainstorms along the route caused delays as tracks flooded, and the cars were rocked by gale-force winds. It was so hot she could not sleep. Her appetite left her. When the storm subsided, she stood between the train cars and took in the cool breeze after the rain. When the train pulled into the London station, Domenica Cabrelli was the loneliest she had ever been in her life.