The Magdalen Girls Read online

  But she wasn’t a child anymore and life was changing, often too quickly for her sensibilities. She was growing up and emotions didn’t always make sense. Cullen was always around if she needed him, but the experience of having a “crush” on a boyfriend was new to her. He seemed more infatuated with her than she did with him. She didn’t want to say they were in love, because she wasn’t sure what that meant. In fact, she wasn’t sure what love was supposed to feel like. Maybe it was like loving your home and the things that made you happy. She remembered a time once when she was happy. For a few years, when she was about ten years old, her father had stopped drinking. Those were the best days. The world seemed bright and full of life.

  She looked at the mantle clock and then made her call. A half hour had passed. The new priest answered.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Father,” Teagan said, “but I need to ask a favor.”

  “No trouble.” He sounded in good spirits, happy to hear from her, a pleasant change from the older priest.

  “I left my jumper in Father’s cellar. I was wondering if I could get it back.”

  “Oh, I haven’t been down there since the party.” His voice was relaxed and smooth. “It’s only a few days until Sunday. Do you want to pick it up then?”

  She had already considered how to respond to that suggestion. “I’d rather not. It’s an expensive jumper and my parents don’t know I left it at the parish house. My mother will be upset if she finds out I don’t have it. Maybe I could come by and pick it up?” She was prepared to walk to St. Eusebius to get it.

  “Nonsense,” the priest said. “I’ll drop it by. How about tomorrow morning?”

  Her father would be at work again, her mother might be shopping. She absolutely didn’t want her da around if Father Mark was here, but her mother might welcome a visit from the new priest. At least she would be civil to him.

  “All right.”

  * * *

  At ten the next morning, Father Matthew’s well-worn black sedan pulled into the drive. She panicked for a moment thinking it might be the older priest, but Father Mark opened the door. Teagan saw him through the living room window and was again taken by his athletic form and handsome features. Though he wore black-rimmed glasses, he looked like a movie star from Photoplay, only dressed in a priest’s clothing. He emerged with her sweater hanging over his arm.

  She primped in the living room mirror and smoothed her dress. Her mother and father were both gone, as she hoped they would be.

  She met the priest at the door. He greeted her warmly, extending his hand. He smelled faintly of citrus, perhaps an aftershave. Teagan led the priest to the living room and invited him to have a seat. Before he did, he removed his glasses and handed her the sweater.

  “Thank you for bringing it,” she said. “My mother is quite crazy about this jumper.”

  “Mothers can fixate on the strangest things. It was lying on the books where you left it.”

  She winced, remembering the lie he had told. “Whenever we go out—which isn’t that often—she makes me carry it.”

  He smiled, showing perfect white teeth. He folded his hands and leaned back in the chair, as respectable as a priest could be. “I’m glad to know there are mothers who still value good breeding.”

  She nodded. Out with it. It won’t get any easier. Her stomach fluttered as she contemplated the question she’d wanted to ask. It took a few moments for her to gather her courage. “Why did you lie to my father?” She looked at him with an uneasy glance.

  Father Mark leaned back in his chair, the warmth disappearing from his face.

  “You told my father you wanted me to read book titles because you didn’t have your glasses,” she continued. “That was a lie. We went down for wine.”

  He rested his elbows on the chair, and raised his fingertips to the bottom of his chin. “Sometimes it’s better to lie than to tell the truth. Haven’t you ever lied because you didn’t want to hurt someone you loved? The truth isn’t always clean.”

  “But you’re a priest. You’re not supposed to lie.”

  He looked down for a moment and when his eyes met hers again, they displayed an intensity that chilled her. “If only the world were that simple. Think of the things I know—the confessions, the crimes, the horrors that men and women perpetrate, the lies that protect us. I think God knows that lies are often needed, despite what He might think of them. I wouldn’t be a good priest if I had to tell the truth every time a situation arose.”

  “But the Bible says God hates liars.”

  “Certainly in terms of bearing false witness, as written in the Commandments.”

  For a Catholic school project, Teagan had completed a study of Proverbs. She remembered one in particular. “I was thinking of Proverbs six. The things the Lord considers an abomination—one is a ‘lying tongue.’”

  “I can’t dispute that.” He lifted his hands in capitulation. “Perhaps I won’t end up in heaven. You’ve obviously studied the Bible. You must excel at winning arguments.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t win many around here. My father never lets my mother or me win.”

  “I’ve noticed that about Irish fathers. Quite a few seem to have a chip on their shoulders, as if it’s been passed down from generation to generation. Of course, I’m not a father, so I don’t suffer from that curse.”

  “We women are supposed to bear children and cook. I guess that’s it, but I have bigger plans.”

  “Really, what?”

  Considering how to answer, she looked out the window for a moment and then back to Father Mark. “I think women should do more than just cook, clean, and have babies. I want to continue my education, so I can contribute to the world. That’s what living is about, isn’t it? Getting better? I don’t want to be like . . .”

  Father Mark’s eyes sparkled. “You don’t have to finish your thought. I understand and admire your thinking. You’re quite progressive for an Irish girl, in the vanguard, so to speak. How old are you?”

  “Sixteen. I’ll be seventeen next March.”

  He pulled back his sleeve and looked at his watch. “I must get back to church. We have a pastoral meeting in twenty minutes.” He stood and offered his hand to Teagan.

  His fingers lingered on hers longer than they should have for a good-bye. Father Mark’s touch sent a shock through her body. She loved the mature, masculine look of his hands. For an instant, she wondered what he looked like out of his dull priest’s clothes. She fought back a blush.

  “I hope to see you again—in church,” he said. He started toward the door and then turned. “By the way, don’t worry too much about lies, at least the ones that don’t hurt anyone. The truth can be deadly. That’s why I said what I did—so you, or your parents, wouldn’t be hurt.”

  Teagan watched as Father Mark put on his glasses, got in the car, and pulled away from the house. Lonely and out of sorts, she wandered back to the living room. Something about him bothered her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. He was so unlike a priest. Maybe that was it. He was more like a man than a man of God, and in her years of attending parochial school and church she had never met anyone like him. His statement that he might not get into heaven struck her as a novel idea. Why would a priest say such a thing? Father Mark was so different from Cullen. Her boyfriend seemed immature compared with a man who held complicated thoughts and emotions. She found it hard not to think about the priest until her mother returned home and needed help with cooking.

  * * *

  Father Mark lay awake in his small bedroom at the back of the parish house. Father Matthew snored in great rumbles in his room across the hall. The younger priest wrenched himself over on his stomach and pulled a pillow over his head. Each time he was about to fall asleep, another snort in Father Matthew’s breathing shook him awake.

  But there was something else that disturbed his sleep. Teagan Tiernan floated through his mind in a manner not befitting a member of the clergy. Father Mark had no res
ervations about being a man; in fact, he was proud of his body and the way women were attracted to him—he could say truthfully they fawned over him. He enjoyed it, and always had, since he’d been a youth.

  If it hadn’t been for his parents’ prodding, he wouldn’t have become a priest. They were proud of his older brother, who had led the way to the priesthood, and his sister, who had decided to become a nun and entered a convent as a postulant. He couldn’t escape the Church, and had given in, mostly against his better judgment. He chalked it up to youth, inexperience, and a limited worldview. Now there was no way to escape it. The priesthood was part of him.

  Any man might have similar thoughts after meeting an attractive young woman. But to Father Mark they were damning. Teagan was bright and beautiful. He saw her in daydreams, but also in the dark when flashing points of light and angels’ wings fluttered in the blackness behind his eyelids. His world had been turned upside down by Teagan in less than a week. God was not fair. He played games. Teagan came to him in a blue crushed-velvet dress, which she delicately stepped out of, revealing her naked figure. She called to him like a siren, ready to drown him under waves of passion. She was as voluptuous and fatal as the female vampires in Dracula. His body ached with a passion he wanted to be rid of.

  It was not the first time he had fantasized about sex with a woman, let alone acted on those fantasies. He had fought the “devil’s passion” for years until it had overcome him. In London, he had slipped out of the seminary, his coat wrapped tightly over street clothes, and roamed seedy byways looking for prostitutes. With his good looks and breezy demeanor, he was an easy mark. One in particular found him a refreshing change. He enjoyed her weekly until his conscience got the better of him.

  She carried his child. At least that’s what she announced the last night he saw her, for he never returned to see her again. He thought it a ploy to keep him coming back—a tactic for more money. How could she know it was his child when she entertained men night and day? Yet he worried she might be right, for several times she asked him not to use protection.

  “You’re the first woman I’ve had sex with,” he told her when they met.

  “You’re daft,” she said. “A looker like you? A virgin? You’re not one of those ginger boys, are you?”

  He laughed, embarrassed at his confession. He sat on the bed and stroked her long hair, which fell in brown swirls down her back. A cheap dresser with a mirror sat across from them. Father Mark thought their reflection looked like something from the dirty postcards a school chum had shown him when he was a youth—forbidden, but at the same time intensely erotic. He marveled that she was a whore by societal standards. However, she was also a woman to him—attractive, bright, and full of life. When they fell to making love, she stripped off the condom he had brought along.

  “What about . . .” He didn’t have the nerve to complete his question.

  She understood his objection. “Syphilis? I get myself checked regularly. I’m no fool.” She convinced him through her touch how much better sex would feel without it. After she fortified him with a few shots of whiskey, he took the risk. He constantly checked himself for a sexual disease after his time with her, but he never contracted one. However, his anxiety about venereal matters, the lies he told about his whereabouts, and the possibility of fathering a child kept him away. As much as he wanted to see his paid lover, he couldn’t.

  He hated his two sides: the one, carnal, fueled by erotic pleasure; the other, pious and reverential. After his experiences in London, he vowed he would serve only God and hoped that the Creator, in His wisdom, would deliver him where his contact with temptation would be limited. But God had tested him, sending him to Dublin, a city bustling with wanton women. He hated suppressing desire. There had only been casual glances until he had been introduced to Teagan. Satan cursed him with infatuation.

  Could he resist temptation? He was ashamed he couldn’t control his sexual fantasies. Why had God placed this girl before him? For heaven’s sake, she was only sixteen, not even of legal age. Why was he being tortured with these thoughts?

  His hips ground against the mattress. He wished that she were with him right now, so he could run his hands over her smooth body . . . No! He despised himself for having such unclean thoughts about the girl. How could he admit this secret to anyone, even to someone he trusted, like Father Matthew? A confession would be too risky. What if the Church delved into his past? What if his unholy life in London was revealed during an investigation? He would be ruined and his family shamed.

  He turned over and stared at the ceiling, aware of the aching arousal in his groin. He grabbed the sheet covering him and balled it up in his fists. There was only one solution.

  Despite the risk, he must get over his paranoid thinking, talk to Father Matthew, and get these fantasies off his chest before they turned into an obsession. It was the only way he could end the sin. And he would shun Teagan Tiernan.

  * * *

  Father Mark spotted the older priest the next day in the parish house. Father Matthew sat in his worn recliner, smoking a pipe and sipping a glass of wine. He looked as if he was about to fall asleep. The heat had broken. A cool evening breeze stirred through the room. Father Mark sat across from him on the couch.

  Father Matthew’s eyelids fluttered. “Are you prepared for Sunday?” He positioned his pipe in the ashtray. The smoke drifted toward Father Mark. It had a somewhat pleasant cherry smell.

  “Yes,” Father Mark said. “As prepared as I’m ever going to be.”

  “I’ll take it easy on you—at least in the beginning. Just follow my lead.” The older priest smiled and lifted his glass.

  Father Mark sighed.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Yes . . .” He couldn’t figure out how to say it, but he had to get it off his chest. “It’s a bit of a delicate matter. I don’t want you to think it’s a confession of any sort, but I need to talk about it.”

  Father Matthew, looking concerned, put down his glass.

  “I’ve been having thoughts,” Father Mark said.

  “Thoughts? What kind?”

  “Sexual.” He looked down at the floor.

  Father Matthew lowered the recliner. “Go on. You can tell me. And I won’t consider this to be a sacred confession between two priests—just a friendly talk between two men.”

  Father Mark leaned back. “Thank you. That makes me feel better. You don’t know how I’ve been agonizing over this the past couple of days.”

  “Just a couple of days?” The older priest tilted his head. “Does this have something to do with a girl in our parish?”

  He knows. How the hell did he figure it out already? Father Mark didn’t say anything, wondering how much he should reveal. “I’d rather not say. My thoughts have been tormenting me and I feel like a foolish sinner for having them.”

  Father Matthew turned over his pipe and knocked the burned tobacco into the ashtray. “All men have thoughts. It’s natural. It’s only if we act on them that the devil enters our spirit.”

  He wanted to stop, to go no further. He clenched his hands. It was a mistake to bring the whole matter up, but the torment was too much. He needed to talk. Perhaps God was punishing him for his sins with the London prostitute, or for leaving an unwed mother with a bastard child.

  “You don’t have to tell me. I can put two and two together.” Father Matthew stuffed fresh tobacco into the pipe and lit it. The smoke blew through the room in large puffs. “What were you doing in the cellar with Teagan Tiernan, and more importantly, why did she want to talk to you?”

  Heat rose in his cheeks. The old man did know! He took a deep breath. “Nothing of importance happened. She’s a very sweet girl. She was goaded by a friend into coming downstairs with me—to help pick out a bottle of wine. She left her jumper in the cellar. I returned it to her the other day. That’s where I went with the car.”

  “Her da was furious with her.” Father Matthew removed the pipe from his mouth a
nd thrust it toward him. “Cormac’s a loose cannon. Drinks too much, but the family has been part of this parish for generations. We wouldn’t want to cross him. He works for the government.”

  “I didn’t say this was about Teagan.” He wanted to crawl away. “There are lots of beautiful women in Dublin—many of them came to our party.”

  Father Matthew guffawed. “Not one that I saw! But there are some young women who could tempt a priest.”

  Father Mark stood up. “I wanted to acknowledge that I’m a sinner and that some of my thoughts have been unclean—as one friend to another. That’s all.”

  The older priest leaned back in his recliner. “And you’ve done that. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m sure this will blow over.”

  Father Mark nodded. “Thank you for listening. I’m going to turn in now.”

  “Good night.” Father Matthew puffed on his pipe.

  He felt the older priest watching him as he walked to the hall. He turned. Father Matthew was looking at him and smiling like a man who had more on his mind than smoking. The priest waved to him. Father Mark walked down the hall and stopped at his door. He opened it, wondering again why he had ever become a priest, and wishing he’d never met Teagan Tiernan.

  * * *

  She arrived at Mass on Sunday with her mother and father. They always sat in the third pew; her mother liked to be among the first for communion. Teagan nestled between her parents, making a point to carry the sweater Father Mark had returned to her. She was happy to have it spread across her shoulders. The heat had disappeared. The granite stones picked up the chill from the foggy day.

  Looking solemn in their vestments, the two priests entered the chancel. Father Mark took a seat near the lectern parallel to the pulpit. She had a childish impulse to wave, if only wiggle her fingers, but thought better of it. The younger priest kept his eyes focused on Father Matthew as the service began and rarely looked out on the parishioners. Even the older priest, who usually had a benevolent smile for everyone, avoided eye contact with her. Only for an instant did Father Mark, with a deep sadness in his eyes, look at her. He turned his head quickly away.