The Secret Scripture

Dr. Grene writes that he took a trip to Sligo on a beautiful spring day, which did nothing to make the Sligo Mental Hospital look less dreary. Percy Quinn, an old friend and colleague with whom Dr. Grene hasn’t kept in touch, is now plump and balding. His office is in one of the hospital’s twin towers. Dr. Grene found Percy to be “exceedingly cordial” when Percy apologized for not attending Bet’s funeral (269).

Dr. Grene reminds Percy that he wrote asking about Roseanne. Percy says that he’s found out a few things about her. Roseanne’s mention of Nazareth probably refers to an old orphanage in Sligo called Nazareth House, which is now a retirement home. Dr. Grene wonders if he could go there and ask for records. Percy presumes that he could, though there is still some secrecy in institutions like those. In the past, they were accused of committing great cruelties.

Percy then says that there was once an orderly at Sligo Mental Hospital named Sean Keane, who was “a bit funny in the head,” and made a complaint against another orderly named Brady back in the late-1950s for “molesting [Roseanne] over quite a long period” (271). As a result of this sexual assault, the authorities at the hospital decided to move Roseanne to Roscommon. Brady, meanwhile, remained at Sligo Mental Hospital until his retirement in the seventies. Sean Keane disappeared along with Roseanne from the hospital records, leading Percy to assume that the hospital let him go. Percy then offers to call Nazareth House, alerting them to Dr. Grene’s arrival. The men shake hands and Dr. Grene departs.

When he arrives at Nazareth House, he notices that the part of the building to which he has been directed is new but still has “a certain institutional grimness” (273). The person who kept the records was a nun in “advanced middle age if not old age, wearing her relaxed modern gear” (273). She tells Dr. Grene that he will have to go to England, to their house in Bexhill-on-Sea, if he wants to know more about Roseanne’s child. His case had been taken by Sister Declan who was a McNulty. The nun then tells Dr. Grene that old Mrs. McNulty stayed at Nazareth until her death, at the age of 90. The nun then asks if Dr. Grene is a Catholic, given his English accent. He tells her that he is, which leads the nun to tell him that he must then understand how “odd” they are (274).

Dr. Grene drove back to Roscommon “in a strange state of mind” (274). He pitied Roseanne who had lost her child and was then subjected to sexual assault. He wanted to know whether Roseanne’s child was still alive. He wondered if it would be a comfort to Roseanne to know something about him before she dies, or if she would only be subjected to further trauma. He parked his car in the lot and entered the hospital. He checked on Roseanne, whose breathing had worsened; her lungs were functioning at 74 percent. Dr. Grene felt useless simply observing her, so he went into his office where he was sure to have paperwork. There, he found a package in “a large used envelope” at the bottom of “the forms and letters” that also awaited him (276). The writing was in blue ink. The letters were formed “in a very neat small hand” (276). He began reading what was an account of Roseanne’s life. He wondered where the manuscript had come from. He suspected John Kane. Then again, with all the attendants coming and going from her room, it could have been anyone. Kane, he learned, had been feeling unwell and stayed home.

While reading, Dr. Grene learned that Sean Keane was John Lavelle’s son and that he had been brain-damaged. Dr. Grene suspected that John Kane is Sean. John had asked Sean to look after Roseanne and he obeyed that wish. Dr. Grene writes that the questions around Roseanne’s baby remain unanswered, and that the evidence is against her regarding her father having been in the police. Dr. Grene writes that, if Roseanne could be wrong about that fact, then she may also have been wrong about other things.

Regarding her supposed indiscretion with John Lavelle, he believed that she was falsely accused. Still, her pregnancy condemned her to doom. Dr. Grene read about how her father “[showed] her that all things from hammers to feathers fall equally” when she was about 12 (278). When she was 15 her father died. According to Father Gaunt, he was murdered by rebels in the round tower where he had taught Roseanne the lesson about hammers and feathers. Father Gaunt claimed that Joe Clear’s mouth was stuffed with feathers and that he had been beaten by hammers or mallets, which Roseanne witnessed. Dr. Grene figures that Roseanne “sanitised” [sic] the memory. Dr. Grene also read about how Joe Brady attempted to rape her, “a passage that [read] very strangely to [him]” (279). Going back to Father Gaunt’s deposition, which Dr. Grene summarized in his diary, Father Gaunt recounted that the rebels beat Joe Clear but not that they stuffed his mouth with feathers. Dr. Grene figures that he may have supplied the detail himself, taking it from Roseanne. He finds this strange, given that he had not yet read her account before adding that detail about the feathers.

Dr. Grene concludes that both Roseanne and Father Gaunt’s accounts are truthful to a degree. He figures that Roseanne omitted a great deal about her history and that she must have told Dr. Grene the story about the hammers and feathers years ago, and that he must have forgotten it until now. He decides, as a result of reading her account, to go to England. Dr. Wynn has already told him that he doesn’t expect Roseanne to regain consciousness and asked Dr. Grene if she had any family to contact. This gives Dr. Grene even more reason to go to England, in case there is someone there to notify of her death. He feels that he owes Roseanne this act of friendship, recalling that instance, after Bet’s death, when she crossed the room and put her hand on his shoulder to comfort him in his grief. He’s grateful that he never used Father Gaunt’s deposition to question her and, instead, followed his own instincts. His main thought now is that she should be left alone.

Before departing for England, Dr. Grene wrote a note to John Kane, asking if John Lavelle was his father. He requests that Kane allow him to ask a few questions when he returns from England. Dr. Grene flies from Dublin to Gatwick and drives five hours east. He brought with him Roseanne’s copy of Religio Medici. He then took out the envelope inside, opened it, and read the letter. It was from Jack and was addressed to King James Hospital in Swansea, Wales. In the letter, Jack described that he was dying of colon cancer and wrote that his wife, Mai, died at 53 after years of struggling with alcoholism. Tom had remarried and had children. He died 10 years before, in 1977, “of a stomach complaint” at Roscommon General Hospital (284). Tom’s second wife had already died. Jack admits that Tom was a different man after losing Roseanne, though the brothers never discussed her.

Jack also wrote about how his mother, who died 20 years before, told him the truth about her birth. Mrs. McNulty’s mother, Lizzie Finn, came from a wealthy Presbyterian family. Her father was an army officer. Lizzie’s family had not approved of her marriage and gave the baby to the officer’s batman, or personal servant, who was Catholic. Before Tom died, he confessed to Jack that Old Tom wasn’t his father, though he never knew the true identity of his actual father. He also described to Roseanne how he had traced Eneas down through the War Office and found him living in a hotel on the Isle of Dogs in London. A worker at the hotel said that Eneas was out and instructed Jack to return the next day. When he did, he saw that the hotel had been set on fire. Jack wondered if Eneas burned it himself and disappeared, fearing that rebels had found him, or if rebels had followed Jack as he searched for his brother and burned down the hotel.

Jack concluded the letter by telling Roseanne that Tom did, indeed, love her but failed in his love. In fact, all the brothers “were all more than a little in love with [her]” (285). He asked for her forgiveness. Dr. Grene finished the letter as the plane was landing in Gatwick. Bexhill was only 50 miles away.

He arrived at Nazareth House Bexhill and rang the doorbell. He felt “suddenly very small and strange, as if [he] were [himself] an orphan arriving there” (286). He stated his business to the woman who opened the door and was led into a little dining room supplied with sandwiches and cakes and a setting for one, which included a teacup. Then, “a neat, doughy-faced nun” named Sister Miriam appeared (287). She told Dr. Grene that the child he was looking for didn’t stay long at the orphanage. The adoptive parents knew nothing about the child other than that he was “Irish, healthy, and Catholic” (287).

Sister Miriam told him that it was important to find the child a good home, given his relationship to Sister Declan, who was beloved at the orphanage. She then showed Dr. Grene the birth certificate and the adoption paper. He leaned forward, put on his reading glasses, and looked at the papers. Suddenly, his heart stopped. The adopted child’s name was “William Clear, born of Roseanne Clear, waitress” and the father was “Eneas McNulty, soldier” (289). Mr. and Mrs. Grene of Padstow, Cornwall, in England, adopted the child in 1945.

Sister Miriam then directed Dr. Grene to notes that record conversations between Sister Declan and Sean Keane from back in the 1970s. She says that Mr. Keane was anxious to find Dr. Grene and that Sister Declan helped. Sister Miriam asks if Mr. Keane ever found him; Dr. Grene says that he did.

Dr. Grene writes in his commonplace book that he hurried back home after this revelation and returned to the hospital. He went right away to Roseanne who was still alive. She asked where he had gone. He tried to tell her but couldn’t. She asked if he had made his assessment of her. He told her that he had and concluded that she was wrongly committed and was now a free woman. She thanked him for her freedom, saying that she could not always claim it. He then asked for her forgiveness; she obliged.

The next morning, Dr. Grene went to John Kane’s quarters to question him, but Kane was gone. His 78 jazz records were there, as was his gramophone, but the room was otherwise cleared of most of his belongings. Dr. Grene doesn’t know what Kane intended to do after he found him. Maybe all he wanted was a reunion between him and Roseanne. If he had gone about things the conventional way, Dr. Grene may have refused to see her. It wasn’t hard to believe that he may have rejected his mother, given that so many others had. There was a note on top of the gramophone. In it, Kane admitted to taking Dr. Grene off the island where Roseanne had him. He asks that Dr. Grene accept his mother, now that he knows the truth. In his postscript, he writes that it was the orderly, Max Doran, who sexually assaulted the woman from Leitrim. Doran had already confessed his crime privately to Dr. Grene, then retracted his confession, but he’ll still go to trial.