The Pilgrimage by John Broderick

Julia Glynn is the very model of a 'prim and well-conducted' bourgeois Catholic wife, a regular Mass-goer and president of her local charitable society. Her crippled husband, Michael, is the richest man in town, held in awe by bankers and bishops alike. In his illness he is dutifully tended to by the household manservant, Stephen Lydon, and by his handsome young nephew, Doctor Jim. As Michael's condition worsens, Father Victor proposes a pilgrimage to Lourdes. When Julia begins receiving a series of obscene anonymous letters detailing her sexual infidelities with Jim, her suspicions fall on the 'sinister' Stephen, who both attracts and repels her. As the day of departure to Lourdes approaches, the heart of an Irish small town 'as watchful as the jungle' is laid bare, its inhabitants stripped of their 'respectable clothes' to reveal an 'elemental sensuality'.