The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet by Colleen McCullough
Huddled in his cell at the very top of his caves, Father Dominus rocked with grief, for near-blind though he was, this was one message writ in vivid scarlet upon the withered parchment of his brain—somewhere God had abandoned him, and Lucifer in the person of Mary Bennet had triumphed. His world was crumbling, but at least he knew why. Mary Bennet, Mary Bennet. Well, he and Jerome would survive. It was back to Sheffield for them, until all the fuss died down and he could return to build anew. God’s darkness riddled the Peaks, God could be found again. But this time, no children. They made his task too hard.
There was a fine tremor in his left hand that echoed the one afflicting his head. A new phenomenon. Give me time, give me time!
Brother Jerome appeared, hesitating in the entrance to his cell. “Father? Are you well?”
“Yes, Jerome, very,” he said briskly. “Have the boys settled?”
“Like lambs, Father. It was the right thing to do.”
“And the girls?”
“Obedient. The boys have told them.”
“Sister Therese…Can Camille take charge of the kitchen?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Return to Ignatius first, Jerome. Deliver the potions, but when you and Ignatius reach the waterfall, it will be time to see that he meets with an accident. Then, later, you can send Sister Therese to Mother Beata.”
“I understand, Father. It will be as you wish.”
Despite the few mourners, Lydia’s funeral was sadder than her mother’s. Elizabeth, Jane, Kitty, Fitz, Angus, Charlie and Owen gathered in the old Norman church on the estate, and then at the graveside. For once Jane was not washed away by tears; she was too angry at Miss Mirabelle Maplethorpe’s perfidy.
A reward of five hundred pounds had been offered for the lady’s apprehension. Unfortunately no one with an artistic eye had ever seen her, so the notices that went up in town and village halls and post offices bore no picture of her.
June was now well advanced, and Mary had been missing for nearly six weeks. Though none confessed to pessimism, everyone secretly felt that it was highly unlikely she was still alive. So on that sunny, halcyon day when Lydia was laid to rest in the Pemberley burial ground, the identity of the next one to be laid there was very much in the forefront of all minds.
The youngest, yet the first of us to go, thought Elizabeth, leaning heavily on Fitz’s arm. Charlie had made as if to take her when the graveside ceremony ended, but stepped back quickly when his father kept possession of her and led her away toward the house. The friction between his parents had always grieved him, but he had been so ardently on his mother’s side that he could see nothing good in his father. Now he sensed a new array of emotions in Pater, softer and kinder than during, certainly, the past year, when Mama had begun fighting back. Though, thank God, she had abandoned her tendency to poke what she considered harmless fun at him—she was so convinced that he needed levity, owning none, and that she could inculcate it in him. Whereas Charlie knew that would never happen; Pater was proud, haughty and terribly thin-skinned. Did Pater and Mama actually think that he and his sisters didn’t know their parents had taken to fighting like a pair of cats?
Cheated of his mother, he took Kitty’s arm, and left Jane to Angus, who did not know the ordinarily weepy Jane. Murder! It mazed the mind, that such a pathetic soul as Lydia could have been done to death.
A shadow loomed: Ned Skinner, as ever self-effacing, yet there in case Pater had need of him. Something about that association did not sit well with Charlie, but what it was, he had no idea. As if they had always known each other, when that was manifestly impossible. Pater had been about twelve at the time that Ned was born. Charlie knew a little more of Ned’s background than anyone else save Pater; that his mother had been a blackamoor whore in a brothel somewhere, and that Ned’s father had been the leader of a ring of criminals that had its headquarters in the same brothel. He had found these facts in Grandfather’s papers, but nothing further; someone had torn sheaves out of Grandfather’s diaries. When he complained to Pater, Pater said Grandfather had done it himself, in a fit of dementia just before he died. None of which answered why Pater and Ned were such warm friends, when it went so badly against the grain of Darcy of Pemberley to make a close friend out of such a man as Ned Skinner. Pater was stiff-rumped, no one who knew him could deny that. So why Ned?
Never having known Lydia, Charlie could not grieve for her, but he did understand his mother’s grief. And Aunt Jane’s. Aunty Kitty, a shallower woman, seemed to regard the death as at least partly a blessing, for it meant she could spend the summer at Pemberley after all. The people with whom she associated had not been on Pater’s invitation list this year, since he was expecting great things from the Commons and Lords.
“I am delighted that Kitty is here,” said Elizabeth to her son and to Jane. “She’ll give Georgie a little much-needed town bronze. I don’t quite know why, but Georgie loves her.”
“She’s a widgeon, Mama!” Charlie laughed. “Georgie likes any person who isn’t run-of-the-mill, and Aunt Kitty is so elegant.”
“I hope she can persuade Georgie not to bite her nails,” Jane said. “It ruins her hands, which are quite beautiful.”
“Well, I’m off to find a cave that Angus has lost,” Charlie said, kissed his fingers to the ladies, and vanished.
“I’m glad Lydia is buried here,” said Jane. “We’re close to her, and can put flowers on her grave.”
“She had few flowers in her life, poor little soul. You’re right, Jane, it is good that she’s buried here.”
“Don’t pity her for lacking the things she pitied us for having,” said Jane. “Lydia loved life in army towns, she loved riotous parties and the company of men—the intimate company of men. She pitied us for leading staid, virtuous existences.”
“All I can remember is how she loved George Wickham.”
“Yes, but despite her declarations to the contrary, Lizzie, she had a fine old time of it when he was away.” Jane looked angry. “No word of her assailants, I suppose?”
“No, not a whisper.”
When the body of a lad about fifteen years old came floating down the Derwent River, it attracted attention only because Miss Mary Bennet, closely connected to Pemberley, was missing. A shire constable was sent to look at the bloated, horrible remains, which the local doctor said could have drifted downstream for miles, for the lad had been dead at least three days. The doctor was of the opinion he had drowned, as he bore no marks of foul play. The body sported only two oddities: the first, a bald spot had been tonsured into the crown of his hair; and the second, he was circumcised. Otherwise the lad was well nourished and bore no evidence of a hard master, which made it unlikely that he had been a worker in a factory, mill or foundry, or a soldier. As the corpse was naked and therefore without a name, the constable wrote it down as “Male Youth. A Jew.” He forwarded his report to the superintendent and sent the body for burial as a pauper. No need to worry about consecrated ground: no Christian, this one.
However, when a second adolescent body was found at the foot of a cliff not far from the first, news of it was conveyed to Mr. Darcy, together with the constable’s report on the first. Fitz called in Charlie and Angus, but not Owen, who, consumed with guilt, had gone home to Wales, leaving some sore hearts in the schoolroom and a militant sparkle in Georgie’s eyes.
Fitz looked grim. Then he explained why he had summoned them. “Youths and children die with quite depressing regularity,” he concluded, “especially at this time, when the Poor Laws are so abused. But this pair are out of the usual way. Both are about the same age—fourteen or fifteen. Pubescent, but not long such. One is male, the other female.” He shifted in his chair uncomfortably. “Neither bore the stigmata of enforced child labour—no weals from injudiciously plied whips or crops, and no broken skin. The lad has gone to a pauper’s grave already, but the girl has had a rigorously prosecuted post-mortem at my instruction, and she has no broken bones or scars from old inj
“So she didn’t fall from a cliff,” said Angus, whose Argus ears were pricking.
“She did not. She was put there to make it seem she had, and I suppose were Mary not missing, a constable wouldn’t even have been notified. She would simply have gone straight to the paupers’ burying ground.”
“Pater, when you sent for us after Aunt Lydia’s death, we encountered a very peculiar group of people,” said Charlie, looking at Angus. “However, I think Angus should tell you. If I do it, you’ll think I exaggerate.”
“Not at all,” said Fitz, surprised. “You recount events well, Charlie. But let Angus tell of this, if you like.”
“We encountered a procession of—we think—male children led by an old man,” said Angus. “He called them the Children of Jesus, and said they came from an orphanage of that name near York.”
Fitz frowned. “An orphanage run by religious?”
“Roman Catholic, perhaps. They looked Franciscan, though the shade of brown was wrong.”
“The Children of Jesus orphanage, run by quasi-Franciscan friars and located near York. Such an institution does not exist, near York or anywhere else north of the Thames, I would think. ‘Children of Jesus’ doesn’t sound right. It would be ‘Sacred Heart of Jesus’ or ‘Mary Immaculate’ were it Roman. Romans are not fixated upon Jesus as an entity the way some Protestant sects are—I mean the ones which talk so much of Jesus that there is hardly a mention of God. The name Children of Jesus sounds as if it were made up by a someone unschooled in theology.”
“Then we were right to doubt them!” Charlie cried. “It was the old man—a very fishy person. Never looked one in the eye.”
“We were riding down a bridle-path,” said Angus, “that Charlie knew of, certainly, but we met no one except the Children of Jesus on it. How would a friar from York know of it? The old man said he was an apothecary, and was very quick—too quick!—to show us his wares, stacked on a hand cart. Perhaps fifty boxes of elixirs and nostrums of all descriptions—look anywhere you like! he said, and gave Charlie a tin of horse ointment. The labels all read CHILDREN OF JESUS this or that. Who knows? Perhaps the old man believes CHILDREN OF JESUS gives his remedies a certain cachet.” He cleared his throat and looked apologetically at Charlie. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you, but I rode over to Buxton to visit the apothecary shop, and was surprised to find the proprietor very keen on ‘Children of Jesus’ products. Swears by them! So do his customers, who are prepared to pay almost anything for ‘Children of Jesus’ choler elixir.” He looked impish. “It cures impotence. If the old man opened a shop in Westminster and sold that alone, he would make a fortune.”
When the laughter died away, Charlie spoke. “I think the old man is mad,” he said. “There was an eldritch quality to him, and I never saw thirty-odd little boys so demure and well-behaved as his were, not in all my life. They so winced and quivered when I asked to let them remove their cowls that I’m sure they didn’t want their faces on display to him. I think the old man terrorises them. Oh, how afraid I was of some of my schoolmasters! Though I fancied him mad, an even greater fear. The only things that ever petrified me when I was a little boy were you, Pater—sorry!—and the occasional lunatic who crossed my path. Sane people are terrified of mad people because their conduct can’t be predicted and they can’t be reasoned with. To little boys, that old man might be Satan.”
“To the apothecary in Buxton, he was Father Dominus,” said Angus. “I haven’t quite finished recounting my adventures, Charlie. Father Dominus always comes during daylight hours to be paid, but the goods are invariably delivered in the middle of the night, and by children in religious robes. My informant had never heard of a delivery during the day. He seemed to think that the children were refugees from bad masters whom Dominus had taken under his protection.”
“Curious,” Fitz said, steepling his fingers and putting their tips against his mouth. It made him look like a prime minister. “Where do they come from, since it isn’t York?” he asked. “If normally they go by night, that might account for their strange behaviour when you met them in broad daylight, but they must hail from somewhere, and there they will be known.”
“I’m sorry I lumped you in with lunatics, Pater.”
Fitz glanced at his son with a smile in his eyes. “I do have sufficient imagination, Charlie, to realise why a little boy would lump me in with lunatics. I must have been extremely forbidding.”
“A lot less so these days, Pater.”
“We must divide up our forces to deal with this,” Fitz said, amusement gone. “Angus and Charlie, you’ll concentrate on the caves. It may be that Father Dominus uses a cave in his wanderings, and if Mary is still alive, we must presume she’s being held in a cave. Whether there is any connection between her and the Children of Jesus is unknown, but if you work assiduously, perhaps some evidence will come to light. Angus, how long can you remain here?”
“As long as I have to, Fitz. I have good deputies to deal with matters in London, and my journalists must be having a mouse’s time with the cat away in Derbyshire. Unpolished prose.”
“Good. We must pray that things come to a head before all of us have to go, whether we want to or not. If Mary isn’t found before Oxford goes up and Parliament comes out of its summer recess, then I think there’s very little hope for her.”
“What of the orphanages?” Charlie asked.
“They go to Ned. It’s just such a job as he relishes, up on that monstrous black horse and riding from one place to another,” Fitz said dispassionately.
“By the way, Pater, while Angus was riding to Buxton, I was engaged in making some enquiries of my own,” said Charlie. “I asked about a procession of children who may or may not have been clad as religious. Farms, hamlets, villages, I asked. But the procession, even as a group rather than a line, never emerged at either end of our bridle-path. The only settlement in the direction from which they were coming is Pemberley, and we know they were never at Pemberley. I think that means they came down to it from Stanage Edge, though they were never in Bamford. And its far end is Chapel-en-le-Frith.”
“You are implying they entered a cave?” Fitz asked.
“Either that, or they crossed the open wilderness between the caverns and north of The Peak.”
“Did they look as if they were carrying food? Water?”
“Under their robes, Pater, who knows? Water is easily found anywhere, but I’ve never heard of a group unencumbered by tents or caravans camping in the open. The moors are cruel.”
“That they are. I shall ask Ned what he’s heard.”
Nothing, as it turned out when Fitz spoke to Ned.
“No matter how popular Father Dominus’s remedy for impotence may be, Fitz, I’ll go bail he’s up to no good. Yet it makes little sense, does it? Here’s a fellow with genuine cure-alls aplenty up his sleeve, hauling in fat profits, apothecaries clamouring for all he can supply them, while he’s tramping a bridle-path that leads to naught save Pemberley. In charge of a group of children who seem not to be ill-treated. What’s his goal?” Ned asked, frowning.
“Charlie deems him a madman, and that may be the simple truth. Nothing about the business makes a shred of sense. In fact, it makes the circumstances surrounding Lydia’s death look clear as crystal. Now you say you can find no sense either, Ned.”
“More important, where is this factory of his? And he must have a warehouse. An orphanage would be a very clever disguise, wouldn’t it?”
Fitz looked alert. “You’re right, it would. Orphanages are at the discretion of the Parish, but not every parish has one. I know certain philanthropists endow orphanages. I think we may discount workhouses and poorhouses—they contain indigents of all ages. I’ve written to all the religious denominations owning a central authority, and will receive answers in the fullness of time, but there may be institution
“Rest easy, Fitz! Jupiter and I will ride from place to place, even as far afield as York. Orphanages and charity homes are not as numerous as apples on a tree.”
“Unless the tree be a pear.”
“When you joke, Fitz, you’re worn out,” Ned said, smiling. “That wretched lock of white hair! I swear it grows wider daily.”
“Elizabeth thinks it makes me look distinguished.”
“All the better in a prime minister, then.”
“You’ll need plenty of gold. Here.” Fitz tossed Ned a bag of coins, deftly caught. “Find them, Ned! I’m grieved to see Elizabeth pining.”
“Peculiar, isn’t it?” Ned asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well, this whole business started over Mary’s letter to Charlie—the one I purloined and copied. You were so upset about it! But looking back from whereabouts we are now, it hardly seems worth a tenth of what you made of it.”
“Don’t rub it in, Ned! I was too sensitive about the possible outcomes, busy thinking months—sometimes years—ahead. I should have waited on events, I see that now. You were in the right of it when you said I was making a mountain out of a molehill.”