The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

by Colleen McCullough

  “As to the union of Angus and Mary, I rejoice, but if you think that would put his newspaper at your political disposal, then you very much mistake your man. As well as my sister.”

  Elizabeth quit the library and left her husband to his dreams of grandeur. Leopards don’t change their spots, she thought. Oh, but you fooled me, Fitz! I genuinely thought I had cured you of your pride and conceit. And when you began to assume the leopard’s hide again, I blamed it on my inability to give you the sons you wanted. But it was never that, I see now. The leopard has stayed the leopard throughout our twenty years together. While I, if I may believe Lydia, have turned into a mouse. A bought mouse. S passed, but Mary had no idea how many, for the lump on her brow seemed to have provoked a series of faints or comas from which she recovered slowly. Sheer exhaustion had entered into it too, and being deprived of daylight, she had no way of knowing how regularly she woke to drink, eat, use the commode.

  The velvet curtain was drawn back to reveal a gap in the iron bars that confined her, formed when a section was let down to make a shelf. Stacked on this she would find fresh food, small beer, a jug of water for her ablutions, and a tin with a pouring spout containing an oily liquid. The last, she soon discovered, was to replenish the reservoirs of her lamps. Terror of being plunged into utter darkness stimulated her dazed mind into deducing this, after which she learned how to do the filling: take off the glass chimney, unscrew the metal centre holding the wick, and pour new oil on top of what remained in the glass reservoir. The little lamp burned for longer than the big ones, and she found to her relief that, when she held its weak flame to the wick of a big lamp, it kindled readily.

  Twice she had found clean nightgowns and socks on the shelf, once a clean robe, but never outer wear of any kind. She was warm enough, as the chamber never seemed to grow freezingly cold any more than it grew very hot. About the temperature of a cool spring day, she concluded.

  If only she had some way to gauge the passage of time! The highwayman must have taken her fob watch; they were expensive and not easily come by. Hers had been a gift from Elizabeth, greatly appreciated. No external elements penetrated her prison apart from that tiny, moaning whine, which she no longer consciously heard. If it reminded her of anything, it was of a window left carelessly open a crack in a high wind, but if there was a window behind that gigantic screen, she could not see it—and doubted its existence besides. Windows meant light, and she had none.

  Rummaging among the books on the second table brought steel pens into view, as well as several pencils; there was a standish containing black ink and red ink, and a shaker full of sand for blotting. Also several hundred sheets of paper, hot-pressed and with the ragged edges that spoke of a pure linen-cotton mixture. The titles of the books were interesting yet uninformative: Dr. Johnson on the poets of his time, Oliver Goldsmith, Sheridan, Trollope, Richardson, Marlowe, Spenser, Donne, Milton; also works on chemistry, mathematics, astronomy and anatomy. Nothing popular, nothing religious. Nothing that her swimming brain could compass. Time, it was evident, was best expended in curative sleep.

  Finally there came an awakening that saw her mind alert, her bruises faint, and the swelling on her brow vanished. Having eaten, drunk, and used her peculiar commode, she took up a pencil and made a series of seven strokes upon the smooth wall at the back of her cell, adjacent to what looked like iron hinges set into it. Since no one had left her clean sheets as yet, she decided that no more than a week had gone by since she had been put here, for whoever had put her here apparently believed in cleanliness, and that meant clean sheets would be forthcoming.

  Though the oil that fuelled them had an elusive aroma, the burning wicks of her lamps gave off no smoke of any kind, nor made it hard to breathe. She took the chimney off her little lamp and toured the cell to see if a stray puff of air caused its flame to wobble, but none did. Even when held over her commode hole, it remained steady. What was down there? No cesspit, certainly, for no odour of human wastes floated out of it. When she thrust the flame down into the hole, it revealed something unexpected: not a narrow vent, but a broad round vertical tunnel, like a well. Her light had not the power to illuminate its bottom, but as she bent close above the wooden seat she heard what sounded like swiftly running water. So that was why the privy did not smell! The matter she voided tumbled free to be borne away on a stream.

  A river? She remembered dearest Charlie talking about the caves and underground rivers of the Peak District, and suddenly knew where she was. Imprisoned in the caves of the Peak District of Derbyshire, which meant not very far from Pemberley. But why? Instinct said that her virtue was not threatened, and Captain Thunder had stolen everything she possessed, so it was not money either. Unless she had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom? Ridiculous! replied common sense. Nothing on her person gave away more than her name, which was not Darcy, and her condition would have told her captor soon enough that she was a nobody, most likely a governess. Who could know of her connection to Darcy of Pemberley? The answer was no one. So whatever her captor’s reason for this abduction, it was not ransom.

  Yet for this unknown captor she did have a purpose, else he would not have succoured her, striven to keep her alive. Not rape and not ransom, so what?

  It was while she was replacing the chimney on her little lamp that she saw him, sitting comfortably on a straight wooden chair on the far side of her bars—how long had he been watching her? She put the lamp down and faced him, her eyes busy.

  A little old man! Almost gnomish, so small and wizened was he, his legs crossed at the knees on spindled shanks ending in open brown sandals. He wore a heath-brown, cowled robe cinched around the waist with a thick cream cord, and on his breast sat a crucifix. Had the colour been a browner brown, he might have been a Francisan friar, she thought, staring at him intently. His wrinkled, buffeted scalp was bald everywhere, even around his ears, and the eyes surveying her with equal interest were so pale a blue that their irises were only marginally darker than their whites. Rheumy eyes, yet with an unnerving quality because they seemed always to look sideways. His thin blade of a nose was beaky and his lips a thin, severe line, as of a martinet. I do not like him, thought Mary.

  “You are intelligent, Madam Mary,” he said.

  No, said Mary to herself, I refuse to display any sign of fear or confusion; I will hold my own against him.

  “You know my name, sir,” she said.

  “It was embroidered on your clothing. Mary Bennet.”

  “Miss Mary Bennet.”

  “Sister Mary,” he corrected.

  She pulled the chair out from under her book table and set it exactly opposite his, then sat down, knees and feet primly together, hands folded in her lap. “What leads you to think me intelligent?”

  “You worked out how to replenish the lamps.”

  “Needs must when the devil drives, sir.”

  “You are afraid of the dark.”

  “Of course. It is a natural reaction.”

  “I saved your life.”

  “How did you do that, sir?”

  “I found you at death’s door. You had, Sister Mary, a mortal swelling of the brain that was squeezing the life-juice out of you. The gigantic fellow who had you was too ignorant to see it, so when he went about his business, my children and I stole you. I had developed a cure for just such a malady, but I was in sore need of a patient to try it out on. You nearly died—but nearly only. We got you home in time, and while my children bathed you and made you comfortable, I distilled my cure. You have been the answer to many prayers.”

  “Do you belong to an order of monks?” she asked, fascinated.

  He reared up in outrage. “A Roman? I? Indeed, no! I am Father Dominus, custodian of the Children of Jesus.”

  Mary’s brow cleared. “Oh, I see! You are the leader of one of the many outlandish Christian sects that so afflict northern England. My Church of England newsletter is always inveighing against your like, but I have not read of the Children o
f Jesus.”

  “Nor will you,” he said grimly. “We are refugees.”

  “From what, Father?”

  “From persecution. My children belonged to men who exploited and ill-treated them.”

  “Oh! Mill and factory owners,” she said, nodding. “Well, Father, you stand in no danger from me. Like you, I am the enemy of men like them. Release me, and let me work with you to liberate all such children. How many have you freed?”

  “That is no business of yours, nor will it be.” His eyes drifted past her shoulders to gaze at her prison walls. “I saved your life, which therefore belongs to me. You will work for me.”

  “Work for you? Doing what?”

  Apparently in answer, he stretched out his hands to her; they were crabbed with age and some disease had swollen their joints. “I cannot write,” he said.

  “What is that to the point?”

  “You are going to be my scribe.”

  “Write for you? Write what?”

  “My book,” he said simply, smiling.

  “I would be glad to do that for you, Father, but of my own free choice, not because you keep me a prisoner,” she said, feeling the stirrings of alarm. “Unlock the door. Then we can come to some mutually satisfactory arrangement.”

  “I think not,” said Father Dominus.

  “But this is insane!” she cried, unable to stop herself. “Keep me prisoner to act as a scribe? What book could be so important? A retelling of the Bible?”

  His face had assumed a patient, long-suffering expression; he spoke to her now as to a fool, not an intelligent person. “I do not despair of you, Sister Mary—you are so nearly right. Not a retelling of the Bible, but a new bible! The doctrines of the Children of Jesus! It is all here in my mind, but my hands cannot turn my thoughts into words. You will do that for me.”

  Off the chair he sprang with a laugh and a whoop, ducked around the corner of the screen, and was gone.

  “How fortunate that I am sitting down,” said Mary, looking at her hands, which were shaking. “He’s mad, quite mad.”

  Her eyes smarted; tears were close. But no, she would not cry! More urgent by far was to review that bizarre conversation, try to construct a footing, if not a foundation, upon which to base the talks sure to come. It was indeed true that northern England was the breeding ground of all kinds of peculiar religious sects, and clearly Father Dominus and his Children of Jesus fitted into that mould. Nothing he had said revealed a theology, but no doubt that would come, if he meant to write his beliefs down in the form of a religious text. His name for himself and the name he had given her smacked of Roman Catholicism, but he had denied that strenuously. Perhaps as a child he had been exposed to Papism? “Children of Jesus” had rather a puritanical ring; some of these sects were so heavily concentrated upon Jesus that God hardly ever got a mention, so perhaps there was some of that in it too. But were there actually any children? She had seen none, heard none. And what kind of cures did he practise? To speak of a swelling of the brain with such authority argued a medical background. And the statement about their being refugees was illogical; if he had taken his children from mill and factory owners, those men were more likely to seize upon new children than search for escapees. The source of children was almost limitless, so Argus said; having borne them, their parents were only too happy to sell them into labour, especially if they had no parishes.

  “Hello?” said a little girl’s voice.

  Mary lifted her head to see a small figure clad in a heath-brown, cowled robe staring at her through the bars of her cage.

  “Hello,” said Mary, smiling.

  The smile was returned. “I have something for you, Sister Mary. Father Dominus said you would be pleased.”

  “I would be more pleased to know your name.”

  “Sister Therese. I am the oldest of the girls.”

  “Do you know the number of your years, Therese?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “And what do you have for me that will please me?”

  The child didn’t look her age, but nor did she appear poorly nourished or weighed down by fear. When she attained full maturity her nose and chin would be too large for prettiness, but she had a certain charm of colouring, this being light brown of eye, skin and hair. Two small hands clasped a tripod stand which they put on the shelf; a kettle with steam curling out of its spout stood upon the ground next to her, and was lifted up in its turn. Then came a small china teapot, a cup and a saucer, and a little jug of milk.

  “If you take the chimney off one of your lamps and put it under the stand, it will bring the kettle to the boil, and then you may make a pot of tea,” said Sister Therese, producing a tin of tea leaves. “Father Dominus says tea will do you no harm, but you are not to ask for coffee.”

  “Therese, that is wonderful!” Mary cried, setting a lamp beneath the tripod and putting the kettle on its top. “Tea! So refreshing! Thank Father Dominus for me too, please.”

  Therese turned to go. “I will be back later with your clean sheets, and will collect the kettle then. You can empty the leaves down the privy and keep the pot and stand.”

  “Wait!” Mary called, but the little brown-robed girl was gone. “I will talk to her when she comes back,” she said, and went about making herself a much needed cup of tea.

  Is this the carrot for the donkey? she asked herself as she sat sipping the scalding liquid. “Oh, this is so good! Father Dominus keeps an excellent sort of tea.”

  Therese returned some time later; Mary gave her the kettle, but dallied about it, eager to learn what she could from this little member of the sect.

  “How many children does Father have?” she asked, making a show of wiping the outside of the kettle.

  The wide eyes looked into hers trustfully. “He says, fifty, Sister Mary. Thirty boys and twenty girls.” A shadow crossed her face, of grief or fear, but she squared her shoulders and drew a deep breath of resolution. “Yes, fifty.”

  “Do you remember your bad master?”

  Bewilderment! Sister Therese frowned. “No, but Father says that is usual. Brother Ignatius and I were the first, you see. We have been with Father a long time.”

  “Do you like your life with Father?”

  “Oh, yes,” she answered, but automatically; it was not a question aroused emotion in her. “Please, may I have the kettle?”

  Mary handed it over. Hasten slowly, she thought. I have a strong feeling that there will be more than enough time to quiz her.

  Not a prisoner in the way she, Mary, was a prisoner, she was forced to conclude. Therese had the run of wherever they were, so much was sure. Nor was she inclined to escape. Her life seemed to be the only one she knew, which set Mary to wondering. Mill and factory owners didn’t enslave very young children, who were too much trouble; they might take on an eight-year-old, but Argus said nine or ten was the ideal age for a child to commence a life of unpaid labour, existing for the food scraps and sordid shelter offered in return. Therefore Therese should recollect a life before being rescued: why didn’t she?

  The need for exercise had driven her to pacing her cell—four double steps encompassed its dimensions. By walking thus for what she judged to be at least two hours, Mary tired herself out sufficiently to sleep when her eyelids grew heavy. When she woke she ate—the bread was always fresh, she noted—and sat down with John Donne to pass this dreadful inertia.

  Which didn’t last very long; Father Dominus appeared.

  “Are you ready to start work?” he asked, seating himself.

  “In return for the answers to some questions, yes.”

  “Then ask.”

  “Describe my situation when you took me more fully, Father. Where exactly was I? With whom was I?”

  “I know not the identity of your captor,” he said readily, “but he was big enough to suffer from some glandular anomaly, I concluded.” He tittered. “He had a bellyache, and set you down to relieve it. I happened to be gathering medicinal herbs in the vicin
ity, and had Brother Jerome and our handcart with me—the water in a spring nearby is unique, and I intended to fill my jars there. But you were fitting, and any fool could see you were not epileptic by nature. Brother Jerome put you on the handcart and—away we went! That is all.”

  “Are you a physician, Father?”

  “No. I am a druggist—an apothecary. The finest in the world,” he announced in ringing tones. “I cannot cure epilepsy, but I can keep it in abeyance, and that is more than anyone else can say. Some of my children are epileptic, but I dose them and they do not fit. Just as some of my children have been riddled with worms, parasites, flukes. But no more! I can cure almost anything, and what I cannot cure I can keep controlled.”

  “From what did Therese suffer?”

  “Sister Therese, if you please! As an infant, gin instead of milk, as a small child, lack of food. It affects their memories,” he said, sounding glib. “Now may we begin?”

  “Begin what, precisely?”

  “The story of my life. The story of the Children of Jesus. The fruits of my labours as an apothecary.”

  “I am sure I will be consumed with interest.”

  “It matters not, Sister Mary. Your task is to take down my dictation with a pencil on this cheap paper,” he said, producting a thick wad of it that went down on the shelf with a faint clang.

  “My pencils will blunt,” she said.

  “And you would like a knife upon which to sharpen them, you imply. But I have a better idea, Sister Mary. Each day I will give you five sharpened pencils in exchange for blunted ones.”

  “I would appreciate a shelf for the books,” she riposted. “This table is not overly large, Father, and I would like to move it closer to the bars to take dictation. Books should not lie on a floor to get damp and mildewy.”

  “As you wish,” he said indifferently, watching her transfer the books to the ground and move the table closer to him.