The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

by Colleen McCullough

  “I assume that they refused to be bathed?”

  “Absolutely, marm. In fact, they refuse to take off their robes, which stink to high heaven!”

  “I see. In which case, Parmenter, lock every door and window opening into the ballroom, and do not unlock any of them until I am present and specifically instruct you.”

  And off marched Elizabeth to find her sisters—but only after visiting Mr. Matthew Spottiswoode.

  “Matthew, I do not care what you are doing, kindly abandon it!” she commanded, surging into his office.

  As word had long spread of doings in the ballroom, he did not attempt to protest, simply folded his hands on his desk and gazed at her enquiringly. “Yes, Mrs. Darcy?”

  “I want twenty of the biggest, hardiest nursemaids Lancashire can produce. I say Lancashire because I very much doubt that any big or hardy enough exist in Derbyshire. Offer them a king’s ransom to drop whatever they are doing and come to Pemberley at once—and I mean yesterday!”

  “Certainly, Mrs. Darcy. Though I very much fear that, even for a king’s ransom, it will be some days before my quest bears fruit,” said Mr. Spottiswoode, eyes limpid, mouth perfectly straight, all laughter on the inside. “I take it you would like me to engage upon this myself?”

  “Yes! And start in Manchester! Failing that, Liverpool.”

  Alone among the sisters, Elizabeth had some appreciation of the causes underlying behaviour in the ballroom. She had no doubt that until their removal to Pemberley, the children had been closer to angels than mortal children usually are. Knowing this, everyone had expected the angelic conduct to continue. Whereas Elizabeth saw the last week as evidence of a new and different kind of terror. What, after all, did they know of any life save that which Father Dominus had inflicted upon them? And the many years of love would surely far outweigh the fear of him and Jerome that had come so very recently. If I were an eight-year-old Child of Jesus, she thought, walking Pemberley’s stunning cream-and-gilt corridors, what would I make of being bundled out of the only home I have ever known by a band of men, then locked inside an utterly alien environment? I think I would register my disapproval in every way at my disposal! And have we—Mary, Kitty, Jane, I—come near them since they arrived? No, we have not, doing what all women in our circumstances do—wait for servants to clean up them and any messes they make. But servants are—oh, a law unto themselves! If they dislike the work they are put to, they take out their spleen on whatever defenceless is at hand. In this case, the Children of Jesus themselves. No servile hand will have been raised against them, but one cannot say the same for servile tongues. They have been roared at, screamed at, reviled. I know it, I know it!

  Well, she vowed as the end of her hike loomed in view, it is time to change all that. Not with sweetness and tenderness—they are not yet ready for those. But with authority from the people they will sense own the kind of authority Father Dominus did. With instructions aimed at teaching them how to go on. We did not rescue them to see them cast upon the world rudderless and poverty-stricken, which means that it is our responsibility to start their education here and now.

  Jane, Mary and Kitty were enjoying a comfortable prose in the Pink Parlour; it continued exactly as long as it took Elizabeth to storm in.

  “Jane,” she said wrathfully, “this is all your idea, so present me with no excuses as to why your sensibilities and delicate feelings preclude your participation! Kitty, doff that silly frivolity of a dress and don something made of mattress ticking! This instant, do you hear me? Mary, as you are responsible for thrusting the Children of Jesus into Pemberley’s bosom, turn your redoubtable skills at achieving things to good purpose!”

  All three sisters gaped at her, jaws dropped, eyes huge.

  “I am flattered to be deemed redoubtable, Lizzie, but I am in complete ignorance as to your good purpose,” said Mary. “Pray tell me what is amiss. Something is.”

  “The Children of Jesus—Children of Satan, Parmenter calls them!—are behaving worse than savages. My servants are at their wits’ end, and if the four of us do not set them an example, I am going to be looking for some dozens of new servants, starting with a butler!” said Elizabeth between her teeth.

  “Oh, dear!” whimpered Kitty, paling. “I do not have any dresses made of mattress ticking, Lizzie.”

  “Jane, if you cry, I swear I’ll smack you! And harder than Caroline Bingley smacks your darling little Arthur, horrid child that he is! Meet me at the main entrance to the ballroom in half an hour, dressed for war.”

  “I do believe that Lizzie exited in a puff of smoke,” said Mary, scenting a challenge and feeling hugely invigorated. “Well, girls, don’t dither! Kitty, if you have nothing you paid less than two hundred guineas for, I suggest you borrow a dress from one of the below-stairs maids. I’d give you something of mine, but it would trip you up.”

  Jane had leaped to her feet, looking terrified. “I want to cry, but I dare not!” she said on a wail.

  “Good!” said Mary with satisfaction. “Kitty, move yourself!”

  Elizabeth was waiting, laden with starched white aprons and four whippy canes. Face like flint, she doled three of the canes out and kept one. “I hope these will be for show only,” she said, removing a large key from the pocket of a voluminous apron Kitty had last seen on Mrs. Thorpe, the underhousekeeper. “Put on an apron, please. A party of footmen is coming with dust shovels, brushes, scrubbing brushes, rags, buckets of soapy water and mops—at least, they had better be coming! From what Parmenter says, everything from food to faeces is decorating the walls and floor inside. Mary, I am your commanding officer in this sortie, is that understood?”

  “Yes, Lizzie,” said Mary, utterly cowed.

  “Then let us proceed.” Elizabeth inserted the key in the lock, turned it, and opened the door.

  A distinct odour of excrement assailed their nostrils, but too little time had passed for the food detritus to spoil, a mercy. What looked like a large number of brown-wrapped bundles were sliding and skating on the polished hardwood floor, kept glossy for dancing. None of the bundles took any notice of this influx of women, which gave Elizabeth time to close and lock the door, then return the key to her pocket.

  For a reason unknown to her, Parmenter had placed the extra-large dinner gong just inside this door; Fitz had brought it back from China, liking its exquisite bronze work, only to find that Parmenter would not be parted from his old gong, and “lost” the new one. When her eyes lighted upon it, Elizabeth smiled with genuine enjoyment, and brought her cane down on its chased surface.

  BOOM! When the reverberations of that crashing roar died away, the ensuing silence was perfect. Every brown bundle was stopped in mid-action.

  Elizabeth produced the wicked noise of a whippy cane hissing through the air and strode to the middle of the floor, careful not to tread in any suspicious matter.

  “Take off your robes!” she thundered.

  They hastened to shed their robes, revealing that Father Dominus had not believed in underwear. Or baths. Or rags for wiping the bottom. Their skins should have been whiter than milk, but instead were a dingy grey that had tidal marks around armpits and groin where they had sweated as they toiled.

  Another key turned in the lock; in came a dozen manservants bearing the appurtenances necessary to clean the floor and walls.

  “Thank you,” said Elizabeth. “You may put them down—I will look after things here. Herbert, please assemble every tin bath Pemberley possesses—if there are not enough, borrow more from Pemberley village. Make sure when the time comes that the laundry can supply sufficient hot water to half-fill them. With that I want the Paris soap, sponges, and soft scrubbing brushes.” She turned from the wooden-faced Herbert to an equally expressionless Thomas. “Thomas, I want someone driving a fast cart to go into Macclesfield immediately. He is to buy thirty pairs of under-drawers, trousers, shirts and jackets to fit a ten-year-old boy. Also twenty pairs of under-drawers, petticoats, dresses and jackets to fit
a ten-year-old girl. Shoes can wait. I want the clothing back here yesterday, please.”

  How true it is, thought Elizabeth, keeping her face stern, that human beings stripped of their clothes feel hideously vulnerable. The horrible little beasts of a moment ago are now clay ready for moulding. She made the cane hiss again.

  “Now Miss Mary, Miss Kitty and Miss Jane are going to show you how to clean and wash a floor. Miss Mary will take fifteen boys, Miss Kitty fifteen girls, and Miss Jane those left over. You will have to do the counting, ladies, as the children cannot. I want to supervise everybody, but I need an assistant. Camille, come here, please. Quickly!”

  Mary made short work of counting her fifteen boys, and Kitty, relieved that she had inherited girls, was not slow to follow; only Jane dithered until she received a minatory look.

  “What do you call the yellow water that comes out of your body, Camille?” she asked.

  “Wees, Miss—Miss—”

  “Miss Lizzie. And what do you call the brown sausages that come out of your body?”

  “Poohs, Miss Lizzie.”

  “Thank you.” Elizabeth straightened. “Attention!” she bawled, sounding so like Miss Sackbutt of Meryton schooldays that her sisters jumped and shivered. “Camille, push that little chair with the hole in its seat over here, please.”

  “Now I happen to know,” she hollered, “that Father Dominus would never have permitted you to wee and pooh all over his caves! So why are you treating this beautiful room with less respect? This is called a commode chair, and beneath the hole in its seat is a chamber pot for wees and poohs. In future you will use my commode chairs—and keep them spotlessly clean! If you do not, I will rub your nose in your own wees and poohs! After I have given you six cuts with this cane! Do you understand?”

  Every grimy head nodded.

  “Splendid! In future these commode chairs will be put outside on the terrace, where they will be sheltered if it rains. You will have privacy for your motions. In the meantime, you are going to clean this room of the food, wees and poohs. Miss Mary, Miss Kitty and Miss Jane will show her group how to do this, and it will be done properly. Dust shovels first to scoop up the solids, then we scrub, wipe, and mop. Hop to it!”

  While that went on, Elizabeth removed the brown habits to the terrace, and instructed Herbert to have them taken away and burned. The commode chairs went out under shelter, after which the commanding officer talked to Camille about food.

  The Pemberley chef had supervised the children’s menu himself—a mistake. Therese had cooked for over fifty people, but her only instructor had been Father Dominus. Whereas the tyrant in the Pemberley kitchen had a fit of the vapours if one of his sauces was too buttery—or, worse, not buttery enough. Elizabeth sent for Mrs. Parmenter.

  “Use one of the under-cooks capable of making plain food,” she instructed. “Absolutely no wine, exotic herbs or any other flavouring that alters taste. Roast meats, stews, soups, a little chicken to introduce them to something other than red meat. For dessert, tarts, puddings, jellies. Plain bread, and plenty of it. Confine foods like eggs and bacon to breakfast. And cut it all up for the time being. These poor children cannot use a knife and fork, they are used to a spoon. Give them small beer to drink, it is what they are used to.”

  All of which was as nothing compared to giving each child a bath. Elizabeth deliberately chose one of the smallest children to go first; a boy named William who looked about four years old.

  “Oh, he’s adorable!” Jane whispered, eyes brimming. “Such a dear little man!”

  “I’m glad you like him. You may have the honour of giving William his first bath,” said Elizabeth.

  By the time the hot water reached the ballroom it was an ideal temperature for a bath, not far above lukewarm. The cakes of soap came from Paris and were perfumed with jasmine; the sponges came from the Red Sea and produced a deliciously tickling trickle of water down the spine. Well aproned, sure of William’s pleasure, Jane picked him up and popped him into the shallow tin bath.

  That was the end of peace. William let out a screech of outrage, sank his teeth into the edge of Jane’s hand, and proved he could walk on water.

  “Mary, I think Jane needs help,” said Elizabeth.

  “No, I do not!” growled Jane, jaws clenched. “I’ll beat the little monster yet!” Smack! Down came Jane’s hand on William’s flank. “Now sit in the water and be still, you imp of Satan!”

  By this time Mary was engaged in her own struggle with Timmy, and Kitty was discovering that girls were equally opposed to being assaulted by soap-and-water. Nothing daunted, Elizabeth grabbed Camille by one arm and threw her into a vacant bath, brush ready to scrub away eleven years of accumulated dirt.

  Mrs. Thorpe, who had stayed to witness with her own eyes Mrs. Darcy conquer, drummed up a dozen hefty maids to assist, and gradually, fighting, screaming, resisting all the way, the forty-five Children of Jesus had their first bath. By the time it was over and the howling children were wrapped in huckaback towels, every grown woman was soaked to the skin.

  Now remained the horror of teaching the children how to put on under-drawers, let alone the other layers of clothing society demanded. They wanted their robes, and wept for them desolately, but the caves were a thing of the past, and so were their robes.

  Foreseeing trouble, Elizabeth took William and showed him how to pull down his under-drawers and trousers (they swam on him) before sitting on a commode, and gave the boys a dispensation to go out into the garden and wee there. This meant the girls felt discriminated against, which necessitated a lecture on having to sit to wee while boys didn’t.

  “Oh,” groaned a sopping Elizabeth as she lay back in a chair in the Pink Parlour and drank her tea thirstily. “Only now do I understand how privileged we are. We bear however many children God ordains, but we hand them over to nurserymaids and see nothing of their bad side, let alone deal with wees and poohs.”

  “Yes, today should teach us what it is like to rear children without servants,” said Mary, munching cake.

  “Though,” said Kitty, “the Children of Jesus are a special case, not so? They have never been trained in any way, whereas I imagine that even the poorest mother must organise herself to deal with her situation more comfortably than the kind of thing we saw today. I would think that her older children must be put to helping her with the younger and the babies.”

  “Well said, Kitty!” Mary poured herself more tea.

  “And well done, girls,” said Elizabeth warmly. “Our labours are not yet done, but today was the worst. By the time that the twenty nursemaids I have asked Matthew to find arrive here, we will have instilled some of the daily routines into our charges.” She got to her feet. “Tea came first, but now I am going to go to my room, lie down, take a nap, and dress for dinner. After a bath!”

  “Never say that word to me again!” cried Jane with a shudder. “To think that I actually smacked a child!”

  “Yes, you’ll hurt long after he doesn’t,” said Mary wickedly.

  Sherry or Madeira in the Rubens Room restored the ladies to some semblance of themselves; Kitty’s recounting of events in the ballroom revealed that she was no mean raconteuse, and had the gentlemen doubled over with laughter.

  “Lizzie alone seemed to have some idea of what was to come,” Kitty ended, looking down at her shell-pink lace gown with fervent love. “She told me to wear a dress of mattress ticking! And after ten minutes in the ballroom, I swear I wished I owned one! As it was, I wore an awful old thing of beige cambric, then sent it to be burned. ’Twas good for naught else, I assure you.”

  “It is clear to me,” said Mary, “that the children cannot be accommodated in the ballroom for much longer. It pleases me that their spirits have not been broken, and they mouth ‘light of Lucifer’ and ‘the dark of God’ like meaningless cant, so they were never drilled in Cosmogenesis. However, that is not what I wished to say, which is that until an orphanage can be built they have to be put somewhere suit
able. I am not foolish enough to think that such things grow overnight, like toadstools. Angus, you are a man of eminent good sense. What do you suggest?”

  “I have no suggestions,” he said, startled.

  “Fitz, you are an MP and therefore must know something. What do you suggest?”

  “That we utilise Hemmings, since my lease on the property still has months to run. I’ve told Matthew to engage carpenters to put tiered beds in three of the bedrooms—one for the girls, two for the boys. Which leaves three bedrooms for the nursemaids, if you will consent to engaging a mere nine instead of twenty. The large drawing room will make a good schoolroom, the small one a staff room. The dining room will seat all the children on benches at refectory tables. The two teachers can live in the cottage, the general servants in the attic. And so on, and so forth.”

  “Brilliant, Papa,” said Charlie, grinning.

  “Does this mean you’ll build the orphanage, Fitz?” Angus asked slyly, while the ladies listened breathless.

  “Do I have any choice? But I shall bludgeon Charles Bingley into contributing, never fear! I’ve found eight acres of quite unfarmable land just this side of Buxton, close enough to halfway between here and Bingley Hall. However, we’ll cast our net wide enough to catch fifty-five more children, and build to house one hundred in all.” He coughed, looked at the ladies with amusement and apology. “Under ordinary circumstances I would retain my innate scepticism about such a large institution—that its staff would embezzle, perhaps also ill-treat the children. But with our ladies supervising every sneeze and shuffle, I doubt anyone will get away with much.”