Colleen McCullough - The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

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 of 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.”