Colleen McCullough - The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

Say nothing derogatory, Mary! Say nothing that mocks him, or otherwise impugns his theology. “I am humbled,” she said, “to be the scribe of such a mind, Father.”

“You see it?” he asked, leaning forward eagerly.

“I see it.”

“Then we will go on.”

And go on he did, at great length; as the pages piled up to the right of her makeshift scribe’s cushion, Mary’s knees began to shake and her hand to cramp. Finally, when he paused for breath, she put her pencil down.

“Father, I can write no more today,” she said. “I have a writer’s cramp, and given that you want all of this transcribed in a fair, copperplate hand, I must beg you to stop.”

He seemed to come back into himself from a different place, blinked, shivered, parted his thin lips in a mirthless smile. “Oh, that was wonderful!” he said. “So much easier than trying to get meaning out of looking at words.”

“What do you call this theology?” she asked.

“Cosmogenesis,” he said.

“Greek roots, not Latin.”

“The Greeks thought. Those who came after imitated.”

“I look forward to our next dictation, but there is no need to lock me up,” she tried again. “I need exercise, for one thing, and pacing a cell is not adequate. A shelf for my books, please.”

“Think yourself lucky that I have given you the means to make a cup of tea,” he said, rising to his feet.

“You are a bad master, Father Dominus, no better than those from whom you took your children. You feed me and shelter me, but deny me freedom.”

But she said it to empty air; he had gone.

She sat on her bed to give her body a change of posture as well as substance, and tried to come to grips with the fantastic drivel he had spoken. To Mary, a staunch adherent of the Church of England, he was apostate, worse than any heretic, for he talked of God as no Christian ought, and thus far Jesus had not even entered the theological world he painted. Which meant he had little in common with almost all the sects northern England could boast. If she, who never counted the cost of saying what people didn’t want to hear, had kept a tight rein on her thoughts and striven mightily not to offend him, she had done so because, by the end of their very long session, she had become convinced he was absolutely mad. Remained only for him to say that he was God, or perhaps Jesus, and her judgment would be irrevocable. Logic had no part in his way of looking at things, which seemed to be purely for his own comfort or convenience or aspirations. Though what his aspirations were, as yet she had no idea. He claimed to be God’s younger son!

Privately she put his age at somewhere around seventy, but if she erred, it was on the younger side, not the older. He had been well-looked-after, whether by his children or by others was moot; it was even possible that he was eighty. So had he always been a madman, or was it a symptom of old age? Though he was not senile in any way; his memory was excellent and his reasoning powers acute. It was more that his reason was not reasonable nor his memory unwarped. What she had been exposed to was a person whose self owed nothing to the ethics and structure of English society. Were there really fifty children, thirty boys and twenty girls? Why had Therese’s face changed when she spoke those numbers? How rigorously would the little girl be quizzed by Father Dominus as to what questions Sister Mary asked? She had a duty to the child not to put her in harm’s way, and perhaps that expression had hinted at dread punishments.

So Mary went gently with Therese, whom she could interrogate about less perilous things than numbers and punishments. Since Father Dominus had made no secret of his caves, Mary concentrated upon that aspect of her imprisonment. According to Therese, there were many, many miles of caves, all interconnected by tunnels; speaking with awe, Therese told her that Father Dominus knew every inch of every tunnel, every cavern, every nook and cranny. One system was called the Southern Caves, another the Northern Caves; Mary and the Children of Jesus lived in the Southern Caves, but the work went on in the Northern Caves, which also contained God’s Temple. What exactly the work consisted of took time to elucidate, but gradually Mary pieced it together from Therese and a new friend among the Children of Jesus, Brother Ignatius. He had appeared with an awl, a screwdriver, some screws, several iron brackets and three planks of wood.

It was then that Mary learned what the iron hinges in her far wall were: a second cowled youth, tall and slender, had helped Brother Ignatius carry his load inside-but only after he had stood Mary against the wall and closed the hinges on her ankles to form fetters. Then, having used a rule to mark the screw holes for the brackets, he took himself off and left Ignatius to do the actual work. Brother Ignatius was shorter than the other lad, whom he called Brother Jerome, but more powerfully built, and very close to puberty. When Mary asked his age, he gave it as fourteen.

“Therese and I be the eldest,” he confided, screwing his screws into the soft rock.

“Why did Brother Jerome measure and mark, if he wasn’t to help you in aught else?” Mary asked.

“Can’t read nor write,” said Ignatius cheerfully. “Jerome’s the only one of us who can.”

She suppressed a gasp. “None of you can read or write?”

“’Cept Jerome. Father brought him from Sheffield.”

“Why hasn’t Father taught you?”

“We be too busy, I expect.”

“Busy doing what?”

“Depends.” Ignatius set a plank on two brackets, wiggled it and nodded. “Nice and level. Jerome’s a fussy one.”

“Depends?”

The rather dull brown eyes clouded with the effort of remembering something uttered a few seconds before. “Might be pounding powder, or steeping herbs, or filtering, or distilling, or thickening, or putting in a dab of colour. Blue’s for liver, lavender’s for kidneys, yaller’s for bladder, mucky green’s for gallstones, red’s for heart, pink’s for lungs, brown’s for guts.” His mouth opened to say more, but Mary stopped him hastily.

“Medicaments?” she asked.

“What?”

“What does filtering mean?” she countered. “Or distilling?”

He shrugged his broad and sturdy shoulders. “Dunno, ’cept we does ’em, and that’s what they’re called.”

“He did say he was an apothecary,” said Mary to herself. “Do you make potions and elixirs for Father Dominus, is that it?”

“Aye, that’s it.” He began to stack her books on the bottom shelf, and put what volumes were left on the middle one. “There, Sister Mary! You can fit as many again.”

“I can indeed. Thank you, Brother Ignatius.”

He nodded, gathered up his tools and prepared to leave.

“Just a moment! I am still fettered.”

“Jerome will come back for that. He’s got the keys.”

Off he went, leaving Mary to wait what seemed an eternity for Brother Jerome to unlock the hinges binding her ankles.

This lad, she thought looking down on his head, which displayed the bald spot of a tonsure on its crown, this lad is very different from Brother Ignatius. His eyes, almost as light as Father Dominus’s, were sharp and intelligent, and displayed that peculiar lack of emotion people usually call “cold.” That he was fond of inflicting pain became evident as he unlocked her, grazing her flesh on the iron until he drew blood.

“I wouldn’t, Brother Jerome,” she said softly. “Your master needs me healthy, not laid low with some infection from a wound.”

“’Twas you did it, not I,” he said, disliking the threat.

“Then watch that you-or I!-do not do it again.”

“I hate him!” said Therese through her teeth after Jerome had gone. “He’s cruel.”