Colleen McCullough - The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

Angus intervened. “Father, have you seen a lost lady in your travels?”

The rage died, the eyes widened innocently. “Of what kind is this lady, sir?”

“Tall, thin, about forty, reddish-gold hair. Handsome.”

“No, sir, definitely not. The only lady we have seen was poor Moggie Mag. She was bringing home rabbits for her cats and lost her way, but we set her upon it.”

“Thank you, Father,” Angus said. “Whereabouts do you and your children live?”

“In the Children of Jesus orphanage near York, sir.”

“A long way to walk,” said Charlie. “Given that there are no monasteries anywhere in this part of England, where do you stay?”

“We beg for alms and we camp, sir. God is good to us.”

“Must you go as far afield as Stockport to hawk your wares?”

“We do not hawk, sir. The apothecaries of this part of England like our remedies best. They’ll take everything we can manage to bring with us.”

The three men prepared to ride on, but the friar held up a hand to detain them, and addressed Charlie.

“When I thank God for this guinea, sir, I would like to mention its donor’s name. May I ask it?”

“Charles Darcy of Pemberley.” Charlie tipped his hat and rode off, the others following.

“The Children of Jesus,” said Angus. “Have you ever heard of them, Charlie? I haven’t, but I’m not from these parts.”

“I’ve never heard a whisper of them. Still, if they really do hail from York, that would account for my ignorance.”

“Except,” said Owen thoughtfully, “why are they on a bridle-path? A bridle-path through wild and desolate country? Surely this is not the main route from York to Stockport? They look like Roman Catholics and may be trying to avoid several kinds of odium and petty persecution-the kind of thing that happens to Gypsies. The friar said they camped and begged for alms, which likens them to Gypsies.”

“But no one could mistake them for Gypsies, Owen, and they’re little children-boys, I hazard a guess. One very small fellow must have had a bee inside his cowl, and dropped it long enough for his companion to shoo the bee. A boy, and tonsured. People in rural fastnesses tend to be kind-’tis in cities that the quality of mercy is shoddy,” Charlie said. “I shall ask my father to make enquiries about them. As an MP, he must know the location of all orphanages.”

“They’re not Romans, Charlie,” Angus said, splitting hairs. “Monastic orders don’t sell a remedy for impotence, and most of the boxes on the cart were full of that. It also answers why the old man can sell his Children of Jesus wares as far afield from York as Stockport. ’Twould seem to me that his remedy works, else he’d not concentrate upon it.” He grunted. “Children of Jesus! One of the very many Christian sects that afflict northern England, do you think, Charlie?”

“I do, though the prize for the most perspicacious question must go to Owen-what are they doing on this bridle-path?”

Once the three riders were out of sight, Father Dominus again halted his progress.

“Brother Jerome!” he called.

Lifting his skirts, Jerome came at a run, leaving Ignatius to mind the cart.

“Yes, Father?”

“You were right, Jerome. I should not have brought the boys out into daylight, no matter how deserted our route.”

“No, Father, not wrong, just mistaken,” said the only literate Child of Jesus, who took care to be obsequious in all his dealings with the old man. “They have been naughty, they needed a special punishment, and what better than a day in the light of Lucifer? It is besides the shortest way to the shops.”

“Have they been punished enough?”

“Given that we have encountered Mr. Charles Darcy, I would say so, Father. Ignatius and I can take the hand cart on by ourselves once the boys are back in the Northern Caves. They may not like living there as much as they have the Southern Caves, but today’s ordeal will reconcile them,” said Jerome, at his oiliest.

“Brother Ignatius!” Father Dominus called.

“Yes, Father?”

“Jerome and I are going to take the boys back to the Northern Caves now. You will remain at this end of the tunnel with the hand cart until Brother Jerome returns. There is food and beer enough on the cart.”

“What about Sister Mary?” Ignatius asked.

“What about her?” Jerome asked.

“She will be taken care of, Brother, have no fear,” said Father Dominus.

Brother Jerome, who aspired to donning Father Dominus’s habit when the old man died, understood the implication of that statement, but Brother Ignatius did not.

“Back to your cart, Brothers. Children, walk on!”

They resumed their progress, but not for long. At the hill gorge where sat the aperture Angus had marked on his map, they produced dirty tallow candles from their robes, lit the first one from Father Dominus’s tinder box, and filed inside, for it was narrow to enter, though much wider within. Last to come was Brother Jerome, who first made sure he obliterated all traces of their leaving the bridle-path, then pulled out some bushy shrubs by their roots and put them across the aperture until it was entirely filled in. From outside, the cave had disappeared. Inside, sufficient light still percolated to make Ignatius’s wait with the hand cart a bearable one, and he had a lantern for the night hours. It suited him to stay there, peacefully alone, though it never crossed the limited terrain of his mind to spend some of those hours freeing Sister Mary, not very far away. The walk in daytime had pierced him to the marrow, just as it had the little boys; only Jerome and Father could tolerate the brightness of Lucifer’s Sun, and that because God had specially armed them to war against evil.

The Children of Jesus had twenty miles of utter blackness to walk, but Father Dominus had catered well. At intervals there were stocks of imperishable food and candles, and water was never far away as the underground streams carved through the soft limestone.

Just a mile beyond the entrance loomed a side tunnel that led to the old kitchen and Mary’s cell, but they ignored it to tramp on. Sometimes even the smallest boy had to bend double, while the bigger ones crawled on their bellies, but the way remained patent from one end to the other, though not in a straight line; its kinks and twists were tortuous. The walk took a whole day, but they never stopped beyond short pauses to eat, drink and replace candles.

Eventually the walkers emerged into a series of wind-blown caverns dimly lit during daylight hours by narrow holes, many of them made at Father Dominus’s command, for the ground was a crust only feet thick, half of that a clayey subsoil; every hole had been planted outside with a bush that survived the constant wind, and no one dreamed that the Peak District caves extended so far north.

The entrance the Children normally used lay behind a waterfall on a tributary of the Derwent, and here outside the ground was solid rock that did not betray a footprint or the iron tyres of a hand cart.

The work to join the laboratory cave and the packing cave to the dozen chambers behind them had taken many years, for Father Dominus had first laboured alone, then after sending to Sheffield for Jerome, with some assistance. As the older of the boys grew strong enough, they too were put to the task, which finally began to quicken significantly. The ventilation holes consumed most of their time, and were always dug from the bottom upward, first with a pick, then, when the subsoil was reached, with a sharp-edged spade. The mystic in Father Dominus would much have preferred to keep the darkness, but he needed the caves to house his children in closer proximity to the place where they manufactured his cures.