Colleen McCullough - The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

What he had not counted on was a minor rebellion: the children refused to move, and in the end had had to be driven like sheep at dead of night across the moors, weeping, moaning, trying to run away. They hated the laboratory cave and the packing cave, and, though they could neither read nor write, were quite intelligent enough to understand that this move meant longer hours at their smelly, disgusting, sometimes dangerous work. Even after Therese was in her kitchen-much better appointed too!-they tried every night to return to their beloved Southern Caves. Then Father Dominus had an inspiration: to take the boys out into the light of day and force them to walk for miles. Jerome had objected, afraid that, even on a deserted bridle-path, they would encounter someone, but the old man dismissed the possibility with a sniff. He was too much an autocrat to respect sage advice when it was given. But of all people, Charles Darcy! That could spell ruin, after what Jerome had told him about Sister Mary, who was in all the newspapers. Fitzwilliam Darcy’s sister-in-law! And the woman had cursed him, called him apostate!

Huddled in his cell at the very top of his caves, Father Dominus rocked with grief, for near-blind though he was, this was one message writ in vivid scarlet upon the withered parchment of his brain-somewhere God had abandoned him, and Lucifer in the person of Mary Bennet had triumphed. His world was crumbling, but at least he knew why. Mary Bennet, Mary Bennet. Well, he and Jerome would survive. It was back to Sheffield for them, until all the fuss died down and he could return to build anew. God’s darkness riddled the Peaks, God could be found again. But this time, no children. They made his task too hard.

There was a fine tremor in his left hand that echoed the one afflicting his head. A new phenomenon. Give me time, give me time!

Brother Jerome appeared, hesitating in the entrance to his cell. “Father? Are you well?”

“Yes, Jerome, very,” he said briskly. “Have the boys settled?”

“Like lambs, Father. It was the right thing to do.”

“And the girls?”

“Obedient. The boys have told them.”

“Sister Therese…Can Camille take charge of the kitchen?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Return to Ignatius first, Jerome. Deliver the potions, but when you and Ignatius reach the waterfall, it will be time to see that he meets with an accident. Then, later, you can send Sister Therese to Mother Beata.”

“I understand, Father. It will be as you wish.”

Despite the few mourners, Lydia’s funeral was sadder than her mother’s. Elizabeth, Jane, Kitty, Fitz, Angus, Charlie and Owen gathered in the old Norman church on the estate, and then at the graveside. For once Jane was not washed away by tears; she was too angry at Miss Mirabelle Maplethorpe’s perfidy.

A reward of five hundred pounds had been offered for the lady’s apprehension. Unfortunately no one with an artistic eye had ever seen her, so the notices that went up in town and village halls and post offices bore no picture of her.

June was now well advanced, and Mary had been missing for nearly six weeks. Though none confessed to pessimism, everyone secretly felt that it was highly unlikely she was still alive. So on that sunny, halcyon day when Lydia was laid to rest in the Pemberley burial ground, the identity of the next one to be laid there was very much in the forefront of all minds.

The youngest, yet the first of us to go, thought Elizabeth, leaning heavily on Fitz’s arm. Charlie had made as if to take her when the graveside ceremony ended, but stepped back quickly when his father kept possession of her and led her away toward the house. The friction between his parents had always grieved him, but he had been so ardently on his mother’s side that he could see nothing good in his father. Now he sensed a new array of emotions in Pater, softer and kinder than during, certainly, the past year, when Mama had begun fighting back. Though, thank God, she had abandoned her tendency to poke what she considered harmless fun at him-she was so convinced that he needed levity, owning none, and that she could inculcate it in him. Whereas Charlie knew that would never happen; Pater was proud, haughty and terribly thin-skinned. Did Pater and Mama actually think that he and his sisters didn’t know their parents had taken to fighting like a pair of cats?

Cheated of his mother, he took Kitty’s arm, and left Jane to Angus, who did not know the ordinarily weepy Jane. Murder! It mazed the mind, that such a pathetic soul as Lydia could have been done to death.

A shadow loomed: Ned Skinner, as ever self-effacing, yet there in case Pater had need of him. Something about that association did not sit well with Charlie, but what it was, he had no idea. As if they had always known each other, when that was manifestly impossible. Pater had been about twelve at the time that Ned was born. Charlie knew a little more of Ned’s background than anyone else save Pater; that his mother had been a blackamoor whore in a brothel somewhere, and that Ned’s father had been the leader of a ring of criminals that had its headquarters in the same brothel. He had found these facts in Grandfather’s papers, but nothing further; someone had torn sheaves out of Grandfather’s diaries. When he complained to Pater, Pater said Grandfather had done it himself, in a fit of dementia just before he died. None of which answered why Pater and Ned were such warm friends, when it went so badly against the grain of Darcy of Pemberley to make a close friend out of such a man as Ned Skinner. Pater was stiff-rumped, no one who knew him could deny that. So why Ned?

Never having known Lydia, Charlie could not grieve for her, but he did understand his mother’s grief. And Aunt Jane’s. Aunty Kitty, a shallower woman, seemed to regard the death as at least partly a blessing, for it meant she could spend the summer at Pemberley after all. The people with whom she associated had not been on Pater’s invitation list this year, since he was expecting great things from the Commons and Lords.

“I am delighted that Kitty is here,” said Elizabeth to her son and to Jane. “She’ll give Georgie a little much-needed town bronze. I don’t quite know why, but Georgie loves her.”

“She’s a widgeon, Mama!” Charlie laughed. “Georgie likes any person who isn’t run-of-the-mill, and Aunt Kitty is so elegant.”

“I hope she can persuade Georgie not to bite her nails,” Jane said. “It ruins her hands, which are quite beautiful.”

“Well, I’m off to find a cave that Angus has lost,” Charlie said, kissed his fingers to the ladies, and vanished.

“I’m glad Lydia is buried here,” said Jane. “We’re close to her, and can put flowers on her grave.”

“She had few flowers in her life, poor little soul. You’re right, Jane, it is good that she’s buried here.”

“Don’t pity her for lacking the things she pitied us for having,” said Jane. “Lydia loved life in army towns, she loved riotous parties and the company of men-the intimate company of men. She pitied us for leading staid, virtuous existences.”

“All I can remember is how she loved George Wickham.”

“Yes, but despite her declarations to the contrary, Lizzie, she had a fine old time of it when he was away.” Jane looked angry. “No word of her assailants, I suppose?”

“No, not a whisper.”

When the body of a lad about fifteen years old came floating down the Derwent River, it attracted attention only because Miss Mary Bennet, closely connected to Pemberley, was missing. A shire constable was sent to look at the bloated, horrible remains, which the local doctor said could have drifted downstream for miles, for the lad had been dead at least three days. The doctor was of the opinion he had drowned, as he bore no marks of foul play. The body sported only two oddities: the first, a bald spot had been tonsured into the crown of his hair; and the second, he was circumcised. Otherwise the lad was well nourished and bore no evidence of a hard master, which made it unlikely that he had been a worker in a factory, mill or foundry, or a soldier. As the corpse was naked and therefore without a name, the constable wrote it down as “Male Youth. A Jew.” He forwarded his report to the superintendent and sent the body for burial as a pauper. No need to worry about consecrated ground: no Christian, this one.