Colleen McCullough - The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

“You want to build an orphanage,” said Kitty, revealing that she had unsuspected powers of deduction.

Elizabeth and Mary stared at their flighty widgeon of a sister Jane in amazement, with the pleasure of finding an ally.

“Quite so!” said Jane. “Why separate the poor little things when they have been together for years? Mary, you’re the one who Angus said had a head on your shoulders. Therefore you are the one who should deal with the practicalities-how much it will cost to establish an orphanage, for example? Kitty, you frequent all the best houses in London, so you should seek donations to the Children of Jesus orphanage. I will engage to speak to Angus Sinclair and beg that he publish their plight in his journal. I will also speak to the Bishop of London and imply that one of our aims is to eradicate any Papist, Methodist or Baptist tendencies the children may have picked up from Father Dominus, whose theology, Mary says, is apostate. The Bishop of London is no proselytiser, but it is an irresistible opportunity for the Church of England.”

Jane’s eyes were glowing as huge and yellow as a cat’s, and her face was quite transfigured. “We will break new ground in the care of indigent children! I’ll choose the staff myself, and supervise all aspects of the orphanage’s progress in future years. You’ll share this duty with me, Lizzie, which is why I suggest that the orphanage be situated halfway between Bingley Hall and Pemberley. I think Fitz and Charles should buy the land and pay for the building of a proper institution. No, I refuse to hear of our using an existing house! Ours will be designed for its specific purpose. The money Kitty brings in will be invested in the Funds to provide income for wages, food, clothing, and a proper Church of England school as well as a library.”

By this, Elizabeth was gasping. Who would ever have guessed that Jane, of all people, possessed so much zealotry? At least it would keep her from having too much time to spend missing Charles. Only she, Elizabeth, foresaw opposition from the gentlemen. Mary thought the orphanage a splendid idea, but deplored its small scope and thought they should be building several. Kitty sat bending her not very powerful mind to the problem of how to obtain donations from the Mighty, very attached to their money. And Jane was utterly convinced her plan would succeed.

“To think that all of this originated in Mary’s strange obsession with the poor,” Elizabeth said to Angus, who rode to Pemberley to (he had explained to Fitz and Charlie) write an urgent letter to London; his real reason was to make sure his Mary had not decamped. “It’s been like a pebble thrown upon a snowy slope,” Elizabeth continued. “Instead of coming to a harmless halt, it’s rolled, gathering a huge coat of snow, until it threatens to overwhelm us. I’m glad that Jane seems to have tossed off all desire to weep herself into the vapours, but at least when she did that, we all knew where we stood. Nowadays anything may happen.”

Angus laughed until Elizabeth’s reproachful expression told him she couldn’t see a funny side. “Jane is probably right,” he said then. “We would cheerfully have handed the children to the parish overseers and forgotten them. Logic says that they were too young to know what a parish is when they were abducted-or sold-and may not remember any parents. So a Children of Jesus home is actually an excellent idea. I imagine Mary is in favour?”

“And that’s all that really concerns you, you lovesick Scot! Yes, of course she is, though she envisions orphanages being built all over England,” said Elizabeth, smiling. “However, I cannot see Fitz consenting to schemes that would beggar him in a year.”

“He shouldn’t have to, or be asked to. The mills of any government grind even slower than those of God, for exceeding fine takes time, especially in Westminster. I see Fitz’s most pressing task as flogging his parliamentary colleagues into a radical program of changes to the lower end of society. He can always trumpet what happened in France-the Lords are prone to listen to that argument. All people resist change, Lizzie, but change will have to come. Not all of it will be in favour of the poor, thanks to take-out payments in many parishes. Some have hardly an employable man or woman on their lists, so attractive is the thought of being paid a pittance not to work. The poor-rates are soaring.”

“Go and find Mary,” she said, tired of the poor.

His contrary beloved did look pleased to see him, but not in the guise of a lover. Yet. Some of her reactions since her return had given him hope, but his innate good sense warned him against endowing them with too much significance. He could only imagine what it must have been like for her during her imprisonment, and thus far had not been able to talk to her for long enough to discover just how deep in fact were the wellsprings of her unquenchable determination. So he attributed her reactions to a realisation of her feminine weakness, when in reality she had come to no such realisation. Mary knew she was not a weak female; Angus still harboured a man’s illusions about it.

“We found the subsidence,” he was able to tell her. “It seems the caves extend much farther than anyone had counted on, but now their extent will remain unknown. The innermost caverns are quite blocked by immense falls of rock. What is something of a mystery is why the subsidence occurred at all.”

“And the underground river?”

“We can hear it, but it’s changed course.”

“When do you move north and search by night?”

“Tonight. The day has been relatively cloudless, so we have hope that the moon will shine. We’ve amassed a number of what Fitz calls spyglasses. He’s asked farmers with flocks grazing in the region to bring them farther south. Less moving forms to confuse us when we search by night.”

“My goodness!” said Mary, impressed. “It sounds like an army manoeuvre. I never thought of sheep. Don’t they sleep at night?”

“Yes, but any untoward noise startles them.”

“Are there deer?”

“I imagine so.”

“The children won’t be easy to see in their brown garb.”

“We are aware of that,” he said gently.

It had been agreed that the search parties (there were three, one each for Fitz, Charlie and Angus) should concentrate upon the bases of peaks, hills and tors, but also carefully inspect the banks of the Derwent and its tributaries. It was the biggest river in the region, and flowed strongly, even in summer. Since Brother Ignatius (if indeed it were he) had been found floating on it, that argued some proximity, if not to the river itself, then to some tributary or underground stream that fed into it.

The first night was an eerie experience, for few settled men, be they labourers or gentlemen, were used to moving through the night on foot, and surreptitiously at that. While it was up, the half moon radiated a colourless light that drenched the landscape without enlivening it; even after the moon set, a glow suffused the heavens from the light of more stars than most had ever dreamed existed. With their eyes used to the darkness, it was easier to see than Angus, for one, had thought possible. The few deer could be identified as what they were, especially if a man had a spyglass. What were more surprising were the dogs that roamed in search of quarry-rabbit, shrew, rat and, later in the year, lambs. Once they had been pets or working dogs, Fitz explained, either abandoned or in search of better food than their masters had given them, and they were savage, all signs of domesticity lost.

Then Charlie had a bright idea, which was to dress the small child of a Pemberley groom in brown robes and ask him to walk near the river bank for some distance, then turn and walk into more moorish terrain. The seven-year-old had no fear, and thoroughly enjoyed his perambulations, especially because he was allowed to stay up far past his usual bedtime. Tracking him gave the searchers some idea of what they would see if a Child of Jesus appeared.