Colleen McCullough - The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

Well, she vowed as the end of her hike loomed in view, it is time to change all that. Not with sweetness and tenderness-they are not yet ready for those. But with authority from the people they will sense own the kind of authority Father Dominus did. With instructions aimed at teaching them how to go on. We did not rescue them to see them cast upon the world rudderless and poverty-stricken, which means that it is our responsibility to start their education here and now.

Jane, Mary and Kitty were enjoying a comfortable prose in the Pink Parlour; it continued exactly as long as it took Elizabeth to storm in.

“Jane,” she said wrathfully, “this is all your idea, so present me with no excuses as to why your sensibilities and delicate feelings preclude your participation! Kitty, doff that silly frivolity of a dress and don something made of mattress ticking! This instant, do you hear me? Mary, as you are responsible for thrusting the Children of Jesus into Pemberley’s bosom, turn your redoubtable skills at achieving things to good purpose!”

All three sisters gaped at her, jaws dropped, eyes huge.

“I am flattered to be deemed redoubtable, Lizzie, but I am in complete ignorance as to your good purpose,” said Mary. “Pray tell me what is amiss. Something is.”

“The Children of Jesus-Children of Satan, Parmenter calls them!-are behaving worse than savages. My servants are at their wits’ end, and if the four of us do not set them an example, I am going to be looking for some dozens of new servants, starting with a butler!” said Elizabeth between her teeth.

“Oh, dear!” whimpered Kitty, paling. “I do not have any dresses made of mattress ticking, Lizzie.”

“Jane, if you cry, I swear I’ll smack you! And harder than Caroline Bingley smacks your darling little Arthur, horrid child that he is! Meet me at the main entrance to the ballroom in half an hour, dressed for war .”

“I do believe that Lizzie exited in a puff of smoke,” said Mary, scenting a challenge and feeling hugely invigorated. “Well, girls, don’t dither! Kitty, if you have nothing you paid less than two hundred guineas for, I suggest you borrow a dress from one of the below-stairs maids. I’d give you something of mine, but it would trip you up.”

Jane had leaped to her feet, looking terrified. “I want to cry, but I dare not!” she said on a wail.

“Good!” said Mary with satisfaction. “Kitty, move yourself!”

Elizabeth was waiting, laden with starched white aprons and four whippy canes. Face like flint, she doled three of the canes out and kept one. “I hope these will be for show only,” she said, removing a large key from the pocket of a voluminous apron Kitty had last seen on Mrs. Thorpe, the underhousekeeper. “Put on an apron, please. A party of footmen is coming with dust shovels, brushes, scrubbing brushes, rags, buckets of soapy water and mops-at least, they had better be coming! From what Parmenter says, everything from food to faeces is decorating the walls and floor inside. Mary, I am your commanding officer in this sortie, is that understood?”

“Yes, Lizzie,” said Mary, utterly cowed.

“Then let us proceed.” Elizabeth inserted the key in the lock, turned it, and opened the door.

A distinct odour of excrement assailed their nostrils, but too little time had passed for the food detritus to spoil, a mercy. What looked like a large number of brown-wrapped bundles were sliding and skating on the polished hardwood floor, kept glossy for dancing. None of the bundles took any notice of this influx of women, which gave Elizabeth time to close and lock the door, then return the key to her pocket.

For a reason unknown to her, Parmenter had placed the extra-large dinner gong just inside this door; Fitz had brought it back from China, liking its exquisite bronze work, only to find that Parmenter would not be parted from his old gong, and “lost” the new one. When her eyes lighted upon it, Elizabeth smiled with genuine enjoyment, and brought her cane down on its chased surface.

BOOM! When the reverberations of that crashing roar died away, the ensuing silence was perfect. Every brown bundle was stopped in mid-action.

Elizabeth produced the wicked noise of a whippy cane hissing through the air and strode to the middle of the floor, careful not to tread in any suspicious matter.

“Take off your robes!” she thundered.

They hastened to shed their robes, revealing that Father Dominus had not believed in underwear. Or baths. Or rags for wiping the bottom. Their skins should have been whiter than milk, but instead were a dingy grey that had tidal marks around armpits and groin where they had sweated as they toiled.

Another key turned in the lock; in came a dozen manservants bearing the appurtenances necessary to clean the floor and walls.

“Thank you,” said Elizabeth. “You may put them down-I will look after things here. Herbert, please assemble every tin bath Pemberley possesses-if there are not enough, borrow more from Pemberley village. Make sure when the time comes that the laundry can supply sufficient hot water to half-fill them. With that I want the Paris soap, sponges, and soft scrubbing brushes.” She turned from the wooden-faced Herbert to an equally expressionless Thomas. “Thomas, I want someone driving a fast cart to go into Macclesfield immediately. He is to buy thirty pairs of under-drawers, trousers, shirts and jackets to fit a ten-year-old boy. Also twenty pairs of under-drawers, petticoats, dresses and jackets to fit a ten-year-old girl. Shoes can wait. I want the clothing back here yesterday, please.”

How true it is, thought Elizabeth, keeping her face stern, that human beings stripped of their clothes feel hideously vulnerable. The horrible little beasts of a moment ago are now clay ready for moulding. She made the cane hiss again.

“Now Miss Mary, Miss Kitty and Miss Jane are going to show you how to clean and wash a floor. Miss Mary will take fifteen boys, Miss Kitty fifteen girls, and Miss Jane those left over. You will have to do the counting, ladies, as the children cannot. I want to supervise everybody, but I need an assistant. Camille, come here, please. Quickly!”

Mary made short work of counting her fifteen boys, and Kitty, relieved that she had inherited girls, was not slow to follow; only Jane dithered until she received a minatory look.

“What do you call the yellow water that comes out of your body, Camille?” she asked.

“Wees, Miss-Miss-”

“Miss Lizzie. And what do you call the brown sausages that come out of your body?”

“Poohs, Miss Lizzie.”

“Thank you.” Elizabeth straightened. “Attention!” she bawled, sounding so like Miss Sackbutt of Meryton schooldays that her sisters jumped and shivered. “Camille, push that little chair with the hole in its seat over here, please.”

“Now I happen to know,” she hollered, “that Father Dominus would never have permitted you to wee and pooh all over his caves! So why are you treating this beautiful room with less respect? This is called a commode chair, and beneath the hole in its seat is a chamber pot for wees and poohs. In future you will use my commode chairs-and keep them spotlessly clean! If you do not, I will rub your nose in your own wees and poohs! After I have given you six cuts with this cane! Do you understand?”

Every grimy head nodded.

“Splendid! In future these commode chairs will be put outside on the terrace, where they will be sheltered if it rains. You will have privacy for your motions. In the meantime, you are going to clean this room of the food, wees and poohs. Miss Mary, Miss Kitty and Miss Jane will show her group how to do this, and it will be done properly. Dust shovels first to scoop up the solids, then we scrub, wipe, and mop. Hop to it!”