Fitz took over, disliking loss of purpose. “The moon is coming up for half, so we can search at night for quite some time. I have spyglasses, and may be able to locate more. It’s quite a dry summer, which means less cloud.”
“I shall have prayers said for the children in churches of all denominations,” said Elizabeth. “They’ll haunt my sleep until they’re found, but if they’re found dead, I’ll never sleep well again. Fitz, may I have the funds?”
“Of course,” he said at once. “Like you, Elizabeth, they haunt my sleep. I’ll call in Ned and put him to work as well. His eyes are very sharp, and he works best at night. In the meantime, those from Pemberley who search will carry tents and camp on the moors. Riding back and forth takes up too much time, though we’ll keep horses with us. I must ask the ladies to limit their use of carriages and riding horses, for I want the grooms as searchers. Huckstep will come with us and leave a deputy here with two grooms. I’ll also commandeer footmen and gardeners if you tell me how many you can do without.”
“Take whomsoever you want,” said Elizabeth.
“Though,” she said to her husband later that night, “I don’t believe that method will answer this conundrum. Mary was freed by a natural convulsion in the earth. My prayers will do as much good as your men.”
“I believe in God,” he said ironically, “but a God of sorts only. My God expects us to help ourselves, not make Him do all the work. Faith is too blind, so I’ll put my trust in men.”
“And in Ned Skinner most of all.”
“I have a premonition about that.”
“Why did you oppose Mary’s crusade so bitterly?”
His manner grew stiff. “I am not at liberty to say.”
“Not at liberty?”
“The more so, now our son is prospering.”
“Cryptic to the last.”
He kissed her hand. “Goodnight, Elizabeth.”
“Well, Lizzie,” said Jane over breakfast next morning, “though we cannot actively help the men in their search, there are still things we can do.” The large amber eyes looked stern. “I am going to assume that the children will be found alive and safe. That their health will be unimpaired.”
“Oh, splendidly said, Jane!” cried Kitty. “They will be saved, I’m sure of it too.”
“You’re leading up to something,” Elizabeth said warily.
“Yes, I am.” Jane answered. “Lydia has left a hole in my heart that only time and apprehension of her murderers will mend. But consider this, Lizzie! About fifty children between four and twelve who probably don’t remember any life except the one they’ve had with Father Dominus. What will happen to them when they’re found?”
“They’ll go to the Parish if theirs can be located, or to orphanages wherever there are vacancies,” said Kitty with composure, spreading butter thinly on unsweetened wafers.
“Exactly so!” cried Jane, sounding wrathful. “Oh, my temper has been sorely tried of late! First Lydia is done to death by thieves who can’t be found, now we have fifty-odd children who have never known the joys of childhood!”
“There are few joys of childhood to be found on the Parish, or in the orphanages, or walking England’s roads because they have no parish,” said Mary dispassionately. “The comfortably off are privileged, and can give their children joys-if, that is, they don’t spoil them on the one hand, or beat them mercilessly on the other.” She got up to help herself to a second plate of sausages, liver, kidneys, scrambled eggs, bacon and fried potatoes. “All too often, children of any class are regarded as a nuisance-seen, but not heard. Argus says that it’s cheaper for pauper females to feed their babies gin than milk, as they’re too dried up to give them suck. The poorest children I saw on my brief travels were infested with vermin, had rotten teeth, crooked backs and shockingly bowed legs, bore atrocious sores, were hungry, wore rags and went barefoot. Joys, Jane? I don’t think poor children have any. Whereas children of our own class tend to have too many, which makes them
How could we have forgotten Mary? Elizabeth wondered. Just such an encomium as she would have come out with in Longbourn days, save that this one is wise. Where, along her way, did she pick up wisdom? She never used to have any. Her travels and travails, I suppose, which doesn’t say much for the sheltered life of females of the first respectability. Jane is wincing because she knows very well that her sons are grossly over-indulged, especially when their father isn’t home to discipline them. And then they go to Eton or some other public school to be tormented and thrashed until they’re old enough to turn into tormentors and thrashers. It is a vicious circle.
“We’re drifting off the subject,” said Jane with unusual asperity, “which is the Children of Jesus.”
“What do you want to say, Jane?” asked Elizabeth.
“That when the children are found alive and well, the gentlemen will lose interest in them immediately. Fitz will donate one of his many secretaries to sort them out, return them to their proper parishes, or their parents, or put them in orphanages. Except that we know orphanages are already overcrowded. There won’t be room for them, especially because, from what Mary says, they won’t know their parents or their parishes. So they’ll end up more miserable than they were under Father Dominus’s care, for at least he fed and clothed them, and they seem not to have suffered illness.”
“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
