"The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet" by Colleen McCullough, summary

The Australian author created a direct sequel to Jane Austen’s classic book, Pride and Prejudice, transforming the unprepossessing middle Bennet sister into an emancipated rebel, and the Regency era itself into a rather harsh backdrop for social drama and criminal investigation. The novel was written and first published in 2008. The idea arose from Colin’s long-held desire to reexamine the balance of power within the Bennet and Darcy families two decades after their marriages. The book sparked heated debate among Austen scholars, was not included in any literary series, and has not been adapted into a film.

Inheritance and departure

The death of sixty-two-year-old Mrs. Bennet at Shelby Manor frees Mary from seventeen years of sedentary life. She feels no grief. Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy rushes to sell the estate and offers his sister-in-law the accustomed quarters of a poor relative at Pemberley or Bingley Hall. She flatly refuses to become a hanger-on to her nephews. During her years of seclusion, Mary’s face cleared of the abscesses of her youth, a dentist straightened a crooked tooth, and regular reading of the radical pamphleteer Argus in the Westminster Chronicle awakened her interest in the kingdom’s social ills. With eight and a half thousand pounds sterling saved over her years of guardianship, Mary rents a place in Hertford through a young lawyer, Robert Wilde.

Wilde falls head over heels in love with a client. She scoffs at his marriage proposal. A wealthy Scottish shipowner and publisher, Angus Sinclair, arrives in town. He secretly finances the aforementioned capital newspaper and disguises himself as Argus. Having struck up a friendship with Mary during their walking tours, Sinclair develops a deep affection for her. Angus hesitates to reveal his true identity. Mary withdraws her savings from the bank for a dangerous plan: to tour the workhouses, orphanages, and mines of the industrial north, gather material, and publish, at her own expense, an incriminating scientific treatise.

Attack on the highway

In early May, Mary sets out on a cheap stagecoach. The journey turns into a nightmare. In Stevenage and Biggleswade, she is crowded by drunken fellow travelers. In Nottingham, a cab driver roughly pushes her into a stinking manure slurry. Gold guineas spill from the dropped reticule. A polite stranger picks them up. The next day, a confused stagecoach takes the traveler to Mansfield instead of Derby.

The roadside innkeeper throws the bedraggled traveler out. The lonely woman is overtaken on a forest path by the same Nottingham stranger — the highwayman Martin Perling, nicknamed Captain Thunder. Mary fiercely defends her bag. The highwayman strangles her victim, smashes her head in, and leaves her unconscious in a damp oak grove. Miraculously, Mary crawls to the edge of the forest. There, she is picked up by Edward Skinner, Darcy’s trusted henchman, who had been tracking the fugitive on his master’s behalf. But Skinner, wracked by a stomach ache from a bad pie, leaves the unconscious woman by the side of the road for ten minutes. Returning, he finds only trampled moss.

Pemberley Disputes

Meanwhile, a domestic turmoil is brewing at Pemberley. A drunken, degraded Lydia Wickham bursts into a formal reception, wearing an inappropriate scarlet dress. Her husband, George, died in the war in North America. The widow publicly hurls vile abuse at the master of the house, blaming him for her husband’s death. Darcy orders Skinner to secretly isolate the troublemaker at Hemmings Manor under the supervision of a hired nurse, Mirabel Mapplethorpe.

Elizabeth is deeply shaken by her separation from her husband. Their passion has long since faded, their beds are separated, and Fitz’s worldly arrogance stifles all sincerity. Her now-adult son, Charlie, despite his father’s disdain for his soft-spoken nature, joins his mentor, Owen Griffiths, and Angus Sinclair in searching for his missing aunt. Search parties scour the wastelands of the Peak District.

Soon, terrible news arrives from Hemmings. The house has been robbed, and the harness and valuables have been carried off by a gang of hired thugs. Lydia herself is found strangled with a pillow. Skinner assures everyone that the murder was committed by a runaway nurse, who turns out to be Miriam Matcham, the keeper of a Sheffield brothel. Elizabeth’s sister’s death breaks her heart, but brings her closer to her husband in the face of their shared misfortune.

Captivity in the Grotto

When Mary awakens, she sees the vault of an underground cavern above her. An iron grate divides the crystal-covered chamber in half. Kerosene lamps of an unheard-of design stand by her bed, a simple table is set, and the shelves are laden with volumes. The kidnapper calls himself Father Dominus. He is a seventy-year-old, half-blind apothecary and sectarian leader of the Brotherhood of the Children of Jesus. The old man has come to believe that darkness is the true God, and sunlight is a treacherous spawn of Lucifer. Having claimed to be the messiah, Dominus holds about fifty orphans taken from factories, forcing them to grind powders and brew healing balms in enormous cave cauldrons.

The host assigns his unwitting guest the role of personal secretary. He has cured the swelling from the blow with a special herbal decoction, but in exchange demands that she transcribe his labyrinthine religious compendium, "Cosmogenesis." For several weeks, Mary dictates the chronicle of this insane heresy. A grisly confession slips through the pages of the dictation: thirty-five years ago, the apothecary melted down stolen gold for a secret patron. After completing the job, the chemist poisoned his assistants and walled up the ingots in an underground sanctuary.

The relative peace is shattered when Mary violently protests the beating of the little cook, Teresa. The enraged old man hurls a jug of water against the bars and leaves the dungeon. A sudden tremor shatters the vaults of the dungeon. The bolt is knocked loose with a crash. Wrapped in a wool blanket, barefoot Mary crawls up the steep rock slope and emerges. After limping several miles across the moorland, she collapses in Farmer Hawkins’s yard.

Secrets Revealed

Charlie and Angus bring the emaciated sufferer to Pemberley. Mary informs her loved ones that the underground community is still locked up and in danger of perishing from the madness of its leader. While rescuers comb the foothills, Skinner alone finds a secret passage behind a dry waterfall bed. Having made his way into the tunnel, the giant discovers barrels of gunpowder. Dominus prepares to blow up the children. Skinner stabs the overseer, Jerome, drives the terrified orphans outside, and shoots the old man. As he falls, the madman manages to throw a torch onto the fuse. The explosion destroys the vault, burying the apothecary and seriously injuring Skinner himself.

Darcy, who has arrived, personally rescues his faithful servant from beneath the stone. On the brink of death, Edward Skinner reveals the terrible truth to his brother: he voluntarily strangled Lydia at Hemmings, wanting to save the family honor from the vile threats of a blackmailer. Fitz is shocked by this monstrous revelation, but does not betray the deceased. Lydia and Ned are buried in the Pemberley family churchyard, with the inscription "Edward Skinner Darcy, beloved brother" carved on the latter’s tombstone.

The mystery of the gold bars finds an unexpected solution. Charlie descends through a ventilation shaft into the surviving temple and stumbles upon a circular altar. Beneath the mourning cloth lies over a thousand ten-pound gold bricks, worth a staggering sum of over six hundred thousand pounds sterling. The treasure previously belonged to Fitz’s father, Harold Darcy, who, out of secret cynicism, ran brothels in Sheffield and sold the loot through Dominus. Upon learning of the sordid source of his father’s wealth, Fitz categorically abandons his plans to become British Prime Minister, lest he tempt his conscience with unlimited power.

New calling

The family decides to use all the recovered treasures to save young prisoners. A charitable foundation is founded. On the wastelands near Buxton and Sheffield, the stone buildings of two model orphanages, the Children of Jesus, are laid, where orphans receive housing, medical care, and a thorough education instead of factory slavery. A sudden trial awakens even Mrs. Bingley’s ardor. Jane takes charge of recruiting governesses and selecting the pupils.

Elizabeth and Fitz find long-awaited harmony. Mutual recriminations give way to tenderness, and in the summer of her forty-second year, Mrs. Darcy gives birth to a healthy boy, named Edward in memory of her deceased brother.

Angus Sinclair catches up with Mary on the forest edge of Pemberley. He finally admits that he himself composed Argus’s fiery proclamations and asks for her hand. Forgetting all prim propriety, the couple escapes on post horses to the Scottish border, where they marry in front of a blacksmith’s anvil in Gretna Green. Soon, forty-year-old Mrs. Sinclair gives birth to a robust, red-haired son, Hamish, and immerses herself in the management of schools, proving to her relatives the right to exercise her own will.