Dawn Of The Dreadfuls Part 12

"Me, too!"

"Jane came the closest, of course."

"Mary was nowhere near it."

"It's a shame, really. For what other kisses can the poor girl look forward to?"

"I can guess which ones she wishes were-"

"Come," Elizabeth cut in, setting off down the road. If someone didn't interrupt her sisters, they'd still be standing there chattering come nightfall. "There are soldiers scattered throughout these woods like so many acorns. Let us help gather them up."

It took but a few minutes of searching to bring everyone together again. The soldiers that didn't come creeping sheepishly out from behind trees and rocks were herded up the road by Lt. Tindall and Capt. Cannon. While they collected their discarded muskets and cleared the zombie carca.s.s from the road, Lydia and Kitty stood to the side, attempting to engage the lieutenant in idle conversation. (Lydia: "What a shame your darling hat was eaten. We can recommend a haberdasher in town, if you like." Kitty: "He does all our bonnets!") Through it all, however, Lt. Tindall remained as stiff as a tin soldier, and once the party was moving on to Longbourn again, he ignored the girls altogether.

Unfazed, they simply went back to peppering their sister with questions about where she'd been and what she'd been doing. They found Dr. Keckilpenny particularly fascinating, of course-especially when they learned (after much wheedling) that he was young and rather handsome, in his gangly, gawky way.

"I wonder what Master Hawksworth would make of that," said Lydia.

"He'd probably do a Panther's Pounce right on this doctor fellow's head!" Kitty laughed.

"Ooooo! Let us see!"

Lydia grabbed Kitty by the arm and practically dragged her toward the forest, where Master Hawksworth and the others were still searching for Elizabeth.

"Surely that can wait until we reach Longbourn," Elizabeth said. "We still need to show the captain and his men the way to the house."

"One can do that as easily as three!" Lydia called back over her shoulder.

"But there might be more dreadfuls about!"

"Oh, I don't think so. And anyway, we've still got our swords!"

And Lydia tugged her rather alarmed-looking sister into the shadowy murk of the woods.

"I hope you will excuse my sisters' impetuousness," Elizabeth said to Capt. Cannon and Lt. Tindall. "They are so young..."

"Yes. Quite," the lieutenant sniffed, clearly wondering-if not asking-about the kind of young lady who could run around the countryside alternately gossiping and decapitating the living dead.

The captain, for his part, blew out a snort not unlike the whinnying of a horse. "There is nothing to excuse, Miss Bennet. I can but wish my own troops had half your sisters' boldness!"

To a man, the foot soldiers cringed and drooped their shoulders, and as Elizabeth led them up the lane, they marched with such shambling, shuffling steps they seemed no livelier than a platoon of dreadfuls.

When they at last reached Longbourn, they found Mrs. Bennet wearing a groove into the lawn with her pacing, weeping and wailing as Mrs. Hill toddled along behind to keep her supplied with fresh hankies.

"Oh, I knew this day would come! Off they trot into the wilds without a care in the world what should happen to their poor mother, and now the unmentionables shall have their luncheon! Oh, my sweet girls! My sweet, tender, juicy girls! How could Mr. Bennet-Lizzy!"

Mrs. Bennet raced to her daughter and threw her arms around her.

"Oh, Lizzy! At least you are still alive! Oh, my dearest, my beloved, my-"

She pushed Elizabeth aside and stepped toward Capt. Cannon with wide, moist eyes.

"Cuthbert?" she whimpered.

"Prudence?" he replied.

"Oh, Cuthbert! It is you! After all these years!"

"Limbs! Embrace the lady!"

The captain's attendants put down the wheelbarrow and stepped forward with obvious reluctance.

"Limbs! Halt!" Capt. Cannon choked out. "Pru, if I'd... The Troubles... I didn't think you'd..." He cleared his throat and straightened his back and started over again, as if addressing the woman before him for the first time. "You are the lady of the house?"

"I am," Mrs. Bennet said softly, eyes downcast, and for a moment, Elizabeth thought her mother actually looked diffident.

A very brief moment.

"I have come to see Mr. Bennet on a matter of great importance," Capt. Cannon said.

Mrs. Bennet reached back so Mrs. Hill could slap a dry handkerchief into her hand.

"He has abandoned me!" Mrs. Bennet cried, pressing the linen to her quivering lips. "Left me here all alone while he gallivants about the ghoul-plagued woodlands searching for our wayward daughter!"

"Mamma! I am not 'wayward'! It's just that-"

"OH, CUTHBERT! IT IS YOU! AFTER ALL THESE YEARS!".

Elizabeth clamped her lips together. The tale she had to tell-particularly injuring herself trying to kiss a deer and being set upon by dreadfuls not once but twice-would soothe her mother not a jot.

She opened her mouth again when she'd settled on the best possible distraction.

"Let us discuss all that later. Lydia and Kitty should be back shortly with Papa and the others. Until they return, we have guests to entertain, do we not?"

Mrs. Bennet shifted her gaze to Capt. Cannon and shoved her hankie back at Mrs. Hill, her tears instantly dried.

"So we do," she said. "For surely these fine officers would consent to keep us company until they can see to their business with Mr. Bennet?"

"It would be an honor," Capt. Cannon said. "Isn't that right, Lieutenant?"

Lt. Tindall had been watching the various reunions-Elizabeth and Mrs. Bennet, "Cuthbert" and "Prudence," Mrs. Hill and the handkerchief-with something exceedingly close to a sneer. He answered the captain with a noncommittal noise halfway between a "Yes" and a growl.

"Right Limb!" Capt. Cannon barked. "Escort Mrs. Bennet inside!"

One of the soldiers marched up to the lady and offered her a crooked arm, which she accepted with a smile not for him but for the captain.

"Left Limb! Return to post and follow! Drawing room, ho!"

As Capt. Cannon's wheelbarrow squeaked off toward the house, the lieutenant followed with all the enthusiasm of a puppy being dragged along on a leash. So out of sorts was he that he forgot to offer Elizabeth his own, very real arm. Or at least Elizabeth chose to believe he'd merely forgotten.

She herself was far more anxious to get inside. Not that entertaining guests with her mother was something she usually looked forward to. But when the caller was Cuthbert Cannon and the hostess his "Pru"-now that could prove interesting indeed.

CHAPTER 17.

ONCE CAPT. CANNON had been wheeled into the drawing room, Left Limb was put at ease in the corner while Right Limb was kept busy sugaring tea and tilting the cup just so, to keep its contents from his commander's voluminous whiskers.

"Tell me, Captain," Elizabeth said before her mother could make the day's temperature the princ.i.p.al topic of conversation, "you have been to Hertfordshire before?"

Capt. Cannon's gaze darted to Mrs. Bennet, and he hacked out a jowl-quivering cough.

"Yes. I was stationed here briefly twenty-odd years ago. Of course, at the time I was but a reedy little ensign barely big enough to hold up my own epaulets."

"Oh, pish tosh," Mrs. Bennet chided. "You were the prettiest thing in Colonel Miller's regiment!"

The captain turned the same shade of red as his uniform.

Lt. Tindall, on the other hand, went pale green. Elizabeth guessed he would've preferred a lively discussion about their chances for rain that week.

"Oh, how it broke my heart to see you go," Mrs. Bennet went on, dreamy eyed. She awoke from her reverie with a little start and added, "All you fine young men, I mean. The regiment. As a whole. Altogether."

"Yes, well, duty called," Capt. Cannon said.

"You were sent away to fight the dreadfuls?" Elizabeth asked. Usually, she would've left it to Lydia or Mary to pose such a tactless question. But her sisters weren't there, and she couldn't resist.

The captain nodded. "Cornwallis's Folly. The Sack of Birmingham. Wellington's Last Stand. The Battle of Kent. I was at them all, though less of me made it to each in turn. A bite on the wrist, and my left arm had to go. A nasty scratch on the ankle, and the left leg went with it. A rotter ate my right hand before my very eyes. The company surgeon took the rest. And the right leg? That's the one that almost got me. A break in the skin no bigger than a pinp.r.i.c.k where a dreadful swiped at my thigh-that's all it took. I didn't even notice it for half a day, and by then the blight nearly had me. Another hour, the surgeon said, and he would've been sawing off my head, not my leg. And still I kept on fighting! By the end, I'd looked into the putrid eyes of so many unmentionables, I could truthfully say I feared neither Death nor h.e.l.l, for I'd grappled hand-to-hand against the one and marched time and again into the other. Somehow, I survived it all. But after leaving Hertfordshire lo those many years ago, I daresay I never again lived."

As the man spoke, an air of gloom fell over the room as stifling as a London fog, and for a long while after he stopped, the only sound was that of Mrs. Hill's heavy footfalls in the hallway.

"It must be said, though," Lt. Tindall finally p.r.o.nounced, "Hertfordshire certainly gets its measure of sunshine in the spring. I should think we had just made camp in the West Indies, to judge by the clime this day."

"Oh, my, yes. It has been most unusually warm of late," Mrs. Bennet said. Yet her voice was strained and quavery; she wasn't seizing upon the change of subject with the greedy, grateful grasp Elizabeth would have normally expected.

Before the room could slip back into silence, however, there was a great commotion out in the foyer, and presently Elizabeth's father burst in with all his other daughters.

"Lizzy, my dear, you had me worried sick!" Mr. Bennet exclaimed with uncharacteristic fervor. "I half-thought you'd joined the sorry stricken... and then I hear you've joined His Majesty's infantry, instead!"

Jane simply rushed to Elizabeth's side, threw her arms around her neck, and kissed her on the cheek, while Kitty and Lydia laughed and even dour Mary unleashed a grin.

"Oh, Jane, Papa, I'm so sorry to have caused you such distress, truly I am," Elizabeth said. "Everything happened so fast, I suppose I wasn't thinking very clearly."

"At least for you, unlike some others, that is a rare offense," her father replied. "And it's one I'm hoping you won't repeat. Now-" He turned toward the bulky, red-coated trunk propped up nearby. "Capt. Cannon, I presume? Allow me to welcome you to Longbourn. You and your regiment have arrived not a moment too soon."

The captain either squirmed uncomfortably or simply lost his balance, and Left Limb had to lean in to steady him.

"Yes, well, thank you, Mr. Bennet. I'm looking forward to discussing the matter before us in some depth... and in private."

"By all means. We may adjourn to my library."

"Perfect. Limbs! To your posts!"

As Right Limb and Left Limb lifted up the wheelbarrow, Lt. Tindall rose to go with the other men.

"Not you, Lieutenant," Capt. Cannon said. The words came out blunt and gruff-more so than the captain intended, apparently, for he tried to make amends with a smile so unconvincing it could have been drawn on with a child's pastels. "I'd hate to have the ladies see us in full retreat. You shall be my rearguard action-and I can't imagine a better man for the job. Keep our hostess and her lovely daughters entertained until my business with Mr. Bennet is done. That's an order-and a more pleasant one you're not likely to get anytime soon. Limbs! Bow to the ladies before we leave!"

The captain's attendants dipped him forward slightly, then began weaving the wheelbarrow around the furniture, headed for the door.

"Well...," Lt. Tindall began. Then, obviously at a loss, he simply sat down again.

It did not bode well, Elizabeth thought, for the lieutenant's abilities as an entertainer of ladies.

The other girls, though still flushed from the afternoon's excitement, began seating themselves around the room, their scabbarded katanas clanking against furniture and nearly upending the tea service. Lt. Tindall took it in with the pinched expression of a grand dame who's just found a fly in her cuc.u.mber sandwich until Jane settled herself on a divan directly in his line of sight, giving him, for the first time, an un.o.bstructed view of her face and figure.

Smoothly, gracefully she a.s.sumed her usual repose for such occasions: hands folded in lap, eyes turned decorously downward, small, prim smile on a face radiant with sedate beauty. And as he watched her, the lieutenant dutifully a.s.sumed the usual look of young men beholding her for the first time: spine straightening, eyes widening slightly, jaw dropping (or, in this case, unclenching, at least).

Usually, Mrs. Bennet watched for this effect on eligible gentlemen like a hawk watches a field for mice. Yet after seeing to the appropriate introductions, she lapsed back into-miracle of miracles!-a quiet, distant, contemplative state, and it was left to Elizabeth to do the hostessing. (Shy, delicate, gentle Jane, though the eldest, could no more initiate conversation with a newly met man than a rose petal could belch.) "So, have you served under Captain Cannon long?"

"No." Lt. Tindall tore his gaze from Jane with such obvious effort that even Mary made note of it and looked, for a second, as though she might roll her eyes. "Our company is newly mustered. Even the captain I've known only a few days."

Mrs. Bennet suddenly came to life again. "You probably haven't met his family then, have you? His children? His wife?"

"There is no such family to meet. I do not believe the captain ever married."

"Ah," Mrs. Bennet said. "You know, Lieutenant, one of our local estates is hosting a spring ball in just four days' time, and I shall see to it that you're invited!"

Every other Bennet in the room sucked in her breath, but the lady simply went prattling on with her old unmindful garrulousness.

"I'm sure it can be arranged easily enough. It's something of a tradition here, actually, inviting officers from visiting regiments to our country dances. Shows our support for the crown, I like to think. And it builds ties to the community that I'm sure you and the captain will find rewarding. So many great, ah, friendships have blossomed from such opportunities to a.s.sociate socially."

"You and your daughters will be attending?" Lt. Tindall asked, looking at Jane. He was so blinded by her beauty he didn't seem to notice the look of horror on her face.

"Oh, yes, certainly!" Mrs. Bennet proclaimed. "Not the youngest, of course-such things are still years away for them. But Jane will be there, and our Lizzy will be having her coming out!"

"Mamma," Elizabeth said. She couldn't contradict her mother in front of a guest, of course, but neither could she sit idly by and let her make promises she couldn't keep.

Though Mrs. Bennet had waged a campaign on Jane and Elizabeth's behalf-sending pleading letters to Mrs. Goswick and enlisting their Aunt Philips to do the same-it had so far come to naught. Mrs. Goswick hadn't even bothered to reply, and the one time Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Philips had gone round to make a call, they'd been told the lady was out. All day. Every day. Indefinitely. Yet Mrs. Bennet kept insisting that the "misunderstanding" would soon be put right.

Elizabeth tried to warn her mother away from the subject with an angry flash of the eyes, but it had the same effect as any other attempt she'd ever made at keeping her mother from talking: none at all.

"How many officers are in your regiment, Lieutenant? I shall see to it they all get a chance to dance with one of my fair daughters!"

"Mamma, please."

It was Jane protesting this time, although she did it so quietly no one but Elizabeth seemed to hear.