Dawn Of The Dreadfuls Part 23

The unmentionable's hands were flapping at waist level, gaze tilted downward, as if the creature had been fumbling clumsily with the door-k.n.o.b. When it looked up and saw Jane frozen pop-eyed before it, it hissed like an angry cat and lunged forward.

Jane ducked to the side and gave the thing a shove as it hurtled past. But the dreadful stumbled only a few steps before it whipped around and charged again, hands slas.h.i.+ng.

Jane hopped onto her bed, grabbed one of the posts, and launched herself up atop the canopy frame. She meant to try a Panther's Bound down again, hopefully within grabbing range of one of the weapons strewn about the room-a battle axe propped up beside the bedside table was particularly tantalizing. The unmentionable didn't give her time, though. It began jumping up swiping at her, tearing down ragged strips of cloth as Jane scuttled this way and that to avoid its raking nails.

Looking down on the zombie's upturned, hideously decayed face, Jane thought she saw a flash of something familiar-although with no nose or mouth or eyelids to go by, and the ears dangling from flaps of loose flesh like grisly jewelry, recognition was impossible. Still, Jane began to feel she might have known this girl.

If only she'd stop jumping around for a second. If only she'd stop trying to kill her...

"Oooo, I hope I'm not interrupting any-AHHHHHH!"

Both Jane and the dreadful turned toward the doorway. Standing there, the tray in her hands loaded with another bottle of brandy, was the plump chambermaid.

The unmentionable rushed toward her with a snarl. So shocked was the girl she didn't even turn to flee but simply stood there, motionless, as if calmly offering the thing a drink.

Jane flipped down from the canopy, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the battle-axe, and used all her momentum to bring the blade down into the zombie's skull.

The chop split the dreadful down the middle like a rotted-out log.

The two halves splayed out on the floor at the chambermaid's feet.

"Ahh... ahh... ahh...," the maid spluttered, too breathless even to scream. Her hands were shaking so violently the decanter danced around on her tray, rattling and slos.h.i.+ng and threatening to topple over.

Jane tried to think of something comforting to say. To her surprise-and vague consternation-she realized that she needed no comfort herself, and in fact she found it difficult, for once, to commiserate with someone who did.

She searched for words another moment, then put down her axe and placed a firm hand on the girl's trembling, fleshy-soft arm.

"Why don't you take that back downstairs?" she said, nodding down at the tray. "I don't even like brandy, you know."

CHAPTER 30.

ELIZABETH AND MR. BENNET spoke not a word to each other until they were almost back to Longbourn. The parting with Jane had been painful for each of them, Elizabeth knew, yet she couldn't bring herself to console her father in any way. Leaving her sister at Netherfield for the night was no better than abandoning her in a nest of vipers, and if he felt guilty about that, well, that was the least he could do after the fact. So they'd stalked toward home side by side, each scanning the opposite side of the lane, hand on hilt, saying nothing.

It was Elizabeth who finally broke the silence.

"Zombie droppings?" she asked, jutting her chin out at a glistening red mound of pulp beside a low stone wall just off the road.

Mr. Bennet crossed over to kneel down beside it.

"Zombie droppings," he said.

"Fresh?"

"Fresh."

Mr. Bennet stood up and swiftly carried on toward Longbourn. Yet as he did so, he finally defended himself against the rebuke his daughter had never put into words-because she didn't have to.

"The stakes we play for are the highest, and if I must put up my own flesh and blood as collateral, I will do so."

"You have done so," Elizabeth said.

"Yes. And you, my favorite, I would gladly sell into a sultan's harem if it gave the living even the slightest advantage over the dead."

They walked a little farther without speaking or looking at each other.

"Of course," Mr. Bennet eventually said, "I would fully expect to find you on my doorstep the next morning with the sultan's head on a pike."

Elizabeth glanced over at her father and found him watching her with a sheepish smile. She didn't quite smile back, but she did allow the tight, hard line of her mouth to loosen just a bit.

"Is that what you expect to find when you awake tomorrow?" she said.

"I hope not. Not tomorrow, at any rate." Mr. Bennet looked away again. "If Jane could stay her hand at least a day, it would suit my plans better."

"And which plans are those, exactly?"

"Ah," Mr. Bennet said, nodding ahead. "It appears someone has been anxiously awaiting our return."

By the pink-gold glow of twilight, Elizabeth could see a lone figure standing to the side of the lane just where it curved past Longbourn's front lawn.

A big, brawny figure that put a flutter in her stomach.

Master Hawksworth was watching their approach silently, motionless. All the same, he somehow projected an air of nervous antic.i.p.ation. It reminded Elizabeth of a chained dog, of all things-a pet sensing its owner's approach yet unable to dart up for the pat on the head it yearned for.

Which made no sense. It was supposed to be she who craved his approval. Who was the Master here, after all?

Elizabeth a.s.sumed it was the presence of her father that held Hawksworth back, and indeed he addressed himself only to Mr. Bennet as they approached.

"It is good you chose to return before nightfall, Oscar Bennet," the Master said. He'd relaxed as they drew near, spreading his legs and clasping his hands behind his back and studiously composing his features until they were so immutably cool they could have been chipped from a block of ice. "Today we encountered The Enemy again not two hundred paces from this very spot."

"Did you, now? Where were you going?"

There was a pause before Master Hawksworth answered.

"To the west along the lane. The dreadfuls seem drawn to that stretch of road, and I thought it time to take the young ones out of the dojo, into the field. Their performance was... not bad."

"I'm not surprised," Mr. Bennet said, nodding in a wry, knowing way that called into question what it was that didn't surprise him.

Elizabeth fought to keep her face as frozen as Master Hawksworth's.

He'd been heading toward Netherfield Park when he "encountered The Enemy." Toward her.

"Come," Mr. Bennet said. "Let us retire to my library, and you may tell me the whole story. I have much to tell you, as well." He started for the house, then slowed a moment and added as an obvious afterthought: "If that meets with your approval, Master."

"It does." For the first time, Master Hawksworth let his gaze settle fully on Elizabeth. "As for you, Elizabeth Bennet-"

"Yes, it will be an early night for her," Mr. Bennet cut in. "You should be in bed within the hour, Lizzy, and I want you sleeping in late come morning, too. You have quite a day before you." He looked at the Master and spoke in a voice that seemed less to state a fact than issue a command. "She's coming out tomorrow. At a ball at Netherfield." Then he smiled and went on lightly, "A pity she hasn't had time to practice her dancing lately. But then again, I always found even the liveliest quadrille to be child's play after mastering the Way of the Panther."

"Coming out?" Master Hawksworth said. "Indeed, you do have much to explain, Oscar Bennet."

He spoke sternly, like a man reserving judgment on some possible folly he could squelch with a single word, should he choose. Yet the look he gave Elizabeth before disappearing into the library with her father seemed doleful and thwarted. Longing, one could call it... and Elizabeth both did and didn't want to.

The library door was still swinging shut when Elizabeth's sisters descended on her, Lydia and Kitty each taking an arm and dragging her into the drawing room demanding news of the day while Mary walked behind sharing some of her own.

"I slew an unmentionable this afternoon. The Master seemed quite pleased."

"Oh, hush. No one wants to hear about that," Mrs. Bennet said from her chaise longue. She sounded more affectionate than annoyed, though, and there was a look of contented ease upon her face that Elizabeth hadn't seen in a long, long time. "Lizzy's back-that's what matters."

Mrs. Bennet turned her head and pushed an uncharacteristically rosy cheek upward, signaling Elizabeth to come plant a kiss upon it, which she did.

"You must tell us all the news from Netherfield. Jane and Lord Lumpley are getting along famously, I trust."

"Well, there was nothing infamous about it. Though I don't doubt the baron would change that, if he could."

Mrs. Bennet waved a languid hand in the air and replied with a simple "Ohhhhhhh."

"And Jane told me some of our neighbors were less than convivial when she and His Lords.h.i.+p went into the village together this morning."

Mrs. Bennet shrugged. "They'll come around. We have a n.o.bleman's patronage. That more than compensates for the little quirks your father has foisted upon you."

Elizabeth could scarcely believe how at ease her mother seemed. It was almost as though some other woman had slipped into Mrs. Bennet's skin-for which Elizabeth was glad, since this other woman was altogether more pleasant to be around.

"Perhaps you're right, Mamma," she said. "We'll certainly see that put to the test tomorrow. The spring ball is no longer to be held at Pulvis Lodge. It will be at Netherfield-and the Bennets are once again welcome."

Mrs. Bennet's newfound tranquility was obliterated in an instant.

"I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!" she cried. "At last, our luck has changed for the better! We are redeemed! We are redeemed!"

Kitty and Lydia had hopped to their feet squealing with glee, and Mrs. Bennet actually jumped up and took them each by the hand and joined in. If there'd been a maypole handy, Elizabeth thought, they would've begun prancing around it.

This near-hysterical excitement carried on through the rest of the evening, with Mrs. Bennet and her two youngest daughters giddily debating the merits of this gown or these gloves or that or the other way of wearing one's hair. Elizabeth herself could only work in the occasional opinion (quite often getting no further than "I think that's-" before being overruled by her mother) while Mary simply curled up in a corner with her history book and flintlock and gun oil and left the hullabaloo to the others.

Eventually, however, Elizabeth was allowed to string enough words together to tease out the details of her sisters' day with the master. He'd seemed restless and preoccupied, she was told, and he even let them end their training early so he could "patrol the grounds."

"Of course, 'the grounds' turned out to be a patch of clover down by the road," Kitty giggled.

"And it wasn't unmentionables he was patrolling for!" Lydia chimed in. "It was his pet student!"

"You don't know that," Mary grumbled from the corner. As usual, no one paid any attention.

"Never you mind that Hawksworth," Mrs. Bennet told Elizabeth. "He might be fine for teaching you the Strutting Rooster or the Preening Peac.o.c.k or what have you, I don't know. But it's men of consequence you need to set your sights on, not long-haired savages who eat raw fish and live in a garden shed. Just take that smart young Lieutenant Tindall, for instance. He comes from good stock, that one. I can sniff them out like a pig finds truffles. It's a good thing I'll be with you tomorrow night to steer you toward the quality catches."

"Yes, Mamma," Elizabeth sighed. "If I find myself in any doubt as to the truffles, I'll simply turn to my pig."

Mrs. Bennet nodded firmly. "You do that."

Somewhere in the midst of all this, Master Hawksworth finished his meeting with Elizabeth's father and slipped out of the house.

"All right, all right-to bed with you," Mr. Bennet said, shooing Lydia and Kitty from Elizabeth's room (where they'd been helping her prepare for the ball by arguing about which of them looked better in her jewelry). "You, too, Mrs. Bennet. You know anything you decide tonight will be reversed in the light of day, anyway. Let the poor girl get her rest."

Yet there was little that was restful about the long night that followed. Elizabeth told herself it was concern for Jane that kept her up, and indeed that was what her sleepy, half-dreaming mind dwelled on most. It was almost as though she welcomed the worry, though, for she found herself s.h.i.+fting to it whenever certain other thoughts threatened to take root.

If she should wonder why Master Hawksworth fixated on her so, she reminded herself that her sister was perhaps in peril just a few miles away.

If she should find herself dizzied by the swirl of her own uncertain feelings for the Master-attraction shunted aside by respect giving way to... something else?-she anch.o.r.ed herself with Jane.

Even if she should dwell too long upon Dr. Keckilpenny and his mad experiments and his open mind and his infectious smile, she pushed it aside in favor of Jane.

Only once, to her surprise, did thoughts of the ball occupy her, and even then there was a curiously inert quality to her musings. Coming out was supposed to change everything-childhood would end, a new future would unfold-yet Elizabeth couldn't seem to make herself care anymore. Not with the dreadfuls likely to be in everyone's future.

Once again, it was Jane she turned to, hoping her sister's night was pa.s.sing more peacefully than her own.

Eventually, Elizabeth gave up on sleep entirely. A faint orange glimmer had appeared around her curtains, and she rose and went to them and drew them aside.

Dawn was breaking, bringing the day that would, supposedly, make her a lady. A woman. As she stood there, staring out at the light that crept across the landscape, chasing back the shadows, another shape-that of her own face-slowly sharpened in the gla.s.s of the windowpane. At first, it was just a blur between her and the world, but with time and more light it became a reflection almost as clear as in a mirror.

"Good morning," Elizabeth said to herself. "My, but don't you look a fright."

And then there was movement down below, and suddenly Elizabeth was looking through the gla.s.s once more.

Master Hawksworth was walking off toward the stables with his katana at his side and his warrior's bedroll slung over his back.

Elizabeth threw on her dressing gown and dashed from the room, down the stairs and out the door.

"Master! Master, wait!"

Master Hawksworth stopped but didn't turn around.

"Master?" Elizabeth said, coming closer. As she walked across the gra.s.s, her bare feet were quickly covered with cold morning dew she barely even noticed. "Are you going somewhere?"

The Master finally faced Elizabeth. When he saw she was in her nightclothes, he looked, for a moment, shocked-and then as though he might actually smile.

"No, Elizabeth Bennet. I am merely preparing for an important day. Your father and I have much we must do."

"Then I should be doing it, too," Elizabeth said. "All of us, I mean. Me and Mary and Kitty and Lydia. If it's so important, we must every one of us do what we can."

At last, the Master really did smile. It looked horribly small on such a big man, though, and it barely amounted to more than a slight, fleeting curl of the lips.

"You are an example for us all, Elizabeth Bennet. But no. Your father wanted you and your sister, Jane Bennet, to have this day for your country dance. It is, perhaps, the last chance for any of us to taste such unfettered pleasure. So I gave my consent."

"You are growing soft, Master."

It was meant as a jest, not reproof. Yet Master Hawksworth winced.