Steve Hockensmith - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - Dawn of the Dreadfuls

The lieutenant marred his perfect marching with a clumsy stumble step.

“Thank you, Elizabeth,” Jane said, attempting (and not quite succeeding at) a smile. “I only wish I had your confidence.”

“Pish tosh, you have nothing to worry about,” Mr. Bennet said. “You will be marvelous, my dear, and no one will be able to deny it.”

Yet though he reached over to give Jane a pat on the back, it seemed to Elizabeth he was as anxious as the lieutenant to avoid her eyes. His reassuring words, she suspected, were as much for himself as his daughter.

A moment later, they were joining Lord Lumpley and Capt. Cannon in front of the house. With them were the captain’s Limbs, of course, as well as a groom behind the reins of a stylish phaeton.

“Ahhhh, my bodyguard! I feel safer already!” Lord Lumpley crowed as the Bennets walked up. He swept Lt. Tindall aside and bowed before Jane, then popped back up grinning. “I would have one of the maids show you to your room so you might get settled, but the captain is anxious to get his new plow horse— me —in harness. So it’s off to Meryton to twist the vicar’s arm, I’m afraid.”

The baron slipped between Mr. Bennet and Jane, hooked the girl by the arm, and pulled her toward the waiting carriage.

“Captain!” Lt. Tindall blurted out. “Request permission to accompany the party to Meryton, Sir!”

Jane turned back to look at him, and the lieutenant met her gaze at last. The young man’s handsome face went red, and he let his mouth hang slightly open, as if the words he was on the verge of speaking had somehow become stuck upon his tongue.

“That won’t be necessary,” Capt. Cannon said. “I’d like Mr. Bennet to go, the better to impress upon this Reverend Mr. Cummings the vital importance of what we propose to do. And he can bring Ensign Pratt and his men along to add further weight.”

“Begging your pardon, Sir, but—” the lieutenant began.

The captain simply looked over at Mr. Bennet and went on talking.

“I’ve left a small garrison in Meryton, quartered at the Sow’s Head Inn. You can collect them upon your arrival. I’m sending the proper equipment for them with the assumption that Mr. Cummings will see reason.”

“A dangerous assumption to make of any man, particularly a vicar,” Mr. Bennet said. “You’re not coming along?”

“No. My first order of business is a thorough reconnoiter of the area. We don’t want any unpleasant surprises, do we?”

“If you encounter dreadfuls, it shan’t be pleasant, but it should come as no surprise,” Mr. Bennet said softly, and he leaned in closely to tell the captain of the zombie scat they’d found by the road.

If he was trying not to panic Lord Lumpley, he needn’t have bothered. The baron was far too busy trying to interest Jane in the glories of his estate—and, by extension, the glories of him —to pay any attention to the men.

“And there was but one dropping?” Capt. Cannon said when he was done.

“There was but one that I saw .”

The captain nodded gravely.

“Well . . . off to Meryton.” Mr. Bennet turned to Elizabeth. “I’m sorry to abandon you like this, but obviously plans have changed. I leave it to you to decide how best to use your time until we return. Perhaps the lieutenant might have one of his men instruct you in the use of a Brown Bess. We have entirely neglected the musket in our training, and I can’t imagine a better opportunity to correct that.”

“Yes, Papa.”

“There’s a good girl.”

Mr. Bennet stepped up into the phaeton and inserted himself between Lord Lumpley and Jane. It looked to be an uncomfortably snug fit.

“Good-bye, Lizzy!” Jane called as the carriage rolled off. She had to lean around Mr. Bennet and Lord Lumpley to wave at her sister and, Lord Lumpley being Lord Lumpley, that called for quite a bit of leaning indeed. All Elizabeth could see of Jane’s face were her eyes, as big and round as a pair of blue buttons.

The shyest, gentlest of the Bennet girls was on her way to a town filled with disapproving prudes, a lecherous nobleman on one side, a sword on the other.

Elizabeth found herself worrying far less about the unmentionables lurking along the road than the possibility that her sister might very soon die of embarrassment.

“I MUST TAKE MY LEAVE as well, Miss Bennet,” Capt. Cannon said as the baron’s carriage rolled off up the drive. “But I find your father’s suggestion an excellent one, and I leave it to the lieutenant here to arrange for musketry instruction, if you so choose. Limbs! Bow to the lady!”

The Limbs did as they were told, then whisked the captain away as he barked out “Hut two, hut two—on the double now!”

Elizabeth and Lt. Tindall stood silently for a moment in the shadow of the great house.

“Well,” the lieutenant said.

“Well,” said Elizabeth.

Another moment passed.

“Miss Bennet?”

“Lieutenant?”

“Would you be offended if I were to speak frankly?”

“That depends on what you might say.”

“I see.”

Another long pause followed.

Eventually, Lt. Tindall drew in a deep breath, as if gathering his strength for some powerful exertion. Which he was.

With an effort so apparent Elizabeth thought at first he was about to sneeze, the young soldier forced himself to speak.

“I apologize for my earlier coldness, which was not intended as a slight, only I find myself, in all honesty, distressed, having discovered your sister to be, in the brief time I had to become acquainted with her, a young lady of exceptional qualities, none of them having anything to do with fighting and killing, and it pains me quite deeply to see her forced into a role so alien not just to her whole sex but to her tender spirit in particular, and it is, in addition, galling to find that your father’s obsession with the unmentionables and the savageries of the East should result in your sister’s most intimate connection with a man of such patently low morals as the grotesque satyr who owns this estate, and furthermore . . . have I said something amusing?”

Elizabeth, to her own surprise, was smiling. For the first time, she found herself almost liking the man.

“No, nothing amusing,” she said. “Gratifying. Perhaps you could show me the way to the gunnery or whatever you call it, and we might talk further.”

The lieutenant nodded and stretched out an arm toward a row of tents lining one side of the lawn. “This way.”

They walked away from the house side by side.

“I appreciate your candor, Lieutenant,” Elizabeth said. “Actually, I find myself in accord with your sentiments in one or two respects. Yet I must trust in my father, as you must trust your captain. They lived through the worst of The Troubles. Whatever they think necessary, I am inclined to do, and I know Jane feels likewise.”

“That would seem sensible,” the lieutenant said, looking straight ahead.

He didn’t sound convinced. There was altogether too much emphasis, Elizabeth though, on the word seem.

“And might I point out,” she pressed on, “that what my sisters and I are doing is hardly unprecedented. No less a personage than Lady Catherine de Bourgh once took up the sword to meet the threat of the dreadfuls.”

“Yes, Lady Catherine . . . our own Joan of Arc,” Lt. Tindall said. If he didn’t seem to be wishing a bonfire upon Lady Catherine, he clearly didn’t mean the analogy as a compliment, either. “At least she had the good taste to go into seclusion after the Battle of Kent and leave the defense of the realm to the king’s army.”

“And you think Jane and I should do likewise? Simply stand aside while all we hold dear is imperiled?”