Dawn of the Dreadfuls

by Steve Hockensmith

  “Yes, Mamma.” Jane turned to the baron and, to Elizabeth’s surprise, managed to look him square in the eye. “If it pleases His Lordship?”

  Lord Lumpley beamed benevolence. “Of course. I think I can survive a little while without my Amazon. I need to retire to my chambers, at any rate; we’ve been so busy with the preparations for the ball, I’ve barely left myself two hours to get properly dressed.” The baron offered Elizabeth a smile then turned to Mrs. Bennet and, though the smile withered, at least managed to suppress his grimace. “If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask my man Belgrave.”

  He took his leave with a shallow bow to Lizzy and Mrs. Bennet and an “Until tonight” to Jane.

  “Ooooo,” Mrs. Bennet cooed when Jane joined them at the bottom of the stairs. “You’ve got your hooks in deep, I can see. I always knew you’d marry above us, but who could have guessed how very high?”

  “Mamma, please,” Elizabeth said. Though Belgrave had departed not long after his master, she couldn’t help feeling he lingered behind somehow, unseen yet unmistakably present, like a musty smell or a draft of cold air. “Keep your voice down.”

  She might as well have been Mary for all the mind her mother paid her.

  “Is Lord Lumpley to thank for all these pretty baubles, then? As if your beauty didn’t shine brightly enough already. Tonight it shall be blinding!”

  Blushing, Jane put a hand to the gold, gemstone-studded choker around her neck. Elizabeth had never seen it before. New, too, were her sister’s earrings and kid gloves and dancing slippers. The gown, though, was one Jane had brought with her from Longbourn (as was, of course, the sword that slightly crumpled the skirt on one side).

  “His Lordship let me borrow a few things that his cousin, Lady Wellaway, left behind after her last visit,” Jane explained. “He rather insisted on it, actually.”

  Elizabeth didn’t care for the color on her sister’s cheeks or the hint of a curl to her lips, but whatever they might mean, that could wait.

  “Jane, was a dreadful loose in the house last night?”

  Jane nodded, her face falling. “No one knows how it got inside. It killed one of the servants and a soldier before I, well, I rather split it in two.”

  “Oh!” Mrs. Bennet huffed. “Can’t we talk about something else? Who put up your hair, dear? They did simply marvelous work with the curls!”

  “Was it a male?” Elizabeth asked. “Fairly fresh?”

  “Just the opposite. It was a girl, quite decomposed.”

  “And would you just look at those beautiful bangles,” Mrs. Bennet said. “Do they belong to Lady Wellaway, too?”

  “A girl? So it wasn’t—”

  Elizabeth caught herself just in time.

  “So it wasn’t Mr. Smith?” she’d been about to say. She could just imagine explaining “Mr. Smith” to her mother. Mrs. Bennet was desperate for her daughters to meet eligible males, but Elizabeth suspected even she had her standards.

  “Have you seen Dr. Keckilpenny this morning?” she asked instead.

  “Yes,” Jane said. “I finally met the good doctor at breakfast.”

  Elizabeth let out a breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding.

  “He didn’t stay to eat with us,” Jane went on. “He simply loaded a plate in the kitchen and went back to the attic. The cook said all he took were pastries and desserts—along with some uncooked kidneys and tripe.” She shook her head. “A strange young man. Nice, of course. But strange.”

  “Doctors,” Mrs. Bennet snorted. “They’re all strange, if you ask me. Who’d want to spend all their time around sick people? And I’ve never known a one who had more than four hundred a year. Now, solicitors, there’s a sensible bunch. Or, better yet, barristers. Or—”

  “Tell me, Jane,” Elizabeth said, cocking an eyebrow. “Were there any other unwelcome callers in the night?”

  For once, Jane looked as if she would have preferred pursuing her mother’s line of conversation.

  “Yes … in a way … but it wasn’t like that.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “The baron’s not as bad as you think, Lizzy.”

  “Believe me, Jane: He’s not as good as you think,” Elizabeth replied. “No one is.”

  Yet Jane looked unconvinced.

  Soon after, Cuthbert Cannon and his Limbs came rolling/striding in, and it was quickly decided that the captain would see to Mrs. Bennet’s entertainment while Elizabeth helped Jane prepare for the ball. It was a somewhat surprising arrangement: Capt. Cannon surely had better things to do, and Mrs. Bennet was passing up the chance to do worse by insinuating herself into the baron’s household or playing Cupid for her daughters. Yet Elizabeth was too grateful to be free of her mother (and the constant danger of shame she posed) to ponder long on the oddness of it all.

  She spent the next hours with her sister seeing to various lastminute details on Lord Lumpley’s behalf. Jane had been appointed the baron’s proxy, apparently, and it fell to her to make the final decisions on the placement of the orchestra, the arrangement of the card tables, the tartness of the punch, the ratio of grapes to apples in the fruit bowl, etcetera. In addition to being a great honor, this was a great responsibility. Everything in the ballroom and the drawing room and the long portrait-lined gallery connecting them had to be just so, and one servant after another came to Jane for direction, or simply glared at the upstart girl who dared to play mistress for the day.

  Yet through it all Jane remained her usual agreeable, serene self. Elizabeth, however, found each new triviality rubbing her nerves more raw. What should she care about the desperate shortage of oysters or how to keep the Lumbards from mixing with their mortal enemies the Maydestones? Especially when she could look out any of the huge windows in that wing of the house and see soldiers drilling with muskets, hammering boards together into what looked like shields, marching up the road bound for who knew where or what?

  “Oh, sod the Cotswold!” she finally snapped when Jane took a little too much time deliberating over the proper arrangement of the cheese plate. “And sod the ruddy Wensleydale, too!”

  “Lizzy!”

  Elizabeth clapped her hands over her mouth, hardly believing what had just popped from it.

  “Oh, Jane. Forgive me, please,” she said when she could finally trust herself to speak again. “It’s just … I find myself feeling so … so …”

  Whatever she was feeling, it didn’t come to her in anything so simple as a single word, and she had to get at her meaning another way.

  “You’re supposed to be the baron’s bodyguard, not his master of ceremonies. For heaven’s sake, can’t we leave these trifles to Belgrave and the other servants?”

  Jane reached out and gently took one of Elizabeth’s hands in her own.

  “Don’t think I’m not frustrated, as well, Lizzy. Papa, Master Hawksworth, little Ensign Pratt, LieutenantTindall—they’re all out there in harm’s way so that we might stand here trying to keep the Stilton as far as possible from the Brie. It was our father’s wish that this be so, however, and we can only assume there is some intent behind it, for how often has he made decisions unwisely or without due consideration?”

  “You mean other than when he married Mother?”

  Jane gave her sister another reproachful look.

  “Yes, I know. You’re right, of course,” Elizabeth sighed. “I just wish I knew what Father was up to and why he felt it necessary to be so secretive about it.”

  “I suspect we’ll have answers to both those questions soon.” Jane gave Elizabeth’s hand a squeeze, then turned back to the cheese plate. “Now, I’m beginning to incline to your way of thinking on the Cotswold. It’s altogether too bold, isn’t it? Perhaps we could have someone check the larder for a block of Gloucester.”

  Presently, Lord Lumpley returned with what proved to be impeccable timing: He came downstairs after all the necessary arrangements had been made and just before the arrival of the first guests. Elizabeth thought he actua
lly looked rather good in his black coat and breeches and silvery silk vest, though he moved with a stiff-backed stiltedness that suggested his corset strings had been pulled especially tight for this night. Mrs. Bennet and Capt. Cannon reappeared then, as well, both of them looking cheery and flushed from their tour of the grounds.

  This, then, was the de facto receiving line when Belgrave escorted the Goswicks into the ballroom. Mr. Goswick was actually able to bluff out an almost-convincing show of gratitude to the baron for “assuming patronage of the ball.” But Mrs. Goswick and her daughter Julia—who, like Elizabeth, was to have her coming out that night—looked as though they could barely resist pinching their noses.

  “You’ve taken off your scimitars, I see,” Mrs. Goswick sniffed to Elizabeth and Jane. “Well … I suppose they would get in the way during the dancing, wouldn’t they?”

  She led her daughter and husband off to the opposite side of the room, where they could keep company with the only truly respectable people present. Themselves.

  More familiar faces soon followed, and the expressions upon them quickly grew quite familiar: strained graciousness for Lord Lumpley and Capt. Cannon, ill-concealed disdain for all the rest. Even Elizabeth’s own aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Philips, were less than warm, and the couple quickly scurried away to the refreshments table, where they pretended to admire the tasteful arrangement of the cheeses.

  “So this is to be my coming out,” Elizabeth said to her sister. “It appears our neighbors would have preferred it had I stayed in.”

  “Don’t worry, Lizzy. The mood will brighten once the music starts. Then you’ll need a card to keep track of all the gentlemen asking for a turn around the floor.”

  Yet when the baron called for a Scotch Reel—which he proceeded to lead with Jane as his partner—no one came to Elizabeth to ask for a dance or offer an introduction to a willing partner. Even her mother, to her horror, was soon whirling this way and that with Capt. Cannon, his Limbs and wheelbarrow scattering the other dancers (when not crushing their toes).

  “He’s a blackguard, you know,” someone said, and Elizabeth turned to find an eligible gentleman at her side at last—an eligible gentleman who was staring enviously at her sister and Lord Lumpley as they pranced, hand in hand, down the line.

  “I do know it, LieutenantTindall,” Elizabeth said. “But my sister insists on seeing the best in everyone, including those who have none.”

  “That is what makes her so special. Even the savagery your father has subjected her to could not snuff the light that shines within her lovely heart. She may parody a man when she straps on a sword, but without it she is everything any Englishwoman could hope to be.”

  “How flattering,” Elizabeth said dryly. “For my sister.”

  The lieutenant nodded without taking his eyes off Jane. He cut quite a figure in his red regimentals, and Elizabeth could see Mrs. Goswick and her daughter across the room watching him with nearly the same intensity he focused on her sister.

  “She represents everything I fight for,” Lt. Tindall said. “I have vowed not to allow any harm to befall her.”

  “Oh? I hope you won’t construe this as a criticism, but if that’s true, why are you here attending a ball instead of outside hunting dreadfuls?”

  This was a criticism, of course, and it came out even more sharply than Elizabeth had intended. So sharp, in fact, that the lieutenant winced as if stung and finally faced her fully.

  “Night has fallen, Miss Bennet. There is little my men can do but guard the roads and the manor house—and that they are doing already. I will rejoin them in time. For now, however, there is danger of a different sort to be dealt with right here.”

  He turned back toward the dance floor and grimaced at the sight of Jane and the baron’s carefree smiles.

  “I intend to have the next dance with your sister … and however many more after that I can,” he said. “May God strike me down dead if I allow her to be his partner twice in a row.”

  Elizabeth stared at the young officer a moment, amazed by how handsome, how pure hearted, how incredibly thick he was. She looked around the room at the other men and saw none to match the lieutenant on the first two counts, and many who far surpassed him on the last.

  She was supposed to be introducing herself this night, making herself known to society. Yet she felt, instead, that society was making itself known to her.

  Somewhere outside lurked a menace as close to pure evil as God or Satan could possibly produce, and only a few brave souls—men like her father and Geoffrey Hawksworth—were out in the darkness to face it. Meanwhile, here were Hertfordshire’s leading lights laughing and skipping in circles under the glimmer of crystal chandeliers.

  “Why are you at a ball instead of out hunting dreadfuls?” she’d asked the lieutenant. And it was a good question. For everyone.

  Especially herself.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I find there’s something I’ve forgotten to attend to.”

  Lt. Tindall turned to her just enough to offer a perfunctory bow. His gaze never left Jane.

  As she walked from the ballroom, Elizabeth was acutely aware how her sudden departure must look. “There goes poor, perverse, ruined Elizabeth Bennet—snubbed by every man in the place, now she flees to cry her tears of humiliation alone.” And the beautiful thing about it was that she didn’t care.

  “Belgrave,” she said, though the man was nowhere in sight. “Belgrave.”

  She didn’t need to say it a third time. He appeared at her side, matching her stride for stride.

  “Yes, Miss Bennet?”

  “There is a package in my family’s carriage. Beneath the backseat. Would you send someone out for it, please?”

  “Right away, Miss.”

  The servant fell away, then somehow managed to beat Elizabeth to the foyer.

  He was waiting for her with the package in his hands. It was long and narrow, wrapped in rough hessian.

  Elizabeth took it and cradled it and folded back the burlap covering, gazing down like the Madonna on her wrapped katana.

  “Thank you, Belgrave,” she said. “I won’t be needing anything else.”

  __________________

  CHAPTER 32

  ELIZABETH HAD ONE CALL to make before she went out to find Master Hawksworth and her father and whatever dreadfuls they’d managed to find. There was someone she wished to say hello to and, depending on how things went, perhaps good-bye as well.

  The guard outside the door to the attic was as quick to level a Brown Bess as Pvt. Jones, only he had even more reason to do so. Elizabeth could deduce as much from the dark stains the maids hadn’t quite managed to scrub from the floor and wall.

  “Good evening,” she said, and that was enough for the soldier to lower his musket, sighing with relief. No passwords were needed to tell friend from foe in this war. Any word—that was enough.

  “Evening, Miss. Here to see His Queerness, are you?”

  “Dr. Keckilpenny. Yes.”

  “Need an escort up?”

  “No,” Elizabeth said firmly. “That’s quite all right.”

  “Suit yourself. It certainly suits me. Oooo, the awful sounds his pet makes. If I had to actually see the thing …”

  The soldier shivered, then stepped aside to let Elizabeth pass.

  Halfway up the dimly lit stairwell, she began to hear some of those sounds the man had mentioned. Groaning, grunting, the clomping of heavy footfalls.

  Only, when Elizabeth reached the top of the steps, she saw it wasn’t “Mr. Smith” making the noise at all.

  “Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaance,” Dr. Keckilpenny said as he spun and capered about the attic. “Dance. Dance!” He waved his arms in time to the muffled waltz filtering up through the floorboards. “Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuusic. Music. Music!”

  Mr. Smith watched him from a few feet away, black drool dripping from his open mouth, arms swept back to the sides, straining against his chains.

  “Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr,” he said
.

  “No, Smithy. Muuuuuuuuuuuusic. Daaaaaaaaaaaance.”

  Dr. Keckilpenny threw his gangly form into a slipshod arabesque and performed a wobbly spin that left him staring, eyes wide, at Elizabeth.

  “Oh! Miss Bennet! What a wonderful surprise! And here I was just thinking of you.”

  “Really? I’m honored that the mere thought of me should make you want to dance.”

  Dr. Keckilpenny put on one of his sideways-crescent grins. “You’re not far off there, actually. May I tell you about it? What I was thinking, I mean?”

  When Elizabeth didn’t answer straightaway, his smile sagged.

  “Of course, you may,” Elizabeth said. “I need to be elsewhere tonight, but I can certainly delay my departure long enough to hear why a dignified man like yourself should wish to perform ballet for a dreadful.”

  “Dignified? And here I thought we were getting to know each other so well.” The doctor held out his hands toward the chest in which Mr. Smith had been hauled up to the attic. “Please, have a trunk.”

  Elizabeth walked to the chest and took a seat atop it.

  Mr. Smith swayed in her direction.

  “Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.”

  “No, Mr. Smith. Girrrrrrrrrrrrrrrl,” Dr. Keckilpenny said. “Or, I suppose, young laaaaaaaaaaaaady.”

  Mr. Smith made a sound that was part snarl, part wail and not “girl” or “lady” in any way whatsoever.

  The doctor sighed.

  “You see how it’s been … and this is Smithy at his best. Last night he was positively wild. Flinging himself at me, shrieking, yowling. One minute he was being a perfect gentleman, as zombies go, the next it was nothing but snort snarl slobber howl.”

  “Was that around the time the other unmentionable got loose in the house?”

  Dr. Keckilpenny tapped a long finger against his chin. “Now that you mention it, it was. Most curious. I wonder if they can sense each other’s presence. By smell, perhaps?”