“You were right, Father,” Elizabeth said. “We can’t keep them out forever.”
Mr. Bennet nodded. “The time has come, I think, to stop trying.”
CHAPTER 37
FIRST, THE THREE YOUNGEST Bennet girls had to clear the wine cellar of its dreadfuls. (There were two still squirming like worms from the packed-dirt floor, their progress slowed by the quicklime that had apparently eaten away most of their connective tissue.) Then it was time to clear the wine cellar of both its wines and its many rows of wine racks—all of which proved excellent fodder for zombie bombardment once it was hauled up to the second floor. After that, the packing began.
They started with the walls. The house, it was quickly discovered, was a Swiss cheese of secret passages and hidden vaults. With Belgrave’s reluctant help—which turned quite a bit less reluctant whenever Jane was in the vicinity—dozens of people were soon tucked away out of sight.
Which meant there were that many fewer to fight back the unmentionables breaking through. And there were steadily fewer still as more and more people were sent into the cellar to join the children and the elderly and the wounded already there. Eventually, there was no one left guarding the windows and doors at all, and the cellar was stuffed wall to wall.
“Time for you to go in, too,” Mr. Bennet said to his daughters. “Seal the door from the inside, as we discussed, and I’ll put the false wall in place out here. It won’t be pleasant down there in the dark, I’m sure, but the air holes should—where do you think you’re going?”
Lydia and Kitty were hurrying off down the hall, toward the sound of splintering wood and phlegmy moans.
“Our friends from outside are letting themselves in a trifle early!” Lydia called over her shoulder.
“We’ll just go and ask them to wait!” Kitty added.
They were drawing their swords as they darted around a corner.
“There’s no time for that now!” Mr. Bennet called after them.
“Well, there’s a little more time than you might have thought,” Elizabeth said.
“We’re not going down there, you know,” said Jane.
Mary hefted one side of the wood panel that had been hastily fitted to hide the landing before the cellar door. “This is really quite heavy, Papa. Together on the count of three . . .?”
Mr. Bennet looked at her, then Jane, then Elizabeth, and despite the bags under his eyes and the deep sadness within them, he seemed to be on the verge of cracking a smile. And perhaps he would have, if a familiar voice hadn’t called out from the darkness below.
“Mr. Bennet! You march those girls in here this instant!” Mrs. Bennet demanded. “You’re not going to leave me down in this filthy hole all alone!”
“Did you hear that?” one of the maids grumbled from under the stairs, where she stood stuffed in with the rest of the household staff. “The silly cow thinks she’s all alone.”
“Farewell, Mrs. Bennet. I . . .”
Whatever Mr. Bennet had been about to say went unsaid, and he instead stomped down the steps, met his wife at the bottom, and kissed her. Then he turned and marched back out of the attic, leaving Mrs. Bennet sobbing in the arms of her sister Philips.
When he reached the landing again, he couldn’t meet his daughters’ gazes: For once, he was the one blushing and looking away.
“Come now, all together,” he said, grabbing one side of the false wall. “One . . . two . . . lift!”
There was a distant clatter of boards falling to the floor just as he and the girls got the panel in place, and an otherworldly yowl echoed through the halls.
“That would be in the north wing, by the sound of it,” said Mr. Bennet. “Jane, run along and greet the new arrivals, hmm? I’ll join you shortly. Mary, go see what’s keeping Lydia and Kitty. And you—”
He turned toward Elizabeth and took in a deep breath as her sisters darted away. It almost seemed as if he was waiting for them to get out of earshot.
“We will be retreating to the attic at the first opportunity,” he said. “It is essential no unmentionables see us go up there, so it’s difficult to say when that opportunity might arrive. Hopefully, it will be a matter of minutes. When we get there, we will lock the door behind us and hope for the best. There can be nothing in that attic that might give us away, however. Even the slightest disturbance would spell our doom.”
“So Dr. Keckilpenny’s captives—”
“Must be dealt with. And I thought it best that you do the dealing.”
“Of course, Father. It will be done.”
Mr. Bennet nodded just once, wordless, and headed for the north wing. Elizabeth went to the stairs.
She was barely aware of the steps under her feet, and the grunts and thumps and hammering from the halls below went unheard. All she could think of was Dr. Keckilpenny and what she could—and couldn’t—say to him.
She’d tried to see him the day before, during a brief lull between breaches. She’d found the door to the attic locked, and she lacked the nerve to knock. She’d laughed about it to herself as she’d gone back downstairs to face another onslaught. The dreadfuls she could face. But a man for whom her feelings were . . . complicated? That she ran from.
Only she couldn’t run from it now.
The door to the attic was still locked. She rapped on it firmly.
“Dr. Keckilpenny! It’s Elizabeth Bennet! I need to speak to you!”
There was no answer from the other side of the door. No sound at all.
Elizabeth knocked again.
“Doctor! Please! It’s urgent!”
Still nothing.
Elizabeth could hear the noises from downstairs. Shrieks and the scuffling of feet.
She pounded on the door with both fists.
“Dr. Keckilpenny! Are you there? Are you all right? Answer me!”
When there was no response, Elizabeth stepped back for a kick that she hoped would break open the door. She knew it was worse than futile: Damage the knob and lock, and the room beyond would be useless as a hiding place. But what choice was there?
And she had to know about the doctor. Would it end with him so embittered toward her that he’d actually leave her to the dreadfuls? Or could it be that he wasn’t up there at all? Perhaps he’d engineered his own escape, abandoned them, just like Master Hawksworth.
The thought of the Master gave her the rage she needed. No lock was going to stop her. She swiveled on her right foot and drew up her left just as steps started down the stairs on the other side of the door.
A moment later, the key rattled in the lock, and the door opened. Not wide. Just a crack. Then the footsteps began again. And by the time Elizabeth was inside, at the bottom of the stairs, Dr. Keckilpenny was nearly at the top.
He hadn’t said a word to her.
It was words she’d always liked best about the man. He had so many, and never quite the ones she expected. She found herself longing for a few of them even now, as the sound of fighting grew louder from the ground floor and she climbed to the attic with her hand on her sword.
Mr. Smith spoke to her first.
“Buh ruhz,” he growled. “Buh ruhz!”
He was in his usual position, standing with arms thrown back behind him as he strained against the shackles that held him in place. He was noticeably more decayed, however, his skin blotchy and bloated, peeling away here and there to reveal glistening sinew and bone beneath. A family of flies had discovered him, it seemed, for the right side of his face was aswarm with maggots.
“Buh ruhzzzzzz . . . buh ruhzzzzz.”
“Good day to you, Mr. Smith. And you, as well, Doctor. I must admit, I’m disappointed to find your pupil’s vocabulary unexpanded.”
Elizabeth winced at her own words. Death was at their door—quite literally—and here she was chattering away like it was just another guest come for high tea.
She stepped toward Mr. Smith.