“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 principal 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 pinprick 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 Hell, 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 pronounced, “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 cucumber sandwich until Jane settled herself on a divan directly in his line of sight, giving him, for the first time, an unobstructed view of her face and figure.
Smoothly, gracefully she assumed 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 assumed 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?”