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 Peacock 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 shifting 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 anchored 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 passing 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 glass 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 glass 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 grass, 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.
“No. It’s not that. The truth is, I’ve always—” He cut himself off and started to turn away again, then stopped with his side to Elizabeth, his fists clenched. “I have a shameful secret, Elizabeth Bennet. I believe your father suspects, yet I dare not speak of it aloud, even to you . . . though in you I have found my only hope of overcoming it.”
Elizabeth started toward him again. “Master . . . Geoffrey . . . what is it?”
She reached out, about to take one of his hands in hers.
“Ahh, Lizzy,” Mr. Bennet said as he came around the side of the house. He had a crossbow in his hands and a look of mild surprise on his face. “I thought I told you to sleep in. And here I find you on the lawn in your night things with the sun not up half an hour? Such shameful disregard for your father’s wishes! If it weren’t your special day, it’d be dand-baithaks till noon. Am I right, Master?”
Master Hawksworth stiffened—back and legs straightening, chest puffing out, chin jutting—until he looked like something out of a Grecian courtyard.
Mr. Bennet had the gaze of a Gorgon, it seemed: It had turned the man to stone.
“Indeed,” the Master said. “You rose early, too, Oscar Bennet.”
“Not at all. I never went to bed. ‘Eternal vigilance’—that is my credo now.”
Mr. Bennet and Master Hawksworth shared a long, silent look.
“Shall I have Hill bring out some hot coffee?” Elizabeth said. “You both seem to have fallen asleep standing up.”
“Not a bad idea, Lizzy. But it’s one, I’m afraid, for which we have not the time.” Mr. Bennet stepped swiftly up to Hawksworth and then swept past him, bound for the stables. “Come, Master. We must away to Meryton to collect Ensign Pratt and his men. We’ll need their help if we’re to see our plans through.”