Mr. Bennet just put a finger to his lips and shook his head. He was letting her sisters sleep. But why not her?
The soldiers were gone from their positions along the hall, and when Elizabeth and her father reached the foyer, she saw why. The whole company was packed in there together, bayonets affixed to their Brown Besses. Ensign Pratt was at the back, his cherubic face as round and pale as a full moon. In front, by the door, was Capt. Cannon in his wheelbarrow, turned to face his men.
“. . . been telling yourselves you’re not ready for all this,” he was saying. “Because you lack training. Because you lack experience. Poppycock! What does that count against what you are. Englishmen! And not just that. Londoners! Young, tough ones who’ve already faced on the streets of Spitalfields and Camden and Limehouse foes more implacable, more cunning, more tenacious than any mere shambling rotter! Footpads, sneak thieves, pimps, degenerates—now those are fiends to fear! So you’re not good at marching. So you don’t know a field marshal from a major general from the company cook. I don’t care, and neither should you. Because by God, you boys already know how to fight! And mark my words: This day, you shall!”
The soldiers were cheering as Elizabeth and her father started up the stairs. When the Bennets were about halfway up, the captain noticed them and said something to his Limbs, who stood beside him looking weary and grim.
Right Limb looked up at Mr. Bennet and saluted.
Elizabeth’s father nodded solemnly as he carried on up the staircase.
“Papa, what is going on?” Elizabeth asked.
“You will soon see, my dear. I have arranged for box seats.”
The rooms on the second floor were overflowing with huddled guests from the ball, all still in their mussed finery. Though Elizabeth didn’t see her mother, she knew she was among them somewhere. Mrs. Bennet’s snores were quite distinctive.
Up ahead, toward the end of the hall, Elizabeth saw Lt. Tindall speaking earnestly to her sister Jane.
“. . . honor-bound to do all I can to protect your person . . . and your purity,” Elizabeth heard him say as she and her father walked up. His back was to them, and so absorbed was he in his own words that he didn’t notice their approach.
Jane was blushing and looking away.
Mr. Bennet cleared his throat.
The lieutenant turned around.
“Oh. Is it time?”
“I believe so,” Mr. Bennet said. “Good luck, Lieutenant.”
“We have daylight, we have muskets, we have the element of surprise. We won’t need luck.”
The young officer offered Mr. Bennet and Elizabeth a bow, turned back to Jane and boldly kissed her hand, then pivoted and marched off toward the staircase.
“There goes a brave man,” Mr. Bennet said to Jane, and he continued watching her for a long moment even after she’d replied with a simple “Yes.”
“Is His Lordship ready?” he finally said.
“He should be. He asked if I could come in and help him with his stockings perhaps half an hour ago. He was almost fully dressed then.”
Mr. Bennet cocked his right eyebrow. “Almost?”
Elizabeth cocked her left. “Help him with his stockings?”
“Yes. His dressers are all downstairs guarding the . . .” Jane flushed pink again. “I said no!”
“Of course, you did,” Mr. Bennet said. “Now, perhaps we should—”
The nearest door swung open.
“Would you have a look at these breeches, Miss Bennet?” Lord Lumpley said, his attention fixated (as usual) on his own nether regions. “They seem puffy in all the wrong . . . oh. Good morning, Mr. Bennet. Miss Bennet. I didn’t realize the moment had arrived.”
“It has,” Mr. Bennet said.
“I see. You may as well step in, then. We wouldn’t want to miss it, would we?”
The baron moved back to let the Bennets into his large—and, to Elizabeth, sickeningly empty—bedchamber. Every other part of the house was packed near to bursting, yet His Lordship had been allowed to keep an entire room to himself. Elizabeth knew there was good reason: The night before, he’d complained more about the invasion of the lower classes than the damned, and concessions had to be made. Yet it still rankled that his room was now filled with nothing more than some furniture, scattered clothes, and a few poorly concealed bottles of gin.
“I drew these back a crack to have some light to see by,” the baron said, walking over to a set of long, emerald green drapes. “I wasn’t up to taking a good look out, though. Not before I’d had my morning tea and toast.”
“I’m afraid we ran out of water for tea some time ago,” Mr. Bennet said. “The food’s all gone, as well.”
“Oh?” Lord Lumpley pouted, then shrugged. “Well, there’s nothing to hold us back then, is there?”
He drew the curtains aside, revealing a pair of glass doors. Just beyond was a shallow balcony and, beyond that, Netherfield’s long front lawn bathed in the crimson light of dawn. When the baron opened the doors, a sound like a thousand moans or the lowing of a vast herd of cattle swept into the room.
The four of them stepped onto the balcony.
Scattered here and there over the grounds were dozens of ragged, staggering figures—easily two hundred in all, if not three. It was easy to tell the first wave of sorry stricken from their victim recruits. Half the dreadfuls looked moldy and rotten, and they hobbled on legs that had barely enough flesh to hold the bones together. The other half one could have almost taken for living, so natural was the pallor of their skin. Their faces were slack and often blood smeared, however, and many had gaping cavities where their organs had once been.
When they saw Lord Lumpley and the Bennets, they began drifting toward the balcony, some of them shrieking or gnashing their teeth.
“My God,” the baron gasped. “Just look what they’ve done to the topiary.”
Elizabeth tore her horrified gaze away from the unmentionables just long enough to point it at him.
“Surely, Captain Cannon doesn’t think he can just march out and kill so many unmentionables,” she said. “His men are outnumbered at least three to one.”
“The captain doesn’t intend to kill them all,” Mr. Bennet replied. “He merely seeks to distract them. He very wisely had the stables sealed last night in addition to the main house. Captain Cannon plans to draw the main horde off so that someone can get inside and—presuming the dreadfuls haven’t already broken in to feast upon the horses—saddle a mount. That someone would then ride west to look for a battalion of the king’s army on the march from Suffolk. If all goes well, a rescue party might very well reach Netherfield before we’ve either starved or been eaten.”
SCATTERED HERE AND THERE OVER THE GROUNDS WERE DOZENS OF RAGGED, STAGGERING FIGURES—EASILY TWO HUNDRED IN ALL, IF NOT THREE.
“If all goes well,” Elizabeth said.
Her father nodded. “Very, very well.”
There was a great mass of yowling dreadfuls clustered beneath the balcony now, and looking down at them Elizabeth saw a few familiar faces scowling back.
“Not Mrs. Ford!” Jane exclaimed. “And all the Elliots and Dr. Long, too? Oh! And what a beautiful child!”
Staring straight up at them with large, round, gray-rimmed eyes was a little girl not much younger than Lydia. She neither screamed nor moaned but instead merely gazed at them plaintively, as if hoping someone might come down to play with her. The blood smeared around her mouth and hands, however, made it plain the kind of games she would have preferred.
“We could only reach so many in time. And even then, some refused to come with us,” Mr. Bennet said, practically shouting now to be heard over the din of the dreadfuls.