Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

CHAPTER 24

TO SAY THAT LORD LUMPLEY had beguiled more than one young lady under her father’s nose would, by the baron’s own reckoning, grossly underestimate his verve, nerve, and skill. Several of his seductions had been conducted in such plain sight they weren’t so much under a parent’s nose as dancing atop it, right between the eyes.

Wooing Jane Bennet in the presence of her father, however, presented challenges of a sort he’d never before encountered, and though he spent the entire ride to Meryton trying to work his charms on her, he ended the trip quite certain he’d have met with more success making love to an unmentionable.

There was, for one thing, Jane’s demure-unto-nonexistent personality. If Lord Lumpley smiled at her, she blushed and looked away. If he tried to talk to her, she blushed and looked away. If he ignored her, she blushed and looked away. If the girl hadn’t looked so incredibly fetching blushing and looking away, he would’ve tired of the whole enterprise and told her father to go stuff himself.

There was, in addition, the fact that both Bennets were armed with swords half again as long as the baron was tall. He’d endured many a slap to the cheek in his time and found every way possible to dodge a duel, but this was the first time he’d had to worry about disembowelment.

Yet instead of cooling his ardor, all this merely fanned it to a higher flame. The thrill of the hunt had taken on a very real hint of danger, and what’s more . . . well, it was strange, but Lord Lumpley was finding the sight of a beautiful woman wielding a deadly weapon to be almost unbearably arousing.

If anyone in Meryton had the same reaction, they did a good job hiding it. Smirks, leers, sneers, glowers—that was all he saw as they rode into town. And though most everyone was careful to greet him with smiling civility after he and his party climbed down from the carriage, the Bennets were acknowledged with no more than stiff nods, when they were acknowledged at all.

Mr. Bennet, inscrutable old rogue that he was, bluffed indifference, but his daughter’s response was predictable. She blushed. She looked away. At one point—after a gaggle of young girls broke into giggles upon spotting Jane’s sword—Mr. Bennet lay a hand on her shoulder and whispered in her ear. Whatever he said seemed to give her strength, for she nodded and, for the moment at least, kept her gaze up, proud and straight. But Lord Lumpley could see the barely checked tears glistening in her eyes.

Which was all fine by the baron. A woman armed might have been exciting, but a woman wounded presented opportunity. Whatever respectability the Bennets had left flowed solely from their new connection to a nobleman—a connection he could sever at his leisure. So Jane and her father had reason to fear him, too: They could take off his head, yes, but he could cut the whole family off at the knees.

Lord Lumpley occupied himself with these thoughts (along with idle imaginings about Jane that need not be described) as Mr. Bennet led them here and there around the village. First they collected Ensign Pratt and his pitiful little “garrison” of seven rather shabby-looking soldiers, pausing to suffer through the innkeeper’s complaints about bad business. The regular hackney runs from London had been mysteriously suspended, there were no other travelers upon the roads, deliveries of ale and cheese from neighboring towns were long overdue, etcetera. Naturally, the baron found it hard to keep his eyes open while a tradesman wound out his woes, but Mr. Bennet listened to the fellow’s grumblings with grim attentiveness.

While the innkeeper prattled on, Ensign Pratt dispatched his troops to collect the cargo that had (at Capt. Cannon’s insistence) been hauled to town in the back of Lord Lumpley’s fine phaeton as though it were a common lorry. And if that hadn’t been indignity enough, it was then on to see a blacksmith, of all things. The baron refused to set foot inside the establishment, of course, and actually managed a minute alone with Jane while Mr. Bennet and the ensign disappeared into the smithy’s dark, smoky shop.

“I have not had a chance to tell you, Miss Bennet, how smart you look with a sword at your side. It is quite unconventional, I’ll grant, yet also, in its own way, quite uncommonly fetching. I fancy it will be all the rage for the ladies at court come autumn!”

“Thank you, My Lord,” Jane said, face reddening, gaze falling to a spot just to the left of the baron’s boots. The girl was nothing if not consistent.

“I hope you’ll offer a demonstration later of your skills with a blade. You see, I fancy myself a swordsman, of sorts, and I’d very much like to see how you handle yourself with one.”

The girl looked up, fixing her sky-blue eyes on him at last, and the baron feared she might remind him that no such demonstration was necessary: He’d seen her wield a sword once already, when she’d dealt with poor Emily Ward back at the lake.

At just that moment, though, a studiously respectable couple came by—a Mr. and Mrs. Beechman, it seemed from Jane’s greeting—and though they gave Lord Lumpley a smile and a nod, the girl they ignored, sweeping past her with their noses so high in the air it was a wonder they could see where they were going.

Jane reverted to her customary pose, head hanging even lower, blush even deeper.

“You mustn’t let the snubs of the small-minded upset you, my dear,” the baron said. “Live as I do. Follow your conscience. Your heart.”

Your loins, he didn’t add, though the thought of it put a grin on his face he didn’t even bother to hide. For all her weapons and warrior posturing, this Jane was a simple, naive thing, sensitive and overdeferential. She would think it a comforting smile, not a leer. And she would think him a friend—if not now, then one day. Hopefully, soon.

He was on the verge of risking a reassuring pat on the hand when Mr. Bennet and Ensign Pratt came back, and the baron was so piqued by the swiftness of their return he barely even noticed that they were now lugging huge, black-headed hammers.

“Thank you for your patience, My Lord,” Mr. Bennet said. “Our preparations are now complete. It’s on to the vicarage, where I hope the Reverend Mr. Cummings will prove as susceptible to your powers of persuasion as so many before him.”

The insufferable man offered up one of his little smirks, and it was for the baron now to guess what intent lay behind another’s smile.

The vicar they found preparing his Easter sermon, and he was displeased to be called away for anything of lesser importance. He was a meek, mewling sort generally, his rectoral style leaning more toward unctuous sanctimony than hellfire and damnation. It was one of the few reasons the baron had been able to tolerate the man: Anyone who took all that good-and-evil claptrap too seriously would’ve proved a thorn in his side.

Upon hearing what Mr. Bennet and the ensign proposed to do, however, Mr. Cummings unleashed a self-righteous rage the likes of which he’d never even hinted at from the pulpit.

“It’s abominable! Unspeakable! Sacrilege!”

“First and foremost, it is necessary,” Mr. Bennet replied coolly. “And, secondly, it is overdue. As for all those other things, I can but agree. Your complaint, however, would best be lodged in the form of prayer, for is it not a higher authority than any of us who has, for His own mysterious reasons, loosed ‘unspeakable abominations’ upon us first?”

“YOU BLASPHEME!”

“I apologize if I do,” Mr. Bennet said with a shrug. “I merely thought to observe.”

He glanced at Ensign Pratt, then Lord Lumpley, signaling that it was up to them now to help the vicar see the light.

“I tell you, Sir, this is of the highest strategic importance,” the ensign squeaked. (Though an officer, he was little more than a boy—and one so diminutive and baby faced he made the young troops he commanded look like a company of snowy-bearded Methuselahs.) “Captain Cannon absolutely insists that we proceed without delay.”

“I do not answer to Captain Cannon! I answer to almighty God!”

“As must we all, Mr. Cummings,” the baron said. “Yet I have no desire to stand before Him any earlier than I have to. If Captain Cannon and Mr. Bennet feel that this unpleasant necessity will delay that day for any of us, I think it prudent to see it through forthwith. And you can be assured that this is an attitude I will not keep to myself if any in the community raise objections.”

“Have you not heard a word I’ve said? I object!” Mr. Cummings roared. “I cannot allow you to defile hallowed ground!”

Lord Lumpley jerked back as if struck. Hang his “powers of persuasion.” This self-righteous upstart needed to be squashed like a bug!

“You cannot allow me?” he said. “Might I remind you, Mr. Cummings, that the Archbishop of Canterbury has been a guest in my home?” And nearly emptied my damned wine cellar! “That the Prince Regent is a close, personal friend?” Why, I’ve seen the man naked! “That I am the sixth baron of Lumpley and a knight of the Bath—which makes me the closest thing you grubby bumpkins have to royalty in this miserable backwater?”

Mr. Cummings, Mr. Bennet, and Ensign Pratt all popped their eyes wide in surprise.

Oh, the baron thought. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that last part out loud.

The vicar sucked in a deep breath, the scowl on his face making it plain how he intended to use it. It had been a long, long time since anyone had dared rebuke Lord Lumpley in public. Now his state of grace was about to end.

The baron steeled himself for thunder, but heard a soft, melodious whisper instead.

“Gentlemen, please,” Jane said, “if I may offer a suggestion?”

The girl was sitting in a corner of the vicarage’s cramped drawing room, so silent the men had, for a time, forgotten she was there at all. Though she’d asked for permission to address them, she didn’t wait for anyone to give it.

“It seems to me,” she said, her soft voice gaining strength without losing its gentle lilt, “that you are speaking of all or nothing when a compromise could easily be reached. The Reverend Mr. Cummings has his sacred duties to think of, and it does him credit that he takes them so seriously. Yet if he would consent to do as my father and Captain Cannon ask just once—simply in the way of a trial, without necessarily following through to the admittedly gruesome conclusion they seek—then we will know whether this course of action is truly warranted. If Papa and the captain are mistaken, we will quickly know, and the matter can be laid to rest permanently . . . so to speak. And it should be made clear to Mr. Cummings that arrangements have been made to ensure that, whatever we do, privacy and dignity will be maintained as much as possible and, of course, that the vicar himself isn’t just welcome to observe these proceedings but is respectfully entreated to oversee them.”

Her conciliatory tone, her well-chosen words, her obvious good sense, and, above all, her generous spirit—they worked a spell on Mr. Cummings that he couldn’t resist. By the time she was through, not only was his frown gone, he was smiling upon her pleasantly, utterly pacified.

Mr. Bennet, meanwhile, beamed with a pride tinged with regret. For all his efforts to turn Jane into a warrior, peacemaking clearly suited her better. She’d certainly done a better job of it than the baron had with all his bluster, and even he paused to appreciate her sweetness and sagacity—before being distracted by her décolletage as she rose to go.

The party left the vicarage to see her suggestion through. Once outside, they collected Ensign Pratt’s men, who were leaning against the stone wall that ran along the road, smoking pipes and grumbling amongst themselves.

“Pick up that gear and fall in!” the ensign roared. (Or tried to. It came out more like a mewl.) “Snap to it, now! Hut hut!”

The soldiers hopped up and grabbed the poles and rolled canvas and bags of tent pegs Lord Lumpley and the Bennets had brought from Netherfield Park. Yet one pile, the baron noticed, went untouched until all the other items had been claimed.

Only the slowest and unluckiest men ended up with the shovels.

“Come on!” the ensign yipped. “Look alive, look alive!”

Once Pratt had lined up his squad, the whole group—the soldiers, the Bennets, the vicar, and (because he’d been too slow thinking up a way to get out of it) the baron—turned and headed toward the cemetery.