Dreadfully Ever After (36 page)

It started with a letter from Lizzy. She was sending a pair of young friends to Longbourn, and Mrs. Bennet was to look after them until the Darcys, God willing, could collect them. The “God willing” might have seemed ominous had Mrs. Bennet paused to reflect upon it. Pausing and reflecting weren’t her strong suits, however, and anyway she had mysterious guests to prepare for—an aristocratic couple of the highest quality, most likely. For who else would such as the Darcys be friendly with? The good silver and china would have to be put out and the linens changed and fresh flowers arranged and the grounds swept for dreadfuls. (Nothing made a worse impression than unmentionables pawing at the windows with their filthy worm-nibbled fingers.)

What Mrs. Bennet hadn’t anticipated was how very young her visitors would be ... and how very,
very
foreign. She’d been shocked when they stepped off the stagecoach from London, but it made sense when she discovered they were orphans. Mr. Darcy always did have a taste for exotic servants. Why Lizzy would describe her newest scullery maid and stable boy as “friends” Mrs. Bennet didn’t know, but (once she was past her initial surprise and disappointment) she was happy to help them prepare for their new duties. Soon they were busy dusting and mopping and mucking out horse stalls.

When Mrs. Bennet received word from Lizzy to bring the children to Pemberley—where, it seemed, nearly all the family would be gathering to “recuperate”—she assumed things would soon be back to normal. (Again, there was no pausing or reflecting on what, say, anyone needed to recuperate
from
.) She would ferry the orphans to the Darcys’ estate, they would be hustled off to their new lives below stairs, and that would be that.

Only that wasn’t that.
That
, in fact, turned out to be something very different, indeed.

The children, it was quickly made plain, weren’t to be servants at all. They were guests. And that wasn’t the only or even the greatest shock in store for Mrs. Bennet.

For one thing, Lizzy was going out “on patrol” with Mr. Darcy every day. And in that horrible, drab old battle gown of hers—with a sword belt wrapped around it!

Well, what could Mrs. Bennet say to her daughter but “It simply isn’t done.” And “It’s just not done.” And “It is not done.” And “The wives of gentlemen don’t do such things.” And many another variation. Yet day after day, Lizzy strapped on her “katuna” (or whatever it was called) and rode off with her husband, the two of them looking so giddy you’d have thought they were children again. Which also wasn’t done! Respectable married couples weren’t supposed to look so happy. It wasn’t dignified—and it made things so much more awkward for everyone else.

As if that weren’t bad enough, Kitty had fallen into the habit of taking lengthy country walks with an aloof little Asiatic named Nezu. When Mrs. Bennet complained about their long strolls and frequent unchaperoned “sparring sessions,” Georgiana Darcy volunteered to keep them company—along with the young ninja
she
seemed to have grown close to during her recent tour of Scotland. It was scandalous!

Normally, of course, Mrs. Bennet could have counted on Mary to join her in self-righteous censure, but she was too busy nursing her box. The homunculus inside had been injured during some sort of kerfuffle at Rosings (the details were sketchy), and Mary had appointed herself as his caretaker. Each day, she pushed him out onto the lawn and sat with him and his two scruffy mongrels, reading aloud to them or feeding grapes one by one through the narrow slot in the man’s crate. More than once, Mary had hinted that she and her “Mr. Quayle” had something to tell everyone, once his strength had returned. Mrs. Bennet could guess what the news would be. They already had one invalid in the family in Lydia’s husband, the charming Mr. Wickham, so what was one more? At least a cripple was better than a ninja.

Mrs. Bennet knew better than to expect Jane and her husband, Mr. Bingley, to share her shock at all these improprieties. Although they were two of the most respectable and upright people anywhere, they were also among the most unassuming and pliant. Why, within minutes of arriving at Pemberley, they were letting their twins, Mildred and Grace, tear off with the little brown foundlings. True, the orphans were nice enough, polite and eager to please and awed to find themselves being treated with such kindness. Yet they still struck her as so different, so alien, so ... so ... well ...

“So brown,” Mrs. Bennet muttered.

“What was that?” her husband asked.

They were taking a morning constitutional around the grounds when they came across the children laying siege to a gamekeeper’s shack that was standing in for a cave full of zombies.

“Oh, I was just admiring Gurdaya and Mohan’s ... unique coloration.”

Mr. Bennet gave the children an appraising look—and a salute and a “Carry on!” when they noticed him staring their way.

“They seem more sienna to me,” he said. “Perhaps mahogany.”

“And ‘Gurdaya’ and ‘Mohan,’ ” Mrs. Bennet went on obliviously. “What kind of names
are
those, anyway?”

“I believe we’ve discussed that at least five times. They are Punjabi.”

“Well, what’s a Punjabi?”

Mr. Bennet nodded at the children. “They are.”

“You keep trying to tell me they’re English.”

“They are.”

“They can’t be both.”

“Whyever not?”

“You can’t be two different things at once!”

“Oh? I often find myself simultaneously amused and appalled ... usually during our walks together.”

“You’re awful.” Mrs. Bennet lowered her voice, even though the children were forty feet away and no longer paying them the slightest bit of attention. “You don’t think Lizzy and Mr. Darcy mean to
keep
them, do you?”

“Gurdaya and Mohan? I have no idea.”

The children’s game was grinding to a halt amidst much squabbling. No one would put down their saber (they all carried real ones, handed out by Lizzy, along with zed whistles to blow if they spotted a dreadful) and try to eat the others. After a moment, Mohan finally agreed to be the unmentionable, and soon the girls were running from him shrieking with laughter.

“Wouldn’t it be nice,” Mr. Bennet said, “if Jane and Bingley’s brood had friends to play Stricken and Slayers with whenever they came to visit?”

“Stricken and Slayers. Oooo.” Mrs. Bennet gave a theatrical shiver. “How I hate that game. I always have, from the day you first introduced it to my little angel Jane.”

They’d set off up the hill toward the house, but Mr. Bennet glanced back at Gurdaya and Mohan and his granddaughters. And he smiled.

“Who knows, Mrs. Bennet? Perhaps this generation of children will be the last to play it. I suspect the strange plague won’t haunt us much longer. We’re closer to a cure than you might think.”

“Really, Mr. Bennet! I don’t see how you can be so cocksure about the future! We don’t have a king, the government is in disarray, half of London has burned again ... including some of the nice parts this time! Oh, what will become of us? What will become of England?”

Mr. Bennet rapped the ground with the tip of his sword-cane. “It’s still here.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Bennet stopped and turned to glare at her husband. “Not everything is a suitable subject for your sport!”

“I would disagree,” Mr. Bennet replied mildly. “But, more to the point, I wasn’t joking. England will survive. Though it will be a different England.”

“The kind where one’s married daughter runs around with a sword collecting mahogany orphans, you mean? Or where one’s unmarried daughters engage in disgraceful relations with the most inappropriate of men?”

“Yes. That kind.”

“Mr. Bennet!”

“Mrs. Bennet, you may as well rail against the turning of the leaves or the rising of the tide. The dreadfuls came, and we looked to the East and to the deadly arts to save us. And save us they did—even as they changed us. England could have died, or it could become something new, and live. I, for one, am glad the latter path prevailed.”

“But I don’t want a new England! I want my old England! Some things were not meant to change! Some things should be eternal!”

“The change—that is all that’s eternal. The rest of it ... and us …?”

Mr. Bennet shrugged and started toward the house again, his pace slowing as the ground rose steadily beneath him.

Mrs. Bennet wanted the last word, of course. So she had it. Even if, strictly speaking, it wasn’t a word.

“Hmph!”

She crossed her arms and set her feet and threw back her head, as if to make herself into a statue—the very embodiment of the everlasting, unaging, unchanging England she so believed in. She would stand there forever, mute monument to all that was timeless and true.

“Forever” lasted about twenty seconds. Then the sun broke through the morning clouds and a shaft of light shot down upon Mrs. Bennet and she realized that she was thirsty and a little overheated and really, really needed to sit down and massage her corns.

“Wait! Mr. Bennet, wait for me!”

And the old couple carried on up the hill together as, down below, the children began a new game all their own.

THE
END