pride And prejudice And zombies: dawn of the dreadfuls

chapter 4

"IS NOTHING SACRED to that woman?" Mr. Bennet grumbled, waving a hand at a musty corner of the greenhouse. "There are geraniums on my sword rack." He gathered up the offending flowers and carried them to the door. "Master Liu would flay the last strip of skin from my back."

It was his seventh reference to "the Master" since they had begun clearing out the jumbled bric-a-brac and half-dead plants, and with each new allusion Elizabeth had to work harder to suppress a shudder.

"My throwing daggers in with the trowels? Old Liu would dip me in honey and stake me to an anthill!"

"Are those ferns hanging from my bo staff? The Master would feed me my own fingernails!"

"Your mother's been using my hand claws as tillers! Master Liu would rip out my heart and chomp into it like an apple before my very eyes!"

Etcetera.

If this Liu person had anything to do with Mr. Bennet's plans for his daughters and his "dojo," Elizabeth was very uneasy indeed. Yet the girls kept to their sweeping and dusting. So far, all questions to their father had been turned aside with a shake of the head and a firm "In due time."

(Their mother, for her part, had made but one vain attempt to save her potting shed, but she'd retreated at the sight of her husband clutching a grime-covered spear. He'd found it staked to a currant bush and looked entirely inclined to use it for its intended purpose.)

"All right. That'll do for now," Mr. Bennet finally announced. He'd just tossed the geraniums onto the ever-growing heap of debris on the lawn and come back inside slapping the soil from his hands with obvious satisfaction. "Sit."

The girls all looked around the little hut, as if they might have simply overlooked the divans and settees their father had in mind for them.

"There are no chairs, Papa," Lydia said.

"There are no elephants, either. What is that to us?"

Mr. Bennet settled himself on the floor, legs crossed, back straight.

"We can't sit on the ground!" Kitty cried.

"On the contrary. It is quite easy," Mr. Bennet said. "Sit!"

Elizabeth caught Jane's eye and nodded quickly at the floor. Jane was the eldest of the Bennet sisters, the leader. It was upon her to set the proper example.

But what was proper? Elizabeth could see her sister wasn't sure.

She gave her head another downward jerk, and slowly, reluctantly Jane sank to the ground, her black skirt swirling in gray dust. Elizabeth followed suit, then Mary, then Kitty. Lydia remained upright, defiant, until Kitty yanked her to her knees with a sharp tug on the wrist.

"Good," Mr. Bennet said. "But not good enough. In future, whenever we are within these walls, I will expect instant obedience. If I do not get it, there will be grave consequences."

"Oh, really, Papa!" Lydia scoffed. "I can't picture you whipping us with a cat-o'-nine-tails like 'Old Liu'!"

Mr. Bennet glared at her. "Then you must change your picture of me. Whilst we are training, I am not your 'Papa.' I am your master, and you will mind me accordingly."

"'Training'?" Elizabeth said. "What sort of training?"

"Before I explain, we must have the first lesson. To attend me carefully, without the distraction of unnecessary comfort, you will learn to sit as warriors do." Mr. Bennet held out his hands, palms up, over his crossed legs. "Like me."

"Sit as what do?" Lydia said.

"We can't sit like that," Kitty protested.

Mr. Bennet shook his head in disgust. "You're all so quick to point out what you can't do. The time has come to learn what you can."

"Well, it's certainly not very ladylike," Lydia pointed out.

"Ladylike be damned!" her father thundered, and all his daughters gasped. Yet they all did as he said, too.

Or they tried to, at any rate. Layer upon layer of binding feminine underthings—shifts under corsets under petticoats—made even so simple a task as sitting on folded legs a challenge worthy of a Hindu contortionist. After ten minutes of not entirely successful sitting practice, Mr. Bennet declared that the girls were close enough, and he would begin.

"Years ago," he said, "when the threat from the dreadfuls was at its worst, certain Englishmen—and Englishwomen—turned to the East for guidance."

"You mean like Lady Catherine de Bourgh," Mary said.

"Hush, child! I've only just started!"

Mr. Bennet took a moment to compose himself, and began again.

"Years ago," he said, "when the threat from the dreadfuls was at its worst, certain Englishmen and Englishwomen—such as the famous Lady Catherine de Bourgh—turned to the East for guidance. In the Orient could be found specialized methods of individual combat that seemed perfectly suited to the problem at hand. This rankled our more fervent patriots, who would have preferred an English solution to an English problem. But those of a more pragmatic turn of mind—and the resources to follow its dictates—undertook the long trek to furthest Asia and apprenticed themselves to masters of the deadly arts. I was one such person."

Jane, Mary, Kitty, Lydia—all could contain themselves no longer.

"You have been to the Far East?"

"You fought in The Troubles?"

"Did you meet Lady Catherine?"

And, from Lydia: "My feet fell asleep. May I move my legs?"

Only Elizabeth remained silent, patiently waiting for more. Her father's words were a revelation, yet not entirely a surprise. It was more like the final piece in a puzzle: Even if it's missing, one can know its shape from the blank space it's meant to fill.

Elizabeth and her sisters had been living in that empty spot. It was their world.

Mr. Bennet held up his hands for silence. "Of my training in China, you will learn much. Of my experiences in The Troubles . . . you will learn what you must. And, yes, Lydia. You may move your legs."

With much grunting and panting and little half-muffled exclamations of annoyance, Lydia began uncrossing her legs, a process that took—what with all the snags on her stay and halfslip and crumpled muslin—not less than a minute.

"Tomorrow," Mr. Bennet said, eyelids wearily adroop, "you will wear simple sparring gowns. For now, however, it is the end of my tale that concerns us. After the Battle of Kent, when the dreadfuls were—supposedly—vanquished at last, I and my fellow initiates were expected to give up our warrior ways. Not to do so was to be seen as not entirely English anymore. Not entirely respectable. The pressure to acquiesce was quite intense, as you can imagine."

He paused for a quick eyeroll toward the house.

Yes, indeed. Elizabeth could easily imagine.

"I built this dojo—this temple of the deadly arts—not just for myself," Mr. Bennet continued. "I built it for you. My children. So that you, too, would be schooled in the Shaolin way. Now, far too belatedly, we begin your training. It will not be easy. You will be sorely tested. You will cry and bleed. You will face the derision, probably even the condemnation, of your community. Yet you will persevere on behalf of the very souls who now find you so ridiculous. For the dreadful scourge has returned, and once more warriors must walk the green fields of England!"

There was a long silence while the girls took all this in.

Eventually, Kitty cleared her throat.

"Ummm . . . what if we don't want to be warriors?"

"Then I will disown you, and you will, most likely, be torn apart and eaten by a pack of festering corpses." Mr. Bennet moved his gaze around the room, looking at each of the other girls in turn. "Any more questions?"

Elizabeth had several, of course. Yet, for some reason, one in particular came to her lips first.

"When do we begin?"

Mr. Bennet's expression remained grim even as his eyes seemed to flash her a secret smile.

"It has begun."