“Very well-and this offer of marriage you have refused?”
“I have, sir.”
“Very well. We now come to the point. Your mother insists upon your accepting it. Is it not so, Mrs. Bennet?”
“Yes, or I will never see her again.”
“An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do; for I shall not have my best warrior resigned to the service of a man who is fatter than Buddha and duller than the edge of a learning sword.”
Elizabeth could not but smile at such a conclusion of such a beginning, but Mrs. Bennet, who had persuaded herself that her husband regarded the affair as she wished, was excessively disappointed.
“What do you mean, Mr. Bennet, in talking this way?”
“My dear,” replied her husband, “I have two small favours to request. First, that you will spare me the expense of having your lips sewn shut; and secondly, that you will allow me the free use of my room. I shall be glad to have the library to myself as soon as may be.”
Not yet, however, did Mrs. Bennet give up the point. She talked to Elizabeth again and again; coaxed and threatened her by turns. She endeavoured to secure Jane in her interest; but Jane, with all possible mildness, declined interfering; and Elizabeth, sometimes with real earnestness, and sometimes with playful gaiety, replied to her attacks. Though her manner varied, however, her determination never did.
While the family were in this confusion, Charlotte Lucas came to spend the day with them. She was met in the vestibule by Lydia, who cried in a half whisper, “I am glad you are come, for there is such fun here! What do you think has happened this morning? Mr. Collins has made an offer to Lizzy, and she will not have him.”
Lydia noticed that Charlotte was flush with the warmth of exercise and had a rather disconcerted look on her face. “Charlotte? Are you ill?”
Charlotte hardly had time to answer, before they were joined by Kitty, who came to tell the same news; and no sooner had they entered the breakfast-room, where Mrs. Bennet was alone, than she likewise began on the subject, calling on Miss Lucas for her compassion, and entreating her to persuade her friend Lizzy to comply with the wishes of all her family. “Pray do, my dear Miss Lucas,” she added in a melancholy tone, “for nobody is on my side, nobody takes part with me. I am cruelly used, nobody feels for my poor nerves.”
Charlotte’s reply was spared by the entrance of Jane and Elizabeth.
“Aye, there she comes,” continued Mrs. Bennet, “looking as unconcerned as may be, and caring no more for us than if we were the very unmentionables she takes such pleasure in occupying her time with. But I tell you, Miss Lizzy-if you take it into your head to go on refusing every offer of marriage in this way, you will never get a husband at all-and I am sure I do not know who is to maintain you when your father is dead.”
CHAPTER 21
THE DISCUSSION OF MR. COLLINS’S offer was now nearly at an end. The gentleman himself scarcely spoke to her, and his assiduous attentions were transferred for the rest of the day to Miss Lucas, whose civility in listening to him was a seasonable relief to them all, and especially to her friend. Indeed, Charlotte seemed to flatter Mr. Collins with an almost unnatural attentiveness.
The morrow produced no abatement of Mrs. Bennet’s ill-humour or ill health. Mr. Collins was also in the same state of angry pride. Elizabeth had hoped that his resentment might shorten his visit, but his plan did not appear in the least affected by it. He was always to have gone on Saturday, and to Saturday he meant to stay.
After breakfast, the girls retired to the dojo and attended to their mid-week musket disassembly and cleaning. With those very weapons on their person, they next set out for to Meryton to inquire if Mr. Wickham were returned, and to lament over his absence from the Netherfield ball.
They were less than a mile from Longbourn when Kitty, who had elected to take point, abruptly stopped, and signaled for the others to do so as well. She raised her musket, but at what, Elizabeth and the other girls knew not, for the road seemed free of trouble. After standing thus for a moment, a single chipmunk scurried out of the woods on their right. It darted across their path with considerable rapidity, before disappearing into the woods on the left. Lydia could not help but laugh at the sight. “My dear Kitty, how shall we ever thank you for sparing our toes a most unfortunate tickling!”
But Kitty kept her musket at the ready, and, after a moment, a second chipmunk scurried across the road with equal alacrity. It was followed in short order by a pair of weasels, then a skunk, then a fox and her pups. More creatures followed, and in ever-increasing numbers; as if Noah himself beckoned, offering refuge from some unseen flood. By the time deer began to leap across their path, the other girls had their muskets trained on the tree line, ready for the herd of zombies they suspected would appear at any moment.
The first was a young, freshly dead female in a white lace wedding gown, which, like her skin, was surprisingly white-almost shockingly so, save for the bright red rubies that dripped from her mouth and onto the lace covering her bosom. Kitty put the creature down with a shot to the face, upon which Lydia placed her barrel against its head and promptly dispatched it to Hell. So close was this shot, that the bride’s hair was set alight by the powder flash. “Seems a shame,” said Lydia, as acrid smoke began to rise. “Wasting perfectly good wedding clothes like tha… “
The wail of another zombie interrupted her; his flowing white beard and half-eaten face attached to a stout body, which was clad in a blood-crusted blacksmith’s apron. Elizabeth and Jane aimed and discharged their muskets; Jane’s ball finding one of the creature’s eyes, and Elizabeth’s striking its neck-cutting through the brittle flesh and separating head from body.
These zombies were followed by several more-each vanquished as quickly as the last, until the cracking of powder at last fell silent. Sensing the danger passed, the sisters lowered their barrels, and spoke of setting off again for Meryton. But these plans were belated by a most unusual noise from beyond the tree line. It was a shrill shrieking, neither human nor animal, and yet unlike any zombie wail the sisters had ever heard. It grew closer, and once again, all muskets were trained and readied. But when the source of this strange noise revealed itself, their barrels were lowered.
“Oh! No…” said Jane. “Oh! It simply cannot be!”
A long-dead female zombie stumbled out of the woods, her modest clothing slightly tattered; her brittle hair pulled back so tightly that it had begun to tear the skin of her forehead. In her arms, she held something exceedingly rare; something none of the sisters had ever seen, or ever wished to see-an unmentionable infant. It clawed at the female’s flesh, emitting a most unpleasant series of shrieks. Elizabeth raised her musket, but Jane was quick to grab the barrel.
“You mustn’t!”
“Have you forgotten your oath?”
“It’s an infant, Lizzy!”
“A zombie infant-no more alive than the musket I mean to silence it with.”
Elizabeth again raised her weapon and aimed. The female dreadful was now more than halfway across the road. She trained her sights on the elder’s head; her finger caressing the trigger. She would put it down, reload, and dispense of them both. All she had to do was squeeze. And yet… she did not. There was a strange force at work, a feeling she faintly recalled from her earliest days, before she had first traveled to Shaolin. It was a curious feeling; something akin to shame, but without the dishonor of defeat-a shame that demanded no vengeance. “Could there be honor in mercy?” she wondered. It contradicted everything she had been taught, every warrior instinct she possessed. Why then could she not fire? Hopelessly bemused, Elizabeth lowered her musket, and the zombies continued into the woods until they were seen no more.