pride and prejudice and zombies:: dreadfull ever after

Part 18

CHAPTER 18

The day after Sir Angus's call on the Shevingtons, a servant arrived bearing a note from him.

Dear Mr. Shevington:

My son tells me that your family is new to London. I propose, then, that a tour is in order. I hope you will allow me, an immigrant to this great city myself some years ago, to be your guide. It would go some ways further, I feel, toward making amends for the presumption and rudeness you might still associate with the name MacFarquhar. Send word if you intend to accept my offer, and my son and I will collect you and your daughters at a time of your choosing.

Your humble servant,

Sir Angus MacFarquhar

"You were right about having him in the net," Nezu said to Mr. Bennet.

"So it would seem. Shall we begin hauling him in?"

Mr. Bennet turned to Elizabeth. She nodded.

Four hours later, the MacFarquhars were in front of the house in their open-topped landau. Mr. Bennet and Elizabeth and Kitty joined them as a glummer-than-usual Nezu—who, try as he might (and did), could offer no valid excuse for accompanying the party—watched from the portico. Mary, meanwhile, lurked out of sight inside. At first, Elizabeth had feared she might want to come along as a heretofore unseen Shevington. Instead, she'd announced her intention to spend the day "meditating on the other ways I might prove myself useful."

"Splendid, my dear, splendid," her father had said, and it was obvious to Elizabeth that, in his mind, the greatest use Mary could make of herself was to keep on meditating—preferably in a closet—until their unsavory business in London was done.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't be concluding anytime soon. As the driver guided the MacFarquhars' landau through the streets, it quickly became apparent that he was taking them southwest. They were headed back to the more fashionable, well-protected sections far from the city's fringes. Which meant they were headed away from Bethlem Royal Hospital. Sir Angus's laboratory wouldn't be on the tour.

Mr. Bennet noticed, too—and, unlike Elizabeth, couldn't resist commenting on it.

"I've been told, Sir Angus, that you're one of the administrators of the famous 'Bedlam' Hospital. I do hope a visit is on today's itinerary."

"The days when one could come in and gawp at the Bedlamites arrre done," an icy Sir Angus replied. He hadn't been particularly warm before then, either, though Elizabeth suspected his chilly disposition had less to do with his guests than with Bunny's giggly fawning over Kitty and the miniature coat, cravat, and trousers in which his son had dressed Brummell that day. "The hospital's no longerrr open to the public. At any rate, it's in Section Twelve Central. And if you'd everrr been there, you'd not wonderrr why I don't take you and your daughters there today."

Mr. Bennet clamped his lips together in a way that promised not another word would be said on the subject. Satisfied, Sir Angus launched into a detailed history of the watch towers scattered along St. John Street Road. His travelogue expanded to include each wall, moat, and gate they passed, and he even (delicately, of course, and employing much in the way of metaphor) talked about the extensive new sewer system that had been necessary when so much of the city was cut off from the river it had for centuries used as its communal chamber pot.

Despite his incessant stream of trivia, Elizabeth didn't think Sir Angus a bore. He struck her more as a man who took his obligations seriously: He'd promised them a tour, and by gad he was going to give them one. Elizabeth heard little she didn't already know, yet she wasn't annoyed. In fact, she came to find the low, growling roughness of Sir Angus's rolled R's strangely soothing, like the purring of an especially large cat.