Chapter Fourteen The Fall of the Gorgon
COLONEL RICHARD FITZWILLIAM, veteran of the Peninsula, survivor of relentless artillery fire, and a man who had once successfully talked his way out of a French prison camp using nothing but a winning smile and a pocket watch, was hiding in his dressing wardrobe.
He was breathing heavily, his back pressed against a row of starched cravats, gripping the hilt of his ceremonial sword as if he expected a battalion of dragoons to burst through the door at any moment.
"Higgins," Richard whispered loudly into the dim confines of the closet.
His batman, a wiry man with the nervous disposition of a startled rabbit, peered around the doorframe. "Sir? Are you quite well? You have been standing next to your boots for twenty minutes. Have we been invaded?"
"We are preparing for a siege, Higgins," Richard replied grimly, stepping out of the wardrobe and adjusting the cuffs of his immaculate blue uniform.
He had chosen his full-dress regimentals for this occasion.
If he was going to die today, he was going to leave a handsome corpse.
"Today, I breach the citadel. Today, I march into the valley of the shadow of death.
Today, I ask my aunt for her daughter's hand in marriage. "
Higgins dropped a good boot brush onto the carpet. It landed with a dull thud that echoed in the silent bedchamber. The man stared at Richard, his jaw unhinging slowly until he resembled a landed trout.
"You are... you are going to speak to Lady Catherine, sir?" Higgins choked out, his eyes wide with terror. "About... matrimony? With Miss de Bourgh?"
"I am," Richard declared, puffing out his chest so that his brass buttons caught the morning light. "I am a soldier. I do not flinch from duty. I do not run from cannon fire, and I certainly do not run from elderly women in turbans."
"Sir," Higgins squeaked, taking a step backwards and wringing his hands.
"Sir, I must implore you to reconsider. I have spoken with the footmen.
I have spoken with the scullery maids. The Gorgon of Rosings does not simply reject unsuitable suitors.
She crushes them. She is aware of your bank balance, sir.
She will turn you into a pillar of salt! "
"Let her try!" Richard boomed, his volume returning.
He began to pace, executing military turns at each wall.
"I have tactical advantages she cannot possibly anticipate!
First, I possess the element of surprise.
She believes I am an idiot! A loud, capering, financially insolvent idiot! She will never see the ambush coming!"
"That is... certainly an element, sir," Higgins offered weakly.
"Second, I am fuelled by the power of true love!
" Richard spun around, pointing a dramatic finger at his batman.
"Do you know what she did yesterday, Higgins?
She painted an elm tree! And made it look exactly like a diseased cabbage!
And I saw that cabbage, and I knew, with the certainty of a religious visionary, that I wanted to look at her cabbages for the rest of my natural life! "
Higgins blinked slowly. "You wish to marry the heiress of Rosings Park... because of her cabbages."
"Because of her mind, Higgins!" Richard shouted, throwing his hands into the air.
"She is brilliant! She fakes phthisis to avoid playing the pianoforte!
It is a masterpiece of domestic espionage!
She sits in that drawing-room, observing us all like a general surveying a battlefield of morons, and she does not say a word.
But when she does speak—good God, Higgins, her wit could slice through a steel cuirass! "
He resumed his pacing, his boots thudding on the floorboards. "I shall marry her, even if it kills my aunt."
The door opened, and Darcy appeared.
He stood on the threshold dressed in a morning coat, but unlike his usual brooding self, Darcy smiled with his mouth.
"Richard," he said, stepping into the room and closing the door. "I could hear you from the hallway. Are you giving a motivational speech to your footwear?"
"I am preparing for war, Darcy!" Richard announced, drawing himself up to his full height. "I am marching into the lion's den. I am going to face the Gorgon."
Darcy's smile faltered. "You are going through with it. You are going to ask Aunt Catherine for Anne's hand."
"I am." Richard grabbed his sword belt from the bed and buckled it around his waist with a snap. "I am a Fitzwilliam. We do not cower."
"We do, actually, when Aunt Catherine is holding a ledger," Darcy corrected reasonably.
"I do not care, Darcy!" Richard laughed, a manic, hysterical sound. "I have faced down Napoleon's cavalry! I can face a woman whose primary weapon is rhubarb tonic!"
Darcy sighed. "You are serious. You truly love her."
"More than I love my own life," Richard said, the theatricality dropping for a fraction of a second. "More than I love breathing. And I am going to rescue her from this gilded mausoleum if I have to carry her out over my shoulder."
Darcy walked forward and clapped a supportive hand on Richard's shoulder.
"Then Godspeed, Cousin. You are a braver man than I.
But I must warn you—if she throws a teapot at your head, I will not be there to act as a living barricade.
I have my own campaign to execute at the parsonage, and I cannot afford a concussion. "
"Go to your parsonage, Darcy!" Richard beamed, clapping his cousin on the back with enough force to stagger him. "Go and claim your witty, sharp-tongued Hertfordshire lass! Leave the artillery fire to the infantry! Higgins! My hat!"
Higgins scurried forward, presenting the plumed military bicorne as if handling a live snake.
Richard placed the hat squarely on his head and adjusted his collar. He took a long breath, drew his shoulders back, squared his jaw, and marched out of his bedchamber.
The siege of Lady Catherine de Bourgh had officially begun.
The corridors of Rosings Park felt exceptionally long that morning. Richard's boots echoed loudly on the marble tiles, alerting the household to his approach. Two footmen, sensing the determination rolling off the Colonel, flattened themselves against the wallpaper to let him pass.
Richard reached the doors of Lady Catherine's private morning parlour. This was her sanctum sanctorum. This was where she calculated the estate yields, drafted letters of complaint to local magistrates, and practised her glares in a silver-backed mirror.
He did not knock. A soldier does not knock when breaching the enemy line.
Richard grabbed the handles, turned them simultaneously, and threw the doors open with a resounding CRASH that sent a flock of pigeons launching from the window ledges outside.
"AUNT!" Richard bellowed, his voice carrying the concussive force of a six-pounder cannon.
Inside the parlour, the scene was one of clerical drudgery. Lady Catherine was seated behind a claw-footed desk. Standing beside the desk, clutching a small leather-bound notebook and a quill, was Mr Collins. He was hunched over like a question mark.
Both of them jumped at the loud entrance. Mr Collins's quill snapped in half, spraying black ink across his own chin.
"Richard!" Lady Catherine barked, recovering her composure instantly. She slammed her hand down on the desk. "What is the meaning of this intrusion? Have the French landed in Kent? Is the parsonage on fire? If not, you will close that door and knock properly!"
Richard marched inside, ignoring the instruction. He stopped in front of the desk, planted his feet, and clasped his hands tightly behind his back in the stance of parade rest.
"The French have not landed, Aunt, and the parsonage remains uncombusted, to my knowledge!" Richard declared, keeping his volume at a maximum. "I have come on a matter of the utmost urgency! A matter of honour, of duty, and of earth-shattering emotion!"
Mr Collins dabbed at his ink-stained chin with a handkerchief. "Perhaps the Colonel requires a soothing herbal infusion, your Ladyship! He appears to be suffering from a brain fever!"
"Silence, Mr Collins," Lady Catherine snapped, her eyes fixed on her nephew with a mixture of irritation and concern.
"Richard, lower your voice. You are startling the spaniels.
" She gestured vaguely towards a pair of deaf, obese dogs snoring by the fireplace.
"Now, state your business, and be quick about it.
I am in the midst of dictating the new regulations for the proper folding of the napkins. "
"The napkins can wait!" Richard boomed. He unclasped his hands and threw them wide. "Aunt! I stand before you a man transformed! A man who has looked into the abyss of his own frivolous existence and found salvation! I have come to formally, officially, and passionately declare my intentions!"
Lady Catherine leaned back in her chair, her eyes narrowing to tiny, suspicious slits.
"Intentions? Towards whom? If this is about that Bennet girl at the parsonage, I strictly forbid it.
She is a gentleman's daughter, yes, but her mother's family is in trade!
You are a Fitzwilliam! You will not taint the bloodline with a woman whose uncle sells fish! "
"It is not Miss Elizabeth!" Richard shouted, taking a step closer to the desk.
"Miss Elizabeth is a delightful acquaintance, but she is not the keeper of my soul!
No, Aunt! The woman who has captured my heart, the woman who commands my devotion, is none other than your own daughter! I am in love with Anne!"
The silence that followed was such that Richard could hear the wheezing breaths of the sleeping spaniels.
Lady Catherine stared at him. She did not blink. She did not move. It was as if her brain, an incredibly complex instrument designed for the domination of others, had encountered a mathematical equation that did not exist.
Mr Collins let out a high-pitched squeak. "Miss de Bourgh? The... the Colonel jests, surely! How very... funny!"