Well there's the second chapter. Introducing Geoffroy Aymé d'Arcy, Fitzwilliam's French cousin.
Featuring: Catherine de Bourgh, our favorite She-Dragon.
Chapter two: Sauntering Tiger and Hissing Dragon
Rosings, Kent, Wednesday August the fifth 1801
– I want the troops scattered all across the estate. If it's possible I want them hidden from roads and ways. They did better than I anticipated; now they need a few days rest. Let's make sure they get what they need.
He looked at the tired and smiling men who marched inside the estate.
– I want scooting parties as far as possible to the North, but I want them to stay southwards of the Thames River. I need to know what troops the English can muster to bring against us.
His secretary and aid nodded just before mounting his horse and riding away to the tents of the Head Quarters the "troupes du genie" were installing.
– It will be done…
Geoffroy d'Arcy, First Proconsul of the French Republic, in charge of external affairs looked a last time at his frock. The red coat with golden embroideries was not his favored suit but he had to stand up to his rank. And nothing better than a (pro)consul's costume to play the role. And a role he was going to play. Some people need to be impressed and he was not daft enough to believe that Lady de Bourgh would react kindly to anything less than the commander in chief of the French invasion army. If she was able to react kindly at all!
Normally, he would suit himself in much simpler clothes but since this was going to be an official visit, better to bear the symbols of his rank. Perhaps it would help.
He had his doubts but it was worth a try. He owed it to his uncle Lewis de Bourgh who, twenty five years earlier, provided him with help and money. He didn't need the money but the help was precious and kindly given. And d'Arcy never forgot a kind gesture.
Time to payback…
A noise made him turn around.
The carriages were arriving. A smile blossomed on his lips. Never would he have believed that the landing in Brighton would have been so easy. Of course, he had help within the English troops but never ever would he have forecast that the whole British army would be caught unaware and frolicking around campfires.
Thanks to the British Crown he had found everything he needed ready to be used –and often new– within the perimeter of Brighton. Horses, carriages, food and ammunitions, everything was handily prepped and ready to use.
He had had hopes but what he got at Brighton was more than what he would have bargained for. The British really had had no idea he was coming. Their troops were strolling around, just waiting and spending time whoring and gambling. Some of the militia soldiers were so drunk that his troops had to wait a whole day before getting them to move.
He could not fathom how the commanders of the British could survive such a defeat. He captured eleven generals and more than thirty colonels. Generals and colonels who, if everything went well after his departure were "en route" to Calais to be imprisoned in some very secured fortress. Where they would stay for a very long time!
Or perhaps not, since once out of Britain they no more were his responsibility!
And now, these carriages and their dangerous content have arrived and he could prepare his next steps.
But first things first! He had a call waiting.
He put on his coat and buttoned it with great care.
He showed himself to Kennedy, his Irish sergeant and body guard.
– How am I?
– Quite handsome! Would I be a lass, seeing you, I'd forgot my sweetheart…
D'Arcy could only smile at his words. He was sure Lady Catherine de Bourgh would not be as enthusiastic. But there was no return now. He and his armies were here and the least he could do was to present his greetings to the Mistress of Rosings. No reason for a general commanding fifty thousands men and who just happened to land victoriously in England to fear an old woman, was it?
He was still trying to convince himself when the butler opened for him Lady Catherine's parlor.
He took of his hat, put it under his left arm and bowed a very stiff bow.
– Geoffroy Aymé d'Arcy, madame. Votre serviteur !
A long time there was silence. He took the opportunity to study his "aunt".
She was as he remembered. Older, yet. And wrinkled everywhere. Even sitting she seemed to loom over the room. Even over him. He straighted himself up and looked her straight in the eyes. She clearly did not like his manners. She was in no way linked to his family but there she sat, straight and arrogant as was his father, as was his brother.
He loathed her immediately.
– I won't lie in saying that I welcome you, monsieur. I'd wish you and your goons would have been crushed on the beaches of my beloved England. Your blood would have been a welcome gift to the soil of my country.
He let his most contemptible smile show on his face. He knew that most people couldn't stand this peculiar smile. They soon lost their countenance and made failures.
She didn't even seem to notice it. He launched his next attack.
– There was nobody there able to crush us, madam. It seems that your beloved England was quite undefended. You should have come; your gaze would probably have had more effectiveness than the whole of your troops.
She acknowledged his words as a due compliment.
– Without a doubt, said she. Our military is…
She hesitated looking at him as if asking a question. After a few seconds, she took a decision.
– Was composed of complacent idiots who had no idea how to act if faced with a determined enemy. They all believed that the navy would sink the invading troops while still aboard their ships. I wager this has not happened. Your caught them with their breeches down… Probably dancing and whoring… Isn't it so?
He could do nothing but agree with her. She made a distasteful snort. He could take it for him or not… He chose not. They hadn't spoken five minutes and she was already grating with his nerves.
– So, yours was no victory, ours was the defeat.
I should just shoot her. One bullet between the eyes and the problem would be resolved for ever. I didn't get papa, she would, perhaps, be a consolation?
But family was important for him. Especially now with so few of them surviving! She would live. He would kill her only if she happened to annoy him very very much… Wich was not yet the case.
– I'm sorry not to agree. The fact that your troops were ill-prepared and ill-managed does not change the fact that we came ashore, took them by surprise and made all of them prisoners in less than three hours! I lost not one of my men to enemy fire. I call that a victory and a great one!
– You can bade yourself in illusions as long as you wills it, the facts, nevertheless, cannot be doubted. When there is no challenge, there is no Victory.
She looked him down.
– Or as said your pale copy of our Bard: "A vaincre sans péril, on triomphe sans gloire…"
Now could be a good moment to shoot her, with Corneille's verse as an epitaph.
He took hold of himself and tried to remember that Lewis de Bourgh was a kind and sympathetic man. Dead now and the cause of his death were probably in front of him.
Too kind to kill the reason for his unhappiness! He could perhaps do his dead uncle one last posthumous favor?
Once more he got himself under control. No, he would not kill her. Not now, not ever! Because Lewis de Bourgh was a kind and good man who helped a distant cousin of France and because his daughter still needed a mother!
Or is it so? Wouldn't she be better off without that shrew? Free at last?
He inhaled slowly and with the air his anger subsided. But he was wary not to let his guard drop.
– The facts, Madame, are crystal clear. My troops and I are here, on your Estate, soon on our way to London. My troops and I are soon to take your Town. My troops and I are on the brink of making the remnants of English arrogance disappear for ever.
– Illusions, as I said, once romantic, ever romantic. Britain will stand up and fight against your troops and your troops and you will run toward the shores where to be slaughtered by the canons of our fine ships of the Line. Do revel in your false sense of Victory. It won't last.
– We'll see who's lost herself in daydreams. I will make an oath to you. That within a month Rosings will no longer be situated in Kent but in a new French département. And I'll be very happy to introduce you to the new Praefect Paris will send to manage the Land. If you behave, I'll perhaps let you have a say in the département's new name.
– Petty feelings for petty men, said she. You're working with those who brought your father and brother to the guillotine. You should be ashamed of yourself.
– I'm more ashamed to be of the same blood than Augustin Marie d'Arcy than to work with those who had the good idea to bring his ugly career to an end. My father was a fraud, a killer and a rapist. He spent his entire life bullying the peasants and the maids. I would not be surprised if it had been one of his own bastards who brought him, finally, to the torturer. He got what he had coming and the day he lost his head will be marked in my memory as a very good one indeed. And more so since that very day these compassionate people happened to also behead my brother and my future brother in law. A very happy day to commemorate in the future…
His words finally got to Lady de Bourgh.
– Shame on you for using such words when speaking of your father. Shame on you to have been abroad when you should have been there to protect them! It seems that, with your skills, you could have made a difference. Where were you when your family needed you?
– Way too far away to be of any good. I didn't even know they were dead before coming back to France two years ago. Had I known that the French were culling their aristocracy, I would have come to help them, not to hinder them. I assure you I have shed no tear on the mass grave where papa and consorts slowly rot. Good riddance!
– You are a heartless monster.
– If so, you should stop taunting me. I could decide that you're of the same stuff than my dear father. And that I failed him is no guarantee for the survivors that I will also fail them.
– I'm not afraid. You're the petty tool of a petty tyrant. You went away at a time where the tides were changing and where everyone of the aristocracy was needed to resist against the swelling wave of malcontents. It was your duty to stay to fight against the rubble.
– It would have been my duty to put an end to a rotten and unjust system. Louis the XVIth was an idiot and his wife a fool. Look at yourself and ask yourself who is the superior; you who need a maid to dress or them who need nobody to do the simplest tasks you're unable to perform? If my memory is true, mama never could dress herself without the assistance of two maids…
– Shame on you to speak in such a manner of your poor mother. She died of sorrow in her poor London apartment. Alone and full of despair!
Catherine de Bourg shot him a disdainful look.
– And she was the lucky one. Your sister had to marry a merchant to survive. That's a fate I wouldn't wish to my worst enemy.
The polite smile on d'Arcy's face disappeared immediately. His eyes lost all brightness and his mouth became a mere colorless line.
– You could have given her enough money to get herself one of the Gentry. For a mere five thousand she would have been saved… You cannot reproach me what you refused to do. I know that uncle Lewis would have helped. You didn't!
– The family Council took decisions. We helped.
– Fitzwilliam Darcy helped. He paid the debts and the costs of doctors and lodgings. It was also he who brought up the two thousands pounds to invest in my brother-in-law's business in Scotland. Thanks to him my sister and her family live a decent and happy life.
– The family Council agreed.
– Without paying back a shilling to Fitzwilliam and Georgiana.
– He is going to marry Anne. His money is my money. I helped your sister!
– You're daydreaming once more. He will never marry Anne and she won't have him. They don't love each other.
– What's love to do in this matter. We are speaking family policy. Fitzwilliam will marry Anne and our two Estates will merge to become the greatest fortune of England.
D'Arcy couldn't stand it any more. He had tried to be peaceful. He had tried to be respectful. He just could not stand any more of her arguments.
– Forget your family policy, "aunt". Both your Estates, all your Estates, now belong to me and only to me. Before leaving Paris I saw to it with the Domaines. Everything which belongs to the Darcys, the Fitzwilliams and the de Bourghs is now my sole and only property. I did it in order to protect the family Estates against Napoleon's appetites. But I could use it also in another way. Pray, dear aunt that I found no reason to sell the whole lot to some friends of Napoleon. He would like it very much and I, with each passing second, am sure that I would like it even more to see you living in the two rooms in Bradshaw Street where my mother died.
He pointed a finger toward her.
– And, dear aunt, I swear that you'll get exactly the same amount of money you offered her. I know, to the shilling, what each member of the family spent in favor of my mother and sister. What is sure, dear aunt, you will not die of having eaten too rich food.
For the last two years his agents had been roaming Britain to get information. They also got personal information about his family. Only Darcy had fought to have the family Council grant some help to his mother and sister. And most of what he and Georgiana gave was secretly given. Without the approval of the Council!
Thanks to them, his mother hasn't died of poverty or hunger. She had died of despair, unable to accept that her little golden world had been shattered into thousand pieces. Unable to understand that with living family all over England she had not been allowed to share their riches. Darcy would have taken her in. Catherine de Bourgh had fought against it. Probably to make sure that his mother would not be in the way of her daughter, eating her new estate away!
He was on the brink of having her shot… No, he had a better idea. Much better! He could name his brother in law as the new Marquis de Rosings. Giving him, the petty merchant, everything belonging to Lady Catherine de Bourgh! The Manor, the park, the London House! Everything!
That would kill her more efficiently than a bullet through the head. And, as a matter of fact, he now owned the house where his mother died. He could give her the same two rooms his family used and he could offer the other lodgings to the ugliest, smelliest and noisiest people of all London. What a revenge that would be!
A last time he took hold of himself.
He didn't like the old witch but he owed her husband and he would protect Anne even against himself. She would get what belongs to her. She would get Rosings as her legitimate legacy.
He lifted his hand in order to stop a new flow of complaints.
– I'm not here to speak of the past. I've come to show to my government that I can count on my family and that I'm welcome as a member of the family. It's the price you'll have to pay to stay rightfully owners of your Estates. I won't force you to behave, but please take into account that if proven to be enemies, you'll be treated as enemies. For now, I'll do as if you had accepted my presence and that of my men. I'm taking hold of Rosings' East Wing as my provisional Head Quarters. I won't distress you any more with presence. Please convey my greeting to your daughter and let her know that she's welcome to partake to my supper this evening. Since I believe we said to each other everything we ever want to say, I'll accept graciously your refusal to join to said meal.
He bowed much less profoundly than at his arrival.
– We will stay a day or two. Probably less if I get the information I need about the whereabouts of the remnants of the British troops. As soon as I know where they hide I'll go gather another of my unworthy victories.
He turned around and left Lady Catherine's parlor.
Next chapter: Mouse or Sparrow?