Diana the Huntress

by Beaton, M. C.

  At last, just before seven, they too rose from the tables, Lord Saunders declaring it was an excellent evening, since he had managed to win a fair sum from Lord Dantrey, that gentleman’s mind being more on Miss Diana Armitage than it was on the dice.

  Lord Dantrey made his way through the foggy, deserted streets. He walked down Bolton Street, through Berkeley Square, up Bruton Street to Bond Street, and somehow he found himself in the foggy precincts of Hanover Square before he quite realized where he was going.

  He leaned against the low railings of the square and studied what he could see of the front of Lady Godolphin’s mansion. The large diamond in his stock winked in the flickering light of the parish lamp, and the crystal and gold buttons on his coat glowed against the sombre cloth.

  Diana Armitage, he thought gloomily. I do not want a Diana Armitage in my life. I want a soft, feminine, pliable lady who will think I am God.

  He laughed at his own arrogance and was about to turn in the direction of his lodgings when he stopped. The door of Lady Godolphin’s house was slowly opening.

  The fog, which had thinned a little, closed down again.

  Lord Dantrey moved forward.

  A female figure, heavily veiled, emerged carrying two large bandboxes and quietly closed the door behind her.

  Diana!

  Now what was she up to?

  He drew back a little as Diana looked cautiously to left and right.

  She moved down the steps and started to make her way around the square. He hurried after, walking lightly, his evening pumps making no sound on the cobbles. On the other side of the square the black block of a travelling carriage loomed up out of the fog.

  All at once Lord Dantrey decided that Miss Diana Armitage was eloping.

  He took several brisk steps forward and seized her by the arm.

  She let out a squeak and dropped the bandboxes, which rolled away and landed up against the railings.

  Diana Armitage looked up into the mocking eyes of Lord Mark Dantrey and wished she were dead.

  SIX

  ‘Let me go!’ whispered Diana fiercely.

  ‘No. I am persuaded you are eloping.’

  ‘What business is it of yours?’

  ‘It is the business of any gentleman to see that a lady does not make a fool of herself. You are eloping with Mr Emberton.’

  ‘I love him!’

  Too much punch, thought Lord Dantrey, as he felt a stabbing pain somewhere in his insides.

  ‘Does he love you?’

  ‘Of course he loves me.’

  ‘Then why elope?’

  ‘Because if I do not,’ said Diana in a venomous whisper, ‘I shall be forced to marry you!’

  ‘How can that be when I most certainly do not want to marry you? Tell your Mr Emberton that, and suggest he courts you in the normal manner. Think of your family and do not be so selfish.’

  ‘Papa has not returned. He has not told me what passed between you.’

  ‘He tried to constrain me to marry you because of a certain anonymous letter which reported you were seen with me at Hubbold’s coffee house. I reported that I had noticed a couple of young men in the coffee house who bore a marked resemblance to you, although I did not think much about it at the time. Your father thought your twin brothers might have been playing truant from school and, not wishing to be found out in their escapade, settled for sending an anonymous letter. He has gone to Eton. If this proves to be the case, your father will not say any more about the matter. I trust you were not foolish enough to tell Mr Emberton of your escapade?’

  ‘No,’ lied Diana, not quite knowing why she was lying.

  Mr Peter Flanders walked softly up to the travelling carriage. ‘Dantrey’s caught her,’ he whispered to Jack Emberton.

  Mr Emberton swore fluently. ‘I have no mind to be called out by Dantrey,’ he said at last. ‘I shall beat a strategic retreat and find ways to deal with the situation later.’

  ‘Good,’ said Mr Flanders, climbing into the carriage. ‘Tell that ox of a coachman to drive on. I had no desire to find myself acting as your second.’

  As Diana ran towards the carriage through the fog, she heard the rumble of departing wheels. Unwilling to believe that Mr Emberton had deserted her, she ran around the square, searching this way and that. At last she returned to where Lord Dantrey was standing.

  ‘Gone away?’ he enquired pleasantly. He pulled Diana into his arms and held her firmly against him. ‘Miss Diana,’ he said, ‘I urge you not to flout the laws of society. It will cause nothing but grief.’

  ‘I am tired of your familiarities, sir,’ said Diana between her teeth. ‘Let me go.’

  ‘No, you will listen to me first.’

  ‘Listen to you? You fop, you dilettante, you rake!’

  She wriggled furiously against him. He felt her breasts pushing against his chest, he smelled the clean scent of soap and rose water from her hair, and he gave a little sigh and, holding her even more firmly, bent his mouth to her own. Diana went rigid with shock. He kissed her very gently and sweetly, his mouth pressing gradually deeper and deeper, feeling a great surge of burning desire welling up in him. The desire became so all-consuming, such sweetness shot through with pain, that when he finally freed his mouth and looked down at the stark, white-faced disgust on her face, he could hardly believe the tremendous longing and passion had all been on his side, and he let his arms drop.

  Diana raised her hand to slap his face, but he stood looking down at her with an odd intent expression in his eyes. Moving very stiffly, she picked up her bandboxes and stalked like an angry cat towards the door of Lady Godolphin’s house.

  Lord Dantrey stayed where he was, watching her until she had disappeared. He felt confused and not a little alarmed at the intensity of his feelings. He decided he would be better off avoiding Miss Diana Armitage in the future.

  Diana returned to her bed and slept badly. She was eventually awakened by her father who gave her the glad tidings that Peregrine and James had been the authors of the anonymous letter. Everyone was sworn to silence and so she had nothing more to worry about. He was about to deliver himself of a blistering lecture on the folly of her behaviour when Diana burst into tears. She sobbed that she was crying with relief, but she looked so distressed, so agonized, that the vicar decided to beat a hasty retreat.

  The vicar had a long talk with Lady Godolphin before removing himself to the country. He questioned her closely about Mr Emberton. In truth, the vicar was more prepared to be indulgent when it came to Diana than he was in the affairs of any of his other children. He had enjoyed Diana’s company on the hunting field and at times had been able to forget she was a girl. Lady Godolphin was able to reassure him that Diana was turning out to be a quiet and modish lady and showed none of the awkwardness or gaucherie of which the vicar had complained. Certainly she had upset a tea tray, but that was only on one occasion, and she showed no disposition to be rude in company.

  The Reverend Charles Armitage therefore left with Squire Radford for the country, easy in his conscience. It was not usual for the vicar to feel so comfortable within himself and the more comfortable he felt, the more sanctimonious he grew, until the squire found himself relieved when the squat tower of St Charles and St Jude rose above the winter trees. The squire said he would pay his compliments to Mrs Armitage and then go home and go to bed.

  The vicarage seemed unnaturally quiet, and it took some ringing of the parlour bell to bring Sarah.

  ‘Where’s your mistress?’ demanded the vicar, running an appreciative eye over Sarah’s trim form.

  ‘In her bed, sir,’ replied Sarah with that characteristic toss of her head which sent the ribbons of her cap flying.

  ‘Be so good as to rouse her and tell her that Mr Radford wishes to pay his respects. And before you do that, fetch the brandy.’

  The squire shivered a little and edged his chair nearer the fire.

  A light sprinkling of snow had fallen, turning the garden outside wh
ite and bleak. Great ragged clouds sailed above the bare branches of the trees and a starling piped dismally from the branch of an oak. The vicarage gate had been left unlatched and it swung on its iron hinges, emitting a dreary shriek. Sarah deposited a tray with the brandy bottle and two glasses in front of the gentlemen and then could be heard mounting the stairs to the bedchambers.

  ‘Perhaps I should call later,’ said the squire. ‘Mrs Armitage is perhaps asleep.’

  ‘Mrs Armitage is always asleep,’ growled the vicar. ‘She went into Hopeminster last week and you know what that means.’

  The squire nodded. Mrs Armitage always came back from Hopeminster with a great stock of patent medicines with which she proceeded to dose herself.

  The wind gave a great howl about the building and swept away across the bare winter fields.

  ‘The banshee,’ shuddered the little squire. ‘The Irish would say that was the banshee.’

  ‘And what’s a banshee when it’s at home?’

  The squire sipped his brandy. ‘No matter,’ he said at last. ‘An old, primitive superstition.’

  ‘Do you think this Emberton fellow will do for Diana?’

  ‘I do not know,’ said the squire cautiously. ‘He seems well enough in his way. Yet, I confess, I feel there is something brutal about him, something that is not quite the gentleman.’

  ‘Being a brute don’t mean he ain’t a gentleman,’ said the vicar. ‘London’s full o’ fashionable brutes. If they ain’t brutes, they’re tipping about on high heels with their faces full o’ paint and not enough in their breeches to …’

  ‘Charles!’

  ‘Ah, well, we’ll see how this Emberton turns out. Pity about Dantrey. Emberton’s more to my taste, but everyone knows Dantrey’s worth thousands, Still, I don’t want my Diana wed to a rake. They never change.’

  ‘My dear Charles, no one could say you have spent a celibate life.’

  ‘They couldn’t now, could they? Been married for years.’

  ‘That was not what I meant,’ said the squire primly. ‘There was Jessie last year, and then there was that serving wench over in Hopeminster …’

  ‘Here!’ said the vicar. ‘What if Mrs Armitage should hear you! Fie, for shame.’

  ‘I’m cold,’ sighed the squire. ‘I did not mean to start to read you a lecture. Where is Mr Pettifor these days?’

  ‘In church, where he always is,’ said the vicar. Mr Pettifor was the vicar’s overworked curate.

  ‘You are very lucky, Charles,’ said the squire, ‘to have such a willing and able young man as Mr Pettifor. When one considers your many absences …’

  ‘Jimmy! Faith, ’tis not like you. First you attack me on my lack of morals and then on my lack of religion. Where’s that girl? What can be keeping her?’

  Just then the door opened and Sarah came in, all her normal cockiness fled. ‘Oh, Mr Armitage,’ she said. ‘Mistress is not in her room. Mrs Hammer says she come downstairs, looking fair mazed, about a couple of hours ago, and the next thing she hears the door bang. Mrs Hammer had something boiling on the stove so she couldn’t go see. Mrs Armitage don’t seem to have taken no mantle nor wrap and her was wearing one of her muslins.’

  Both men turned and stared out of the window where tiny flakes of snow were beginning to fall.

  ‘Get John Summer,’ said the vicar. ‘Get the lads from the village. I’ll need to go out, Jimmy. One of them concoctions has finally twisted her brain.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said the squire quietly. ‘We must ask if anyone has seen her.’

  The curate, Mr Pettifor, walked into the room, his long nose red with cold. ‘Where’s Mrs Armitage?’ asked the vicar. ‘Seems she’s wandered out.’

  ‘I saw a lady in a thin gown walking across the fields in the direction of Saxon Mere,’ said Mr Pettifor. ‘She was staggering as she walked and so I thought I would go after her as soon as my duties were finished.’

  ‘Come with us now,’ said the vicar. ‘Please God, she hasn’t done anything silly.’

  They hurried out into the bleak, grey iciness of the day. Ice crackled under their feet as they made their way through the churchyard and out over the fields. Mr Pettifor showed a desire to chatter and looked disappointed when the vicar snarled at him to be quiet. Poor Mr Pettifor, thought the squire. What a lonely life he must lead. No one ever seemed to want to spend much time in his company.

  It was only when the livid mirror of Saxon Mere appeared at the bottom of a long slope that the squire felt a sickening sense of dread. He had, up till then, fully expected to see Mrs Armitage weaving her way across the fields, totally under the influence of some patent medicine. The landscape looked so grim, so empty. They were moving through the still heart of winter, where memories of summers past were lost and hope of summers to come not yet born.

  It seemed almost inevitable when the vicar said in a strangely flat voice, ‘There’s something floating out there. Pettifor, the boat!’

  The squire began to pray silently, over and over again.

  Mr Pettifor fumbled with the oars and the vicar gave an oath and told him to sit in the stern. He would row himself. The boat crackled through the thin ice at the water’s edge. Frozen reeds stood sentinel, tall reeds, momentarily barring the view. Then the boat moved out into the lake as little hard pellets of snow struck their faces and began to erase the far landscape.

  The wind rose and little angry waves smacked and sucked at the sides of the boat. The thing in the lake for which they were headed danced tantalizingly, always seeming to be just a little in front of them.

  Then the wind stopped as abruptly as it had risen. The vicar shipped the oars and leaned over the side of the boat. Everything was very silent, as if the countryside was waiting.

  The vicar of St Charles and St Jude looked down into the dead face of his wife. Weeds had trapped her floating body. She had a faint smile on her face and her sightless eyes looked straight up to the empty grey bowl of the sky.

  ‘Get her aboard,’ said the vicar.

  Sobbing with shock, the curate wrestled and heaved until the sodden body was pulled over the side.

  The vicar picked up the oars and rowed as hard as he could to the shore.

  ‘Get out,’ he snapped. ‘I’ll carry her myself.’

  He lifted his wife in his arms and stepped out on to the shore. Then he turned his eyes up to Heaven and shouted, ‘I didn’t like her! Do You hear? I didn’t like her one bit.’ And with great sobs racking his body he heaved the corpse of his wife over his shoulder and set off across the fields with the squire and the curate stumbling behind.

  They were all gathered at the graveside in the bitter cold to say goodbye to their mother – all the beautiful Armitage girls. Minerva, tall and rather stern in her grief, Annabelle, golden-haired and modish, Deirdre, red-haired, her face made sharp and thin with misery, stately Daphne without a black hair out of place, but with her great eyes shadowed with loss, Diana holding little Frederica to her side. The twins, Peregrine and James, stood with the Armitage girls’ husbands.

  The vicar’s brother, Sir Edwin, was there with his wife and two daughters.

  The vicar himself stood with his head bowed while the squire shivered beside him.

  Dr Philpotts, Bishop of Berham, was conducting the funeral service. His thin voice rose and fell on the icy wind.

  ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.’

  ‘There was nothing I could do, Lord,’ muttered the Reverend Charles Armitage under his breath. ‘There wasn’t no way a man could get her to stop taking the muck without watching her day and night. All the women addle their brains with suchlike potions. How was I to know? I was a good husband … well, as good as a man could expect to be. I didn’t beat her.’

  ‘… every man living is altogether vanity
,’ intoned Dr Philpotts.

  What had happened? That was the thought running through the heads of all the sisters. Could we have done anything? Did she have to die so that we would take notice of her? Only Annabelle thought rebelliously, ‘How could we care for her when she never seemed to care for us?’

  Two latecomers joined the mourners around the grave – Colonel Brian and Lady Godolphin.

  Minerva alone remembered their mother when she had been more alive, less drugged, almost frivolous. She closed her eyes in pain and her husband, Lord Sylvester Comfrey, edged his way to her side.

  ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’

  ‘Soon we shall throw earth on the coffin,’ thought Diana. ‘I hope I do not faint. I cannot bear the sound.’

  But soon the ceremony was performed and Dr Philpotts began to deliver the collect. The worst was over.

  By the time the mourners filed two by two from the graveside, each one began to experience a sense of relief. Left behind in the grave was someone waiting peacefully in a deep sleep for the last trump.

  Mrs Armitage would rest in her grave as she had rested so many times in her bedroom upstairs in the vicarage. Only Frederica, overcome with cold and misery and a dread of going back to school, let out a hysterical laugh and said to Diana that at least they would no longer have to climb the stairs to visit Mother, all they had to do was walk across the churchyard. Diana hugged her and told her she should go to bed as soon as they got home. Betty, their former maid, came up and led Frederica away.

  In the vicarage, the sisters sipped negus and talked in hushed voices. Minerva said that little Charles was fully recovered and she was anxious to return to him. Then she turned to Diana. ‘Would you care to come to London with me, Diana?’ she asked. ‘There is no need for you to stay with Lady Godolphin.’

  Diana shook her head. She was thinking of Mr Emberton. He must have seen her talking to Lord Dantrey that morning in the square. If she stayed in Hopeworth, then he might return. And by staying in Hopeworth, there was no danger of meeting Lord Dantrey. Then she looked across the room and gasped.