Diana the Huntress

by Beaton, M. C.

  ‘What is he doing here?’ she asked.

  Minerva followed her gaze. Lord Dantrey stood talking to her husband, Lord Comfrey, and to Annabelle’s husband, the Marquess of Brabington.

  ‘That must be Lord Dantrey,’ said Minerva, who still made it her business to know every newcomer to the neighbourhood. ‘It is only natural that he should call to pay his respects. I saw him at the graveside. No doubt Sylvester invited him. You look quite white, Diana. Is anything the matter?’

  Diana bit her lip and shook her head.

  ‘And those must be the Carters,’ she heard Minerva say.

  Diana looked up again.

  Ann Carter and her mother had entered the room. They were talking to Mr Armitage and then to Sir Edwin. Ann was wearing a silvery grey dress, so fine it could have been woven from cobwebs. Her only covering was the gauziest sort of pelisse. She looked like a fairy, dainty and fragile. Lord Dantrey was being introduced. Mrs Carter was gushing up at him, words pouring out from between her rouged lips, while all the time Lord Dantrey watched Ann. Diana saw the warmth and admiration in his eyes and felt sick.

  How right she had been not to marry him.

  Once a rake, always a rake!

  Two months later, Daphne Garfield called on her sister, Minerva. Winter still held the land in its grip; it was a bitter, dirty day with wreaths of fog sliding around the buildings.

  Minerva was spending a few weeks in town to shop for her children and her household. Although she had an army of servants, she still liked to attend to domestic matters herself.

  After gossip had been exchanged, Daphne got down to the purpose of her visit. ‘It is Diana who concerns me,’ she said. ‘We were travelling back from the country and I asked Simon if we could visit Papa. It was all quite terrible. Papa has lost weight and spends a great deal of time in the church, which is where he is supposed to be, but it does not seem to bring him any consolation. I fear he blames himself sorely for Mama’s death.’

  ‘As we all do,’ sighed Minerva. ‘How could we be so stupid as to take her behaviour for granted? How is Diana?’

  ‘Ah, that is the thing that is most worrying. She has become grim and gaunt and seems to do nothing but sit about the house or go for solitary walks. She shows no interest in hunting …’

  ‘Nor should she,’ said Minerva severely. ‘Hunting is not a sport for a lady and I often think it is no sport for a gentleman.’

  Daphne coloured faintly. ‘Don’t prose at me, Merva, for I must tell you about this. I managed to get Papa to give his permission to let Diana hunt. It was just before I married Simon. He said she could, provided she dressed as a man.’

  ‘But she didn’t!’

  ‘She did, and it’s no use glaring at me, Merva, because Diana lives for the hunt.’

  ‘But if it should ever come out …’

  ‘It has. It did. Squire Radford recognized her on the hunting field and so she was sent to Lady Godolphin to prepare for a Season. Now there seems to be no hope of a Season because of Mama’s death.’ Daphne clasped her hands together and gazed beseechingly at her sister. ‘We must encourage Diana to hunt again, Minerva. It is the only thing that will bring both Diana and Papa out of their misery.’

  ‘I could not countenance such a thing!’

  ‘If Squire Radford knew, then some of the country people must have known about Diana hunting as well. So before it gets about that she hunted dressed as a man, I thought we should send her a very modish hunting dress and a side saddle. Don’t you see? It would be considered very odd for Diana to hunt at all, but since she will be seen to be hunting in the proper style of dress, it will not be such a scandal.’

  ‘I cannot give permission …’

  ‘Stuff! I am not asking for your permission, Minerva. I am a married lady now, and if you will not help me, then I shall send Diana a riding habit myself. But if you were to send it, it would have great effect. Oh, I don’t think poor Diana will ever marry. She said she hated men.’

  Minerva still protested, but the beautiful and normally gentle Daphne could be very stubborn. A crash and a wail from the nursery above suddenly made Minerva say impatiently, ‘Oh, very well. If Diana is as bad as you say, then I do not suppose her riding with the hunt with her father’s pack in a country parish can be so very shocking. I must go to the nursery. Yes, Daphne, I will order a riding habit as soon as possible!’

  Diana wandered aimlessly about the countryside, though any time she found her steps taking her in the direction of Saxon Mere, she swerved away and hurried off in the opposite direction. Mr Emberton, rumour had it, had returned to Wentwater mansion, but he had not attended church and was to be seen over in Hopeminster a great deal. There were rumours that Lord Dantrey was courting Miss Ann Carter. Diana felt very alone. Her father was strange and withdrawn. Normally, she would have turned to Squire Radford for help, but she blamed the little squire for Frederica’s banishment to school and for the end to her own hunting days.

  She was returning from one of these long walks when she felt the slightly warmer breath of the wind on her cheek, heralding an end to the frost which had held the land in an iron grip for so long. Hounds would be howling in their kennels, sensing the return of good hunting weather.

  She saw a thin spiral of smoke rising from a stand of trees and her step faltered. Gypsies! She walked forward a little and stood staring. The old woman who had foretold the arrival of Jack Emberton in her life was stirring something in an iron pot slung over a fire. She looked up and beckoned to Diana to approach.

  ‘I met the dark and handsome man you spoke of,’ said Diana breathlessly. ‘He came into my life but then he went away again.’

  ‘Give me some silver and I will tell you all,’ said the old witch. Her eyes were red-rimmed with smoke. Diana gave a superstitious shiver.

  ‘Very well,’ she said. She produced a shilling and held it up. The gypsy snatched it up and put it carefully away in a leather bag slung around her scrawny neck.

  ‘Now come close, sweet life,’ said the gypsy. Diana nervously sat down on an upturned cask beside the fire and held out her hand. The gypsy looked down at it and then, raising her eyes, fixed Diana with a strangely hypnotic stare.

  ‘He ain’t gone,’ she said, ‘your dark lover. Biding his time, that’s what he’s doing, on account of a death in your family.’

  Diana gave a little hiss of dread and tried to pull her hand away, but the gypsy held it tight. ‘He’ll come back, never fear,’ said the gypsy, ‘if that white-haired villain don’t stop him.’

  ‘Dantrey!’ gasped Diana. She wrenched her hand away and began to run as hard as she could, her hands up to her ears to drown the gypsy woman’s jeering cackles of laughter.

  The gypsy woman turned as her husband climbed down from the cart. ‘I said my piece to the gentry mort,’ she said, still laughing. ‘I told her what the gentleman paid me to say.’

  Diana was still shaking when she arrived home. But after a while, when her superstitious panic had subsided, she began to find comfort in what the gypsy had said. Mr Emberton had only behaved like the gentleman he was. He had not come to the funeral like some vulture, like Lord Dantrey. He had merely stayed away out of a delicacy of feeling. Then she caught sight of herself in the glass.

  Her tanned face, surrounded with tangled elf locks, stared back at her. Her dress hung on her thin figure. What man would want to see her?

  For the first time since the funeral Diana began to feel ravenously hungry. Unlike her other sisters, she had taught herself to cook, and cook well. All the sisters could take their turn in the kitchen if need be, but none had mastered the mysterious art of bringing a tempting meal to the table.

  Diana resolved to turn the cook-housekeeper, Mrs Hammer, out of the kitchen for the rest of the day. Let her enjoy a rest. She, Diana, would set a dinner on the table tonight that would cheer her gloomy father and put some much-needed flesh on her own bones.

  On impulse, she sent the odd-man over to Squire Radford w
ith an invitation to dine. If the squire could lighten her father’s grief with his usual good sense, then it was silly to continue to hold a grudge against him because of the ban on hunting.

  Diana busied herself in the kitchen all afternoon. As she worked away, she muttered under her breath at her father’s parsimony. Surely the vicarage finances could have run to a closed range!

  Mrs Hammer had never been famous for her cooking but Diana thought, for the first time, that perhaps Mrs Hammer might improve if she did not have to work on such antiquated equipment.

  The open wood fire had a hot water boiler on the right hand hob and a tiny oven on the left. The oven was not much use, and so Diana had to light a fire under the bread oven, a cast iron safe of a thing sunk into the wall.

  She decided to make a hare and pigeon pie, and, after she had cleaned a large hare and two pigeons, she jointed them and put them in a pot of boiling water which she swung out over the fire on a crane which looked like a little black iron gallows.

  Then she put a leg of mutton to roast on the spit which was down in the front of the fire, parallel to the high fender. She wound up its clockwork mechanism, thanking God for small mercies, and reflecting it was a wonder her father had not thought to use a pair of hounds to turn the spit.

  While the ingredients for the pie were cooking, Diana took out a battered notebook and looked up a recipe for pudding. It seemed to involve using a great amount of raisins, currants and dates as well as flour and suet. Only when she had it all mixed and ready to put in the pot, wrapped in a cloth, to boil after the pie ingredients had cooked, did she realize she had used all the flour. There would not be any left for the pie crust. Then she remembered the genius of Mr Wedgwood and sighed with relief. At the height of the Napoleonic wars flour was very scarce indeed and Wedgwood had produced a beautifully designed crock in the shape of a pie with a raised and ornamented china crust as a lid. Minerva had presented the vicarage with one of these wonders. All Diana had to do was to fill the crock with the hare and pigeon and put on the china top and hope the gentlemen would be so pleased with the effect that they would not miss the pastry.

  What with cooking and baking and pumping water from the pump over the stone sink in the scullery into buckets, the afternoon flew past and Diana realized with a sort of wondering surprise that she had started to sing as she worked.

  The vicar was surprised to meet Squire Radford in the lane outside the village. He had kept clear of the squire of late feeling bitterly that his uneasy conscience did not need any further jabs.

  ‘Evening, Jimmy,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Where bound?’

  ‘Why! To dinner with you. Diana invited me.’

  ‘Diana! Well, come along in. You know what Mrs Hammer’s cooking is like so you’ll know what to expect. I might find a good bottle of hock in the cellar to take away the taste. I think some of it’s left from …’ He had been about to say ‘from the funeral’ but found he could not go on.

  The squire was much alarmed at the vicar’s appearance. His clothes hung on his normally tubby figure and his little shoe-button eyes were lustreless in his doughy face.

  ‘Someone’s singing,’ said the squire as the vicar fumbled with the latch of the door. ‘And I must say, Charles, there is a lovely smell coming from the kitchens.’

  ‘Aye,’ said the vicar dully. ‘I’ve known the smell to be the only good thing about it.’

  The vicar ushered the squire into the dark hall. A huge box decorated with coloured ribbons stood on the floor. ‘What’s this?’ demanded the vicar as Sarah helped him off with his coat.

  ‘Box from Lady Sylvester for Miss Diana.’

  ‘Minerva, heh! Why hasn’t Diana opened it?’

  ‘Hasn’t had time, master,’ giggled Sarah. ‘Miss Diana’s been in the kitchen all afternoon, cooking dinner. Her has sent Mrs Hammer away for the day.’

  ‘Diana can’t cook,’ snorted the vicar.

  ‘Miss Diana was the one that did them cakes for the church party last year, sir,’ said Sarah. ‘They were very good.’

  ‘Cakes is one thing, meat’s another,’ growled the vicar. ‘Bring us some wine and tell Miss Diana that if she’s ruined the dinner not to hide in the kitchen, but come and confess before it’s too late to find something else to eat. I’m blessed if I know when I last felt hungry, Jimmy, but I would not want you to go to bed without your supper.’

  The two men sat down by the fire in the vicarage parlour to fortify themselves with wine.

  When a much-flushed Diana eventually summoned them to the dining table, they were prepared for the worst. The vicar thought it a bad sign that Diana was having the pudding served first, a country custom to take the sharp edge of the appetite away so that the guests would not be too hungry when it came to the main part of the meal.

  Rose, Sarah and John Summer were delighted with Miss Diana’s rise in spirits and all had elected to wait at table.

  The vicar cautiously tasted a mouthful of pudding and his eyebrows rose in surprise. From that moment he began to eat steadily and he almost had tears in his eyes when he savoured the roast mutton delicately flavoured with dried mint. Since the vicarage still boasted old-fashioned two-pronged forks, he ate his peas by shovelling them into his mouth with his knife.

  All through the meal the squire kept up a flow of amusing anecdote about what had been going on in the village, knowing full well that neither Diana nor her father had taken much interest in anything since the funeral.

  ‘Ah, Diana,’ sighed the vicar, pushing himself back a little from the table to allow room for his comfortably extended stomach, ‘a girl who can cook like that belongs with the angels.’

  ‘Most excellent,’ said the squire, dabbing his mouth with his napkin, and then surreptitiously dabbing at the corners of his eyes, for he found it moving to see both father and daughter beginning to look like their normal selves.

  ‘Hey! You shall stay with us this night and take wine, Diana,’ said the vicar. ‘And bring that there box from Minerva in and let’s see what she has sent you.’

  Diana went out into the hall and came back with John Summer and the odd-man carrying the box between them. She carefully removed the ribbon. It was so pretty that Diana thought she would send it to Frederica.

  She opened the box and slowly lifted out a riding habit. It was of purple cloth frogged with gold. There was a dashing shako to go with it and a pair of riding boots. Underneath, at the very bottom, gleamed a shiny new side saddle.

  ‘There’s a letter with it,’ said Diana. ‘It’s addressed to you, Papa.’

  The vicar took the letter and broke open the seal which bore the Comfrey arms.

  He read the letter several times and then handed it silently to Squire Radford.

  ‘Dear Papa,’ Minerva had written. ‘I was much Distressed when Daphne told me that Diana had been hunting dressed as a man. Daphne also told me that Diana is Much Altered in Appearance through Grief. I think you will find it is known in the county that Diana Hunts. It must be forgotten as quickly as possible that she has been seen in men’s clothes. Although I know hunting is not a Ladylike Sport, it is better to have a modicum of scandal to oust a larger one. To this end, I am sending Diana this riding dress, together with a side saddle. I think it would benefit her spirits greatly to go out with the Hunt. It is not as if she can enjoy a Season this year with Mama so lately put to rest …’

  The rest of the letter dealt mainly with gossip about the vicar’s grandsons.

  ‘Why not?’ said the squire. ‘I think Minerva has shown very good sense. There will be a few raised eyebrows. But provided Diana learns to behave in a feminine and graceful way in company, I see no harm in allowing her to join the hunt. I know you have not taken hounds out, Charles, due to respect for your wife. But poor Mrs Armitage would be distressed if she could see you both in such a miserable state.’

  The squire had had a quick wrestle with his conscience before he said this. But he had decided it was surely better to have Diana
the Huntress back, glowing and healthy, than the grim, gaunt Diana who had haunted the vicarage and the surrounding countryside for the past two months.

  ‘What is all this about, Papa?’ asked Diana.

  ‘Show her the letter, Jimmy,’ said the vicar.

  Diana read the beginning of the letter over and over again. Then she fingered the fine material of the modish riding habit, a flush of excitement creeping up her thin cheeks. ‘The frost has gone, Papa,’ she said slowly. ‘It will be good hunting weather tomorrow.’

  ‘I promised …’ began the vicar and then looked like a sulky child.

  ‘Giving up your hunting, Charles, will not bring Mrs Armitage back,’ said the squire gently. ‘Your low spirits have affected your household and your parishioners. It is now time to go on living.’

  The vicar rang the bell. ‘Send John Summer back in,’ he said to Sarah. When John entered the room, the vicar said, ‘We ride out tomorrow, John. We’ll get that old fox yet.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ said John, beaming all over his face. ‘I’ll put the word about. Farmer Blake will want to come and that Mr Emberton over at the Wentwater place as well.’

  ‘Forget Mr Emberton for the moment, John,’ said the vicar.

  Diana’s face lost some of its brightness.

  But the vicar did not want any eligible man to see his daughter on the hunting field.

  SEVEN

  Lord Dantrey was driving along a country lane the following afternoon with Miss Ann Carter by his side. He wished she would not talk. When she did, he found himself becoming restless and bored. When she did not open her mouth, he was enchanted again by her fairy-like appearance. Also, when she was silent, he was able to indulge himself by comparing her favourably with the hoydenish and eccentric Miss Armitage. He did not consider the Carters very good ton. On the other hand, he had decided to settle down and get married. He had reached that dangerous state of mind where a gentleman is likely to propose marriage to a highly unsuitable female. The same disease often afflicts quite sensible ladies. The Titanias of this world do not need magic to make them fall in love with the nearest ass. The survival instinct demands that we rush to get married, often at the wrong time and to the wrong person.