‘Oh, Arthur!’ squealed Lady Godolphin, wrenching off her petticoat with such force that her wig went over one ear. She threw herself on the bed.
‘My lady will be with you presently,’ said Mice to Diana. He raised his eyes at the sound of creaking bed which was coming from upstairs. ‘Perhaps in another half hour.’
He was optimistic. It was another two hours before Lady Godolphin finally put in an appearance. Her conscience smote her when she saw Diana’s white, tear-stained face.
‘Back in man’s clothes again,’ said Lady Godolphin when the servants had served them with cakes and wine and left.
‘Now it’s no use a-crying, Diana. You’d best tell me all.’
Lady Godolphin listened to Diana’s tale of woe with horror. She was proud of the success of the Armitage girls. How society would laugh and snigger over this appalling piece of gossip.
‘And so,’ ended Diana, ‘I thought perhaps you might be able to help me find work. I would rather work as a man. I am quite good with horses.’
‘Tish. You must let me think. It’s no use me moralizing and preaching because I ain’t a saint. I was married before I started any fun and games, and a married woman can get away with a lot. If this Dantrey was as mad as you say he was and hit this Emberton fellow, then it stands to reason he must have a tendre for you.’
Diana sadly shook her cropped head.
‘To think I was so misled by that Mr Emberton,’ wailed Lady Godolphin. ‘Let me think.’
She put her chin on her hand and gazed into the fire. She knew what she should do and that was write to Charles Armitage and tell him his daughter was safe. But that would mean Diana would have to go home in disgrace. The family would have to get together and raise an enormous dowry, for no man would want her now unless he was paid to marry her. Lady Godolphin silently cursed the late Mrs Armitage. If she had not been so self-indulgent with her drugs and potions then she would be on this earth and doing her maternal duty. At least Sally, the maid, was the only servant in the house who knew that Diana Armitage and David Armitage were not two different people, and Sally would not talk.
Lady Godolphin rang the bell. ‘Arthur will know what to do,’ she said firmly.
‘Arthur?’
‘Colonel Brian. We are to be married and you are the first to know, Diana.’
Diana gave Lady Godolphin her heartfelt congratulations, but trembled inside, wondering what Colonel Brian would think of the scandal.
The Colonel, when he arrived, seemed to take it all in his stride as if young debutantes dressed as men and running away from home were part and parcel of everyday life.
‘I have a cousin,’ he said, ‘who was very wild in her youth. She is now married and living in Boston in America. I suggest we buy Diana a passage to America and I will furnish her with letters of introduction. She may start a new life. My cousin, Jane Croxley, is kind and warm-hearted.’
‘But to send her all that way!’ moaned Lady Godolphin.
‘It need not be for ever,’ said the colonel. ‘After a few years when the scandal has died down, she may return.’
‘What think you of this plan?’ Lady Godolphin asked Diana.
‘It is very kind of you, Colonel Brian,’ said Diana in a low voice. All at once she knew she could not bear to return to Hopeworth, to live with her shame, to hear of Lord Dantrey’s marriage to Ann Carter. ‘Only please do not tell anyone until after I have left.’
Lady Godolphin shook her heavy head. It would be too cruel to keep them waiting. It will take time to arrange your passage. I will send one of my servants down to Hopeworth this day to say you have already left and another to your sisters. You may as well stay dressed the way you are.’ Lady Godolphin ran a critical eye over Diana’s clothes. ‘Or better than you are,’ she amended. ‘Colonel Brian will see to it that you have a new suit of clothes and some decent cravats.’
Lady Godolphin and Colonel Brian threw themselves into the plot with great energy. The colonel went off to find out about ships to America and Lady Godolphin sat down and composed a letter to the Reverend Charles Armitage.
‘I left it too late,’ said Lord Dantrey savagely a week later to his friend, Mr Tony Fane. ‘She has sailed for America.’
He kicked the logs in the grate and stared down moodily into the leaping flames.
‘Gone just like that!’ exclaimed Mr Fane. ‘It surely takes longer than a week to arrange a passage.’
‘Lady Godolphin wrote to Mr Armitage to say she had already left. Some old lover of hers, Colonel Brian, arranged that Diana should stay with a cousin of his in Boston.’
‘Seems like a sensible arrangement.’
‘It seems like an unnecessary arrangement,’ said Lord Dantrey bitterly. ‘Did I not terrify that idiot Emberton into saying he had made the whole story up out of jealousy? He will not dare open his mouth now. I told Armitage that and he just sighed heavily and said he would write to Diana in Boston and tell her to come home.’
‘That’s good news,’ said Mr Fane. ‘All you have to do is wait for her to return. You could write to her yourself.’
‘By the time she gets my letter, she could be married to some Boston pumpkin.’
‘Perhaps she might have said something about you to Lady Godolphin before she left. That would be a little comfort.’
‘Perhaps. I will go to town and speak to her anyway. Do you come with me?’
‘Of course. Don’t want to stay here in the country on my own.’
Chalmers, the butler, opened the door. ‘Mrs Carter and Miss Ann Carter,’ he said.
Lord Dantrey did not even look round.
‘We are not at home, Chalmers,’ he said. ‘Now, or at any other time.’
When Frederica was told a gentleman was waiting to see her, her heart soared. Diana! Perhaps she had decided to stay. Perhaps she was returning to Hopeworth.
But it was the stocky figure of her father who came forward to greet her.
‘Papa!’ said Frederica nervously, wondering whether to ask about Diana.
‘Just thought I would call to see how you go on,’ said the vicar cheerfully.
Frederica’s heart rose. He would not look so cheerful if Diana were still missing.
‘Diana is well, I hope, Papa?’ she timidly ventured.
The vicar’s face fell. ‘As to Diana,’ he said, ‘Lady Godolphin has made a right mull of things. Seems she’s packed her off to some relative o’ Colonel Brian’s in America. Oh, you won’t have heard of the scandal.’
‘I did. Diana wrote to me,’ said Frederica, not wanting to say that Diana had called in person.
‘It seems that Lord Dantrey made Emberton tell everyone he was lying so there was no reason for Diana to leave at all. Well, well. At least there isn’t a stain on her character and she can return any time she likes. I have written to her. Lady Godolphin sent me the address.’
Frederica now wished she had not posted that letter to Lord Dantrey. She had not wanted to give it to the principal since all letters addressed to anyone outside one’s own immediate family were usually read. It had taken her days before she had managed to slip it to the post boy.
‘Fact is,’ said the vicar, ‘there’s been a want o’ care in your upbringing.’
‘Minerva looked after us all very well, and Mama, too,’ said Frederica loyally.
‘Aye, well, it’s you who are my concern now, my chuck. I’ll tell you a secret. You are to have a new mama.’
‘S-so soon?’
‘It would not be fitting for me to get married before the year of mourning is over,’ said the vicar righteously.
‘Who is the lady, Papa?”
‘Well, hah, don’t you see,’ said the vicar shuffling his feet. ‘It’s Sarah.’
‘Sarah! The maid!’
‘Don’t come those hoity-toity airs with me, miss. Sarah will do very well. Ain’t you going to congratulate me?’
‘Congratulations, Papa,’ said Frederica faintly.
‘A f
ine thing for you to have a mama, heh?’
‘Yes, Papa.’
‘Don’t look so miserable then.’
‘It is only that I sorely miss Diana. What will she think about Sarah?’
‘Don’t matter what she thinks.’
‘Minerva?’
‘See here, miss, I ain’t told Minerva or the others. They won’t be living with us but you will. So not a word until I’m ready to announce the wedding.’
After her father had left, Frederica ran to her room and lay face down on the bed. The world had fallen apart. She would not live at the vicarage with Sarah. She would run away from school.
Lord Dantrey left Lady Godolphin’s feeling angry and wretched. There seemed no doubt that Diana had sailed. All the way to London he had hoped to find her still there. He returned to the lodgings in Jermyn Street which he was sharing with Mr Fane. His post lay on the table just inside the door. There was a large parcel of letters which had been tied up and forwarded from Hopeminster.
He sifted through them, finally carrying the packet from Hopeminster into the living room and slitting it open. One letter addressed to him in a round feminine hand seemed to leap out at him from all the others. She had written to him after all.
He opened it quickly and scanned the contents. It was not from Diana. Frederica! That was the youngest who was at school. He read it again carefully. Frederica had written to tell him that Diana had called at the school and was on her way to stay with Lady Godolphin. Frederica begged him to help ‘because I am sure she loves you,’ she had written in a round schoolgirlish hand.
‘Too late,’ thought Lord Dantrey ruefully.
Lady Godolphin ran screeching and whooping through her mansion like a Red Indian. She erupted into the library where the colonel was sitting beside the fire. ‘Arthur!’ she shrieked. ‘I just had a letter from Charles Armitage. It’s all right and tight. Dantrey made Emberton tell everyone he made the whole thing up so Diana can go home and she don’t need to go to ’Merica.’
‘That is wonderful news. Come and kiss me, my love.’
‘In a minute, Arthur. I must find Diana and tell her the news.’
‘Kiss me first.’
‘Oh, very well. Oh, Arthur …’
‘I wouldn’t go in there if I were you, Mr Armitage,’ said Mice as Diana stood with her hand on the handle of the library door.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Diana, retreating. It was very awkward living with such a pair of elderly and energetic lovebirds, she thought. ‘Will you tell Lady Godolphin when you can, Mice, that I am going out for a walk.’
‘It is not my place, sir, to wonder what is going on,’ said Mice severely, ‘but I do know you is not supposed to go out of the house.’
‘I am only going around the square,’ said Diana coldly. ‘Please let me past.’
Mice hesitated and then decided there was nothing he could do. He was not going into that library until summoned. There were some sights a man of his delicate sensibility could not stomach. If Mr Armitage wanted to walk around the square there was nothing he, Mice, could do about it.
Diana had only meant to take a short stroll but the sun was shining high above the chimney pots. It was the first real spring day after such a long winter. It had been dreadful being cooped up for so long. Her heart ached for Lord Dantrey but she thought that ache would disappear as soon as she set sail and put as many miles between them as possible. Often she thought he was haunting her. Her mind was full of him. She could hear his voice in her head, feel the touch of his lips on her mouth. She decided to take a walk in the Park.
It was almost like being back in the country again, she thought wistfully. Did Father still hunt? Or had the weight of the disgrace she had brought on the family sent him into seclusion?
‘I hate these men’s clothes,’ she thought suddenly, as she watched all the pretty debutantes in the carriage promenading along Rotten Row. ‘When I get to America I will burn them.’
Colonel Brian had obtained a passage for her on the Mary Jane which was to sail from Bristol in two weeks’ time. Two more weeks of waiting.
Lord Dantrey drove his phaeton down the Row, occasionally nodding to various acquaintances. Beside him sat Mr Fane. ‘So that is that,’ said Lord Dantrey. ‘That letter from Frederica Armitage only made matters worse. I should never have left Diana alone for a moment. I should have followed her from that wretched salon and proposed marriage on the spot.’
‘She has not fallen off the edge of the world, you know,’ said Mr Fane. ‘It ain’t flat. Nothing to stop you going to America. You won’t be that much behind her. Can’t expect her to marry the minute she steps off the boat.’
‘She might marry on the boat,’ said Lord Dantrey gloomily. ‘If she could find a horror like Emberton attractive, then it stands to reason … Hey, you!’
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Mr Fane. A slim young man had nearly jumped a foot in the air as Lord Dantrey had shouted and then had started to run away through the trees.
‘Hold my horses,’ yelled Lord Dantrey, leaping down.
Diana had not seen him. She had only heard his shout. She dared not turn around. It could be Mr Emberton. She heard someone pounding after her and ran harder. Her hat fell off her head and rolled away unheeded across the grass.
Lord Dantrey put on a great spurt of speed and then dived and brought her down with a flying tackle and they both rolled into the centre of a clump of bushes with a great snapping and splintering of twigs.
Diana struggled and rolled over. ‘You,’ she gasped.
‘Yes, me,’ said Lord Dantrey passionately, if ungrammatically. ‘Kiss me.’
And Diana did, so fiercely and so well that neither of them heard the crowd who had been searching for ‘the two coves chasing each other’ pass by, leaving them unnoticed.
‘I thought you had gone,’ said Lord Dantrey at last. ‘I thought you were on your way to America. I was about to follow you.’
‘You love me,’ said Diana in a wondering voice.
‘Of course I do, you widgeon.’
‘But you can’t marry me now,’ wailed Diana. ‘Everyone will say you had to.’
‘All is well. Mr Emberton apologized to everyone and said he had made the whole thing up.’
‘Well, I must admit that is very handsome of him. I would not have expected him to … Ah, you persuaded him.’
‘With my fists. Kiss me again.’
‘Someone will see us.’
‘No one can see us. We’re right in the middle of these bushes. Kiss me.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ said Diana meekly.
‘Mark.’
‘Mark what?’
‘My name is Mark and are you going to kiss me or not?’
‘Yes, Mark.’
After a few moments he asked, ‘Why did you promise to marry that villain, Emberton?’
‘Because you kissed me and did not say you loved me.’
‘Fool. Me, not you.’
He kissed her passionately over and over again until they were both hot and dizzy. ‘What is this?’ he asked, his hand under her coat.
‘An old sheet,’ giggled Diana. ‘I had to bind my breasts.’
‘You will wear the best gowns from now on and you will let that poor shorn head of yours grow a proper crop of hair.’
‘You are going to bully me. You are going to tell me what to do and what to wear.’
‘Exactly. I am going to indulge in a positive orgy of kissing and you are going to indulge me.’
An hour later the shaky, dazed couple emerged from the bushes and strolled back to Lady Godolphin’s, arm in arm.
Her ladyship fell upon them as soon as they came through the door, gasping, ‘Where have you been? How could you? I have just had a letter from your father and there is no scandal and …’
‘It is all right, Lady Godolphin,’ smiled Lord Dantrey. ‘Everything is wonderful. We are to be married.’
‘God be thanked!’ said Lady Godolphin.
&
nbsp; Lord Dantrey took Diana in his arms and kissed her.
Mice had felt, after almost a lifetime in service in Lady Godolphin’s household, that he was inured to shock. But the sight of two men passionately kissing each other right in Lady Godolphin’s hall was too much for him. He reeled down to his pantry and drank a massive measure of brandy before his hands stopped shaking.
* * *
They were all gathered at Lady Godolphin’s the next week to celebrate Diana’s engagement; all the sisters, the in-laws, the vicar and Squire Radford, Colonel Brian and Mr Fane.
Frederica could only be glad that her father had shown some good taste in not producing Sarah. That bombshell had still to be dropped.
She had given up her plans for running away from school once she had heard of Diana’s engagement and the end of the scandal. Diana would know what to do about Sarah.
But Diana seemed to have passed into another world where no one existed for her but Lord Dantrey. Frederica decided gloomily she would have to run away after all. She could not bear the idea of having Sarah as a stepmother.
‘I’ve done very well,’ said the vicar, much puffed up in his own conceit. ‘No one can say I did not do the best for my daughters. Why, I bet you I could marry Frederica off to a duke!’
Everyone laughed, except Frederica. ‘With Sarah as stepmother,’ she thought sadly, ‘I will be lucky if anyone wants to marry me!’
Diana looked out of her rosy world and saw the shadow on Frederica’s face. ‘I do not think Freddie is happy,’ she whispered to Lord Dantrey.
‘That will never do,’ he said. ‘Do you know she wrote to me and told me you loved me?’
‘As I do … so very much,’ said Diana, and, as he smiled down into her eyes, she forgot about Frederica and everything else except the man standing beside her.
‘What are we doing in York of all places?’ grumbled Mr Peter Flanders.
‘We’re keeping out of the road until the storm dies down,’ said Mr Emberton. ‘A pox on that Armitage girl. I’ll get even with her one day, see if I don’t.’
‘Look out!’ cried Mr Flanders. ‘You’re about to walk under a ladder. That’s unlucky, you know.’
Diana the Huntress Page 18