Diana the Huntress (3 page)

Hounds were well away and going hard on the strong scent which comes with a north-east wind after a night of rain.

The vicar was riding an Irish mare that day, Turpin
by Uncle Charlie out of Kettle. It was the mare’s first hunt. All was well in the beginning, with Turpin flying over the flat ground. She took her first stone wall like a bird.

‘Yee-up!’ yelled the delighted vicar, waving his shovel hat. Behind him, on a great roan, came the little figure of the squire.

Diana drew alongside, completely absorbed in the chase. They reached the higher moorland which rose gently above Hopeworth and they could catch glimpses of the fox racing along while hounds swooped up and over the slopes like gulls. The chase led the hunt far afield that day as they raced by Harham, Badger Bank, Buckstead Park, over Berham moors, past Banting to Windham, circling round to the far side of Hopeminster. And still the old fox ran like the wind.

And then as black clouds built up to the west, as the light began to fail fast, the old fox simply disappeared. Hounds circled, baffled. It seemed impossible. It was not as if the fox had disappeared in brush and woodland. It had vanished in the middle of an open heath.

Diana realized she was absolutely exhausted. A drop of sleet whipped against her cheek. The wind gave a great roar. The Reverend Charles Armitage cursed and ranted and raved so much that the squire feared he would do himself an injury.

‘Such language!’ exclaimed the little squire. ‘Our young friend over there will be shocked at such an exhibition.’

‘Ah, our
young friend
!’ hissed the vicar. Diana gave him one horrified look and galloped away as fast as her
now tired and exhausted horse could carry her. More than anyone else did Diana know that her father was not quite sane on the hunting field.

The vicar glared after the flying figure of his daughter.

The squire edged his large horse close to that of the vicar. ‘Tell me, Charles,’ he said mildly. ‘How long have you been allowing poor Diana to masquerade as a man?’

Diana rode off into the increasing force of the storm. At last she stopped and turned around. There was no sign of her father. There was no sign of anything. Sleet, great blinding sheets of it, roared across the heaving blackness of the countryside.

Somehow, Diana knew the squire’s sharp gaze had penetrated her disguise. For all his gentle ways, Squire Radford could influence her father as no other person could. Her hunting days were over.

She edged her horse slowly forward into the storm, not knowing where she was. Familiar landscapes were blotted out. It was imperative she should find warmth and shelter for her mare, Blarney. Her own comfort could wait.

And then, through the driving sleet, she thought she saw a flicker of light and headed in that direction. 

TWO

It was like some fairy light. At one moment it looked near and the next it seemed to have danced a mile away. Diana had dismounted and was leading her horse when she all but collided with a pair of tall iron gates.

Sending up a prayer of thanks for her scarlet coat, that badge of the huntsman which easily enabled him to demand shelter for the night, Diana called out, ‘Gate, ho! Gate, I say!’ But only the wind howling in the branches above her head came as an answer. She tried the massive handle only to find that the gates were securely locked. She led her tired horse along the shelter of a high wall, looking for a way to get in. She had gone about a mile when she came to a part of the old mossy wall that had been broken. Taking the reins firmly in her hands she coaxed and patted Blarney, urging the mare over the pile of strewn boulders and
into the dark blackness of a wooded estate. Praying that some roving gamekeeper would not take her for a poacher and shoot her, Diana stumbled through the woods until she arrived at a smooth stretch of long driveway.

There again was the light, clearly seen now at the end of the drive.

Soon she was able to pick out the bulk of a great house, a more solid black against the blackness of the night.

It was only when she was raising her hand to the knocker that she felt a qualm of unease. Her
appearance
as a man had never really been put to the test. Certainly several of the farmers had hunted with her father, but they only actually saw her on the hunting field. She had made a point of disappearing as soon as the hunt was over.

Blarney gave a soft whinny behind her.

Pulling her curly brimmed beaver down over her eyes, Diana seized the knocker and gave three vigorous raps.

There was a long silence broken only by the howling of the wind.

Then just as she was reaching her hand up to the knocker again, the door swung open, revealing a tall man in a dressing gown holding a candle in a brass stick.

For a long moment they surveyed each other in silence. The gentleman’s dressing gown was double breasted and made of dark blue quilted silk. A fine cambric shirt showed at his neck and ruffles of fine
cambric lace at his wrists. He had hair that was so fair it was almost white, tied at the back of his neck with a black silk ribbon. He had wide spaced eyes, an odd green and gold colour. His nose was aristocratic with flaring nostrils and his mouth was long and thin and rather cruel. Diana found she had to look up at him, something she hardly ever had to do, most of the population of the county being as short as her father.

The gentleman’s eyes took in the sodden scarlet of Diana’s hunting coat and the mud of her breeches. He waited politely, and when Diana did not speak, he said, ‘Lost your way, young huntsman?’

His voice was pleasant and mellow with a husky note in it, but a voice used to giving orders for all that.

Diana gulped and nodded.

‘And you want stabling for your horse?’

Diana nodded again.

‘You aren’t dumb by any chance?’

Diana shook her head.

‘I do not usually trouble my servants at this hour since they are all very old but I will fetch Harry, one of the grooms.’

He turned about, leaving Diana standing on the step. Her host’s idea of not troubling the servants seemed a complicated one. He rang the bell and the butler arrived, pulling on his coat. The butler was told to summon the page who was told to run round to the stables and fetch Harry.

But it was the sight of the butler that made Diana’s heart somersault. She recognized the Osbadistons’ butler, Chalmers, he who had replaced the much-loved
black butler before old Osbadiston’s death. This gentleman must be Lord Dantrey, although he was not at all young, thought Diana. Why, he must be all of thirty-five which was nearly middle-aged.

‘I think I will accompany our young friend to the stables,’ said Lord Dantrey when the groom arrived. The butler, Chalmers, produced a silk umbrella. Lord Dantrey languidly waved one white hand. The groom led the way, then Diana, and then Lord Dantrey, shielded from the rain by a tall footman holding the umbrella over his head, the footman having been summoned by the butler.

At first Diana was too concerned for the welfare of her mare to think about the predicament she was in. First she gave the thirsty horse half a bucket of tepid water, for to give it a large bucket of cold water might bring it out in a sweat. She thoroughly checked its coat for the presence of small wounds or thorns. Then she rubbed the horse down and covered it with a blanket warmed at the tack room fire. At last she was finished and was able to turn and reluctantly face her host.

‘I know this is the old Osbadiston house,’ said Diana gruffly. ‘I have been here many times as a child. You must be Lord Dantrey.’

Lord Dantrey was sitting at his ease beside the tack room fire.

‘You have the advantage of me,’ he said. ‘Your name, young man?’

‘David,’ said Diana, blushing furiously. ‘David
Armitage
. I am a nephew of the Reverend Charles Armitage of Hopeworth.’

‘Ah, yes, the vicar with the six beautiful daughters. Are they all married?’

‘The four eldest, I believe, sir.’

‘Which leaves?’

‘Diana and Frederica, my lord.’

‘And are the remaining two as beautiful as the other four?’

‘Well enough in their way,’ mumbled Diana.

‘You disappoint me. I would have supposed them to be diamonds of the first water. I had hoped to meet the divine Armitages quite soon. I am recovering from an illness and have not been about much.’

Diana looked down at her muddy boots. She desperately wanted to escape. There is nothing more terrifying to the immature country dweller than an exquisite, languid sophisticate, and Lord Dantrey somehow contrived to make even cleanliness seem decadent. His shirt frill was
too
white, his nails too immaculately manicured, and the sheen on his white hair was like frost on flax.

Lord Dantrey rose to his feet. ‘We can’t stay here all night. Come along, Mr Armitage, and I will find you some supper.’

‘I am putting you to a lot of trouble,’ said Diana desperately. ‘If you would be so good as to allow me to leave my horse here until morning, I will return this night to Hopeworth …’

‘You can’t go out in this storm,’ said Lord Dantrey gently. ‘What would the good vicar say? Also, I have been too much in mine own company of late. We shall talk.’

Diana groaned inwardly but had not the courage to protest further.

As Lord Dantrey led the way back to the house and then ushered Diana into a comfortable library, she regained a little courage.

‘I cannot sit down in my dirt, my lord,’ she protested.

‘Neither you can,’ smiled Lord Dantrey. ‘My
housekeeper
will take you up to the room that has been prepared for you and my valet will attend to you.’

Feeling she had roused the whole household, Diana followed a stately-looking housekeeper up a wide, carved oak staircase. When the valet had found her a pair of breeches, a shirt and a dressing gown, Diana told him that she preferred to dress herself and locked the door firmly behind the little valet. She was not afraid that any of the servants might recognize her. None of them had seen her since she was very young.

The breeches and shirt were rather long. The dressing gown was fortunately a bulky, padded affair which successfully hid her female figure. Once dressed, she rang for the valet and told him that her soiled hunting clothes were to be left in her room and
not
taken down to the kitchens for cleaning.

Diana planned to make her escape during the night.

‘Very good, sir,’ said the valet, trying not to stare at this odd gentleman who apparently meant to dine with Lord Dantrey, still wearing a muddy beaver hat.

‘Tell my lord I will be with him in a very short while,’ said Diana. Once again, she locked the door. She pulled off her hat and looked in despair at the masses of black hair cascading about her shoulders.

There was only one thing to be done. She picked up a long sharp pair of scissors and began to cut her hair, feeling oddly weak and feminine and tearful when she finally picked up the shorn tresses and threw them on the fire.

Her hair had a natural curl which disguised the amateur cut.

Despite her fear, Diana still managed to notice the richness of the furnishings on her way back downstairs. On the first floor a gallery ran around three sides where one could look down into the spacious hall. Diana remembered how it had looked in the days of the waning Osbadiston fortunes … cold and shabby. Now the hall was carpeted, the walls hung with fine paintings, and set about with sculpture. Candles had been lit, many candles, an overwhelming expense to welcome one tired provincial huntsman.

‘If only I were a man,’ thought Diana for about the thousandth time in her young life. ‘I would be nervous, but we could talk and eat, and then I could retire to bed with an easy conscience. Can he possibly guess I am a woman? Oh, I am so tired and I must be on my guard.’

When she walked into the library she noticed with a feeling of thankfulness that it was not brightly lit. A table had been set with cold meat, bread and wine. Diana’s stomach gave an unladylike rumble,
reminding
her that she had not eaten all day.

Lord Dantrey waved her into a chair at the table and sat down opposite her. He carved her some roast beef and poured her a glass of wine, and, as she bent her head, he studied her cropped hair with interest.

‘Where do you live when you are not at the vicarage?’ he asked abruptly. Diana choked on a mouthful of wine and murmured an apology. ‘I live at Datchwood on the other side of Berham county.’

‘How old are you, Mr Armitage, if it is not too personal a question?’

‘Nineteen, my lord.’

‘Indeed! I would have thought you younger despite your inches. What awaits you in the future?’

‘I do not know, my lord.’

‘You have dreams and ambitions, surely?’

Diana gave a little sigh. What did one more lie matter?

She thought of the many hours she had day-dreamed of having the freedom of a man.

‘I should like, above all things,’ she said slowly, ‘to have the freedom to wander about London and discover its wonders for myself without being tied to the environs of St James’s Square. I would like,’ she continued dreamily, beginning to feel the heady effects of the wine, ‘to be a Dandy.’

‘Not a very creditable ambition,’ said Lord Dantrey.

‘But surely a Dandy is the admiration of society?’

‘Not he. Do you know how a Dandy is described? A coxcomb, a fop, an empty-headed vain person. The Dandy was got by Vanity out of Affection – his dam, Petit Maître or Maccaroni – his grand-dam, Fribble – his great grand-dam, Bronze – his great-great-great grand-dam, Coxcomb – and his earliest ancestor, Fop. His uncle, Impudence – his three brothers, Trick, Humbug and Fudge, and allied to the extensive family of Shuffletons.’

‘Oh, dear. Then I shall be a Buck, a Blood, a Choice Spirit.’

‘Worse and worse,’ mocked Lord Dantrey. ‘All the same and all quite terrible. A riotous set of disorderly young men who imagine that their noise, bluster, warwhoops and impertinence impress those who come into contact with them with the opinion that they are men of spirit and fashion. The nocturnal exploits of the true, high-mettled and fast-going Blood consist of throwing a waiter out of a tavern window; pinking a sedan chairman or jarvey who is so uncivil as to demand his fare; milling and boxing up the Charlies; kicking up rows at Ranelagh or Vauxhall; driving stage coaches; getting up prize fights; breaking shop
windows
with penny pieces thrown from a Hackney coach; bilking a turnpike man and at other times painting out his list of tolls payable. What else? Funking a cobbler – that is, blowing smoke into his stall; smoking cigars at divans and club houses; fleecing each other in the Hells around St Jermyn Street; drinking champagne at Charlie Wright’s in the Haymarket, claret and brandy at Offley’s in Covent Garden, and early pearls and dognose at the Coal Hole; wearing large whiskers and false noses and moustaches;
exchanging
blackguard badinage with women of the town in and about Covent Garden, the Haymarket and Piccadilly, shouting, “Demme, that’s yer sort. Keep it up! Keep it up!”’

Lord Dantrey leaned back in his chair and watched with interest the tide of red rising in Diana’s cheeks.

‘Forgive my use of cant,’ said Lord Dantrey. ‘I had
supposed a young man like yourself would have heard worse on the hunting field.’

Diana affected a yawn and leaned back in her chair, thrusting her hands in her breeches pockets. ‘I was not turning red with embarrassment,’ she said. ‘The heat from the fire is great and I confess to being deuced tired.’

‘Then finish your wine and go to bed.’ He watched her intently while she picked up her glass. ‘I have been away from England for a very long time,’ he said, ‘and I have a mind to savour the delights of town once more. If you wish, you may tell your father I will take you as my guest.’

‘You are too kind, my lord,’ gulped Diana. ‘
Unfortunately
, m-my f-father is d-dead and I am the sole companion of my widowed mother.’