Diana the Huntress (12 page)

‘Nonsense! Can’t see anything in this curst fog, Tony. The whole of London is turning black with the exception of yourself. You are changing to a ripe mahogany colour.’

Mr Fane had browned his face and the backs of his hands with walnut as was the fashion, but he had applied it with too liberal a hand, and had already been mistaken for the Jamaican actor, Romeo Coates, by a crowd of sightseers outside the playhouse.

Mr Fane was large, fat and jovial. He was younger than Lord Dantrey. The pair had met two years before when Lord Dantrey’s travels had taken him to Greece. Mr Fane had been making the Grand Tour and was delighted to meet another Englishman. Since then, they had written to each other and Lord Dantrey’s return to England had found Mr Fane eager to renew the friendship. Lord Dantrey sometimes envied his friend his enjoyment of life and easy, undemanding good nature. Lord Dantrey was still concerned about putting the Osbadiston estates in good order, since he had a long lease on the lands and property. His father, the Earl of Juxborough, would brook no interference in his own estates and was content to supply his eldest son with as much money as he wanted, provided he played farmer elsewhere. Mr Fane, on the other, hand, was a true gentleman of his times and found a life of pleasure and idleness suited him very well. He sometimes was amazed that Lord Dantrey should wish to boggle his mind with crop rotation and fertilizers, but he was too idle to interfere in anyone else’s mode of life.

Lord Dantrey was debating whether or not to wait for the farce which followed the play when he noticed Lady Godolphin’s party getting to its feet.

‘Let us go,’ he said abruptly. Mr Fane looked meaningfully in the direction of Lady Godolphin’s box but did not say anything.

Lord Dantrey fairly hustled him along, through the crush of fashionably dressed people, brushing off the clawing hands of the prostitutes who were offering their wares for two shillings and a glass of rum.

Prices had gone up, even in whoring, reflected Mr Fane with mild astonishment. Not so long ago it had been only one shilling and a glass of rum that was demanded.

He and Lord Dantrey came face to face with Lady Godolphin’s party at the foot of the stairs. Diana looked full at Lord Dantrey, coloured and lowered her eyes, her thick lashes fanning out over her cheeks. Her military-style gown had been cleverly cut to show the rich fullness of her bosom to advantage. Her face looked thinner and yet softer. He had somehow thought of her as having a strong masculine chin, but there was nothing at all masculine about the beautiful girl who stood before him, desperately trying to avoid his gaze.

Just then a party of roistering bucks and bloods thrust their way in front of Lord Dantrey, blocking Diana from view.

An elderly gentleman on the other side of Mr Fane objected loudly to their behaviour and started hitting out with his stick. Someone else punched the leading buck and soon the theatre was in an uproar of shrieking, fainting women and cursing men. By the time order was restored and Lord Dantrey was able to look around, Diana, Lady Godolphin, Mr Emberton and Colonel Brian were already on the road to Hanover Square.

Mr Emberton was invited in to share the tea tray at Lady Godolphin’s. But, as she was about to lead her little party into the Yellow Saloon, Lady Godolphin found her arm caught by Colonel Brian. ‘I crave a word with you in private, dear lady,’ he whispered.

Lady Godolphin cast an anguished look at Diana. She felt she should not leave the girl unchaperoned. On the other hand, she felt she might die of curiosity if she did not find out as soon as possible what Colonel Brian had to say. Lady Godolphin thought quickly. If she ordered tea and asked for the fire to be made up, then there would be servants coming and going. She would leave the door of the Yellow Room open.

And so Diana found herself alone with Mr Jack Emberton. She sat silently on a sofa in front of the fire, playing with the sticks of her fan.

He sat down beside her and studied her averted face.

‘Who was that man?’ he asked abruptly.

‘What man?’ Diana’s voice was low, almost a whisper. A log shifted in the grate and sent up a spurt of smoky flame. Fog veiled the room, giving a tapestry effect to the furniture and pictures.

‘You know. He was in the park. And he looked at you in the theatre.’

‘Dantrey,’ said Diana wearily. ‘Lord Dantrey.’ She added bitterly, ‘I thought you knew everyone in London.’

‘Ah,
Dantrey
,’ said Mr Emberton. ‘Of course I know him. That is why I asked you his name – because his face looked so familiar.’

All at once, Diana found herself engulfed by a great wave of terror. She was sure that as soon as her father returned she would be forced to marry Lord Dantrey, hell-bent on meting out a life of punishment. Her hopes that Lord Dantrey would deal with her father as he had dealt with Miss Blessingham’s parents had quite gone.
Diana could not imagine anyone standing up to her father. Despite her fear, she found it almost strange that she no longer regretted being a woman. Men were not forced into marriage, she thought naively, forgetting all the younger sons pressed to marry heiresses they did not like. But her escapade with Lord Dantrey had cured her of any longings in that direction. The only advantage in being a man that she could now think of was that one could hurt without fear of censure.

Mr Emberton sat beside her, solid and reliable. Suddenly Diana could not bear him to learn of her forthcoming marriage without offering him an
explanation
. Her real motive was a desire to unburden herself, combined with an aching need for help.

‘Mr Emberton,’ she said, ‘I am in very bad trouble and it concerns Lord Dantrey. I must tell someone. I must tell someone who will never speak of it. Can I trust you?’

He put his hand to his heart, his blue eyes serious. ‘I would die rather than breathe a word of anything you may tell me, Miss Diana. I would die for you.’

Was there a
staginess
about his statement, about his voice? But Diana hesitated for only a moment and then plunged into her tale. She told him everything, including the gypsy’s prediction, although she changed ‘lover’ to ‘gentleman’.

Mr Emberton listened carefully and wondered how to turn it to his advantage. Although his friend, Mr Peter Flanders, had accused him of blackmail, Mr Emberton did not care to use that method. His original plan of getting Diana to fall in love with him and then
getting the vicar to pay him off was by far the more attractive course. That way, he would come out of it rich, and apparently the injured party, and with his reputation intact. Any open, criminal threat could injure his future at the card tables. Furthermore, there had been a quiet air of menace about Lord Dantrey which made him nervous. Unlike Lord Dantrey, he considered
all
women to have loose morals. Some were only better at disguising the fact than Diana. His brief amorous adventures had been with the lower stratum of the Fashionable Impure, or with gullible young matrons looking for a release from marital boredom. Being
in
society but not
of
society, Mr Emberton considered the ton, both male and female, to be mostly eccentric. He was unmoved by Diana’s humiliation at Lord Dantrey’s hands. In fact, looking furtively sideways at Diana’s deep bosom, trim waist and neat ankles, he could only wonder that his lordship had shown such restraint.

He finally grasped that, although Diana considered the marriage inevitable, no decision had been reached and the vicar was still absent.

He prided himself on being a man of action and, as soon as he finally decided on a way to turn the affair to his advantage, he wasted no time.

‘So I do not know what to do, Mr Emberton,’ Diana was saying.

He seized her hands. ‘Let us elope … Diana!’

‘I could not. Oh, Mr Emberton, I would not have you marry me simply to save me from Lord Dantrey.’ In a burst of gratitude, Diana picked up a cup of tea and
held it out to him, the first thing she could think of to give him to thank him.

Unfortunately, that was the precise moment that Mr Emberton decided to take Diana in his arms and the tea went down his waistcoat.

‘I am sorry,’ babbled Diana miserably, jumping to her feet and oversetting the silver bowl of sugar loaves which went scattering across the carpet into the foggy shadows in the corners of the room.

‘Diana,’ said Lady Godolphin, coming in, much flushed. ‘You
are
a clumsy girl.’

One of Lady Godolphin’s well-trained footmen materialized with a dustpan and brush and began to clean up the mess.

‘Where is Colonel Brian?’ asked Diana, shaken by Mr Emberton’s proposal and upset by her own clumsiness, which she thought she had left behind with her masculine clothes.

‘Gone,’ said Lady Godolphin lugubriously. ‘I shall never understand men.’

She sat down and the three talked in a desultory way, each wrapped in their own thoughts. Mr Emberton was wondering how he could get Diana alone again so that he could persuade her to elope. Of course he didn’t plan to marry the girl. He would drive north in the direction of Gretna Green as slowly as possible and make sure the letter he left for Mr Armitage would have the desired effect. With any luck, they would be stopped as early in the journey as Barnet. That way, it would save him expensive tolls and, provided they were stopped before they had racked up for the night,
then the vicar would be reassured that Diana was still a virgin and would therefore be eager to pay Mr Emberton to go away.

In order for the plan to work he would need to get her away by tomorrow morning, before the vicar returned.

Diana was turning his idea of elopement over and over in her brain. And the more she thought about it, the more attractive it seemed. Oh, to be able to run away from the whole horrid mess and disgrace. A wave of self-pity engulfed her. Frederica, the only one who might care, was at school. Her other sisters were happily and
respectably
married. Her father cared for nothing but the hunt, thought Diana miserably,
forgetting
that only a short time ago she had thought of little else herself. Mama was kind and loving any time she managed to surface from her twilight world of drugs and concotions, but had never been the sort of mother a daughter would run to in time of trouble.

Lady Godolphin discoursed on the weather (
terrible
), the absurd fashion for white bread (full of chalk), and the state of the nation (unspeakable), while inside her mind she was fretting over her recent conversation with Colonel Brian. Instead of suggesting he should join her in her bedchamber as she fully expected, he had talked long and mournfully of his increasing years and his desire to reform his life before his place in Heaven was given up to somebody else. In vain had Lady Godolphin suggested he take rhubarb pills to clear his system, in vain had she cried that an upset stomach always led to gloom and despondency; it
seemed the colonel was determined to spend a good, decent and blameless life and that Lady Godolphin was not going to be part of it.

At last Mr Emberton rose to take his leave. There was no chance for even a brief word in private with Diana.

He walked to his lodgings where his friend, Peter Flanders, was waiting for him, and lost no time in recounting the adventures of Diana Armitage.

‘Don’t tangle with Dantrey,’ said Mr Flanders, winding his long limbs around his chair leg. ‘A hard man to cross, I’ve heard.’

‘If I could get the girl to elope with me in the morning, then I would not need to cross swords with Dantrey,’ snapped Mr Emberton, ‘but that
over-painted
tart, Lady Godolphin, came in before I could really begin to persuade her. If only there was some way …’

‘Send her a note,’ said Mr Flanders.

‘What?’

‘I said, send her a note. You’re always so devious. Simplest way is best. Write out something and we’ll both walk round to Hanover Square and deliver it. Simply tell her you’ll wait at the far corner of the square at about seven. Can’t make it earlier or you might not wake up. Once you’re off, I’ll call on the Reverend and tip him off. Gone away, has he? He’ll be back some time tomorrow so, to slow things up, stage a breakdown before you even get out of London.’

Mr Emberton looked at his thin friend with reluctant admiration. ‘By George, I’ll do it!’ he said. ‘Where’s pen and paper?’

Soon he was bent over his desk, breathing heavily as he laboriously penned the words, pausing every few minutes to consult Dr Johnson’s dictionary.

At last he was well satisfied. ‘It will mean rousing the servants,’ he said, sanding the letter, ‘and that butler might tell Lady Godolphin.’

‘Need to take a risk,’ said Mr Flanders cheerfully. ‘All’s fair in love and war.’

He repeated, ‘All’s fair in love and war,’ nodding his head wisely, too pleased with the neatness of the phrase to consider that Mr Emberton was not at war and never likely to expose his person to such a danger. Nor was he in love.

Mr Tony Fane shifted uneasily in his chair. Watier’s, that club at the corner of Bolton Street famed for its cuisine, gambling and suicides, was thin of company, due no doubt to the thickness of the fog outside.

Mr Fane was meditating miserably on the vagaries of male fashion while sharing a bowl of Rumfustian – a punch composed of twelve eggs whisked, a quart of strong beer, a pint of gin, a bottle of sherry, and nutmeg, sugar and lemon rind – with Lord Dantrey, Mr Harvey-Maxwell, a dreamy poet, and that old war horse, Lord Saunders.

Pantaloons, mused Mr Fane, had been quite
comfortable
when they had become high fashion not so very long ago. They were tights, reaching down to where the calf narrows into the ankle and buttoned there over a neat expanse of striped silk stocking. Their sides were braided in semi-military fashion. Top boots
were worn with breeches, but hessian boots or shoes with pantaloons. So far so good. But
then
fickle fashion had decreed that a gentleman should put on his pantaloons when they were still damp and let them dry on his body in order to render them skin tight. How did the rest fare, thought Mr Fane, as the conversation about him rose and fell. For his part, the insides of his plump thighs were already rubbed raw, what with the damp inside and the cold outside, and the excellent dinner he had just enjoyed was straining at the seams as if grouse, pheasant, quail and venison fought to escape and return to their natural habitat. His black waistcoat, embroidered with gold flowers, no longer lay over his stomach in a smooth line but in a series of hard ridges.