Diana Tempest by Mary Cholmondeley

I’ve mentioned before how great Simon Evers’ narration is at Librivox – the free audiobook site where out of copyright books are read by members of the public. Understandably, it’s a mixed bag – but Simon Evers is brilliant, so I’ve been downloading whatever he reads. And the latest was Diana Tempest (1893) by Mary Cholmondeley.

This wasn’t completely at random. I have previously read Cholmondeley’s Red Pottage, and thought it was brilliant. Diana Tempest does something similar – mixing sensation fiction with the sort of observational comedy of manners that we expect from a Jane Austen or Anthony Trollope. It feels like it shouldn’t work, but it does, and I found Diana Tempest very funny and often nail-bitingly intriguing.

We don’t meet either Diana for a while – for there are two of them. One is Colonel Tempest’s wife, who died in childbirth. The other is his daughter. She, Colonel Tempest, and his son Archie are all left without a fortune when Colonel Tempest’s brother dies. The money, instead, goes to his brother’s son, John – whom everybody knows is illegitimate. Everybody except the infant John, of course, and it is a fact he is not told.

Colonel Tempest is a very unpleasant character – greedy, unfeeling, and with the sense that the world is very hard on him. It’s unclear what the dead Diana saw in him, because she is described as rather wonderful – not only that, she was engaged to his brother before he whisked her away. You can see why there’s no love lost.

And Colonel Tempest gets carried away, saying that he’ll give £10,000 (about £850,000 is today’s money, according to the National Archives calculator – or 1031 cows) to anybody who can redirect the fortune to him. In effect, he has put a bounty on John’s life.

Fast forward a few years, and daughter Diana has grown up. She is a charming, witty, wise, and rather delightful heroine – in the mould of Lizzie Bennett. Like Lizzie, she despises the idea of marrying for money alone, and has a friend who is clearly doing this. And like Lizzie, she finds herself admired in several quarters.

One of these quarters is John – who has grown up to be a rather serious, moral man. He tries to keep his cousin Archie is check, but is usually paying off his debts. Oh, and he keeps having brushes with death – whether that be almost burning to death, nearly being shot, etc. etc. It seems that the people who are trying to win that £10,000 aren’t super good at their job.

I loved listening to this. Cholmondeley has such a witty, ironic turn of phrase. Of course, because it was audio I have no examples – but imagine Austen’s way of exposing the ridiculousness of society in general and hypocrites in particular. On the one hand, we wait to see if she and John will discover that the other has fallen in love – on the other, we follow Colonel Tempest as he tries to track down the would-be assassins and undo his command. Will the relationship succeed, or will the killers get their target?

My only criticism is that, like many Victorian writers, Cholmondeley is never in a hurry. Chapters often begin with several minutes (/pages) of general thoughts about mankind, ambling through enjoyable aphorisms before we get to the crux of the matter. It all added to the enjoyment of the style, but sometimes I did wish she’d just get on with it, and curtail the flourishes a little.

I’m sure it would be fun to read – and it’s definitely a delight to listen to. Much recommended!