x# Diana Lockhart

Description

Thirty. Widowed fourteen months ago when her husband, an EIC civilian, died of fever. No children. She has enough money to stay or to go and she has chosen to stay, which scandalises the older memsahibs considerably more than anything she has actually done.

Independent, well-read, and slightly dangerous by reputation because she answers to nobody.

Background

Came out married, was widowed, and declined to be sent home. Retains her husband’s house and a competence, and lives in it alone with her own servants, which the settlement finds harder to forgive than a scandal would be.

Motivations

To remain her own. She likes being useful in ways that make the establishment uncomfortable, and she is not looking for a second husband and is not discreet about it.

What Meg Says

Diana Lockhart terrifies the married women because she’s proof you can survive here alone. She doesn’t need a husband, doesn’t want one, and isn’t discreet about either. I like her enormously. She says things I think but am too married to say aloud.

Hook

The natural ally for Katherine: another woman operating in this society without male cover, and the only one at this table who has made it work.

Diana moves through social spaces with a freedom the party’s women do not have. She can call on people uninvited, travel alone, and decline to explain herself. She would help if asked, not out of any interest in the mission, but because she enjoys being useful in ways the settlement disapproves of.

Connections

• Katherine Ward — a natural ally
• Margaret Cavendish — likes her enormously
• Scene 06 Ashworth Dinner

In Play

Chapter 4, Session 9 (9 October 1814) — met, and she came to them. During the cocktail hour at Garden Reach she gravitated straight to the women of the party with the professional courtesy of someone recognising kindred spirits. She went in to dinner on Samuel Wright’s arm and sat opposite Katherine, offering dry commentary on the peacocking of the men.

A widow of about thirty who stayed in India by choice after her husband’s fever, independent, well-read, and considered slightly dangerous because she answers to nobody. She is Katherine’s most natural ally in Calcutta and the connection is now made.

Appearances

Relationships

• Knows Katherine Ward — A woman operating without male cover; the nearest thing to a peer Katherine has in Calcutta