Diana Villiers
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Diana Villiers (ca. 1780 -1815) is a fictional character in the Aubrey-Maturin series of novels by Patrick O'Brian. Described as beautiful, mercurial, and entirely unreliable, she is the great love and great sorrow of Stephen Maturin's life.
[edit] Character history
The first appearance of the young widowed cousin of Sophie Williams, is on the fox hunting field in the novel Post Captain. Diana is introduced as the daughter of a General and the wife of an East India Company official, both of whom were killed in the same battle with the forces of "Tippoo Sahib", leaving her penniless.
She and Sophie are introduced to eligible neighbours Captain Jack Aubrey and Doctor Stephen Maturin when the latter are ashore on half pay during the Peace of Amiens in the winter of 1802-1803, with Jack still imprudent enough to live beyond his means so that an absconding prize agent and some reverses at the prize court leave him deeply in debt.
Both Aubrey and Maturin are attracted to the fiery Diana. Maturin falls deeply in love but she rejects his marriage proposal although she likes him and enjoys his company. Diana has an affair with Maturin's best friend, Jack Aubrey. After considerable conflict, Aubrey decides that he prefers Sophie Williams, but Diana has, by then, taken up with Canning, a married man[1]. Maturin meets her in India and again proposes and she agrees to marry him, but then goes to the United States with Johnson, an American she had met in Calcutta [2]
Maturin uses his connections in British Naval Intelligence to keep track of her movements and repeats his offer of marriage whenever they meet, only to be rejected each time. When Diana becomes pregnant by Johnson, Maturin refuses to give her an abortion (as the Hippocratic Oath, his Catholic faith and law forbid it), but he does rescue her and takes her to Paris, where she can complete her confinement and give birth without having to endure the ignominy of being snubbed by British society. In the event, she miscarries[3].
Eventually Diana uses her favorite diamond, The 'Blue Peter', to bribe the authorities to let Aubrey and Maturin escape from a French prison, she agrees to marry Maturin. Maturin buys Diana a fashionable town house in London but they continue to live separately, with Maturin staying on in an inn called the Grapes, in the Liberties of the Savoy, as his personal habits, including bringing dissected corpses and animals into the house, and carelessness with personal hygiene, are not suitable for a refined household.
While Diana enjoys London society, Maturin and Aubrey are posted to the Mediterranean [4] . Unfounded rumours of Maturin having an affair in Malta[5], spread by enemies of Maturin, cause Diana to run off to Sweden under the protection of Jagiello, a Lithuanian count while Maturin's ship is sent to The Far Side of the World. It is later explained that her relationship with Jagiello is neither romantic nor sexual. Maturin eventually travels to Sweden where they are reconciled again after Maturin suffers a severe accident while under the influence of laudanum[6].
While Maturin is on another voyage to the Far East, Diana gives birth to a daughter, Brigid, who appears to suffer from a form of autism. In despair, Diana leaves Brigid and disappears. However, Maturin tracks her down again in Ireland and they are reconciled again as Brigid makes a full recovery[7].
Diana and Brigid spend a lot of time with Aubrey's family. Diana enjoys and is skillful driving a carriage and team of horses. Eventually this leads to an accident in which and she and her aunt, Sophie's mother, are killed when the carriage runs off a bridge at a dangerous corner[8].
