Lady Ann's Holiday: The Final Chapter - Part Five

Ann enjoyed her ride and the Yorkshire countryside, trotting up to Griply Mount where the trees from Mossgrove Forest crowded up and looking down over the grass side into the valley and the village.

The houses lay higgledy-piggledy between the lane and the river and the water glittered between the two bridges. The spire of the church cast a shadow onto the green that pointed directly at the village hall. She could see all the way down the valley to its narrow end where the road and river cut through the hillside, almost touching one another.

Rising from the ridge of the next valley were plumes of smoke from the mine workings of Blacklake. It was business as usual there, even if her Uncle Patrick was away. She doubted he spent much of his time overseeing the work directly anyway. And why should he have to? He would have plenty of employees to do that for him.

Ann mused about her interactions with Burt, giggling to herself to recall his ingratiating manner and perturbation at her churlish put-downs. She wasn’t really sure why she kept doing it, only that it came naturally. She hadn’t become a duplicate of the original Lady Ann in every way – she was nowhere near as generally petulant – but it seemed she still instinctively treated Burt in that manner.

A part of her knew that it wasn’t right but she enjoyed it so much.

Why was that?

To teach him a lesson for the way he’d treated her in the old days?

Because it made her feel better about herself to belittle someone else?

Or because it was a game somehow that she felt deep down that he enjoyed playing as well…?

In her former life, as Burt, she had certainly gained a thrill from those interactions.

“Hmmm.”

She turned the horse and headed home the long way round, enjoying the ride for as long as she could, arriving shortly before lunch. Burt wasn’t at the stables but Harry was. He took in the horse but she said little to him.

Ann ate lunch with the family and then sat in her room, reading Wuthering Heights. She grew tired of it after half an hour or so and wandered the house, wondering what to do. It was very different here in Griply than it had been in London – especially now that the novelty of being home as an important lady was wearing off.

Eventually she gravitated to the lounge where the ladies and children were.

Hattie sat in the corner with a book, still sulking.  Reggie and Felicity were cross-legged on the rug, quiet for a change, playing with a toy train. The Countess and Aunt Geraldine were on the sofa, sewing.

“I’m bored,” said Ann. “What is there to do?”

“Join us in here,” said the Countess. “You can work on the embroidery you left behind when you went to visit your grandmamma.”

Ann frowned, sneered and pouted at the same time. “No thank you.”

“There’s nothing else for you to do. I think staying in the capital for so long may have spoiled you. This is what life is like Ann. You can’t stay on holiday forever. Sit here with your aunt and me and regale us with stories of your travels. I’m sure Aunt Geraldine would love to hear about your trip in a motor car.”

“Oh yes Ann, do, please. I hear tell that those new-fangled monstrosities go at truly unnatural speeds nowadays. Is it true they can sometimes reach as fast as forty miles per hour?”

“I’d rather not if that’s alright.”

“Then sit down and listen to your aunt,” said the Countess. “She was just telling us all about her plans to organize the ladies of her parish to produce an enormous flower arrangement for the Easter service.”

Ann shuffled, unable to imagine a more tedious conversation.

“Ann; sit,” said the Countess. “You’re an engaged woman now. This is exactly the sort of thing you will be doing every day when you’re married and it’s high time you learned to settle into polite conversation.”

Ann sat dejectedly and tried unsuccessfully to make excuses when the Countess sent for her embroidery. For the next four hours she picked at the blasted thing while her brain slowly turned to sludge under the unending prattle of her aunt and mother. She was actually relieved when Reggie threw a temper tantrum because his sister wouldn’t let him do what he wanted with the toy train – just because the unending tedium was broken.

While Aunt Geraldine chastised the little boy she slipped over to the window and looked out, wondering what Burt was up to now. This was only one incident. Surely it wasn’t incitement enough to want to swap lives with someone else; but Ann had the awful fear that the Countess was right. A life of leisure sounded wonderful to those who had to work but did she really only have more of this to look forward to: long, dreary, empty hours filled only with pointless chatter and needlepoint?

She didn’t remember everything about her former life really but she remembered the pride she’d had in her job; the understanding of how important the tasks were that filled her time, simple though they were.

Were those better days; really? Was every assumption wrong? Was it better to be poor and hard-working than rich with an empty pointless life?

She didn’t know the answer.