Lady Ann's Folly: Chapter Four - Part One

To Be A Lady 

Some time earlier, Hattie left Griply Hall at the rear and took the path between the bushes that led toward the holiday cottage.

Her curiosity was greatly aroused, simply because she couldn’t for the life of her imagine why her sister would want a private meeting with that awful loose woman from the village. Hattie had known of the girl all her life – they weren’t too dissimilar in ages – but had always looked down on her. She was altogether too full of herself for one of the working class and it made Hattie feel uncomfortable to look at the endowments of the girl. She herself was slightly more rounded than her sister but neither one of them could have been described as voluptuous.

She crossed the wider path that led from the stables to the fields and saw the holiday cottage ahead, the trees crowding round. It was really starting to go to seed but she didn’t care.

There was no sign of anyone visible in the windows. Perhaps Ann and the girl had already gone on elsewhere. She shrugged and tried the door. It opened but caught immediately. It had swollen in the winter rain and didn’t sit properly on its hinges anymore. Putting her weight into it, Hattie pulled as hard as she could to swing it open. There was silence in the hallway; dust in the air. She almost turned and walked away. But she heard a shifting in the front room. She walked inside to investigate.

The sight that greeted her within was unbelievable. Her sister was tied up in one of the chairs!

They stared at one another for a moment then Hattie stepped forward to untie her. She stopped almost immediately as she saw the pile of money on the table.

“Whatever’s going on Ann?” she asked.

“Nowt,” replied her sister. “Leave me be.”

Hattie frowned. “Who tied you up like this?”

“It don’t matter. Get thee gone. I’m busy.”

Hattie picked up the money. “What’s this for?”

“Ere, leave that. It don’t belong to you!”    

“Ann; why ever are you talking with that ridiculous accent?” asked Hattie, crossing her arms. “What’s going on in here? Did that barmaid do this to you?”

Ann’s face twisted in confusion and then straightened and she said. “Aye. That’s right. I asked ‘er to. I’ll explain it all later. For now just leave me be, ahright?”

Hattie turned away. Then she looked back at her sister and said, “I don’t understand this game. It’s foolish.”

“Aye. Well alright. Please yerself. Just get thee gone.”

Hattie paused for a moment, then almost angrily, she said, “What is going on Ann. Tell me.”

Ann glared back at her stonily.

“Are you... Your accent. Is it something to do with that? You’ve always been terrible at imitating the way the peasants talk, no matter how good you thought you were. Has the barmaid been, what, coaching you?”

Ann said nothing. Then in an odd parody of her normal voice said, “Please be a dear luv and let me be. I am quite happy here for the moment.”

And it was that odd aped inflexion that did it: flicking a switch of instinct in Hattie’s bosom that threw a thought into her mind so startling she actually let out a gasp.

She knew that thought couldn’t be true – it went against all sense – but it came to her tongue regardless before common sense could stop it.

“You aren’t Ann, are you?”

She had meant it in jest really. That had been the crack that allowed her to say it; but the reaction on her sister’s face stunned her utterly. Because Hattie had always been intuitive, and she recognised that shift in expression as both shock and guilt.

Impossibly, she had hit the nail on the head and again she gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. “Good Lord. It’s true!”

“No. It ain’t,” she said. “I’m Ann.”

But those words only bore it home, confirming to Hattie the absolute truth of what she was witnessing.

“But how?” She looked at the money again, then out the front window. “Good grief! The barmaid! That’s...” She pointed. “She... And you. She and you...” She covered her forehead with her palm. Then she grinned in wonder. Then she narrowed her eyes in consternation. Finally she looked very plainly at the woman before her and said, “How was it done.”

This false Ann started to deny it one more time but Hattie immediately cut her off.

“Don’t lie to me. I know it’s true now. Tell me how it was done.” The same imperious tone that had persuaded the former Mavis to allow herself to be tied, prompted a loosening of her lips but she remained reluctant.

“Speak girl,” said Hattie.

“It was a pendant,” said this Ann. “A magic pendant.”

Hattie squinted, her mind trundling. “How?”

“When two people touch. Both touch it at once.”

“And she has it?”

“Yes.”

Hattie pictured her sister in the body of this slutty barkeep’s daughter and giggled. It was unbelievable but she still knew it was so. She just knew it!

It was hilarious!

She could only imagine what Ann would want with the body of that saucy girl, but she had a vague idea. She knew the pinch of propriety as much as the next society girl.

“So... she was going to pay you... for the loan of your body. And she left you here while she was away.”

The faux Ann nodded sullenly. “I’m still going to get me money, aren’t I?”

Hattie giggle. “Oh  my dear...” She giggled again, covering her mouth with two sets of curled fingers. “If you do as you’re told I can promise you far more than that!”