Lady Anne Small-Burrows

What Ho Proles!

I know you didn’t expect to hear from me today but in addition to being wealthy, debonair, charming, and possessing great wit and intelligence, I’m also a man who likes to spring many surprises. I like to disappear for a while but only so I can make a dramatic entrance at a later point. In a way, I’m a bit like bird flu. You just don’t know when I’m going to crop up next. I’ve often been described as one of the world’s last believers in the Romantic spirit but laced with a strong mix of Puritanism and it’s a judgement I tend to agree with.

Yet though there are few us puritanical romantics around these days, one did arrive at the Hall last night and stayed for the night. She’s the reason I’m posting this today. You must simply be introduced to Lady Anne Small-Burrows, or Lady Anne, as she’s known in this household.

Lady Anne is my cousin and one of the few people in the country to suffer the extraordinary condition in which she is completely immune to the influence of alcohol. Medically it’s a miracle but socially it’s a nuisance. It accounts for her rather dry stolid appearance and character, but also the moments when unleashes her repressed energy in ungovernable frenzies of what I can only describe as elan.

I remember one morning when she was half-way through completing The Times crossword when she suddenly took it upon herself to visit the Cathedral at Reims. Within ten minutes of her tackling the clue at 10 Across (‘Rigorously ecumenical interrogators missed something’) she was out the door and on her way to catch the first train for Dover. From what I hear, she caused all kind of chaos when she got there and turned a few of the younger chaps of the Roman Catholic clergy into devote atheists.

That’s all some years ago now and she’s settled down just a bit. My Man announced her arrival at the Hall by coming into the drawing room, coughing, and indicated towards the large rosy cheeked girl that had climbed up his back and was draped over his shoulders. She screamed her delight and jumped down before rushing over to peck me on my cheek.

‘You’ve put weight on, Jacob,’ she said, poking me in my ribs. ‘Not getting enough exercise or is it glandular?’

I looked down at myself. ‘I’m exactly the same weight as when I last saw you,’ I replied.

She spluttered a wet slimy laugh. ‘Then you should have your scales looked at! You’re looking positively plump. We’ll have to start calling you old fatty Murgatroid of the glandular condition.’

It’s better to ignore her provocations when she’s in this kind of mood.

‘And what suddenly whim has brought you here?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t think we were due another full moon for another week.’

‘Whim? I don’t do whims,’ she sniffed. ‘I’m here on my way to Cornwall.’

‘Cornwall?’

‘I’m going to buy myself a cottage there and write a novel.’

‘Ah,’ I said, patting the pile of papers I’d been working through. It was the draft of the Memoirs you keep hearing so much about. The manuscript was looking quite plump, certainly bigger than the last time you all saw it, having expanded to a length to exceed that of War of the Worlds or even Lord of the Flies. ‘So I take it that you’re suddenly taken with the literary bug?’

She threw herself down in a chair. ‘Oh, just about everybody is getting a book published so I thought why not have a go myself? I’ve got oodles of tales to tell.’

‘Well so long as you don’t ask for my help,’ I said. ‘I’m working on a volume of my own.’

‘You are, Jacob?’ she screamed with pleasure. ‘Then you really must allow me to look at it. I might be able to pick up a few tips before I get cracking.’

‘Get cracking?’ I tutted. ‘That’s hardly the right spirit.’

‘Pish,’ she replied. ‘Can’t be that difficult.’

I hesitated before I replied. ‘Well, perhaps a look at my manuscript will teach you to think differently. There’s nothing better than a good example to lower a person’s expectations. Only you must realise that it’s still an early draft. I intend to go through and spruce it all up with a few indiscreet anecdotes about Oliver Letwin and his gerbil fixation.’

She picked up my manuscript and retired to a corner of the room where she remained until I retired for the night.

I came down to breakfast and found my manuscript waiting for me with a small note attached.

‘Read your novel. It’s not exactly the next Jeffrey Archer is it? Love, ASB’.

What can I say but this cheered me up enormously. It was just the sort of response a man likes to hear when he’s looking to become published.

I rushed off a copy of this review and had My Man take it to London with him as he continues to search out an agent. I even told him that he could leave the chloroform at home. If Lady Anna Small-Burrows’ words can’t land me an agent, I don’t know what can.