Chapter 3: The Masculine Humour

A certain amount of dread filled Jessica’s heart as she answered an early morning summons to Lady Ashwater’s chambers dressed in her work clothes. She had never been to any part of the house that fancy while dressed in her scarecrow-like gardener’s getup, and her Ladyship’s admonishment that she was to present herself so suggested either that some further masculinising humiliation was to befall her, or that she was to be presented to somebody that Lady Ashwater would prefer were unaware of her secret.

It quickly emerged that both suspicions were somewhat correct. “Samson, this is Doctor Casement.” Lady Ashwater said in a firm tone of voice. “I’ve explained to him about your little problem and he’s very graciously agreed to take some time out of his busy schedule to help you out. At my expense, of course.”

“Oh it’s no problem, no problem at all!” Doctor Casement chuckled good-naturedly. He was a small man, plump and well-dressed with something of the last century’s fashion to his appearance. “This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. And I assure you, my boy, I’ve seen complaints like yours many many times. It’s very common, in fact. Some men find it works to their advantage, but for an outdoorsman like you I imagine it’s rather an irritation. Easily fixed, easily fixed!” He rummaged in his leather doctor’s bag and produced a large syringe that made Jessica leap back in alarm.

“Not to worry, my boy, not to worry!” Doctor Casement bumbled. “Looks scarier than it is, you know. Now then, inside here.” He flicked the tip of the syringe. “Is the purest form yet possible of what we will call the masculine humour, extracted directly from…” he paused and winced. “Well, never let’s mind its provenance, that’s hardly relevant and perhaps a little inappropriate for such refined surrounds. The point is, my boy, it is a deficiency of this particular substance that is causing you all these problems. A little jab once in a while and you’ll be back on the road to being a strapping young fellow that any mother could be proud of.”

Jessica winced at the last sentence, thinking of how Doctor Casement was (and presumably was wished by Lady Ashwater to remain) blissfully unaware of the actual relationship between her masculinity and her mother’s pride. She considered refusing; if ever there were a watershed moment to get off this horrid ride and walk away from Lord Ashwater’s money and his wife’s nightmarish demands, it was now.

“Of course.” Doctor Casement remarked absent-mindedly. “I will warn you now: this might have to be a long-term arrangement. Some young men have rather a grand deficiency, and of course the more of the opposing feminine humour that you have, the more likely it is that the effects shall lessen without regular application. Without being too indelicate, I have encountered a couple of gentlemen possessed of some… internal deformity that they themselves were unaware of, which meant that their bodies in fact produced this feminine humour naturally. It was necessary, then, for them to remain taking the injections essentially indefinitely, as if given enough time without, the effects would completely reverse themselves.”

Jessica’s eyes opened wide. “Is… is that so, Doctor Casement?” She inquired with an effected tone of great interest, hoping her guttural tone was deep enough that combined with the Doctor’s assessment of her as a very feminine man it would allow her to avoid suspicion.

“Quite so, I’m afraid.” The Doctor lamented. “That isn’t a problem, I hope? Lady Ashwater told me that she was quite willing to pay for my services for as long as you needed them, so you needn’t worry about that, if that’s it.”

“Oh no, not at all, Sir!” Jessica struggled to hide her relief. “It’s just… well, if I were to leave her ladyship’s service at some point in the future, obviously I would struggle to afford such treatments myself. But that’s not so much a problem now, and I’m sure I would manage somehow with wherever the road took me then.” She shot a glance at her employer, who gave her a cautionary frown, but nodded.

“Oh of course, of course!” Doctor Casement bumbled. “But let us not think of such things right now, when they are as of yet of no import! Roll up that sleeve, my boy, and I assure you you will feel but a slight pinch for just a moment. Nothing to worry about!”

With some trepidation, Jessica complied, but couldn’t fight her compulsion to look away into the corner of the room.

The doctor chuckled again. “Not possessed of the nerve to watch, are we? Not to worry my boy, not to worry. Rather the same myself when I need seek a colleague’s treatment, in fact, if we’re being truly candid.” Jessica felt his hand on her shoulder and a moment later a sharp pinch at her bicep that made her jump. Before she could properly react, however, the pinch was a dull ache, and the doctor was wrapping her arm in a simple white bandage.

“Keep that on for today.” He instructed. “But you needn’t worry about it any longer than that. I will be back in a fortnight for your next dosage. Good day!” Picking up his bag and hat he made a prompt and purposeful exit, the sound of his effusive greeting to Mr Rathbone (who had presumably come to escort him to the front door) echoing back into the room.

“Well now, Samson.” Lady Ashwater said thinly. “Why don’t you take ten minutes just to ensure the Doctor’s tincture has had no untoward effect, and then I rather think there is work for you to continue with waiting in the garden, don’t you?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Jessica rubbed the dull soreness on her arm. “I’ll just… wait outside for a few minutes, shall I?”

“I think that would be best. Good day to you.”

---

“What is going on with you, Jess?” Lottie asked, scraping her fork against her plate as the servants took lunch together in the early afternoon.

Jessica’s eyes widened in alarm. “Don’t let the bosses catch you calling me that, Lot, or it’s a hidin’ for sure.” She had rather hoped to avoid the other maids for longer than a day, but big stern Harriet, who despite holding no official position had always been the informal leader of the band of girls, had made it quite clear that she was not only invited, but in fact firmly entreated, to share lunch with them that day. Likely it had been as long as she could have held back the tide of exactly this kind of question from the other, younger maids.

“Oh yes, that’s right.” Harriet mused. “It’s… what, Saul, we’re to call you now?”

“Samson.” Jessica mumbled through a mouthful of potatoes. “Er, Sam, for short.”

Harriet nodded. “Knew it was something from the Bible. That a decree from on high, then?”

Jessica nodded back. “Her ladyship wants my old name, and me being a girl and all that, kept quiet as much as can be. Mrs Breadworth seemed like she was going to be pretty strict about it.”

“I can believe that.” Catherine remarked sourly. “Been here all of a week an’ old Breadcrust’s already shown us all too much o’ her true colours. Is that oilcan Rathbone any better?”

“Don’t think so.” Jessica mumbled. “He’s all right to me, but his domain’s mostly inside the house an’ mine out of it, so he hasn’t much business with me unless he’s helping with whatever the Missus’ new horror she’s inflicting on me is. I definitely wouldn’t tell him anything in confidence.”

“Are you all right J- Sam?” Lottie asked, her expression one of deep concern. “We was all real happy when you got the job, but all this stuff her ladyship’s doing to you, it’s a bit… perverse, isn’t it?”

“For sure.” Jessica said, a little mournful. “But it can all be put back, so I’m told. And… look, I don’t like it much, Lottie, but the salary’s thirty pounds. Hattie, you’ve met my mum, you know what our house is like. We need the money. It’s barely a question”

“THIRTY POUNDS?!” Catherine choked, trying to avoid spitting potato back onto her plate. The others turned to look at her in concern as the lanky girl struggled for air. “Naw.” She asserted between coughs. “I get it now. If there were a thirty pound salary in it for me I’d consider things like that.”

“Don’t know I could.” Harriet mused. “I don’t think Norm would hold with it, not with us looking to get married in a couple of years. But I understand, don’t think I don’t.”

Lottie and Marcia nodded and grunted in agreement, the revelation of Jessica’s princely salary seeming a balm on their qualms about Lady Ashwater’s odd imperatives to their friend.

“Still though.” Catherine said after a moment. “It’s a very queer business, the whole thing, and I know I wouldn’t trust ‘er ladyship as far as I could throw ‘er. We’ll keep it all quiet for ya, Sam, but you know what we’re like. I’m an aul’ gossip, me, always ‘ave been, can’t help it; and ye’ve seen how Marcia goes whenever some ‘andsome young man comes to the door.” She put a firm hand on Jessica’s wrist and looked at her with a serious expression of something almost like solidarity. “We’ll keep our mouths shut, don’t you worry. Hattie’ll keep ‘em shut for us if nothin’ else. But if we ever find out yer tryin’ to get out, that the old bat’s got yer by the throat and she’s visitin’ horrors like out of books on you that ‘ent worth the thirty smackers she’s payin…” She removed her hand, averted her gaze and picked up her fork again. “Well… I suppose in a situation like that the coppers or the papers or someone like that might just… find out some’ow and come and rescue yer; and who can say the particulers as to how that might’ve ‘appened?”

Jessica’s eyes stung with tears of gratitude as she looked at tall, sensible Harriet, who just nodded solemnly at her, and at the two younger girls, who assumed determined frowns and made the gesture of the faux-military salute the three of them had often shared in maid school when binding themselves together in covenants of mischief. She stood up, gesturing over Harriet’s shoulder at the scullery maid, whose name she did not know, to indicate her plate was clean.

“I should, um… you know… garden things.”

“Hmm.” Harriet made to clear her own plate. “We should clear up too. But listen, Sam. Don’t be a stranger. Perhaps in time you’ll be making new friends in Rathbone’s side of the house, I don’t know how this works, but I don’t want you thinking just cause our new Missus has you doing peculiar things to yourself and pulling in thirty ruddy pounds that you’re not welcome to sit with us, or that we’d be making fun or deciding we’re not still your pals if you need us. Change your face and your voice all you like, I know you and I know you well, and I’ve known what you’re like for a good long time. You’ve gone and hidden yourself away from us cause you can’t shake the voice in your head that tells you you’re a freak and that we’re all disgusted with you, and we’re just waiting to skewer you like a concert hall funnyman; and if we’re not then surely we all hate you because you’ve got a big salary and you’re all hoity-toity now.” She put a tight hand to Jessica’s shoulder. “It ain’t true and it never has been, and I’m sorry for being firm like this but I’m hoping if I just tell you straight right at the start before you can get to wallowing you’ll have a better chance of keeping that nasty little voice in your head quiet. What would we be, if we was like that? Goodness, it was Marcia got you into this mess in the first place by running her mouth, God bless her.” Here, Jessica followed Harriet’s gaze as she looked over her shoulder at the small brunette maid who squirmed in her seat guiltily.

“…All right.” Jessica said in a small voice, feeling altogether very silly. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t just avoiding you cause of that. It’s been hard to deal with it myself. I haven’t wanted to be seen by anyone. Not sure I’ve even managed yet, to be honest.”

“I can imagine.” Harriet’s tone softened. “But for what it’s worth, I think you look very handsome. Don’t he, girls?” She raised her voice a little as Jessica cringed at the unfamiliar pronoun.

“Absolutely.” Catherine concurred, shovelling away the remainder of her potatoes that she had neglected from excessive talking. “‘andsome enough that ‘er ladyship will leave yer alone, god willin’.”

“Very handsome!” Lottie squeaked. Marcia only nodded, and avoided Jessica’s gaze. Turned away as her face was, however, Jessica didn’t miss the tell-tale tint of bright crimson on the young woman’s cheeks as she had silently shown her agreement, and she felt herself struck by something of a peculiar feeling. Shivering under Harriet’s firm hand, she made a gesture of excuse and strode off in the direction of the servants’ patio entrance, feeling heat creep across her own cheeks as she though of what she had seen… and what it might mean.

On her way past the stairwell, she noticed the boots, scrubbing away at what she presumed was a pair of Mr Rathbone’s work shoes. He looked up as Jessica was passing.

“You’re walking wrong.” He called.

Jessica whirled in surprise. The boots hadn’t ever spoken to her before; she didn’t even know his name. A spry lad of surely no more than fourteen, when she saw him at all he was mostly absorbed with polishing shoes or some more complex hallboy task. He had, thus, far, blended into the background, so to hear his first words to her be some incomprehensible criticism had, as they said, absolutely thrown her for six.

“What?” She interrogated incredulously.

“It’s not that noticeable.” The boots mused, without looking up at her. “’Cause servants ain’t supposed to take up space, see? But even servant men don’t walk like that. You’re givin’ yourself away.”

“How do you walk then?” Jessica demanded, a little indignant at what she couldn’t help but see as impertinence from this lowly child.

“Much the same.” He replied, putting the shoes aside and standing up from his nook. “But you don’t put your feet in front of each other, see. Just forward and back. Look.” He demonstrated beside her, showing how silly he looked imitating her small toe-to-heel maid’s trot. “Men don’t walk like that cause it ain’t comfortable, see? There’s… stuff in the way to stop yourolling your thighs that close. So what you wanner do is this.” He demonstrated a similar walk, but now with each foot advancing only in front of itself instead of its twin, giving the impression of a much more rectangular figure. “You could swagger wider like this…” he demonstrated hanging his frame almost like some kind of ape and keeping his thighs apart. “But that’d look odd, I think, you’re not big enough to have any business like that and it’s not a seemly way to be walkin’ indoors.”

“Thanks.” Jessica said in an uncertain tone. “I’ll, um, try to remember that.”

The boots stuck out his hand. “I’m Frank, by the way. Frank Edwardson”

“Sam.” Jessica shook his hand gingerly. “Sam Hocking.”

“So I’ve heard.” Frank smirked. “Middle sized of the new maids as was, right?”

“Yes.” Jessica instinctively put a finger to her lips. “But, um… her ladyship would prefer that didn’t get about.”

Frank tapped the side of his nose. “Course. Mum’s the word.” He stepped back over to his nook and picked up the shoes. “You know where I am if you need any more advice, though. Truth be told you’re doin’ all right. Took me all yesterday to figger out where I’d seen you before and what it was ‘bout yer that looked peculier. But there’s always room for improvement.”

“Right.” Jessica said, still taken aback. “Well, bye Frank. I’ve got… gardener business. But thanks for the advice.”

“Welcome.” Frank’s smirk didn’t fade as he started scrubbing again. “Good day t’yer, Mister Hocking, Sir.”

Jessica squirmed at being called Sir, but she wasn’t about to rebuke a politeness from this dangerous cipher of a young colleague. He evidently knew far more than he ought, and she was at his mercy as much as anybody else’s. She remembered how she’d been at that age; thick as thieves with Lottie and Marcia. Boys were nothing if not just the same, but moreso. She would have to watch out for Frank, and pray that all he had in store for her was more of his unsolicited advice on navigating the world of men.