The Price of Friendship

Here's a picture story that's so old I forgot I made it!

It's quite a nice little one though.

Lady Ann's Holiday - Chapter Nineteen - Part Two

6

Ann was so happy that she’d waited to see Richard one last time and not rushed back to Yorkshire.

He took her out to the most expensive restaurant in London, a place that normally required a table to be booked many weeks in advance, and ordered the finest dishes and champagne in fluent Italian. She had intended to simply say goodbye then rush off to catch the last train north but it seemed rude to do so and what was one more day? She could easily catch the first train back in the morning.

It was wonderful to be with such a handsome and refined man, so attentive to her every need and want. Richard didn’t stop complementing her and making her feel like she was the most important woman in the world. It was simply enchanting!

After the meal he took her to an open air concert and they enjoyed the glorious music, sharing their complex views on the quality of the performance.

Yes. She was definitely glad she hadn’t just said goodbye and run off to Yorkshire. And it didn’t hurt to stave off her transformation back into a man.

7

Burt sighed as he cleaned out the pig pen, his sleeves rolled up, mud and faeces covering his forearms. It was disgusting work and something he was sure didn’t normally get done but he had no choice but to follow his orders. Harry had told him to do it and he had to do as he was told.

He reflected on that resentfully, thinking how recently Harry had been a mere underling to him and how delicious that feeling of power had been. At least he hadn’t forgotten everything about what it was like to be Lady Ann. He still remembered that. Harry had been almost beneath his notice as a mere stable master and groundsman, but thinking that also, unfortunately, underscored how low his position was now. He was even lower than that – as far below Harry as the old man had been below his former self.

The pigs squealed as he pushed them out of the way, slipping in their mud as he worked, doing his best to do it quickly to avoid another shouting at. Harry had already balled him out several times for working too slowly, making him feel two foot tall. He had to keep working hard or else he’d—

“Burt!”

He stopped and looked in the direction of the voice. “Yes sir?”

Harry was standing at the fence. “Get over here you slack-jawed idiot!”

Burt shambled over, trying not to slip on the mud. “Yes?”

“Do you think you’re still on holiday?” He paused. “Well?”

“No sir.”

“Then why are you working at a snail’s pace?”

“Sorry sir. I was working as fast as I could.”

“Well it’s not fast enough! I want you working twice as fast as that or you’ll not have anywhere to sleep again tonight! Is that clear?”

“Yes sir.”

“What did you say?”

“I said yes sir. Sorry sir,” replied Burt morosely.

Harry glared at him. “Well get on with it then boy! Those pigs aren’t going to clean up after themselves!”

“Yes sir,” said Burt and hurried back to get on with it, his pulse racing.

He hated being told what to do, but what choice did he have?”

8

After the concert, Richard took Ann for a gentle walk round the lake where they continued to discuss the intricacies of the concert and the slight rhythmical failings she had noticed in the conductor. She was wearing a beautiful dress and she gloried in the extended time spent with this wonderful man.

She cast her mind back to her life at Griply before the switch of bodies. When she’d first met Richard she had had something of a recollection of him visiting the original Lady Ann at the manor. She tried to call that up again but the memory was vague – something about caring for his horse… no. It was gone.

Instead she recalled quite a strong memory of conversing over tea in china cups on the veranda overlooking the back lawn. Yes. She clearly remembered how charming and wealthy he was and the conversation she’d had with him while mother and Hattie looked on. But then…

No. Wait. Was that right? That had been an Ann memory. She’d been picking them up more and more as the days went by. Yes. In the memory, she was Lady Ann and she could clearly picture her… her mother and sister, for that was how she thought of them in her recollection.

That was very odd. But pleasantly so. Thinking of those other cultured ladies as really being her flesh and blood gave her a lovely sense of calm belonging.

But then Richard brought her back to her moment, pulling her to a stop under a tree.

“Ann dear,” he said. “I’m so glad we got the chance to spend more time together today. It has been divine. Truly divine.”

He took her hands in his, glancing round to see if they were observed and Ann suddenly got a thrill of anticipation to imagine what was coming next.

“I’ve never known a woman as beautiful and refined as you. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be with right now.”

“Oh Richard,” she breathed. “Kiss me,”

She leant closer and her brought his lips slowly to hers.

They connected and Ann melted into the moment, wanting him to wrap her tightly in his strong arms and extend the moment forever.

But instead the kiss lasted only a second or two and Richard withdrew, smiling politely.

Enjoying it but feeling slightly disappointed, Ann smiled politely back and let him take her hand to lead her on down the path.

9

When his second long working day came to an end, Burt sighed with relief and had a good stretch, releasing the tension that had built up during the day.

Harry was whittling a stick with a pocket knife, sitting on the edge of the cart out by the stable. He didn’t look up as Burt approached. “I’ve left ye some pennies in a cloth bag there Burt,” he said. “You aven’t done a bad job today. You deserve a couple of bevies down’t pub.”

“Oh, thank you.” Burt felt a surge of gratitude, and relief that the old man wasn’t shouting at him as well as pride in a good day’s work.

“You can sleep in the hay barn again,” said Harry.

“Thank you sir.”

“But mind you don’t disrespect me again or you’ll know what for. Is that clear?”

“Yes sir,” replied Burt. “Sorry sir.”

“Good. Now get thee gone. I’m busy.”

Burt nodded and thanked Harry again then hurried off with the pennies feeling much happier. He’d worked so hard and it felt good to be appreciated for it. And it felt good not to be told off so—

Wait a minute.

He stopped in the lane and slapped himself on the side of the head.

This was all wrong! Harry was his servant. He wasn’t really Burt, he was Lady Ann! He shouldn’t feel grateful that he was getting a pat on the head and a few pennies for slaving for fourteen hours! He shouldn’t be calling that old fool sir! All of this was completely wrong!

He stood there, breathing heavily, feeling waves of anger and self-doubt. All he wanted was to be back in his real body; back in his real life. He closed his eyes, pressing his fingers into his eye sockets and squeezing the bridge of his nose.

But he couldn’t do thjat, not without Lady Ann coming back.

The only thing he could do – the next best thing - was to get a mite tipsy down’t Dog & Pony. That was what he really needed now – and it was the only real gratification he had in reach.

10

Burt went into the Dog & Pony and ordered himself a pint.

Jeb was in there, carousing with the other lads, but Burt wasn’t in the mood for that. He hated being Burt now. The last thing he wanted to do was revel in it and lose himself again in Burt’s ways. He felt that the more he did that, the tighter this trap would close around him. With his memories and self-image being so traumatically affected he shuddered to imagine a worst case scenario where he actually forgot that he wasn’t Burt!

He imagined Lady Ann coming back but him too far gone to even recognize himself in her. He imagined tipping his hat and running obsequiously round to do her bidding, no longer with any idea that their roles should be reversed.

He shuddered and knocked back a few swigs of his beer.

Truth be told, he didn’t think it would ever come to that. But it was a truly terrifying idea all the same.

“Ere, Burt,” said the barkeep.

“Aye?”

The man was a huge burly bald-headed chap with little black eyes. Normally he wore a jovial caste but now, suddenly, his face was pinched and surly. “I’ve been talkin to me darter about you.”

“Mavis?”

“Aye. And she says you ain’t been doin right by ‘er of late.”

Burt straightened. “I ave sir.”

“Well that ain’t wot she’s been sayin, that’s all, and I don’t like seein ‘er upset.”

Burt paled. “I’ve been doin me best, but she’s taken the ‘ump over some such. I don’t understand… I don’t understand her.”

“Well I don’t want to ‘ear nowt about er bein upset. You understand that?”

Burt nodded.

“She’s got two big brothers and they don’t wanna see her upset neither. Is that clear?”

Burt’s face grew hot. “Yes sir. I’m sorry sir. I’ll do right by er. You can rely on that.”

“Well I better be able to. Or I’ll get me shotgun and show you just ow angry I can get. You understand me boy?”

“Yes sir,” said Burt, lowering his head shamefully. “Sorry sir.”

“Good.” The barkeep turned away and went through into the back leaving Burt feeling shaken and once again in a turmoil of different emotions. He’d hated the way the man talked down to him and the way it had made him feel, but worse than that, he hated the way he’d groveled in apology, sniveling to the man as though he was his superior.

He hadn’t meant to do it but it had just come out. That kind of submissiveness had emerged with Harry as well and he didn’t like it at all. He hated being that way but he just couldn’t stop it happening!

He had to get back to his own life and body! He just had to!

When was her ladyship coming back!? It had to be the next day! It simply had to be!

Lady Ann's Holiday - Chapter Nineteen - Part One

Taking Instruction

 

1

 

 

The filthy stable hand who once, only recently, had been the beautiful Lady Ann Neville, came slowly awake to the stench of manure.

He was lying curled up tightly on the floor of one of the stable pens, freezing cold and aching from a night on the hard floor, a great pile of freshly steaming horse dung only inches from his nose.

He shuddered. Surely it wasn’t possible that this was really happening; that he was still stuck in Burt Harper’s body; that he’d had to sleep here in the stall of the horse he had once owned; that he had a second day of grueling labour before him.

It couldn’t be true.

But he knew it was.

“Lady Ann” should have been back by now. She should have returned to switch them back into their rightful bodies. But she hadn’t come and he was stuck this way until she did with absolutely no control over his life. It was awful! Simply awful!

He got up, aching all over, wishing he’d been able to sleep on his pallet up in the hayloft, but he’d been terrified to go against Harry’s orders; of the consequences that might result. It was his resentment of this absurd authority that he clung to as the one part of his core personality he could rely on as being his but he wasn’t a complete fool. He knew that not doing what he was told had been what was making Harry be so cruel to him. As long as he was Burt he lived under Harry’s rule. However much he resented it he still had to follow his orders for fear of things getting even worse.

He got up and stretched the aches out of his body. At least he had a man’s body with which to endure these punishments, with a man’s strength.

Feeling the bristles on his face and wary of getting balled out because of it, Burt fetched his shaving equipment and stood in front of a dusty and cracked old mirror, looking at his man’s reflection. He met eyes with the frightened dull-witted man in the looking glass as he lathered his cheeks and neck, leaving his bushy moustache uncovered. If he closed his eyes he could still picture the beautiful woman’s face that should have been looking back at him but with eyes open there was no getting away from his sex or his inescapable identity.

“There ain’t two ways about it,” he murmured. “I’m Burt ‘Arper.” Then he added, “Until ‘er ladyship comes ‘ome at least,” hating the way he referred to “her” as that without thinking about it. The game he’d played, delighting in sinking into this role, glorying in his lower status, was long past. Now, all that the knowledge of his name and social status did was fill him with dread.

Her ladyship had to be coming back today. She just had to!

He finished shaving, wiped off the remaining lather and stared at the image looking back at him, contemplating it, absorbing the irrefutable reality of it as the moments ticked by and the same hazy warmth tickled the underside of his brain. He knew what he was seeing was wrong – completely and utterly wrong – but he’d spent so long in this hairy muscular flesh that it didn’t jar anymore. It didn’t look wrong. He didn’t find the face surprising if ever he caught a glimpse of himself. It was just his face.

“It’s my face,” he whispered, fingering his moustache. “Until Lady Ann comes back, this is my face.”

 

2

 

 

“Burt!”

 

He jerked away from the mirror and hurried outside. Harry was just coming up the lane. “Yes?”

 

“Yes what, ye stupid great ape!”

 

Burt flushed. “Er, yes… sir?”

 

“That’s better; and don’t let me hearing you forget to say it. Is that clear my lad?”

 

Burt hated this but he had no choice. “Yes sir. Sorry sir.”

 

“Good. Now I ope you enjoyed a good night’s rest.” He grinned at his own cruel joke. “Cause I’ve got twice as much work for you to do today to make up for all the time you had off, lounging about being a man of leisure.”

 

Burt’s shoulders sagged. “Yes sir. But, er, do you know if Lady Ann will be back today?”

 

“That stuck up cow? Well how do you think I would know that? I’m not her social secretary, am I!”

 

“No sir.”

 

“No. Now get back in that stable and muck out them stalls! That’s ye first job. Second I want the orses fed and third I want all that leather polished to a shine! Is that clear?”

 

“Yes sir.” Burt bobbed his head, feeling wretched that he was going along with this but unsure of any other alternative. If her ladyship didn’t return today either, God forbid, then he had to keep Harry sweet or else he’d be given even more work. Even if she were coming back, that would be many hours away – it wasn’t yet long after daybreak: she would still likely be fast asleep between silk sheets hundreds of miles to the south. If he didn’t do what he was told between now and then Harry would make his life even worse.

 

He sighed.

 

His life.

 

“Go on then you thick idiot!” yelled Harry and Burt scurried into the stable to start his day’s labour.

 

 

3

 

 

Lady Ann Neville yawned and stretched out her slender arms as she woke, smiling when she smelled her morning bacon come in on a tray, carried by the ever-obsequious Gladys. Then the smile dropped off her lips as she remembered what the morning was meant to bring.

 

That she was going home. Back to her life of squalor, hard work and poverty.

 

Gladys placed the tray across Ann’s lap as she sat up and Ann glared at her. “Chop chop girl! Hurry! I haven’t got all day!”

 

Gladys blushed and curtseyed, backing up. “Sorry m’lady.”

 

“You’re sorry? Be off with you, you vulgar girl! It’s already a bad enough day without my having to see your pouting face.”

 

“Sorry miss.” Gladys withdrew.

 

“And don’t go far!” called Ann after her. “I need you to start packing my things in a moment if we’re to catch the morning train. We’re going home today.”

 

She gazed listlessly down at the breakfast before her, barely only mouthing the word “home” as she repeated it.

 

Then in a sudden rage she hurled the tray off her legs and sent it crashing down.

 

Gladys rushed back in, hearing the clatter. “Are you alright m’lady?”

 

“Get out! Get out of here you stupid ignorant girl!”

 

Ann threw back the covers and swung down her legs, putting her head in her hands, feeling the tears threatening to return, but they didn’t come. She screwed her eyes tight shut, her thoughts in turmoil, thinking of her life of servility, her hopeless adoration for the original Lady Ann, the mistreatment she’d received from her over the years and then of the pleasure she’d experienced in the lady’s own shoes; the delight of warming to her very own suitor: Lord Richard Hurley.

 

He would be expecting to meet her today and she was planning to flee without even saying goodbye. She was going to betray a man who loved her to follow the orders of a “woman” who never had.

 

She lifted her head and her eyes were completely dry. They gazed coolly into some other place of the mind, her thoughts clicking almost audibly, then she made her decision.

 

She would stay long enough to see Richard one last time, so that she could bid him farewell at the very least. She could get the late train home tonight and still only be one day late in returning. That had to be more than acceptable, surely.

 

And if it wasn’t then, well…

 

If it wasn’t then “Burt” could jolly well put up with it! It was his choice to make the trade. She hoped he was bloody well enjoying it!

 

 

4

 

 

At eleven o’clock Burt was sent up to the manor house to carry down some massive flower pots from the front that needed some attention from the gardener.

 

He jumped at the chance to get away from the grind of his other duties and hoped to use the opportunity to investigate when her ladyship would return.

 

So far he’d slaved away all morning, doing exactly as ordered by old Harry, completing one grueling and arduous task after another and all the while he felt the embarrassment of having to tend to horses he had once owned as nothing but a servant. In truth he was little more than a slave, forced to do every dirty task that had once been beneath him. The only consolation was that his muscles were toughening up again now that his body was getting used to working again. At least the aches were departing for now.

 

He had to get out of this situation! He simply had to!

 

When he got to the front of the manor there wasn’t anybody about which disappointed him. He’d hoped to at least see one of the indoor servants to ask about Lady Ann’s return. With no other recourse he crouched and lifted the gigantic floor pot, wheezing as he brought it up to a standing position. As he did so the front door opened and the countess emerged; his—Lady Ann’s mother.

 

He gazed at her in a daze, completely unsure of himself. It had been over a week since he’d seen her and he ached to go to her; to beg for her to make everything alright again. She had always been the gentlest of mothers, the kindest of women. She could make everything better with only a few words.

 

“Er…” he began, suddenly unsure how to address her. She was busy putting on a pair of gloves and didn’t appear to have even noticed him. He wanted to call her “mother” but as he opened his mouth, something else slipped out without him even bidding it. “M’lady. Er… excuse me. Might I ‘ave a word?”

 

She looked up at him, startled, seeing him for the first time.

 

“I was wonderin…” Burt swallowed. “I was wonderin if you knew when her ladyship, er Lady Ann – when Lady Ann is comin back from er holidee.”

 

His mother stared at him silently for several moments, then her face cooled into a mask of silent fury. “Are you addressing me, man?”

 

“Er… Er, yes m’lady.”

 

“Are you talking to me?”

 

“Er yes madam.”

 

Her eyes were like ice, her cheeks hard and drawn. “How dare you approach me directly, you odious creature! You should know your place! I’ve never been so appalled in my life! I should have you flogged like the miserable cur you are!”

 

“Er, sorry m’lady,” stammered Burt, staggering back, his throat tightening in fear.

 

“Get out of here, you filthy urchin! Or I’ll call my husband to whip you within an inch of your life!”

 

With his ears burning and feeling more and more humiliated, Burt turned tail and fled down the drive, staggering with the giant flowerpot still in his arms.

 

All he had wanted was the comfort of his mother and instead he’d received the most painful reminder on his new status and how little he meant to her. He wasn’t her daughter anymore – not in the least. He was nothing but a lowly servant. Her love and affection was entirely out of his reach. It belonged to the—to the… real Lady Ann, down in London.

 

He felt her glare in his mind, even now he was out of sight, judging him and condemning him, placing him securely and completely in the roll of a mere servant.

 

As a woman, the countess had been the most important person in his life – the almost godlike person who had defined his role and existence. This same woman, with the same power had told him exactly who and what he was and he couldn’t help feeling somehow that the act of thrusting him unceremoniously back into this identity was like concrete, trapping him into it all the more, solidifying the identity of Burt around him.

 

If she saw him as Burt – if she didn’t recognize anything of her daughter in his dim-witted expression – then maybe she was right.

 

Maybe he really was Burt now, through and through.

 

 

5

 

Burt sat on the floor in the back of the pig pen, his arms round his knees, head down, filled with despair, unable to do little more than think about his encounter with the countess.

He wanted to think of her as his mother but he found that he no longer could. Their meeting had underscored exactly what their relationship was now and there was no room in his brain for doubting that anymore – such had been her conviction. She was the countess. He was the stable hand. That relationship of mistress to servant was indelibly stamped on his brain.

Now, instead, when he tried to think of his mother he caught an image instead of the peasant woman who’d raised the real Burt – another Burt memory springing up into his brain pan as though it belonged to him.

He’d spent so long reiterating who he was, accelerating the change, that now he was so firmly ensconced in it that almost every action of his day reiterated it even more in his mind. It didn’t matter whether he repeated the phrase “I am Burt Harper” or if he just contemplated his new lot in life. Both, it seemed, had the power to go on reinforcing that change – pushing it further and further along. Every hour he spent doing things that only Burt would do made him become Burt all the more. He was afraid that soon there wouldn’t be any Ann left inside him.

He thought about what that would mean – losing touch with his upbringing and childhood and got an image of the hovel that the real Burt had grown up in. Alarmed, he pictured his sister and smiled with relief when he saw Clarabell’s face. Only… No. That wasn’t right. That was Burt’s sister.

(I’m Burt)

His real sister – Lady Ann’s sister – was Hattie. Desperate to feel some semblance of his old normality he tried to picture her instead, sitting at the dining table, but the memory fizzled and vanished as he summoned it. He couldn’t remember that scene anymore! He tried again, trying to picture Hattie in his mind and sighed in relief she popped into his mind’s eye, climbing onto her horse as he steadied the reins, tipping his cap as—

No! That wasn’t right!

He was getting muddled; finding it hard to separate his Lady Ann memories with his Burt ones. He needed something he could really focus on – an Ann memory that he could grip onto and not let go – something simple like… the inside of her bedroom.

He sat, concentrating his weak brain on doing that but after several moments he gasped in anguish. He couldn’t picture the inside of her ladyship’s bedroom at all no more! As Ann he must have stowed away thousands of memory images of it. Now, as Burt he couldn’t recall a single one. When he tried to he just kept recalling loitering at the front of the house hoping to catch a glimpse of the beautiful lady through her front window, longing for the day when she’d notice him; when she’d call him up and kiss him on the—

“No!” This was all wrong! It was all falling horribly further out of control! He hated what was happening to him! He hated how like the real Burt he was becoming.

He had to get out of this! But there was no way out! There was nothing he could do until her ladyship returned.

“Burt!” It was old Harry. “Burt! Where are you hiding you blithering idiot!”

He sighed, getting up hurriedly, anxious to not get caught shirking his duties.

“Burt!”

“I’m here!” He jogged across to where Harry was standing, clambering over the fence of the pig pen. “What do you want me to do?”