Lady Ann's Holiday - Chapter Eighteen - Part Two

5

 

 

In London, “Lady Ann” sat in a very feminine pose on the window seat reading Wuthering Heights. She’d worked her way through several Jane Austin’s before settling on the Bronte sisters and planned to complete all their works if she could.

 

Though the thought of that made her pause in her reading and lower the book.

 

In a couple of days when she returned to Griply Hall and traded lives with Burt she would lose all this glorious education she’d gained. She’d become illiterate again; unable to read more than a few words – let alone an entire novel! Worse, she might even lose the desire to read – something she couldn’t even conceive of! When she’d been that idiot man she’d had no interest in the printed word or in beautiful stories about torrid romances. She really had been a heathen and a simpleton. And that was what she had to look forward to!

 

She realized that she wouldn’t even get the chance to finish this novel and hurled it across the room with a cry of anger!

 

Damn that Burt! Damn him! That stupid ignorant man!

 

Not for making her switch lives with him – oh no: this was the best two weeks of her life! No! She just wished he wasn’t there waiting for her to swap back! She wished she could stay this way and leave him to be the illiterate clodhopper for the rest of his days!

 

She couldn’t bear to think of it!

 

 

6

 

 

Burt was exhausted by the time Harry finally summoned him from up the track and told him it was time to finish for the day.

 

He couldn’t believe it had gone on for so long. It had been relentless! And he had resented being told what to do, hour after hour. But at least that was something he could cling onto. He knew that the real Burt had been an obsequious sap – a servile bumpkin incapable of making his own decisions who, if anything, thrived on being told what to do. The fact that he resented the orders meant that he was still himself deep inside – still Lady Ann.

 

All he could focus on was when her ladyship was coming home – making the switch – turning back into himself. It made him terribly uneasy that lady Ann hadn’t returned or communicated with him about what the delay was but he reassured himself that she couldn’t stay away forever. It was bound to be some simple explanation, like a rail strike or a short illness – a cold or something; nothing to worry about.

 

“Right then our Burt,” said Harry. “Ow does it feel to be working again after your high and dandy holiday, care of er ladyship?”

 

Burt shrugged, feeling surly and unhappy.

 

“I asked you a question lad,” snapped Harry.

 

“Ahright I guess,” replied Burt glumly.

 

“Well we can’t ave that, can we?” said Harry with a glint in his eye. “I’d better give you twice as much to do tomorrow, eh?” He laughed merrily at the horrified expression on Burt’s face. “Can’t ‘ave you thinkin you can disrespect me an get away with it, can we, eh? You remember me telling you that, don’t you?”

 

“Yeah,” said Burt.

 

“Yeah. Right. Now shove off you big oaf! I’m sick o’looking at your backward slack jawed expression. Go on!”

 

Burt turned his back on the old man and trudged off toward the village. He paused briefly, wondering if he should have a wash before he went but shook his head. He was used to the stink now and what did it matter?

 

 

7

 

 

“Lady Ann” sat at the huge dining table with a pair of scissors in her hand, crossly working at cutting up her copy of Wuthering Heights.

 

She snipped away, apparently at random, loping chunks out of the book and leaving shredded pages littering the table.

 

After twenty minutes Grandmamma poked her head through the doorway. “Are you alright Ann dear? I’ve hardly seen you today.”

 

“Quite alright thank you Grandmamma,” replied Ann without looking up. “I’m just in the middle of something.”

 

The elderly lady left her to it and Ann continued snipping at the novel, carefully cutting shapes round certain words. It was difficult to get everything she wanted. The words she was after weren’t always easy to find and sometimes she had to make up a word from letters cut from two or more different sources.

 

Finally though she had found and cut out all the words she was looking for and she laid them across the table looking every bit as though they belonged in a poisoned pen letter.

 

The words said:

 

I hate Burt. He is a filthy stupid servant. He is an idiot lower class working man and nothing more.

 

I hate him.

 

I hate him.

 

I hate him.

 

I hate him.

 

 

8

 

 

The man who, despite his best intentions, couldn’t help thinking of himself as Burt Harper, walked into Griply village feeling the aches in muscles that had been allowed to grow relatively soft over the previous two weeks and had now been pushed to their limits.

 

He felt absolutely miserable and desired more than anything to be back in his rightful body. He didn’t know what had possessed him to make the trade in the first place and regarded the whole experience as a terrible mistake. Being a real working man was awful! He wished he was back in his real body as a woman, lounging up at Griply Hall waiting for dinner to be served, wearing a beautiful evening gown.

 

“Hmmm.”

 

He stopped and frowned, feeling uncomfortable, disliking the idea of wearing a fancy dress – or even, come to think of it, of being a woman. He glanced round, feeling embarrassed and ashamed to be thinking thoughts like that. But then he stamped his foot angrily. That was just his stupid man’s brain thinking! However unnatural and repellant it felt at the moment, he did want to become a woman again. At the very least he wanted to be one of the quality again!

 

Two women were approaching down the lane. Feeling self-conscious, like they’d somehow know he’d been thinking effeminate thoughts, Burt went on walking and slowed as they came close. He’d seen them round the village from a distance but never spoken to them before. One was shapely and quite attractive; the other was a bit on the skinny side with crooked teeth. They giggled to see him and whispered to one another, giggling some more.

 

“Ahright ladies,” he said. “How do.”

 

They giggled again and the plain one said, “Eh up Burt. We was just wondering if’n you was as well-endowed as they say.”

 

Burt grinned proudly, enjoying the attention and flattery of his manhood. It was exactly what he needed so he could feel better. “Aye. I’d say I was even bigger than that!”

 

They giggled even more and Burt looked from one to the other of them, forgetting for a minute his urgent desire to get out of that body. Suddenly, once again, he found himself loving the fact that he was a well-hung man.

 

“Well what if we don’t believe you?” twittered the skinny one, flashing her eyes bawdily.

 

“Well then,” replied Burt. “In that case I might ‘ave to  take you two nice ladies off somewheres and give you a show.” He flashed his eyes back.

 

The skinny woman grinned but the pretty one turned her nose up. “Not hardly Burt Harper. I’ve got better things to do with me time.”

 

“Well get you miss high and mighty!” he said.

 

“I’m not parting me legs for the likes of you. I wants a man with something between his ears other than cotton wool.” She turned her back on him and her friend and walked away.

 

Burt frowned at her retreating back.

 

“Oooo. She thinks she’s better than you,” said the skinny woman, “but I don’t mind that you ain’t bright. I like a man with his virtues lower down… if you get what I mean!” She burst out laughing, gripping Burt’s arm and he looked down at her feeling rather insulted and put out.

 

This girl was far uglier than the other one – plainer than Mavis by far. He looked at the pretty woman as she passed out of sight and a realization came over him that thudded into place as solidly as his lack of power and control as a mere commoner had as he’d been locked in the stocks.

 

Mavis wasn’t cultured or beautiful. She was a pure salt-of-the-earth common-as-muck slag, but she was sexy and lascivious… and she was the best he could get.

 

As Burt he was muscular and well-endowed but he was stupid and badly spoken and he was smelly and coarse. No girl with any breeding or prospects would look twice at him.

 

He knew he shouldn’t care – that he was going to be back in his rightful body soon – but he did care desperately at the moment. He’d had a terrible day and he needed a shag. He didn’t want this trout. He wanted his proper lass.

 

Nothing but Mavis would do.

 

“Well?” said the skinny woman. “We gonna slip off somewhere?”

 

“No, sorry luv,” replied Burt. “I’ve gotta see someone. I’ll ‘ave to shag ye another time.”

 

 

9

 

 

“Lady Ann Neville” stood several yards away from the table, her back mostly turned toward it but enough of it in her peripheral vision to keep it in sight.

 

She was fuming but she couldn’t help glancing back at it; at the words she’d spelled out from her ruined book. Her anger was still crackling slightly but now that it was dying away she felt a doleful pressure of guilt assert itself.

 

The damaged book was the route the guilt took to get into her mind – she loved literature and the idea of destroying something as sacred as a novel was mortifying – but now the guilt was scratching at the rage she’d pressed in Burt’s direction. She was angry at him for putting her in this position in the first place but though she knew he would no doubt have now become Burt in word and deed as well as looks, she knew that deep inside he was still Lady Anne.

 

However much she loved being a woman; being Ann; it wasn’t right to even fantasise about stealing this wonderful life away from its rightful owner. As a man, she had spent years being devoted to Lady Ann. Just because she was transposed into another form now and the waters of identity were muddied somewhat, that devotion didn’t just vanish.

 

It was deeply frustrating but she knew that it wasn’t really the original Lady Ann’s—… Burt’s fault. This swap had been a great opportunity for the most incredible holiday. She had to keep that in mind. She had no right to keep this body forever when she had agreed she would return it. She had already gone past the deadline to return out of selfishness and obviously she had to go back as soon as possible.

 

She walked gloomily back to the table and looked down at the spelled out words.

 

I hate Burt. He is a filthy stupid servant. He is an idiot lower class working man and nothing more.

 

That was who she was going to become again. It was only right. She had to do it. She had to go back. And she had to do it first thing in the morning.

 

She stared at the words for several more moments as tears welled in her eyes then with a cry of anguish swiped them all out of the way.

 

 

10

 

“Burt” entered the Dog & Pony and hung around waiting for Mavis to show herself.

He didn’t have any cash so he couldn’t order any drinks and no one was having it when he tried to scab one off them. He ended up sitting under the window, tenderly rubbing his aching muscles. His back ached and he had the feeling that he had been doing everything wrong – lifting things incorrectly and putting undue strain on his muscles. He stared into the middle distance for a minute, thinking about it and it came back to him – the lessons he’d learned as a boy about proper lifting technique. Now he thought of it he clearly remembered one of the old farmhands, a man named Jake, teaching him the right way to do it shortly after he started working at Griply.

Burt sat back, ruminating over how long it was since Jake had left Griply then suddenly stopped and sat forward with a jerk.

That had been another Burt memory! And once again he hadn’t even realized! He could picture the day when Jake taught him lifting technique perfectly in his mind and now he thought of the man, several other memories popped up featuring him too. In each and every memory, he was Burt as a boy or a younger man, working the grounds and doing what he was told.

He put his head in his hands, shuddering from the horror of it. Why was this happening to him and when would it stop? This was really and truly terrifying!

Mavis appeared carrying some beers but when she saw him the smile dropped off her face and she stayed well clear. Burt watched her drop off the beers with a hangdog expression on his face, hoping she’d approach him on the way back.

She didn’t. She went out of her way to keep as much distance between them as possible.

Pouting, Burt tried to reconcile how this made him feel. In one way he was desperate for the physical gratification of sex and wanted to have her but he also just felt like he needed some affection from his woman. And meanwhile the other part of him deep inside resented both emotions and railed against them. This was just a peasant girl who was; or should have been; far beneath him on the social scale.

Eventually he caught her by hanging round close to the door that went into the back.

“Ey up luv. Ye got a minute?”

“I’m busy,” she snapped.

“What with?”

“I’m workin! Are ye blind?”

Burt frowned and lowered his voice. “I was just ‘opin we could spend some time together later.”

Mavis sneered at him. “You got any money?”

“What for? I ain’t got to pay; you’re my lass.”

She chuckled. “Ardly after your performance over the last week. It’s embarrassin to know ye.”

Burt blushed, recalling the humiliation on the stocks. He was desperate for this girl to show him some affection but that desperation made him deeply angry. He hated the fact he wanted her as much as he did not having her. “Well screw ye then!” he snapped. “I’ll get me lovin someplace else! See if I care!”

He turned his back on her and stormed off.

“Good luck findin anybody better!” she called after him, but Burt just kept walking, feeling his emotions pulled in every direction.

He stomped back up to the hall feeling more and more depressed. When he got there he gave Harry a guarded nod as he went round the back of the stables.

“Where do ye think you’re going my lad?” called the old man.

“Eh?” Burt stopped.

“I told you yesterdee you’d afta sleep rough tonight; or are ye too simple to remember?”

Burt looked blank for a moment then recalled the conversation with a sinking feeling. He’d been so sure he would be back in his own body tonight that he’d not worried about the effect on “Burt.”

Now that he still was Burt, the horrible effect was well and truly on him!

“Gar Arry,” he said. “You can let me off that can’t ye? I’ve slaved me bollocks off for ye today.”

“Aye. And ye’ve to be up at six to slave yer bollocks off again!”

Burt’s heart chilled. Surely Lady Ann would be back and save him from another day of that! But even if she was back tomorrow it wouldn’t be until late. He’d still have to work the better part of the day. His heart started to sink even further.

“I bet it makes you wish you hadn’t disrespected me, eh boy?” said Harry.

“I’m sorry about that,” said Burt, “I shouldn’ta done it.” He felt he was in some way betraying himself saying this – going against the confidence he’d felt over the fortnight in ignoring Harry’s authority, but he was just so desperate to put his head down somewhere halfway warm and comfortable.

“Shouldn’t’ve done it?”

“No. I was wrong to go against wot you said.”

Harry grinned. “Come on then, let’s hear it.”

“Wot?”

“Why you was so wrong.”

Burt swallowed. “I was wrong to go against ye because you’re my superior. I should do whatever you tell me to.”

“Aye. And.”

“And…”

“And why am I your superior?”

Burt frowned, hating every minute of this and not noticing the gentle buzzing at the base of his skull. “Because… because you’re my master… and because you’re… cleverer than me.”

“Damn right!” Harry clapped his hands sharply and Burt relaxed, relieved he’d said the right thing.

“Can I sleep in the stable now?” asked Burt.

“Not a chance!” cried Harry. “Get out of ere! I don’t want to see you until mornin!”

Burt gaped in surprise and horror and then finally in acceptance. There really was nothing he could do. He couldn’t go against Harry’s authority. Doing that in the first place had put him in this position. He didn’t dare push it now, especially if he was going to have to spend even more time in Burt’s body and life.

The idea of that made him shudder violently but he turned away from the stable wearily and staggered away, trying to ignore Harry’s chuckling. This had been the very worst day of his entire life – aside from the day in the stocks. All he could do was pray that Lady Ann would return and that tomorrow would be the end of it.

The alternative was too terrible to contemplate!