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?”
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