Lady Ann's Holiday - Chapter Sixteen - Part Two

6

 

 

Ann was exhausted. He’d never felt like this in all his born days. It was awful! He and the other labourers had been digging nonstop since first thing and the trench stretched a good way but not as far as Ann would have expected. It was much harder and slower work than he’d ever considered.

 

Now that he was really a labourer it made him see it all in a totally different light. While he’d been Lady Ann it had seemed simplicity itself to order servants to get things done and then put it out of her mind. Now, as Burt, having to actually do that backbreaking labour was another thing entirely. He had new respect for the lower orders and the hard work they had to get on with while the quality ponced about putting on airs, making out like they was better.

 

It was like the vicar had said in his sermon in Blackpool, working men’s bodies were stronger. They excelled at labour and that labour was vital. Without it the country would grind to a halt. People wouldn’t get fed.

 

Working folk might not be capable of making decisions... “But we’re more than capable of getting on with what really matters,” he said aloud.

 

Ann scratched his head, reflecting with wonder how far this adventurous journey had taken him in his thinking. Not only did he regard working folk as being more important than he ever had... he undoubtedly thought of himself as one of them. He saw the quality as separate from him: superior in many ways, but weaker too than he was, incapable of doing the hard graft as he was.

 

The foreman thanked him for his hard work and Ann sauntered down toward the office to get his pay, smiling mildly. The day had been hell but he felt proud of himself now for completing it. He’d fantasised for two weeks about being a working man and now he was one. And he was a good hard working man – not like some of the other shirkers. It made him feel proud of himself.

 

The sun was shining but there was a cool breeze and the painful element of the exhaustion was subsiding a little now. He enjoyed the walk down to the farm buildings, looking out across the fields.

 

Perhaps this holiday hadn’t been a mistake after all. He’d wanted to experience life as a lower class man and now he really had. And the hardest part was behind him now. With the cash he earned today he’d easily be able to have the following day – his last full day as Burt – off to languish around.

 

But when he got to the office he looked forlornly at the pittance he was given for his day’s graft. It was a minuscule amount, insignificant compared to the monies he’d had access to as a lady, and barely enough to cover his last two nights as Burt.

 

“Is that all I get?” he asked.

 

“Course it is,” said Jeb, chuckling. “Unless you think you’re worth more than the other men. You ain’t some distant heir to the throne what we don’t know about are you?”

 

Ann frowned. “No. I ain’t.”

 

“Well then. Gerroff with ye. Will we see you ere tomorrow?”

 

“Nah,” said Ann. That’s the last day of me olideee. I want to enjoy it.”

 

“Right you are. Well I’ll see ye down’t Dog n Pony later I bet.”

 

“Aye,” replied Ann and trudged off despondently. He’d been hoping to have some pin money to splash around. This wasn’t going to get him very far at all!

 

 

7

 

 

When Ann reached the manor house forty five minutes later he reluctantly handed over the entirety of his day’s wages to Harry, trying to avoid looking at the old man’s leering face.

 

It was a rude awakening to the price of things at his new strata of society. What he thought of as a lot of money and what he thought of as cheap were rapidly being overwritten by his new situation. The cost of his rent was tiny, but right now, from this lower perspective, it seemed exorbitant. By contrast, anything of real value to his former persona would have seemed infinitely beyond reach.

 

“Right,” said Harry. “That’ll cover you for tonight and tomorrow night and some scraps off cook for tea but you’ll be out on your ear day after tomorrow unless you can pony up some cash from somewhere.”

 

Ann shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me.” It wouldn’t be him sleeping rough it would be the real Burt, back in his body by then. That would teach him for his obsequiousness. Ann would be long back in her own body, sleeping between silk sheets.

 

He chuckled.

 

“I don’t know what you’re laughing at Burt, m’lad. I’m not joking around about that. You need to be taught a lesson in manners and the minute this holiday of yours is over I’m going to make sure you learn it, and then some.”

 

“Whatever you say ‘Arry.” Ann shrugged again and sauntered off, ignoring him.

 

“Do’ye here me lad! I’m going to make your life a living hell for not respectin’ me!”

 

Ann walked out of sight round the back of the stable.

 

“Burt! Are you even listening!?”

 

Ann chuckled to himself and climbed up to his hayloft. It was hilarious to think of the trouble the real Burt was going to get in thanks for his trouble when he came back.

 

But she, as Lady Ann could intercede and prevent it if she wished.

 

He grinned to himself.

 

If... she wished...

 

It made him feel good to relish having that kind of power over someone’s life again – after feeling increasingly powerless in this new life he was stuck in.

 

Ann looked down at his pallet on the floor and sighed. It was going to be good to be able to sleep on it again. He shook his head ruefully, smirking at how low he had fallen when sleeping on a straw mattress on the floor would feel like luxury.

 

But it did.

 

Ann checked his pockets. The rent had cleaned him out. He didn’t have nowt. But he fancied a drink sure enough. He went to the door and climbed back down the outside staircase then set off for the village.

 

He’d bought enough rounds in over the last couple of weeks; surely somebody at the Dog & Pony would stand him a pint or six.

 

He was determined to turn this into a good night to end a hard day of labour and no mistake.

 

 

8

 

 

In London, Burt was curled in a chair beside the fire in her bedroom when a light tap at the door disturbed her from her reading. She quickly checked herself then said, “Enter.”

 

The upstairs maid came in, curtseyed and approached. “Beggin your pardon m’lady. A messenger just brought you this.” She handed Burt an envelope then curtseyed again and withdrew.

 

Burt fingered the Hurley seal on the back of the envelope and pried it open breathlessly. Salty tears crept to her eyes as she read the elegant masculine script inside, first once, then again, and then a third time.

 

She leant back in her chair and clutched the letter to her bosom, running the words back once again, only this time within her mind.

 

The feelings that Richard’s words had incited fluttered throughout her body, lifting her soul. She thought only of seeing him again and the delight of that.

 

She didn’t for a moment consider the real Lady Ann waiting for her to return to Yorkshire, trapped in the body of a lowly stable hand.

 

She didn’t think about him at all.

 

 

9

 

 

Ann hesitated when he reached the door to the Dog & Pony, looking in through the glass.

 

The usual carousing was going on inside that a few days past would have drawn him bawdily in. Now though... Now it felt different there – not as... homely.

 
A few nights earlier he’d had cash in his pockets to throw around and confidence still that he was living the best of both worlds: Burt in body and Lady Ann in spirit. Since then he’d been made to look a fool in front of Mavis at the restaurant, idiotically thrown away the last of his money on a bet, argued with Mavis, beaten that man and then been humiliated by the earl and locked in the stocks. Since then he’d been made homeless and forced to work as a labourer.

He no longer had any illusions about his lack of power or status. The cocky assuredness he’d had knowing he was Lady Ann in Burt’s body had vanished when it was demonstrated to him just what a craven simpleton he could be... how he really was trapped in this life until “Lady Ann” returned. He really was just Burt the stable hand. The idiot. The pauper. The labourer.

And it was then that it occurred to him that all day, people had been calling him Burt and not once had it seemed odd. He’d been ordered about at the farm from dawn until dusk by the name of Burt and he’d just followed the instructions without once stopping to reflect on the fact that it wasn’t really his name. He’d answered without thinking as though it really was.

He shuddered at how completely immersed he had become in this identity for that to happen – for him to not find the idea of being called that odd. To not even notice.

It was utterly chilling. And that wasn’t the only thing.

The idea of going into the Dog & Piny in front of his mates after all that had happened was more than a little frightening, thinking they might ridicule him for everything he’d done.

But nevertheless, Ann steeled himself. Even if it didn’t feel true anymore, he knew that somewhere deep inside this coarse hairy body was the soul of an aristocratic woman, far superior to all these yokels. He’d be damned if he let them intimidate him.

He pushed open the door.

“Ey up! Looks who’s ere!”

“Ey, is that our Burt?”

“It surely is!”

“Burt! Come in and let’s ave a look at ya! Let’s ave a look at public enemy number one!”

All the men laughed. Everyone was looking at him. Burt blushed and pushed through to the bar.

“I’m not sure we serve criminals in ere,” said the barman, grinning.

A man clapped Ann on the back. “You didn’t arf look like a dunce out there on them stocks Burt! It was bloody hilarious!”

Ann gave a half smile. “Yeah. Well. I’m off em now. How’s about buying me a drink to make me feel better?”

“You ‘ear that lads! Burt wants us to buy’im a drink!”

“Ere Burt!” shouted one man, holding up his glass to show the dregs at the bottom. “You can ave this!” He gave a loud belly laugh.

“And this Burt!” shouted another man, raising his almost empty glass. “You’re welcome to finish this off!”

Everyone was laughing as Ann blushed furiously, raising their empty pint glasses all round and laughing at him. All the drinks he’d bought them over the fortnight and now all they could do was make fun of him!

“Sod ye! He bellowed. “Sod the lot’a ye!”

They laughed even louder as Ann pushed his way to the door and went outside into the night.

They were still laughing as he stomped back up the hill toward Griply Hall, feeling furious, crestfallen and despondent.