Lady Ann's Holiday - Chapter Twenty - Part Two

6

Burt spent the afternoon exercising the horses one by one. As jobs went it was rather more pleasant than the others he’d had to do and he found himself almost enjoying it.

He’d always loved being round horses and there was something pleasant about doing this work. Despite being trapped in this position and subject to the whims of others he still found himself believing in the value of an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. He’d fantasized about being a working man and in doing so he’d quietly absorbed a respect for the virtues of it. He now possessed those virtues and part of him secretly felt proud of his hard work. His new salt-of-the-earth perspective had long since pressed him into sneering at the flaccid excesses of the quality in favour of the good honest hard work of the lower masses. It really did give him a sort of contentment to “be a man” with a man’s responsibility.

Obviously this in no way affected his desperate desire to get back to his old life but it allowed him to resent it less and enjoy the brighter side of it. As long as he was Burt, he wasn’t some soft stuck-up cow lounging about thinking the world owed her a living – he was a good honest bloke who worked hard and paid his own way.

He exercised Rosebud last and treated her extra carefully, lovingly stoking her shiny coat. He worked her for longer, smiling idly as she ran circles on the end of her rope; but as he put her away in her stall he reflected for a moment on the horse. He knew in his former— his other life, she had belonged to him but he couldn’t make himself see her like that now. The horse obviously didn’t belong to him. It was Lady Ann’s horse and he wasn’t Lady Ann. He was Burt.

Which made him question why he treated the horse so carefully… Surely it wasn’t because…

But he thought about the little sepia portrait photograph of her ladyship that he kissed each morning without thinking about it and felt his cock stir a little in his filthy trousers. He stared into the middle distance, fantasizing again about her ladyship’s return. He imagined helping her down off her carriage as was right a proper and then showing her to the stables. He imagined her seeing how well he’d cared for her horse and thanking him… thanking him in a low and intimate voice as she caressed his stubbly cheek with her soft fingertips.

Burt sighed, enjoying the fantasy; for the first time not having a strong reaction to its slipping into his brain. He just enjoyed it for what it was and then his mind passed onto other things – clearing away the exercising equipment properly for a start.

After he’d finished tidying things up, Burt spotted Lottie, the chamber maid from the manor walking up the track from the direction of the village. He thought about the letter in his back pocket and called out to her.

“Ere, Lottie! Wait up luv.” He hurried over to her as she stopped and turned.

“What does you want Burt ‘Arper?”

He cleared his throat. “Er, how do. I wus wonderin if ye could ‘elp me out with sumfin.”

“Oh aye,” she replied, suspiciously. “What mischief av you got in mind? I ain’t got all day to waste talkin to the likes of you. I got beds to make and laundry to do.”

“I got an… an important letter wot’s got to be sent to her ladyship in London,” said Burt, “but I ain’t got the address.”

“Oh aye?”

“And I was oping you could find it out for me so’s I don’t ‘ave to bother his lordship… wot asked me to send it.”

Lottie smirked at him. “Do you expect me to believe the earl asked you to post a letter to his daughter… and didn’t give you address it ad to go to?”

Burt cleared his throat again. “Aye. That’s… That’s right.”

“Well then you’re a liar Burt ‘Arper and then some.”

The colour drained from his face.

“It’s obvious what really appened is he gave you the address and then you forgot it; dunce that you are.”

Burt grinned sheepishly with relief. “Er, that’s exactly right is that Lottie. You’ve found me out. I ain’t got the brain wot God gave me and no mistake.” He chuckled but he felt like he was betraying himself saying that and for a second the little tingle at the back of his skull distracted him.

“Alright then Burt,” said Lottie. “Come up to the ‘ouse and I’ll get it for you.”

“Er, on the sly though, right?” said Burt. “I don’t want… I don’t want the earl finding out I’m such an idiot.”

Lottie winked. “Oh your secret’s safe with me Burt ‘Arper but don’t be too surprised if I tell you he’s probably already well aware of the limit to your intelligence.”

Burt chuckled again feeling sick to his stomach.

7

Burt followed Lottie up to Griply Manor and he loitered outside while she went in, only noticing after a few minutes of waiting that it hadn’t even crossed his mind to go inside. The knowledge that he was forbidden from doing so had become instinctual.

Just another depressing reminder of how settled into his role he was now.

He remembered what it was like striding around the manor imperiously, shouting orders at the servants and seeing them jump to respond and he sighed. He did miss that, even if part of him hated the kind of stuck up toff who would treat working folk like that.

While he waited, he took the letter out of his pocket and opened it out, scanning the text on the dirty dog-eared paper, not sure anymore whether the handwriting was a good as all that. In fact the more he looked at it, the more he felt that it was the awful illiterate scrawl of an idiot country bumpkin.

He frowned again to look at the way he’d addressed the letter to Lady Ann and signed it Burt. It still made him feel awkward and confused; unsure of himself. But how else should he have written it? Right now she was Lady Ann and he was Burt. He’d been forced to accept that over and over. There was absolutely no denying it. Writing the opposite would just be absurd. And he certainly couldn’t bring himself to write the letter out again differently. It had been hard enough to do it the first time.

But the thing that really clinched it was the fear that the letter might fall into the wrong hands. What if he signed it Lady Ann in that awful handwriting and somebody else read it? It would expose the whole situation and what then??? He might be thrown into a straitjacket in the loony bin! He might never escape! And then he would never be able to persuade her ladyship to swap back – not with him a wanted man.

She’d laugh in his face!

He shuddered.

No. he had to leave it as it was. And besides, deciding to do that actually made him feel relief. Battling against his identity was stressful and wearing. He was tired of doing it. Really tired! He just wanted to go along with it, accept that he really was Burt for now. Doing otherwise just made him feel worse.

“I am Burt ‘Arper,” he murmured to himself. “I am Burt ‘Arper.”

Then Lottie returned and gave him a little smile. “Eh up Burt. I’s got the address. You ready to writ it down if I say it out to ye?”

Burt shook his head and squinted, thinking about his terrible handwriting. “You couldn’t write it out for me could ye?” he said, handing her the envelope. “You’ll be better at writing than me. I ain’t got no proper schooling and I can’t write for toffee.”

“Can’t write! Gah blimey!” exclaimed Lottie. “You really are a dunce Burt ‘Arper! You really are a waste of space!”

Burt frowned, feeling insulted and grumpy but there was no denying it. When he’d still been Lady Ann he’d known without question that Burt was nothing but an ignorant uncouth moron, and now that was unquestionably who he’d become.

If there was any difference between his IQ and the original Burt’s it was negligible to say the least. He was little cleverer than a house-trained monkey and rather than being angry at this and fighting against it he was now only accepting it with a dull abject sullenness.

But it didn’t matter now. None of that did. He could go on becoming more and more like the real Burt now – it didn’t matter. The letter was going to go off. And when Lady Ann got it she’d jump right on the next train and rush back to swap bodies and lives again.

Surely she would!

8

As the sun set over the roofs of London, the beautiful woman who knew herself now as Lady Ann snuggled into the shoulder of her handsome Lord Hurley as the open-topped buggy they were riding in continued its leisurely tour of the streets.

Since she’d decided to postpone her return to Yorkshire for an indefinite amount of time she’d felt a release of the pressure that had been grinding away at her. For now she didn’t allow herself to feel guilty about not going back – after all, why on earth should she feel guilty!? It was only a shortish delay. That dirty little man would still be waiting for her no matter how long she took. Any delay would be character-building if anything.

She giggled to think about it – the original high and mighty Lady Ann reduced to a bootlicking cur having to work as a labourer from dawn until dusk. If that didn’t give the fool a proper appreciation of how the other half lived then nothing would! And perhaps that would make her kinder to her staff when she got her real… her original body back. In fact Ann was doing a public service extending this transformation if anything, teaching good manners to the former lady of the manor! She should be getting a medal!

It was a rationalization… but a good one; and one that helped her balance any whisper of guilt that might threaten.

But to be perfectly honest it was actually quite difficult to think about it as being a problem. That she was really Lady Ann now wasn’t in any doubt which meant that he was really Burt now. In that sense everything was normal and right with the world. There was no urgent need to do anything. In a very potent way, the individual shoveling horse faeces up in Yorkshire really wasn’t Lady Ann in any way, shape or form.

But it did make her smile to think of “Burt” slaving away up there, cleaning out the pig pen and toting sacks of grain up and down the fields. It was delightful to think on the fact that if she’d gone back when she was meant to it would have been her there right now, doing that labour instead of enjoying the riches of her handsome suitor.

And this was much better.

Ann placed her hand on Richard’s leg, smiling smugly but she sighed a little as she felt him stiffen at the open display of affection and withdrew her fingers. Lord Hurley was rich and handsome but he wasn’t the most open man she’d ever met in terms of his emotions. She hated to pick holes in his wonderful persona but she did wish he was a little freer with his affections…

9

As Burt loped slowly down the lane toward Griply village to get a pint at the end of another long a grueling day as a working man his mind wandered back to the trip to Blackpool and seeing his… his uncle.

It had been so nice to chew the cud with a fellow working man who didn’t look down on him. He missed the old man and wished he could visit again. That was impossible though. It would take weeks, maybe months, of scrimping and saving on the wages he received to save up for the train fair alone and surely (please God) he would be long back in his own body by then.

Instead he satisfied himself with just reminiscing. He remembered the times, as a little boy, when Uncle Brian had come to visit their cramped little house in Hartlepool. It gave him a rosy feeling to recall being hefted up onto the brawny man’s shoulders, giggling as he was tossed over the rough-hewn kitchen table into his old da’s arms.

He missed his old dad and no mistake. He wished he could go back to those days when he was just a little boy and—

No! Wait!

These were just more Burt memories! They weren’t his! Well… they were his… at the moment… because he was Burt, but… no.

He suddenly wasn’t sure what his train of thought had been. He just knew he didn’t want to lose himself in this Burt persona. He had to remember that it wasn’t real!

He walked along, stewing to himself resentfully but couldn’t help his mind slipping back onto the “memories” of his childhood as a little boy. He couldn’t help it. He was so angry and het up about his day-to-day reality, thinking about happier times; even if they belonged to someone else; was the only real escape he had! And if it made him happier, he grumbled to himself, surely that was all that mattered!

He shoved his hands in his pockets testily, angry at himself for not wanting to give in to being Burt as much as being angry at the situation himself.

After a few minutes he snapped “Bloody ‘ell! What does it matter!” and he allowed himself to wallow once more in the memories.

As long as he had them he might as well enjoy them. He didn’t have anything else going for him! And in such an obtuse and unforgiving world he really needed to feel some shred of happiness. The love and affection he’d “known” as a child was something to cling onto and that imperative made him cling all the more tightly, trying his hardest not to keep telling himself they weren’t really his memories.

He was Burt. He really was Burt now. And that meant that they were his memories.