Lady Ann's Holiday: The Final Chapter - Part Six

Burt carried two sacks of grain down from the barn and dumped them at the stable. Harry was carrying a third but he struggled slowly behind Burt, dropping it down with difficulty.

“Well you are a strong one Burt me bucko,” said Harry. “There ain’t no two ways about that.”

Burt beamed proudly.

“It’s just a shame you’re such a dimwit, eh?”

The old man laughed and Burt’s face fell.

He slunk off, wishing there wasn’t the bitter side to the sweet aspects of his life. There was so much good about being a big strong working man. Why did there always have to be someone to put him squarely in his place, rub into him just how pathetic he truly was.

If he’d been a rich man then he could have been just as humble and down to earth as he’d have liked. People thought they could push him around because he was only a servant; and they were right. He would never have respect; not really. He would always be looked down upon.

As long as he was Burt.

He sat on a tree stump at the side of the path and ran his hands into his short hair under his cap, asking a question of himself that Lady Ann had asked herself almost two weeks earlier.

What did he want? Really? What did he want from this life of his?

He knew his former life as Ann had been wealthy and cultured, but had he been happy? He didn’t have all his old memories, but those he did have were pure feeling. The memories were made of anger and frustration; disappointment; boredom. That was the real truth. He no longer recalled in detail the reasoning behind his wanting to swap places with the original Burt but there remained a poignant sense of desperation; of escape.

Was he ever really happy as a woman?

But would he ever be happy as a man? As a servant?

He remembered the fantasy where he used the pendant somehow to become a salt-of-the-earth toff; where Lady Ann was his slutty lower class mistress…

If only that were possible.

But it wasn’t. There were only two choices here. Become Lady Ann again – if she’d let him, or stay a servant forever.

He closed his eyes.

And then opened them again as a third possibility entered his mind.

There was another way; something incredibly unlikely but still worth pursuing with all his heart: something he did want more than anything.

Yes. That was what he was going to do.

He was going to find Lady Ann and he was going to tell her how he felt. He would ask her for a kiss, at last, after all the years that he and the former Burt had yearned for it.

Surely she would reject him but if there was the slightest chance he had to try his hardest. That was the most important thing he’d ever desired.

It was decided.

He would ask for a kiss and in return he would promise his devotion to her for all the rest of his life.

And if she said no...

 

If she said no then he would demand she return his body to him immediately!