Story: What Annabella Wants Annabella Gets. Chapters 1-3.

by Jackie J

Chapter 1

Of course, it felt strange, she knew it would be, but exquisitely so. Annabella, the precocious and spoiled daughter of the Earl and Countess of Buckshire had pondered this moment for months. Annabella had watched with excitement and a degree of suppressed trepidation as her parent’s horse drawn carriage had made steady progress down the tree lined drive and pull out through the main gates of the grounds. Annabella’s parents heading to Europe for the summer. Mollie and Jenny, the two housemaids of the manor, had gone ahead two days before to prepare the summer retreat, only Miss Jarvis the housekeeper and herself remained at Buckshire manor.
A prepared and nervous Annabella shuffled into the parlour.
The housekeeper of Buckshire manor smiled.
“Well, I see you are dressed appropriately, and that you are ready to proceed with what Miss Annabella wishes for you here at Buckshire manor. You have something for me?”
Annabella’s long held desires were about to be realised and quivering handed Miss Jarvis a key.
“Yes, I have locked Miss Annabella’s rooms. This is the key.”
Miss Jarvis smirked taking the key ready to commence Miss Annabella Montgomery’s life has a maid at Buckshire manor.
Along with a number of conditions insisted on by the Housekeeper of Buckshire manor, for her to indulge Miss Annabella’s fantasy, Miss Annabella would only ever be referred to in the third person a condition surprisingly agreed to by Miss Annabella, thinking it to be a harmless and amusing contrivance. It would surely help in her time being a maid for Miss Jarvis.
“Good, then it will be Miss Jarvis now, Annie. And of course a curtsy when you address me.”
Annabella curtsied to Buckshire manor’s housekeeper, Annabella had practiced her curtsy but this first curtsy, dressed in her crisp new maids uniform, to the hired help, to the woman who had herself curtsied without hesitation in the presence of her parents and herself for as long as she could remember now receiving the same level of deference, made Annabella shiver with unfamiliar servility and anticipation of what was to come.
“Yes, Miss Jarvis.”
Annabella had paid Miss Jarvis well to indulge her fetish and for the next three months Miss Annabella Montgomery was to be Miss Jarvis’s housemaid Annie. Stripped of all the privilege’s she had known since childhood, at nineteen, she was to be and treated as nothing more than a common maid in her parents and her own home.
Miss Jarvis approached her new maid and fussed with the high collar of her plain black dress, mop cap and apron bow.
“A good fit I see girl, I have pinned a list of your daily duties for the week in the scullery, so I suggest you get to work.”

Annabella stood back and curtsied.
“Yes, Miss Jarvis.”
Martha watched Miss Annabella dressed in her maid’s uniform turn and head out of the parlour and chuckled to herself. Quite a contrast to the beautiful dresses she normally wore.
When approached by Miss Annabella, Martha took some convincing that this day would ever come but, to her surprise, it had, and a king’s ransom, in Martha’s eyes, way in excess of her yearly income, was safe in her lock box. Along with the cash, safe and secure, was a copy of the signed agreement between Miss Annabella Montgomery and Buckshire manor’s housekeeper, Martha Jarvis.
Ordinarily, when the Earl and Countess left to take up residence in the Swiss Alps, for the summer with the housemaids, Martha would be left to ensure Buckshire House remained secure and in pristine condition for their return. Their daughter, Annabella, would continue her lavish lifestyle from her London apartments. This year Martha was to be mistress of the Manor and their precocious daughter was to be her skivvy, her housemaid.
Martha poured herself a small sherry and sat in the comfort of one of the large leather chairs by the window in the fine dress she had selected from the Countesses extensive wardrobe. Miss Annabella may have had her own thoughts of serving the new Mistress of Buckshire manor, but Martha was going to ensure that any romantic imaginings that the surly Miss Annabella had of being a maid would soon be dispelled. The spoiled brat wanted to play maid but when the summer vacation of her parents was over there will be no pretence needed a maid she shall be.
During the first week Martha indulged the young aristocrat with quite mild verbal chastisements, for her maid’s lack of domestic skills, of which there were many. These criticisms were no less than Annabella had expected, perhaps desired in some perverse way.
These exchanges however became harsher and more demeaning during the second week bringing Annabella to tears on more than one occasion. Annabella being made to feel inadequate and humiliated whilst completing the most basic of tasks expected of a maid, her confidence being subtly drained from her. Miss Jarvis constantly reminding her maid how disappointed Miss Annabella would be with her lack of domestic skill.
 Martha continued to push scolding and humiliating her maid until on the Thursday of the second week she got the reaction she wanted. The petulance Martha had witnessed on so many occasions from the spoiled Miss Annabella Montgomery came to the surface in her maid. The smell of a boiled dry milk pan brought an angry faced Martha into the kitchens and Annabella stood back whilst she was aggressively admonished by her Mistress then foolishly shouted back at her.
“Stop it, stop it, I was in the laundry. I forgot about the milk pan, I cannot be expected to do everything at once. I won’t be shouted at like this by you any longer, I have had enough of this! Who do you think you are? You are a bloody housekeeper that’s all and I am the daughter of the Earl and Countess. I have had enough of this it’s over and you will pay for this abuse when my parents return.”
The grip around Annabella’s slender arm was vice like and she squealed being dragged across the kitchen.
“No, no get off me what are you doing? How dare you? Stop it, stop it! Argh, argh no, no please don’t, don’t! I am sorry, I am sorry.”
Martha’s maid’s pleadings went unheeded and, having secured Annabella over her knee, Martha raised her maid’s skirts, pulled down her bloomers and heavy open-handed slaps rained down on the tender exposed buttocks of a squirming, screeching Annabella until she hung sobbing, limp and passive, her bottom glowing crimson, whilst the remaining stinging slaps left their dull ache.
Released from Martha’s controlling grip Annabella, filled with tears of disbelieve and shock at what had just been done to her, cowered back, tugging up her underwear for modesty and smoothing down her skirts and apron. 
Before the distraught maid could speak Martha grabbed Annabella’s ear twisting it until her maid sank to her knees and begged in pain for release.
“Don’t ever raise you voice to me girl. I had enough. How dare you? Miss Annabella gave you to me to become a maid and maid you shall be. Miss Annabella’s words were quite explicit, whatever it takes. You are the daughter of nobody in this household, you are Annie a common housemaid and nothing more.”
“Well girl let me hear you. Who are you?”
An encouraging twist of her maid’s ear brought the desired tearful response.
“Annie, miss. Annie, your maid.”
Martha gloated over the spoiled socialites’ squirming capitulation to the return of her desired persona.
“I have watched you struggle long enough, girl. You need training and I know just the person to do it.”
Annabella’s ear released she whimpered through her sobs getting slowly to her feet.
“What do you mean person, you can’t bring anyone here to Buckshire. To see me like this, this is not what I wanted, not what we agreed.”
Martha smirked and Annabella scuttled further away when her housekeeper approached until she backed against the wall and Martha took hold of her maid’s chin with a firm grip.
“I think you have forgotten your place here at Buckshire manor.”
“We agreed girl. You Annie agreed nothing, I will tell you what was agreed for you girl.”
“Miss Annabella gave you to me to become a maid here at Buckshire manor, my maid and a maid you will be. You are incompetent, useless. I require a maid capable of fulfilling her duties. If my worthless maid needs training, then it will be trained and trained properly. Do you understand girl?”
Maid Annie had been given a painful and chilling reality check of her status at Buckshire manor. The status she wanted, the status she had pleaded with the housekeeper of Buckshire manor to provide.
“Please Miss, I thought that you would train me, teach me, to be a good maid for Miss Annabella.”
Martha laughed in Annabella’s face; she had the stupid girl just were she wanted her.
“Me, your Mistress, teaching a maid? My goodness, girl. Whatever are you thinking no, it will take a maid to teach a maid and it will be arranged. Now get to work on that pan girl and when it is clean bring it to me in the parlour.”
The grip of her chin released Annabella’s head drooped, her gaze casting down to the floor, and stepping back from her distraught maid Martha thought it opportune to place a further humiliating level of control on her maid.
“That’s better, don’t look me in the eye again ever, keep your gaze lowered when you address me, girl.”
Martha raised her voice.
“Well, girl, do you understand?”
Anabella was in a state of shock, her bottom still stinging from her spanking and fearing another dropped a curtsy.
“Yes, Miss Jarvis.”
Martha left the kitchens and Annabella wiped her tears looking at the burnt pan which she was soon starting to scrub clean reflecting on what was happing to her, what had just transpired.
Less than two weeks of the privileged Miss Annabella Montgomery’s self- imposed wish to offer herself into the hands of the housekeeper of Buckshire manor to be her maid and her mind was already becoming accepting of her subjugation. Annabella had worn her drab uniform of service, slept in the basic quarters of a previously dismissed maid, eaten alone in the kitchens, having served Miss Jarvis in the main dining room. She had done her best struggling with the cooking, laundry, scrubbing cleaning and polishing about the manor until her knees reddened and hands roughened. Now, within the last hour, her reward for daring to question the housekeeper’s authority over her, wanting to call a halt to the masquerade, was being mercilessly spanked, she had suffered the painful humiliation of a brutal bare bottomed spanking.
This is what she wanted was it not, paid handsomely for, to be treated like a common maid? Annabella had often witnessed the spanking of the maids by the housekeeper, should she expect anything less, being a maid now herself? Miss Jarvis was right, Annabella had given Miss Jarvis full authority at Buckshire manor, she must be obeyed by her maid. She was not Annabella, Miss Jarvis had made that very clear, she had to get all thoughts of being the daughter of the Earl and Countess out of her head she had relinquished that status, she was Annie. She had begged Miss Jarvis into an agreement to treat her as Annie, a common maid whilst her parents were away for the summer and paid her well for the privilege. If Miss Jarvis wished for her maid to be trained, then trained she must be. Why would she, a mere maid, even think to have any say in the matter? But who had Miss Jarvis in mind to train her, to show her the skills of a maid?
The burnt pan in hand, now gleaming like new, a contrite Annie entered the parlour and curtsied keeping her eyes lowered displaying the pan in front of her.
“Miss.”
Martha let her soft smile fade, the servility and humility she had been subtly engendering, with her verbal chastisement and humiliation, would seem to have been advanced significantly with the first spanking of her maid’s bare backside.
“Annie, bring the pan to me. Let me inspect your work.”
Annie came close and handed over the glistening pan.
“Very good, a job. Well done girl, this pan can be returned to the rack. Now about earlier, making me do that to you, no different to any of my maids who would have dared to raise their voice like you did. I would hope that is the last time I will be required to punish you in that way, but I fear it will not. You are a new maid here at Buckshire manor but be warned any more of your insolence will be met in equal measure. You understand that, don’t you girl?”
Annie raised her eyes but, caught in the glare of her mistress, cast her eyes back to the floor.
“Yes Miss Jarvis, I am sorry, it won’t happen again.”
“I am glad to hear that Annie, Miss Annabella, the daughter of the Earl and Countess was quite explicit what she wanted for you, much of which is contained in an agreement I have with her. I have a duty to ensure you Annie become the maid Miss Anabella wants you to be. You have struggled with your duties but that is about to change. For you to become the maid Miss Annabella wishes, you will require instruction and like I mentioned earlier it will be arranged.”
The firm gaze of Miss Jarvis and her softly spoken words held poor Annabella in a weak submissive trance. Annabella did want Annie to be a maid, a good maid and yes, an obedient maid, Annie was that maid, Miss Jarvis’s maid. Strange but Annabella’s reflective thoughts were of Annabella dressed in her finery meeting with the housekeeper, telling Miss Jarvis what she wanted to happen to Annie, the uniforms, the treatment of Annie no different to any common maid Miss Jarvis would hire. The fee Miss Annabella had agreed with Miss Jarvis the agreement Miss Annabella had signed.
Annie’s hands rested on the coarseness of her starched apron aware of the tight high collar of her long black shapeless dress, the heavy clumsiness of her boots, the mop cap that sat on her scrapped back hair, she was Annie wasn’t she, what Miss Annabella wanted.
Annie spoke in no more than a submissive whisper.
“Yes, Miss, I must be trained to be a perfect maid, a good maid, an obedient maid like Miss Annabella wanted for me.”
Martha stroked her fingers possessively over her maid’s cheek.
 “Good girl Annie, Miss Annabella will be most pleased, now back to the laundry. Then you can prepare supper for me.”
Annie lowered a curtsy.
“Yes, Miss Jarvis.”

Chapter 2

Having never so much as threaded a needle, two weeks of painful practice in the evenings, the sewing skills Annie had acquired were put to good use. There was some unpicking with the first garments but over the two evening of the weekend all was finished and Annie proudly displayed her work to Miss Jarvis.
 Martha inspected her maid’s embroidery, not a dropped stitch the bold letters created on each of Annie’s four dresses and seven aprons the same in size and design.
“Very good, Annie, not that either of us are in any doubt of who you are but it is only right that your name is displayed on your uniforms. Miss Annabella would be very impressed with your work.”
The reference to Miss Annabella in the third person had continued in earnest since the outset of Miss Annabella’s pretence, now even more so following the watershed of Annie’s spanking the previous Thursday. Any task completed, most often not well, Martha would chastise her maid and get Annie to acknowledge that Miss Annabella would not be pleased. The laborious task of having Annie embroidering her given name of Annie onto her uniforms all part of Martha’s distancing of maid Annie from her previous life. Each stitch, each letter created forming the name, her name, Annie, reinforcing who she had chosen to be, Annie a housemaid.
Sanity is a fragile thing, all though too often taken for granted, and the loss of one’s sanity is seldom self-diagnosed. Annabella had harboured strong desires over months, desires that had been latent for much longer than that, until they had become an obsession, then using her privilege planned and schemed to enact such desires. When those imaginings are realised the mind and its deep embedded subconscious delusional thoughts focus solely on a perceived outcome. In the cold light of day, the outcome rarely, if ever, meets expectation of imaginings and left to one’s own devices the mind will, in time, reconcile the difference between those imaginings and reality and those desires will be supressed, fade and normality returned.
Introduce a determined encouraging third party however, to forcibly foster and nurture those desires and the mind will adjust and begin to accept the new reality to actually be the desired outcome. Unquestioned and unchecked this spiral of self-entrapment will coil around all thought until the imagined outcome and the reality of outcome actually become to be accepted as one. A tipping point that Annabella was being unwittingly guided towards. A tipping point where self, submits, surrenders and retreats deep into the sanctuary of the subconscious and the long-held persona of desire floods the conscious mind, until in this case, Miss Annabella Montgomery truly becomes the maid of her long-held desires, maid Annie.
Annabella was commencing her third week of service and Annie had been given little time for reflection on her situation kept occupied with her duties by a demanding Miss Jarvis. The physical hardship of being a maid had been accepted, curtsying to the housekeeper and calling her Miss had become second nature an act of deference not given a second thought by the respectful maid she was becoming.
Tuesday morning and Martha had ensured that Annie would be scrubbing the hallway tiles when her visitor arrived. The doorbell rang and Annie, from her hands and knees, looked up at the door and the figure beyond through the frosted glass. There had been no guests or visitors to Buckshire Manor for the past weeks and a shiver of panic ran through her. Should she ignore it? hide in one of the side rooms? Not a decision she would need to make. Miss Jarvis entered the rear of the hallway giving her instruction.
“Well, girl, answer the door.”
Annie hearing Miss Jarvis’s command was quickly and instinctively to her feet. wiping her hands down her apron and straightening her floppy mop cap Annie approached the door and slowly opened it. Seeing Carol, an ex- maid at Buckshire manor stood on the threshold, the same maid in whose quarters she was now resided within. Annie’s blood ran cold and she stood frozen staring at the smirking well -dressed woman. What was she doing here?
Carol had been well briefed by Martha some months previously when they met following Miss Annabella’s demands to become Martha’s maid whilst her parents were away. No less convinced than Martha herself on first hearing, Carol only agreed to play her part in the scheming of Martha when she saw the signed agreement and the cash of course. Carol had been dismissed from Buckshire manor some twelve months ago, Miss Annabella having no small part to play in that dismissal. Carol Hardwick was going to enjoy the continued denigration of this particular privileged young Lady, into the life of a maid.
Martha was quickly to the door.
“Mrs Hardwick, how good to see you.”
Martha pointed to a confused looking Annie.
“Give your coat to that and come through to the parlour.”
Martha glared at Annie.
“A curtsy girl for Mrs Hardwick”
With lowered gaze Annie curtsied.
“That’s better, girl. Now bring tea to the parlour before going back to your cleaning.”
Sat in the parlour Martha and Carol discussed the progress so far with Miss Annabella, Carol complimenting Martha on the outfit she was wearing recognising it to be one of the Countesses fine dresses and laughed when Martha told her of the first spanking of her maid.
Annie entered the parlour with a tray and curtsied. Having set out the cups and saucers a nervous Annie served the two ladies without a spill then stepped back and curtsied.
“Will that be all, Miss?”
Carol suppressed a giggle having witnessed such contrite and servile behaviour from the young woman she had previously watched flouncing around the manor in her finery spraying her instructions and orders like confetti.
Martha stood from her chair.
“Yes Annie, that will be all for now but before you go this is Mrs Hardwick who is here to train you, give you the skills you so obviously lack. Miss Annabella was quite insistent with me that you become a competent maid and Mrs Hardwick will ensure that is the case. Follow her instructions and I have every confidence that you will become the perfect maid that Miss Annabella wants you to be.”
“Now, girl, thank Mrs Hardwick for coming here to train you to be a competent maid.”
Annie raised her eyes momentarily then cast them back to the floor. Miss Annabella did want Annie to be a good maid, a proper maid, she was being constantly remined of that. She remembered Carol, Mrs Hardwick, she was one of the better maids before she was dismissed. If she had not ruined Miss Annabella’s party dress before the autumn ball she would probably still be employed as a maid at Buckshire manor. Annie was hoping that perhaps Mrs Hardwick had forgotten how in her petulance she had screamed at the maid but of course she had not.
Annie lowered a curtsy.
“Thank you, Miss.”
Martha smiled.
“Good girl. now back to your duties.”
Another curtsy and Annie went back to the hallway to continue her scrubbing whilst Carol and Martha drank tea and discussed the continued subjugation of Miss Annabella Montgomery.
Carol tittered lifting her teacup.
“Goodness Martha, goodness me, what have you done to the woman? The uniform, the way she acts and that’s only in just over two weeks. I still find it hard to believe that she wanted this but she did, didn’t she? She must be wrong in the head. Did she not realise what you were going to do with her, to her once you had her aproned? So, to business, what we discussed what you want me to do with her all that still goes, doesn't it?”
Martha smiled sitting her cup back onto its saucer.
“The girl is primed for you but nothing more. It will be up to you to drive any thought of being the privileged Annabella Montgomery out of her mixed-up head. Keep her busy and tired with no respite, challenge her work constantly, mock her, humiliate her, make her feel worthless, make her feel like the maid she is to become, that she wants to be. Any challenge to your authority, well she has been spanked once, hasn’t she? Of course, when you have finished with her, I will expect you to present me with a timid trained and competent maid but more importantly drained of all thought of ambition and expectation of ever returning to the life she once had. Give me maid Annie."
Carol chuckled finishing her tea.      
“It will be my pleasure. I may as well get started. I will have your rooms, I presume?”
Maratha confirmed Carol would be using her quarters she herself enjoying the main gust suite on the upper floor.
Martha handed Carol an ornate bronze key.
“You better take this, it’s the key to Miss Annabella’s rooms. When you have time, strip everything out, clothing, all her personal things, box and wrap it and lock it away up into the lofts.”
Martha chuckled
“When your work is finished there will be no need for that room or anything in it.”
Having scrubbed and polished the hallway tiles Annie was back in the kitchens sluicing the wastewater from her cleaning when Mrs Hardwick entered and stood staring at her busy maid.
Carol let Annie finish then strode forward and slapped Annie hard across her cheeks.
“You are filthy, stupid girl Annie. How dare you, emptying soiled water into the sinks? The grate outside girl. The other bucket, take it outside this minute.”
Annie rubbed her cheek, near to tears but not wishing to cry, then picked up the full pail and took it to the grate in the yard.
Carol remembering Martha’s instructions, stood with hands on hips glaring at Annie when she returned to the kitchen.
“Well, Annie, what would Miss Annabella think of that, of what you just did? Well answer me, girl!”
Annie looked up at Mrs Hardwick, Carol, the woman who had been nothing but a common maid at Buckshire manor. She had slapped her, berated her but Annie was the maid now, she had tried to take a short cut and been discovered, Miss Annabella would be no less vexed, Mrs Hardwick was right to chastise her like she had, slapped her like she had.
“She would not be happy, Mrs Hardwick.”
Carol stood taller her glare fierce and threatening.
“Who girl, who, say her name, who would not be happy with maid Annie?”
 Annie cowered back fearful of another slap.
“Miss Annabella, Mrs Hardwick, Miss Annabella.”
Carol relaxed her posture.
“That’s right, Annie. Miss Annabella would be more than unhappy, she would have your bloomers down and spanked. Be thankful Miss Annabella is not here and it was me that caught your filthy disgusting behaviour. I won’t spank you this time but for punishment you will clean this kitchen until it gleams every surface. Do you understand, girl?”
A nervous Annie curtsied.
“Yes, Mrs Hardwick.”
Long into the evening Annie toiled to finish the cleaning punctuated only by serving supper to her Mistress and Mrs Hardwick.
Little time for thought when Annie’s exhausted head hit her hard pillow, and she was soon asleep.

Chapter 3

Six thirty and bacon was sizzling in the pan with eggs on the boil, a fresh loaf ready to cut a busy maid was disturbed by Mrs Hardwick. Carol stood by the sinks watching Annie franticly about preparing breakfast.
“Stop, stop, stop remove the pans from the stove and sit at the table.”
Annie was confused and moved the pans from the heat, wiped her greasy hands on her apron and sat at the large kitchen table. Carol brewed two mugs of tea and pushing one of the mugs to Annie sat opposite.
Breakfast was served a little late at Buckshire manor that morning, but the bacon was well cooked without a trace of charring, the eggs were soft, the toast was crisp but like the bacon not burnt. The spoons in the preserves each at the same angle, no smears of the jams on the glass bowls. The tea not stewed, and Annie did not have the usual strands of hair dangling from beneath her cap her cheeks not flushed, her manner less flustered. Martha smiled to herself and called Annie to the table to pour more tea, she never previously had taken more than one cup, a cup she rarely finished. A clean plate and all the toast devoured Martha looked across the room at her maid stood attentive and awaiting instruction.
“Well Annie, you have excelled yourself this morning, I forgive you for being a little late, I think Miss Annabella would be more than pleased with maid Annie this morning. Don’t you agree, Annie?”
Annie curtsied a faint smile on her lips.
“Thank you, yes Mistress, I think Miss Annabella would be pleased with my service.”
Annie took away the used plates and cutlery along with the other accoutrements, a complement from her Mistress, the first. Back in the kitchen and the washing up in the sink she turned to Mrs Hardwick sat at the kitchen table who had finished her own breakfast.
“Thank you, Mrs Hardwick. I just didn’t know, thank you.”
Mrs Hardwick wiped her mouth on a serviette.
“Well now you do, girl, now a fair trade, what we agreed, sit here at the table and remove your cap.”
Carol had shown Annie the precise way to prepare breakfast in a cool and calm manner to prevent any overcooking and the secret to brewing perfect tea. The trade-off for this teaching?
Annie sat passively, she had agreed to this and when Carol had finished, she was desperate for a mirror and ran her fingers around the chilled nape of her neck. The shorn locks on the floor around her told the story of her shearing, there would be no longer a need to scrape back her long flowing locks beneath her cap. A mirror in hand Carol could not wait to display her handywork to her maid. whilst a maid herself at Buckshire manor she had thought many times of hacking the spoiled arrogant Miss Annabella’s lovely hair from her head and now she had.
“There a working girl's cut for a working maid.”
Annie stared at her reflection. Was that really her? Her cheeks looked chubby, the straight cut fringe framing and accentuating a round face, her ears, her ears? She could see her ears. The cut was short very short perhaps one could consider it boyish but for the fringe.
Carol stood back gloating inside, the stupid girl had sat without a word and could not resist.
“I must say you look a little younger with that cut, without all those fussy curls. We will keep it trimmed each week, perhaps darken your hair a little. I have dye, it looks rather mousy.”
Annie stood and replaced her cap which slid low on her head, the lace trim having to be pushed up from her face and eyes and Carol stifled a titter.
“You will have to tighten the ribbon bands of your caps this evening, Annie.”
Two weeks under the tutoring of Mrs Hardwick Annie had become more than competent in the kitchen and her service was exemplary. Buckshire manor was large and the work was relentless as was her training and it was a weary Annie often with a reddened bottom that made it to her bed each night.
Annie was into her fifth week of service. There was no lotions, balms and perfumed bathing for the tender flesh of Miss Annabella, no such luxury for maid Annie and it was beginning to show. Her complexion darker and ruddy washed with cheap soap. Spots, not many but unfamiliar blemishes, yet for a maid not so. The extra pounds hidden within her bulky dresses, but the original tight waists of the fit of her uniforms had been let out to accommodate her spreading frame. Her hands less delicate roughened and reddened from the soda of the laundry, her nails to the quick and the tops of her arms muscling from their labours.
Mrs Hardwick had insisted on the dying of Annie’s hair black like her dresses this having the effect of draining the colour from her face making her rosy cheeks more prominent. Annie’s training was brutal at times, but she was learning much. There were no more streaks on the windows, mill dew in the corners, no smears on the polished surfaces. Floor tiles gleamed from the correct level of soap, soda and wax. Rugs now beaten with capable enthusiasm.
During the six weeks, which soon became seven, of Annie’s servitude, Miss Annabella Montgomery had continued to be incessantly referred to in the third person. In furtherance to this insidious suppression of Annie’s previous persona, a portrait of Miss Annabella Montgomery posing bejewelled in her finery had been moved to the side of the large mirror in the hallway. Whenever Annie’s work was not up to standard or she became tardy, she was dragged to bend in front of the mirror and apologise to the portrait whilst her bare backside was spanked or strapped. The contrast of the dowdy sobbing image in the mirror and that of the beautiful girl smiling down from the wall could not be starker. A working maid being punished and the entitled daughter of the Earl and Countess of Buckshire manor. How could they ever be thought to be one and the same? Maid Annie becoming ever more receptive and accepting of the incongruity of such a contradiction.
Eight weeks, two months, and maid Annie went about her tasks and routines without issue. Mrs Hardwick had been uncompromising and at times ferocious in her training and treatment of Annie.
With relish, Carol and Martha had mocked, belittled, humiliated and beaten all thought of privilege and dignity from Miss Annabella. Maid Annie had been subjected to spankings and strappings of her bare backside, being hosed naked with cold water, in the rear yards and constant harsh words of chastisement. Seldom a raised word was now needed for Annie to dance to their tune, to know her place, that of a Mistresses competent and obedient maid.
Martha contemplated that it was now time to consummate the transformation of the proud, pretty and vain Miss Annabella Montgomery into the servile house maid that Miss Annabella Montgomery wished Annie to be, which Annie had become.
Was Annie aware that she was two weeks into her third month of service? Perhaps but probably not, her weeks had no longer been punctuated by weekends of opulent leisure and socialising dressed in her beautiful dresses, wearing her expensive jewellery. That was the province and domain of the privileged and wealthy not of a simple housemaid. Each day was the same, cooking, cleaning, being harried by Mrs Hardwick and serving a demanding Mistress. There was no respite from her domestic drudgery for maid Annie. It was her place to unquestioningly serve and toil she was just a maid.
Sat in the parlour following dinner Martha was joined by Carol. Carol sat taking a sip of the sherry she was given and, knowing its contents, stared at the scarlet velvet bag Martha had placed on the small table at her side.
“Really, you are going to do that?”
Martha laughed toying with what she removed from the bag ready for the deconstructed daughter of the Earl and Countess. her maid Annie.
“But of course, Miss Annabella wanted Annie to be a maid at Buckshire manor, did she not? I think we both agree Annie has become a perfect maid, what better way to confirm it. Here take it for later.”
Having cleaned the kitchens after dinner, it was late, and a tired maid entered the parlour, stood in the doorway and curtsied as she did most evenings, Annie somewhat surprised to see Mrs Hardwick sat with her Mistress.
“Will you require anything else, Miss?”
Martha smirked and stood from her easy chair.
“Annie do come in, come forward girl. Mrs Hardwick has something for you.”
“Miss Annabella wanted you to become a maid at Buckshire manor Annie, and Mrs Hardwick wants to reward you for becoming such. Just like Miss Annabella wanted for you.”
Mrs Hardwick stood and approached Annie and smiled cynically.
Annie saw the opened silver band in Mrs Hardwicks hand, the same band that the Countess insisted that all her maids at Buckshire manor wore, a sign of covenant from which a maid is only released when their term of employment was completed. With the name of the manor and that of the maid engraved on it, the same collar that Mollie and Jenny displayed, the two maids who were currently away at the summer retreat with the Earl and Countess.
Miss Annabella the daughter of the Earl and Countess willingly wishing to be taken into the service of the Countess? To stoop in grateful acceptance of a collar proclaiming her status and acceptance of domestic servitude at Buckshire manor, her own home? Ridiculous, and of course it would be but for a maid, a maid like Annie? Such an adornment a symbol of achievement, status and worth.
Annie curtsied was she really excited about this, was she really, her blushing expression indicating she genuinely was? Pleasing Miss Annabella, becoming a perfect maid for Miss Annabella, had been driven into her broken mind at every opportunity by the relentless, ruthless and wicked manipulations of her tormentors.
Martha’s eyes tightened into a smile of satisfaction watching Annie lean forward presenting her bare nape to Carol
Was Annabella really so far gone, so deeply entwined, and entrapped in her self- spun web of servitude and self-deceit? A web, that, over the weeks and months, had been mockingly and insidiously, preened, pruned and tightened so cynically and comprehensively around her by a housekeeper and maid to take her mind?
 “That’s right, good girl.”
The snap of the lock on the silver band placed loosely around Annie’s neck had a sound of permanence mainly because it was permanent.
Annie’s fingers toyed nervously with the band around her neck and Carol smirked.
“There girl, just like Miss Annabella wanted for you. Annie you are truly a maid at Buckshire Manor now.”
Annie her fingers still at the band looked appreciatively at Mrs Hardwick, then at her Mistress before instinctively dropping a curtsy.
“Thank you, Miss Hardwick, Mistress.”
The baptism of maid Annie probably came with her first bare bottomed spanking now, following over two months of wicked and unforgiving subjugation at the hands of the housekeeper and a former maid at Buckshire manor, fuelling, nurturing and consolidating deep rooted desires and fantasies of servility, Miss Annabella Montgomery acquiesced  to the indignity of her inauguration and confirmation of being reduced to the status of maid  at Buckshire manor with passive and willing acceptance.
The band locked around Annie’s neck hung like a fallen crown, a symbol proclaiming her own conspired annulment of all she ever was or could have been, there would be no going back she was Annie now, a maid in her own home and nothing more. Perhaps not the end to the intended pretence Miss Annabella Montgomery had considered at the outset for her maid Annie. How could she have known that her desires to become a maid where not shared even more passionately by others and that by taking the apron for the housekeeper of Buckshire manor her fate was sealed and her perverse desires to be a maid would become her reality.
The first visitors to Buckshire manor were a small group of Martha’s friends and an attentive maid welcomed them at the doorway to take their coats and guide them to her awaiting Mistress in the parlour. One of the guests, Catherine, having given her wrap to a curtsying Annie paused by the mirror to straighten the collar of her blouse then looked up at the portrait of the beautiful Miss Annabella Montgomery and turned to Annie.
What a lovely picture, beautiful isn’t she, her hair, her figure, her complexion and that lovely dress and jewels. Who is this young lady?
Annie curtsied.
“Miss Annabella, Miss, the daughter of the Earl and Countess.”
Catherine stared at the maid.
“You have similar eyes girl, but perhaps not the bags under them. Now where is your Miss Jarvis?”
Annie served tea and cakes to her Mistresses guests before returning to the laundry to complete the days wash.
Martha’s first public showing of her maid Annie could not have gone better, two of her guests knew of Miss Annabella and had been in her company on numerous occasions. Neither having recognised the collared and busy housemaid to be anything other than what she was. Martha’s friend Catherine had remarked on the lovely portrait in the hallway of Miss Annabella never suspecting the maid by her side had been one and the same until the beautiful young lady in the portrait chose to demean herself and give herself up into the clutches of the housekeeper of Buckshire manor. Tempted as she was to expose her humble maid to be the subjugated Miss Annabella, Martha resisted that temptation.
Two weeks before the planned return of the Earl and Countess and along with the stable groom the gardeners had returned to Buckshire manor to manicure the large lawns and make ready the expansive gardens of the manor.
Assured that the dumpy physical remnants of Miss Annabella Montgomery with her hair black and shorn, collared, aproned and swathed in her uniform of service, cloaked any resemblance to who she had been, Martha had no issues in the gardeners seeing her maid at work. Wishing to retain their jobs, the pair paid the maid little attention, the Countess was quite strict regarding males fraternising with her maids.
The gardeners had only ever seen Miss Annabella from a distance long flowing hair and always impeccably dressed in fine dresses, perhaps boarding a carriage, or strolling in the grounds. When they entered the kitchens for refreshments why would they consider Annie to be anyone other than she was, just one of Buckshire manor’s maids.
Carol passing through the lower hallway stopped to watch Annie cleaning and polishing the balustrades of the main staircase and chuckled at the irony. Carol thought of the times she herself had been down on her hands and knees cleaning the hallway looking up at Miss Annabella, aloof, serene and resplendent gliding down the staircase in one of her beautiful frocks. Dethroned and brought down from her pedestal of privilege, dressed in her uniform of service, now a common maid herself cleaning and polishing the very same staircase.
Did Carol feel sorry for Annabella, a tinge of guilt perhaps for what she and Martha had done with her, to her? No, the arrogant, spoiled heiress deserved everything that had been done to her. Thinking the conceited rich bitch could play at being a maid whilst her parents were away, well she is not playing now.
Only a week until the return of the Earl and Countess and after a well prepared and served lunch Carol was ready to leave and Martha handed her an envelope containing the money she had been promised.
“You have been paid well Carol and I trust you will not mention a word of this to anyone, what has been done here.”
Carol laughed counting her money
“What, tell someone that Miss Annabella Montgomery, the daughter of the Earl and Countess of Buckshire, wanted to be a maid and now is a maid called Annie who proudly wears the countesses’ collar of service at Buckshire manor! Like anyone would believe that!”
Martha sipped her tea.
“Yes, quite so, you are probably right, but all the same not a word.”
Walking back to the nearby village, to arrange a carriage to take her home, Carol chuckled to herself. When Martha had got in touch with her and told her what she had planned for Miss Annabella, what Miss Anabella had actually demanded Martha do with her and to her she couldn’t wait to get involved but never thought that it would go as far as it had. She had done like she was asked, enjoyed doing it and had been paid well. What the Earl and Countess would make of what had been done to their daughter, when they returned to find that she was now a willing servile maid at the manor wearing one of the countesses own collars, made her chuckle even more, but that was none of her concern now.

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