Story: What Annabella Wants Annabella Gets. Chapter 4.

by Jackie J

The Earl and Countesses time at their summer retreat was drawing to a close and preparations for the return to Buckshire manor were underway. Neither looking forward to the week- long journey home but for different reasons. Malcom, the doddering Asthmatic half blind Earl had benefited from the clean air of the Alps which he would miss and the Bath chair to which he was confined made travel difficult and uncomfortable. The yellow fever, contracted shortly after his marriage to his second wife Constance, had ravaged his body and left him with failing eyesight and aged beyond his years.

For her part, the vivacious Countess, the second wife of the Earl and less than half his age, would miss her secretive dalliances afforded to her in this foreign land. With the Earl, house bound and left in the Chateaux, the long walks, taken by the Countess, regularly terminated at the lodgings of Lord Edmunds for the physical pounding her young body craved, which, of course, her crippled husband could not provide. The Earl had two women in his life, his adulterous wife of course and his daughter, his  pampered princess, the jewel of his eye, nothing was too much for her, she could do no wrong, whatever she wanted she got, something the stepmother of the spoiled brat resented with a passion. The question of inheritance never far from the Countesses’ mind.

When Miss Jarvis, the housekeeper at Buckshire Manor, received the preposterous demand from Miss Annabella she was dumbfounded. She had seen what had happened to other staff when the little witch could not get her way, the girl did not know the meaning of the word no. Anxious for her position Martha confided in the Countess what Miss Annabella had asked of her.

Constance laughed out loud when her housekeeper told her what her stepdaughter had demanded of her whilst she and the Earl were away for three months at their summer retreat in Switzerland. Martha expected to be told to ignore Annabella, that the Countess would have words, bring the stupid girl to her senses.

Not so, the Countess stood from behind her writing desk and closed the study door before retaking her seat.

Constance looked up at her housekeeper and asked her to sit then, with disguised humour in her voice kept a serious expression and spoke.

“Well, well, well, Annabella. Daddy's little princess a maid, Annabella wants to be a maid, to be dressed and treated as a maid you say. Who would have thought it? What an exquisite and intriguing prospect! Annabella to become one of my maids. How perfect will that be! What have you said to her?”

Sat across from her Mistress Martha was wishing she had not mentioned the matter now and feared all this would not end well for her.  

“Nothing, Mistress. I said she should reconsider the matter, but she was quite insistent, very insistent, said she would see to it that I would lose my position at Buckshire manor if I did not comply with her demands. It does not make sense, Mistress. You insist on the strictest of rules for your maids at the manor, Miss Annabella knows this, she herself treats the maids so shabbily, shouts at them. It just does not make sense what she is asking. How could I possibly treat Miss Anabella like I do the maids here? But that is what she wants from me, to treat her like a common housemaid, and all that that implies. That's her words, Mistress.”

Constance’s lip curled into a smile.

“Not a word of this to anyone else. Tell her that you agree to do what she asks, but that you will need an agreement from her, in writing, when you have it bring it to me, we will speak later on this matter.”

Martha stood from her seat and curtsied somewhat confused with the Countesses reaction.

“Yes, Mistress, as you wish.”

Martha was opening the study door to leave when the Countess called her back.

“Wait, before you go, do we require another maid at Buckshire manor?”

Martha, even more confused, spoke honestly, one of her best maids had been dismissed and not replaced over a year ago.

“I can always use an extra pair of hands, Mistress.”

The Countess had always known, since marrying the Earl, that the Earls daughter, to put it politely, was mentally fragile if not unstable. Most who knew Annabella putting her mood swings and petulant, irrational behaviour down to her being somewhat immature for her age. This ludicrous request, being made of Buckshire manors housekeeper by Annabella, serving to confirm a madness that, with the right encouragement, could be exploited, tip the pretty young thing over the edge? Constance chuckled to herself. Malcom’s precocious, arrogant daughter, at her own request, wanting to become one of my fawning housemaids, perfect, just perfect. The silly girl was even paying Martha for the privilege out of the generous allowance her father insists on her having. If all goes to plan there will be no more allowance for Annabella, Annabella, now that is no name for a maid, let me think, Annie. Constance laughed out loud. Yes Annie, a most suitable name for Buckshire manors new maid.

Sat at dinner Constance looked down the table at her husband. Before his illness she had so many plans for them both but now, with Malcom wracked with pain and confined to his bath chair, all he thought of was his daughter. With Annabella seeking to be confine herself below stairs perhaps that could change.

Only a week, after Martha had revealed to the Countess Annabella’s wish to become a maid, Buckshire manors housekeeper received a written agreement from an excited Annabella, which Martha gave to the Countess.

Martha sat opposite her Mistress whilst the Countess perused the agreement and Martha took note of the amendments she suggested. A name change, Miss Jarvis’s maid will be called Annie, no use of Annabella’s private chambers, whilst not mentioned in the agreement Miss Annabella’s apartments were to be stripped bare. Miss Annabella, Annie, to use the vacant maid’s quarters and Miss Annabella must only be referred to at all times in the third person. A maid’s uniform to be worn at all times, including underwear and boots, the housekeeper to have total and unquestioned authority at the manor and over her maid.

A month before the Countess was scheduled to leave for Switzerland, the Countess called her housekeeper to her study. The revised and rewritten agreement, that Miss Annabella had given to Martha, now signed by both the housekeeper of Buckshire manor and Miss Annabella Montgomery, sat on the Countesses desk.

The Countess sat up in her chair and chuckled.

“So, Miss Jarvis, this agreement is quite clear. I trust you will deliver on the demands that Annabella has written, by her own hand in this agreement, and of course the other matters we that have discussed?"

Martha was still wary why the Countess would even countenance such a preposterous proposal let alone actively encourage it and for it to be taken much further than Miss Annabella could ever have thought would be the outcome for her.  However, when a velvet bag was pushed across the desk by the Countess, the contents being well known to the housekeeper of Buckshire manor, there could be no doubting the intent of the Countess.

“Take this and the agreement. I suggest you start making your preparations, the money you will need is in the pouch by the door. Miss Annabella wishes to be one of my maids and when I return from my time at the summer retreat a maid she shall be. Do not let Miss Annabella down, Miss Jarvis, but more importantly do not let me down. You know what you are to do, whatever that takes.”

Martha left her mistresses study clutching the agreement and velvet bag along a significant amount of money to cover expenses. The Countesses instructions were explicit which Martha, who despised the spoilt Annabella, even found extreme. This was to be more than the indulgence of Miss Annabella’s whim; this was to be much more.

When Martha was first approached by Miss Annabella, with such an absurd demand, whilst not wishing to get on the wrong side of the Countesses daughter, by dismissing the idea out of hand, she had hoped it was some foolish idea that, having thought through what she was asking, Miss Annabella would pass it off as some sort of joke, a tease. How wrong she was.

First the request for a written agreement, such an agreement being quickly provided. Then, when presented with the amendments, that unknowingly to Annabella had been prepared by the Countess, Miss Annabella, with growing enthusiasm, complied without question signing herself under the control of Miss Jarvis and into the service of Berkshire manor with little or no consideration of the potential and indeed intended implications for her.  

With the Countesses blessing and Miss Annabella’s written agreement to indulge her perverse desires, the housekeeper of Buckshire manor had been given carte blanche to reduce the precocious aristocrat, Miss Annabella Montgomery, to the status of a lowly maid. Far from now wishing this to be a foolish idea or tease Martha looked forward to her task with relish.

Three months had passed, and Martha smirked with satisfaction at her maid whilst it served breakfast, could the transformation of the pompous aristocrat, Miss Annabella Montgomery, have been more complete? Not only did maid Annie display simpering, curtsying, servility befitting of a housemaid, her domestic and culinary skills, thanks to Mrs Hardwicks brutal tutorage, could not be questioned.

The arrogant Miss Annabella had initially been subtly encouraged and nurtured into a life of domestic service, a life that she had demanded for herself from Buckshire manor’s housekeeper.  But, subsequently, once entrapped in her own fantasy, forcibly coerced, browbeaten, degraded, spanked, strapped, slapped, and subjugated until all thought of privilege had been painfully supressed and stripped from her.

Beyond Annabella’s capitulation and acceptance to the reality of being a housemaid, the continual physical hardship and torment, to the point of emotional distress, coupled with the unrelenting psychological indoctrination and manipulation of her fragile mind, served to feed Annabella’s perverse desired persona, that of a common maid.  

The Earl and Countess would be returning to Buckshire manor from their summer break during the week ahead and Martha was preparing for their return.

With the Countesses selections from her wardrobe, which Miss Jarvis had been given her pick, laundered and return to their respective closets along with the jewellery she had use of, Miss Jarvis returned to more traditional dress for her role of housekeeper.

Within the isolation of Buckshire manor, with only herself  and  ex maid Carol, Annie had been distanced from who she had been and the visits from Martha’s friends and the brief interaction with the manors gardeners and groom had seen no ambition for Annie to identify to be other than who she had become, one of Buckshire manors housemaids. Martha however was a little concerned that no matter how deeply ingrained Annie’s pretence, it would be put to the test on the Earl and Countesses return. What Mollie and Jenny, Miss Jarvis’s established maids at Buckshire manor, would make of the new maid was another matter.

Summoned into the parlour, having cleared away after breakfast, Annie, her gaze lowered, curtsied.

“Miss?”

Martha walked to her maid and having straightened its cap smiled running her fingers around the silver band of accepted service at Buckshire manor which hung around its neck.

“Well Annie, the Earl and Countess will be returning to the manor shortly and it will be your opportunity to show what a good maid you are, that you are deserving of the Countesses collar that you now wear, that you truly are the maid Miss Annabella wished for you to become at Buckshire manor.”

Annie slowly raised her head and stared at Martha. Had Annabella’s befuddled mind totally forgotten who she really was? The mention of the return of the Earl and Countess, her Father and Constance, spiked her mind with unresolved puzzlement. For months she had been Annie the maid, and an accomplished maid she had become. Miss Annabella, the beautiful young women whose portrait hung in the hallway, had, by insidious and relentless indoctrination, become a stranger a figment, a fantasy, one to be respected and admired. Miss Annabella was the daughter of the Earl and Countess. In lucid dreams Annie was the girl in the portrait, she was Miss Annabella. These dreams, through the first month, causing haunting mental conflict. The second month less so, but now no longer. Beyond that first month any mention of such a fantasy being met with ridicule and rewarded with punishment for such a presumption of association. Annie still dreamed, of course she did, but now, even in the sanctuary of slumber, Miss Annabella was thought of only in the third person. Annabella’s Memories being accepted to be mere imaginings, fantasises of a lowly maid to live a life of leisure and privilege. Miss Annabella the beautiful daughter of the Earl and Countess had given Annie the opportunity to become a maid at Buckshire manor and for which, like Miss Jarvis and Mrs Hardwick had drummed relentlessly into her muddled mind, she must always be thankful. 

Did the news of the impending return of the Earl and Countess, her father and stepmother, bring Annabella to her senses, incite Annie to break free from the chains of self-delusional madness that now shackled her mind, body and soul? Make her scream in denial of what she had wilfully allowed to become of her at the hands of Buckshire manor’s manipulative housekeeper?

No, of course not, Annie’s eyes returned to their lowered gaze of respect and Martha smiled content that Miss Annabella, and all she was, resided hidden away, driven deep in the recesses of the broken subconscious mind of her maid, maid Annie.

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