11.
There is no royal road to settling old debts.
Cutting off the past cleanly and running away is only possible when one cares for no one but oneself.
It means leaving the consequences for others to shoulder and pretending it has nothing to do with you.
Unlike in her previous life, Nina now carried a conscience.
So, for the time being, she set aside her dream of escaping the mortal world and resolved instead to follow the lessons she had gleaned from all those novels about people who turned back time.
Nothing grand—just the simple rule of facing her past misdeeds one by one and setting them right.
“Marsha, fetch the head maid.”
“The head maid, milady?”
“Yes.
I think it’s time I reviewed the household affairs.”
She had neglected the duties of mistress, intent only on securing a divorce and leaving at once.
But since she was bound to remain here for as long as a year, it was time to return to her proper role.
If she failed to fulfill her obligations, how could she ever dare hold her head high?
To live in peace—at least within her own home—she would first have to dispel the hostile glances directed at her.
Start with the head maid.
The one who had managed the household in her stead was Melanie.
Even before her regression she had practically abandoned those duties because of her obsessive tendencies, and after her return she had deliberately ignored them altogether.
Now, after discarding her responsibilities for so long, it would be no surprise if Melanie found it absurd that she wanted to take them up again.
But there was no helping it.
The surest way to prove her change of heart was through household management.
After all, wasn’t that the golden rule of romance-fantasy novels?
“Milady, you called for me.”
Before long, Melanie appeared.
Perhaps because their every meeting had led to friction in the past, a faint wariness lingered on her face.
“I have been unwell in both body and spirit, and so I pushed my duties onto you.
You have truly endured much on my behalf.”
“…It was simply the work I have always carried out in your absence, milady.
I would not call it hardship.”
Was that her way of saying Don’t even think about putting your hands back on household authority?
Sorry, but that was not an option.
“From this point on, I intend to take charge of the household management again.”
Melanie’s eyes sharpened.
“Milady, nearly half of the budget has already been spent according to the plan, and the remainder is allocated to specific purposes.
In other words, there is nothing left for you to manage.”
For a moment, Nina felt a pang of bitterness at the distrust laced within those blunt words.
“That is for me to review and judge.
You know well that I do not require your permission to do so, don’t you?”
A crease formed between the head maid’s brows.
In the past, Nina had repeatedly replaced expensive tea sets on a whim, purchased ingredients until they spoiled
—arguing that excess was preferable to shortage
—and squandered the quarterly allowance meant for maintaining the household’s dignity, even going so far as to put the estate in debt.
For someone like her to suddenly declare she would take charge of household affairs again, it was only natural for Melanie to be alarmed.
“I am not unaware of what it is you fear.”
A wicked wife who had lived in extravagance and caprice.
Her mistrust was nothing more than the consequence of Nina’s own past behavior.
“But I have no intention of causing trouble as I once did.
I only wish to fulfill my duty.
So, will you not lend me your help?”
Before marriage, she had been an object of envy-after marriage, of pity and scorn.
Once, she had tried to fill the emptiness between those extremes with material things, but she now realized such measures could never be a true solution.
So long as her worth depended on the gaze of others, soothing her heart with consumption was nothing more than pouring water into a bottomless jar.
Nina met the head maid’s sharp gaze and waited for her reply.
Perhaps she sensed the absence of deceit in her words.
After a long, heavy sigh, Melanie spoke quietly.
“…I shall bring the duty logs and account books.
Milady ought to review them as well.”
“Thank you.”
A soft smile blossomed across Nina’s face.
It was not a clear promise to relinquish control, but the willingness to let her inspect the records was as good as halfway there.
All right.
From here on, I’ll give it my all!
It was also her chance to grow closer to the head maid.
Nina’s blue eyes sparkled with determination.
One of the foremost virtues of a lady of the house was frugality.
And Melanie, who had managed the Bayern household for several years, was a woman who clung to frugality like second nature.
Am I really in any position to take back control of the household…?
Page after page,
as Nina turned through the ledgers Melanie had brought, her blue eyes trembled as though shaken by an earthquake.
Perhaps it was because the head maid came from a family that had served as stewards of the Bayern dukedom for generations.
Or perhaps it was simply the weight of her decades of experience.
Either way, Melanie’s records were near flawless.
And yet—
“Why is the budget this low?”
Nina asked gravely.
The finances of a high-ranking ducal house were vast beyond what commoners could ever imagine.
She knew this well—she herself was born of the Taylor dukedom.
But the operating budget allotted to the Bayern household was no more than seventy percent of Taylor’s.
Considering that the Bayern estate was even larger than Taylor’s, the figure was nothing short of absurd.
“As you can see in the ledgers, even that much is more than enough to keep the household running.”
Could it be that the head maid herself had requested only this much funding?
This is practically like trying to survive on pocket change for an entire week.
To be frank, if Melanie truly managed to run this estate on such a sum, Nina had no confidence she could ever do better.
After all, to an employer, nothing was more important than cutting costs.
But there’s no way a household can run this tightly without cracks forming somewhere.
Budget plans, work logs, ledgers—
After combing through every record, Nina closed the final page and spoke.
“No matter how I look at it, the intervals for replenishing supplies are far too long.”
The ledgers showed that items provided for the staff’s use were replaced or replenished at painfully long intervals, or in meager quantities.
Soap, detergent, candles, oil lamps—things that needed steady replacement.
Even uniforms for the servants.
“I do not believe frugality itself is a fault, milady.”
“But run things this way, and the servants must have been far from content, no?”
“We pay higher wages here than most other houses.
They are expected to bear with a little inconvenience.”
Could she truly claim those wages were generous?
Nina doubted it.
If the household failed to provide what was needed, then the servants would simply have to purchase it from their own pockets.
“…With you, I suppose the household could be managed on the barest of budgets.
From an employer’s view, that must be exceedingly satisfying.”
Melanie was the very model of a servant of this age—one who labored with a sense of ownership.
To the master, she was a flawless head maid.
And yet, paradoxically, that perfection was the greatest problem.
…Not that it isn’t convenient for me.
She had been wondering how best to change her reputation, and here, at last, she thought she had found the answer.
The problem is, I can’t carry out my plan with the budget that’s left…
Since she couldn’t draw upon future funds, only one option remained.
“I’ll have a few of the tea sets I bought last time sold off.
Use the proceeds to purchase the supplies the servants truly need.”
“Milady, it is well and good to secure extra funds—but there is no need to waste money.”
How could providing necessities possibly be called wasteful?
Words like that could make one want to start a labor union in the ducal estate.
With a weary sigh, Nina replied—
“Don’t pinch pennies only to make people suffer inconveniences.”
At the very least, the essentials should be provided as a matter of welfare.
Yes, they had come here to earn wages, but they were also members of this household.
“And should we provide comforts on top of the higher wages they already receive?
On the contrary—they ought to prove themselves worth the pay they’re given.”
It was a statement typical of an age with no concept of welfare—rigid, narrow, and blind.
Nina fixed her gaze on Melanie’s hands.
“And tell me, what has all that ‘proving your worth’ bought you?”
A lifetime of loyalty to House Bayern had worn down Melanie’s hands.
The ridges of her fingerprints had all but vanished-her palms were cracked and raw, hardened with calluses and eczema.
And
that was only what showed.
She hid it well, but Nina knew her wrists, her fingers, her arms, her knees, her very back—every joint and sinew—
was plagued with the aches of a lifelong servant.
“If money is bought at the price of your health, then what use is it?”
“……”
Nina’s eyes deepened as she looked at Melanie’s battered fingertips, her voice turning almost gentle, as though coaxing a child.
“I know well how much effort you’ve poured into this.
One need only look at these ledgers and reports to see it.
But tell me—how does it look to you?”
“…What is it you’re trying to say, milady?”
“Is this house truly so wretched that it can only stand upon your sacrifice?”
Surely House Bayern was not so pitiful a lineage.