The moment Arad left, Ivnia’s legs gave way and she sank to the floor.
“Mama?” Ranelli ran from the corner.
Ivnia forced a smile and opened her arms. “I just stumbled, that’s all.”
“Are you all right?”
“Perfectly. Come here, my love.”
She held her daughter tight, pressing her cheek to the child’s hair, masking the pain in her face. Her heart raced. Ranelli’s warmth fell like soft dew on her parched, aching chest.
‘Did he come just to find fault?’ His words blurred in her mind, only his cold tone and sharp voice remained.
‘I am in his way.’ Had there been no will, no inheritance, he would have ignored her entirely. Once the matter was settled, she would be cast out.
‘I must hurry.’
She fought the trembling in her limbs. Facing Arad was far harder than she had imagined. Beneath the fear of losing Ranelli lay another, deeper dread: ‘I will not let you hurt me again.’
He terrified her more than anyone else, his hold on her heart had never broken.
‘It will be all right. Achieve our purpose and leave.’ She squeezed Ranelli closer; the little girl hugged her back, sure and sweet.
❖❖❖
Around the time the employees had finished their early breakfast, the sound of a bell calling the employees together rang out from the main building of the mansion.
Ivnia had planned to keep Ranelli hidden away in the detached house while she worked, but she hesitated.
‘I think Arad said he would send people to the detached house. I should keep Ranelli somewhere else until he is finished with his business.’
She did not want Ranelli to come into contact with other people if she could avoid it. Especially if they were people who could be reached by Arad.
It might have been a case of feeling guilty even though she had done nothing wrong, but Ivnia did not want Ranelli to be seen here, at least.
After thinking it over, Ivenia took Ranelli by the hand and walked with her toward the main building. Near the stables behind the mansion was a shed where hay for the livestock was dried. As far as she remembered, not many people entered this shed.
Ivnia took Ranelli inside and had her climb the steep ladder leading upward. There was a small attic there.
“Ranelli. If you stay here quietly, Mommy will stop by for a little while at lunchtime, so wait for me. You might get in the way if people come, so you have to stay quiet, okay?”
“Yes. I understand.”
Ranelli nodded as if she were accustomed to it.
Ivnia had always worked; her mother, frail and in need, could not watch her. Ranelli had learned to wait in hidden places, to be good so her Mama would not be troubled.
“After twenty nights, we’ll go home, so you can listen to Mommy until then, right? I’ll try my best to get us home as quickly as possible.”
“Okay, I understand. Can I make a doll with the cloth I found yesterday?”
Ranelli pulled out the old scraps of cloth she had found in a chest inside the detached house last night. She seemed to have kept them because she expected to be bored alone.
Ivenia stroked Ranelli’s head and nodded.
“As many as you want.”
Ivnia did not feel at ease leaving the child alone, so she looked back at Ranelli several times before finally stepping outside.
Ranelli was an extremely quiet and cautious child who rarely got into trouble, but she was still only seven years old. Even though this was not the first time Ivnia had left her alone to go to work, her heart always felt as anxious as if it were the first time.
‘I need to find the research materials quickly.’
The places where the research materials were most likely to be stored were the former Duke’s bedroom, study, and library. There were only a few places to search, but the problem was that all three were heavily secured.
‘An opportunity will come eventually.’
The Gelendzik estate was enormous, and there were people everywhere. But even so, there were times when things were hidden right under one’s nose.
‘It would be nice if I could be assigned to clean the fourth floor.’
Ivnia hoped desperately that she would have such luck.
However, Head Maid Selby took her to the semi-basement laundry room on the opposite side of the kitchen.
“You came without a letter of introduction, so it would be best for you to learn the work from the beginning.”
Selby spoke coldly as she handed Ivnia over to Olivia, the senior maid in the laundry room.
Laundry was the most grueling task among the maids’ duties. To get through the mountain of laundry, they had to keep their hands submerged in water all day until their fingers became wrinkled and eventually even lost sensation.
Many apprentice maids ran away because they could no longer endure their eczema and the pain of their cracked, swollen skin. As a result, work in the laundry room was always backed up, and they were always short-handed.
Olivia, the senior maid in the laundry room, had been whispering something secretly with Selby before throwing a bundle of laundry at Ivenia with a displeased expression.
“If you can’t finish all of this by lunchtime, you’d better not even think about leaving the laundry room.”
Olivia was around the same age as Ivenia and was responsible for training the younger apprentice maids. Her job was to give the apprentices difficult work, and if they seemed to have enough perseverance, teach them proper etiquette and assign them to places that needed workers.
Because of that, an older newcomer like Ivnia was unfamiliar and irritating to Olivia.
“I won’t let it slide if you use your age as an excuse to slack off.”
She narrowed her eyes and repeatedly watched Ivnia to see whether she would show any sign of displeasure.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Ivnia obediently took the laundry, sat down in her assigned place, and began washing. Rather than worrying about the mountain of laundry in front of her, her only thought was how she could search through the rooms on the fourth floor.
‘I’ll finish quickly and look for an opportunity during the break.’
Ivnia worked busily without straightening her back even once. She had worked in a laundry room when she first came here as well. Drawing on that experience, she had also gone around doing laundry for other people’s households in her hometown.
She was highly skilled, quick with her hands, and had no intention of cutting corners. There was nothing to criticize about her work. Yet somehow, even though she was getting through the laundry faster and more perfectly than anyone else, the amount of laundry piled up behind her showed no sign of decreasing.
‘That’s strange. It feels like the laundry keeps piling up.’
Only after several hours did she realize something was wrong. She carefully observed the people around her. Then she noticed the apprentice maids behind her giggling as they gradually added their laundry to Ivnia’s pile.
They were young girls who looked to be no older than fourteen to sixteen.
‘Wouldn’t Ranelli look something like that when she gets a little older?’
Thinking that way, she could not bring herself to feel entirely resentful toward the girls for what they were doing. However, she had no intention of acting foolishly either.
Ivnia pretended not to notice. Then, at one point, she suddenly grabbed the arm of a girl who was reaching for her laundry.
“Ah!”
She looked straight at the girl with calm but firm eyes.
“If you need help, it’s better to ask. Even if something like this may seem insignificant, it’s still a bad thing to do because it’s no different from stealing someone else’s time and effort.”
“W-What are you saying I did?”
The girl struggled to pull her hand away from Ivenia.
Although Ivnia looked slender and as though she could not exert much strength, her body, hardened by a difficult life, was stronger than it appeared.
The girl tried to forcibly pull her hand free, then suddenly let out a sharp cry.
“Ow, it hurts!”
Looking down at the girl’s hand, Ivnia clicked her tongue inwardly. The tiny, fern-like hand caught in her grasp was horribly cracked and peeling.
“If you scrub stains without knowing how, your fingertips will quickly become damaged.”
“……”
“I’ll show you how to remove stains without getting blisters on your hands, so tell me if you need help. Once you know the trick, you can finish the work without overworking your hands.”
“N-No, it’s fine.”
Perhaps feeling troubled after seeing that Ivnia was concerned about her and willing to help despite what she had done, the girl turned away with a bright-red face.
The girls who had been eavesdropping on their conversation became quiet for a while. Silence fell over the laundry room, which had previously been filled with the girls’ chattering whispers. Sensing the strange atmosphere, Olivia strode toward Ivnia.
“What did you just say to that girl?”
Ivnia quietly stood before Olivia and explained the situation.
“Her hands were badly damaged, so I was going to teach her some tricks if she wanted to—”
Olivia cut her off before she could finish and raised her voice.
“I suppose the work is too easy for you, leaving you with enough time to worry about other people’s circumstances?”
Ivnia realized that Olivia’s attitude was excessively sharp and that she seemed to be enjoying herself.
The gleam of interest in her eyes, the mocking smile. Ivnia knew that cruel expression well.
It was the face of someone who took pleasure in tormenting a powerless person who could not resist, someone considered impure by everyone and therefore easy to torment without guilt.
Regardless of the reason, she intended to torment her somehow. She wanted to feel that dark pleasure.
“Training the apprentice maids is my responsibility. I suppose you’re unhappy with the way I do my job?”
“……I’m sorry. I overstepped my bounds.”
Ivnia lowered her head before Olivia’s authority.
She held her breath so that her boiling sense of injustice, rebelliousness, pride, and sorrow would not dare escape.
‘It’s okay. I’m used to enduring things. It will be over soon.’
Olivia grinned maliciously as she glared at Ivenia.
“If you’re so confident and have so much free time, then I suppose you can handle all this backed-up laundry by yourself.”
Olivia had the apprentice maids bring all the accumulated laundry and pile it up like a mountain behind Ivenia.
Ivenia’s face went pale at the absurdly increased workload.
“Don’t even think about moving until you’ve finished all of this.”
It was such an enormous amount that even giving up her entire break would not be enough.
Ivnia had been repeating to herself that she had to endure, remain silent, and keep her head down, but Ranelli suddenly filled her thoughts. Thinking of the child made her vision go dark, and she finally opened her mouth and desperately pleaded.
“I’ll work through the night if I have to, so please let me eat. No, there’s a child waiting for me. Please just let me take some food to her……”
“How are we supposed to take everyone’s personal circumstances into account while assigning work? Do you think you’re the only one who tries to get out of work that way?”
Olivia scoffed and coldly walked out of the laundry room.
Ivnia stood there dazed for a while with a pale face, then hurried back to her place as if possessed and began working at a frightening speed.
But everyone there knew.
No matter how hard Ivnia worked, she would not be able to finish her assigned quota today.