‘This is troublesome… It’s not like I can take a day off just because I’m sick…’
Aside from the fact that the laundry room was still short-handed, Marsha would never permit her to take sick leave.
Edele sighed and sat up in bed.
‘I’ll just go to work, eat lunch quickly, and ask Mr. Marco to buy me some medicine. Surely she’ll at least allow me to receive and take it.’
Mr. Marco Molten, Daisy’s father, whom she had gotten to know when they exchanged greetings about a month ago, had told her to let him know whenever she needed to buy something from outside.
She wanted to avoid being a burden if she could help it, but since she couldn’t leave the mansion at will as a captive, she felt she had no choice but to ask him this time.
Thinking it was fortunate she at least had someone to ask for medicine, Edele heaved her body up, which felt as heavy as water-soaked cotton.
When she met Salia and Laila at breakfast, they noticed immediately that Edele was ill the moment they saw her face.
“Are you sick? You look terrible…”
“I think I’ve caught a cold. I’ll just buy some medicine, take it, and get a good night’s sleep; I’m sure I’ll get better.”
“Don’t take a cold lightly. If you’re not careful, it can turn into pneumonia. There aren’t many clothes to wash today, so take it easy.”
“Salia…”
Just as Edele was about to thank them, Marsha appeared, leading her ‘praetorian guard.’
And the moment she saw Edele, she wore a meaningful smile. It didn’t feel right at all.
“Hmm! Come to think of it, it’s already been over a month since the New Year. It’ll be March before we know it.”
At Marsha’s sudden remark, everyone stopped eating and looked at her in confusion. There were still more than a month and a half left until March.
However, Marsha ignored everyone’s gaze and continued.
“We need to do the spring cleaning of the mansion in March, and it’ll be chaotic if we wait until the last minute. Don’t you agree?”
“Well, I suppose… so.”
Someone answered reluctantly, but the servants remained suspicious. It was something done exactly the same way every year, and the Krissus Count family didn’t do any grand cleaning just because the seasons changed.
But Marsha pretended to be deep in thought before lifting her head to look at Salia as if she had made a decision.
“Salia!”
“Yes…?”
“Wash all the spring curtains today.”
“Pardon? Suddenly? We’re still a long way off from March!”
Salia’s brows furrowed sharply, but Marsha only looked pleased.
“Whether we do it today or a month from now, it has to be done anyway. It’s better to get it over with early. The weather should be nice today and tomorrow, so they’ll dry well.”
“But just with the laundry that’s already piled up…!”
“Isn’t that why we gave the laundry room more help? You and Laila can handle the laundry from today, and have the new girl do the curtains.”
At those words, Salia and Laila’s gazes turned to Edele. It was a look that showed they realized exactly what Marsha was aiming for.
“Edele!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You can do it, right? You’ve been learning the work for nearly three months now; if you say you can’t even do this much, you’re either an idiot or a fool, aren’t you?”
Marsha clearly knew at a glance that Edele was not feeling well. Otherwise, there was no reason to bring up work that was nearly two months away.
“I will do my best.”
“Doing your best isn’t enough. You must finish it. And!”
Marsha tried to suppress a smirk and spoke with forced sternness.
“You know the curtains must be washed in cold water, don’t you? You were raised delicately, so I’m just saying this in case you use hot water without thinking.”
“Ma’am! What are you saying? The weather is this cold…!”
Salia protested on her behalf, but Marsha glared viciously at her as well.
“Salia. Have you ever washed curtains in hot water before?”
“That’s only because we don’t wash curtains in the dead of winter!”
“Whether it’s winter or summer! You’ll use a lot of water; how are we supposed to afford the firewood if you heat it all up!”
Marsha went on to sneer that young maids these days only want to work comfortably and that they were immature, before adding one more thing as if talking to herself.
“Why should I give you extra firewood? It would be different if you did something nice.”
Then, as if nothing had happened, she continued her meal. It seemed to be a hint that if she wanted things to be easier, she should offer a bribe.
Edele tore a piece of bread without saying a word. However, the fever she had felt since dawn was getting worse.
‘It’s okay. Maybe my fever will go down if I keep my hands in the cold water…’
Clinging to such a hopeless wish, she forced the dry bread into her mouth. She wouldn’t have the strength to hold out if she didn’t eat, even if she was already sick.
Even just taking the spring curtains out of the storage room and moving them to the laundry room was a huge task, so Edele felt a sense of urgency.
“I’ll head out first. Please take your time.”
After she hurriedly finished her plate, she wrapped her hair in a headscarf.
“Let’s go together, Edele.”
“It’s alright. I know which storage room the spring curtains are in.”
“You know where they are, but you don’t know how many there are, do you? There are 75 bags in total!”
It meant there were 75 bags in total, each containing a pair of curtains—one for each side of the window—which meant Edele had to wash 150 curtains today.
Salia and Laila stuffed the rest of their food into their mouths and led Edele to the first-floor storage room.
“Damn bitch. She’s just so wicked.”
As soon as they were away from the dining hall, Salia spewed profanity at Marsha.
Laila chimed in from the side, saying, “Do you know this? They say you have to pay 100 Lington a month just to be a ‘lackey’ for Lady Bohen. Our monthly salary is only 1,000 Lington!”
“You pay a tribute?”
“That’s right, a ‘tribute’! I remember that word now.”
While Laila marveled at the new word she’d learned, Salia was still gnashing her teeth.
“Is she a thug? Extorting money from people working in the same mansion and creating factions?”
“Lady Bohen is obsessed with money. They say she earned so much money here that she bought a decent house in the Durum district.”
“Hah! She kept going on about ‘money, money,’ so I thought she had a house in the Carrera district, but it’s only in the Baltiche district?”
The Carrera district was for wealthy commoners, and the Baltiche district was for middle-class commoners.
Salia made a snide remark about it not being the Carrera district, but even for a housekeeper of a high-ranking noble family, living in the Carrera district was impossible. Usually, they bought houses on nice streets in the Baltiche district. And if it was Durum street among them, it wasn’t bad.
Furthermore, if she had bought it with money earned ‘here,’ it was even more remarkable.
‘Because the Krissus Count family has only been established for about three and a half years.’
When her thoughts reached that point, Edele felt that something was strange.
‘She saved enough money to buy a house in just three and a half years?’
Even in districts where commoners lived, it still required a large sum of money to buy a decent house.
‘A house in the Durum district would cost around 300,000 Lington, even at a reasonable price. A housekeeper’s salary is 4,000 Lington at most…’
Even if the housekeeper saved every single penny of her salary, that would only be 168,000 Lington. Even if she received tributes from the servants, it wouldn’t exceed the housekeeper’s salary.
If that were the case, there was only one remaining assumption in Edele’s mind.
‘Could it be… embezzlement?’
It was not entirely rare for servants of a noble family to embezzle the family’s money and run away.
The butlers were particularly problematic. They often managed the family’s cash flow while assisting the masters of the house.
However, if a housekeeper was embezzling money from the Count’s family, it would be a laughingstock for the Krissus Count family.
‘If a housekeeper is able to embezzle, it means the money management is a mess…’
What was unfortunate was that, looking at the current Krissus Count family, that speculation seemed likely to be true.
While they were lost in such thoughts, they arrived at the storage room. Along one wall of the large storage room, identical bags were stacked neatly.
“You were going to move all of this by yourself, Edele?”
Salia said with a scoff. It was a quantity that would take quite some time even if the three of them moved it.
Edele was anxious because she had to finish. She decided to focus on her work.
‘That’s right, Lady Bohen’s business is none of my concern.’
Perhaps Marsha’s maiden family or her husband had plenty of money. Normally, that would be the standard assumption.
‘I must have been resenting Lady Bohen without even realizing it. To think that embezzling was the first thing that came to mind.’
Edele loaded the sacks onto the cart, blaming her own narrow-mindedness.
She stopped thinking about Marsha and pushed the cart toward the laundry room.
The sheer volume of 75 sacks of curtains was far more immense than she had imagined; the overwhelming task left her no room to think about anything else.
As soon as they arrived at the laundry room, they began filling the large tubs with water. Since the largest vat could probably wash about five or six standard curtains at once, to wash all 150 curtains by today…
‘Just filling and emptying the tubs will be an enormous task on its own.’
If only they had powdered soap, the work would be much easier, but there was only solid soap in the laundry room.