The Whipping Maid of House Calley - Chapter 103

Sheila gave a slight nod to the servant guarding the main gate. Then she turned to Fred, who stood there leaning on one leg and puffing himself up, and opened her mouth.

“Why did you come all the way here…? No, come this way.”

Before Fred could say anything, Sheila grabbed his arm and pulled him along.

“Hey!”

Caught off guard by the sudden force, Fred, who was standing with his weight on one leg, staggered and got dragged along.

Still gripping his wrist, Sheila turned the corner of the wall and stopped at the spot where she spoke with Jerry last time. She let go of Fred’s wrist and brushed her hands off.

“Why are you here?”

“Damn it! You little—!”

Instead of answering, Fred raised the hand she grabbed as if he were about to strike her.

That was exactly why Sheila dragged him over here.

The moment Fred opened his mouth or did anything, he’d definitely draw attention.

“Your brother comes all this way, and this is how you act? Working as a maid really went to your head. Damn it!”

Fred raised his hand again, but Sheila didn’t even flinch.

Fred was trash, but he never actually used violence.

Still, there was nothing to gain from provoking trash. Sheila calmed her startled heart and softened her tone.

“I’m sorry, Brother. It’s just that I was in the middle of work and it was so sudden. But really, why did you come all the way here?”

The moment Sheila softened her tone, Fred puffed himself up again.

Seeing how easily he fell for such obvious pretense, despite it not even being good acting, his level was exactly Judith’s. How did I not realize this when I was younger….

While Sheila mocked him inwardly, Fred said, “Pack your things right now. You’re coming home.”

Fred was impatient. His friend Ernest said three or four months would be fine, but you never knew how things would turn out.

It’d be good if she earned more money for a month or two, but he couldn’t miss a big opportunity over pocket change.

And Fred was certain Sheila saved up money by scraping together even a single solid she didn’t send him.

At Fred’s words, Sheila’s eyes went wide. “W-what are you talking about? Why would I pack my things?”

“You’re of marriageable age. Did you think your brother would just let you keep working as a maid?”

“Marriage…?”

At the word that came out of Fred’s mouth, Sheila’s body went rigid.

From the day she clung to her sister and cried after her sudden marriage, to the day she went to Holzeroad and learned of Fabiola’s death, memories came rushing back all at once.

“W-what are you saying? I’m not getting married. I’m going to earn money. I send money every month, right? Ah, right! Starting next year, my wages might even go up.”

Sheila made things up that didn’t exist. What mattered was getting out of this situation for now.

“I’ll send everything, every last bit. You like money, right? I’ll….”

Smack.

Sheila’s body staggered. A burning pain flared across her left cheek.

“You bitch, what, do you think I’m some kind of leech!”

Along with a sharp ringing in her ears, Fred’s angry voice crashed over her.

“N-no, that’s not what I meant.”

Sheila turned her head back and hurriedly tried to explain herself to Fred.

Maybe because she got hit so often by Judith, this was nothing. What shocked her more were the words that came out of Fred’s mouth.

The moment the word marriage came out of her brother’s mouth, Sheila made up her mind. The time had truly come.

To do that, she needed to send Fred back quietly today first.

“Two years ago, all the servants signed employment contracts. So you have to give notice a month before quitting. It’s true. Th-that’s why….”

“True or not, why should I care?”

Fred was still impossible to reason with.

“I’m serving the Young Count right now. The employment contracts fall under the Young Count’s authority. If you go against it, he won’t let it slide.”

Sheila mixed truth and lies skillfully as she tried to persuade Fred.

“The Young Count?”

Luckily, Fred seemed to have heard plenty about the Young Count. That made sense, since everyone knew Cedric was the real power of House Calley.

“Yeah. Then not only would I lose this month’s wages, you might get punished too. That wouldn’t be good, right?”

“Ha, fuck. Filthy nobles.”

Fred cursed nobles as a group.

Sheila also found nobles hard to understand and willful, but if anyone was filthy, Fred was worse by far.

“Then say today that you’re quitting. Got it?”

“Y-yeah. I will. Of course.”

Fred looked at the compliant Sheila with suspicious eyes. “Don’t think about hiding somewhere once you buy time. I can find you anywhere.”

“Of course. Where would I even go?”

Fred wasn’t bluffing.

As long as Fred was legally Sheila’s guardian, it was impossible for her to go somewhere else without him knowing. Even if she changed jobs in secret, if Fred came here asking about her, people would tell him where she went without hesitation.

That said, Sheila couldn’t hide forever without having committed any crime. So in the end, there was only one option.

Fred kept staring at her suspiciously for a long time, then finally relaxed his eyes and said, “If you’ve got money, hand it over.”

“O-okay. Wait here. I’ll bring it right out.”

Sheila hurried off, pretending to be frightened, and thought hard.

How much should she give him?

Fred already knew exactly how much her maid’s wages were, and he knew she saved one solid each month. That was why he was acting like this.

Sheila went straight up to her room.

She didn’t want to waste time and provoke Fred’s foul temper.

Including the last whipping maid wage she received and the tips she got from Sylvia, there was quite a bit of money hidden under her floorboards.

After thinking quickly, Sheila slipped several gold and silver coins into her pocket.

With calm steps, Sheila returned toward the main gate. As she reached the corner where Fred stood, she deliberately quickened her pace so he could hear.

“Huff, huff, Brother, here.”

Sheila held out the hand gripping the money toward Fred.

Clink, clatter.

Coins spilled onto Fred’s outstretched palm.

Fred’s eyes widened as he examined the coins.

He was checking whether any gold coins were mixed in among the many silver ones.

And the look of anticipation soon turned to rage.

“Do you take me for a beggar, you bitch!”

Thud!

“Agh!”

Struck on the side of the head by Fred’s clenched fist holding the coins, Sheila collapsed to the ground.

Sheila brought twenty-seven denises.

Shouting that she took him for a beggar, Fred clenched the coins tightly and kicked Sheila in the stomach as she lay on the ground.

“This is all the money you’ve got? You think I’m stupid?”

Thud!

“Where’s your room? If your older brother wants to see where his little sister lives, you’ll show me, right?”

Fred grabbed Sheila by the collar as she lay on the ground. As her body was hauled up unsteadily, a coin pouch slipped from her clothes with a jingle.

“What’s this?”

Fred tossed Sheila aside and bent down to pick up the pouch.

“N-no!”

When Sheila lunged toward him, Fred kicked her in the stomach again.

“Agh!”

‘That piece of trash.’

Over the past few years, Fred turned into trash beyond saving.

Sheila could only lift her eyes and watch Fred rummage through the coin pouch.

For a moment, the image of Fred digging through the marble pouch she treasured as a child flashed through her mind.

He was trash now, but Fred definitely had a time when he was kind as a child. At least until Sheila was five or six.

Fred went crooked after their mother died and he passed through a turbulent adolescence. Their gentle father pitied the children growing up without a mother and didn’t punish Fred severely even when he did wrong.

Even so, as long as their father was alive, Sheila thought everything would be fine.

Jingle.

When two gold coins fell out of the pouch, Fred’s face lit up.

No matter how much she showed him, he would’ve demanded more money anyway, so Sheila deliberately split the money into two places before coming out.

“You bitch, hiding money like this and lying about not having any.”

Fred spat at Sheila as she lay there.

“Be back home by next month. Got it?”

“…Got it.”

The amount Sheila handed over to Fred came to three solids and seven denises. It was about the same as a month’s wages back in her hometown.

If it wasn’t at least this much, Fred wouldn’t have backed off so easily.

Once Fred disappeared, Sheila pushed herself up and brushed the dirt off her clothes.

“This is nothing.”

It was the first time she’d been beaten indiscriminately by an adult man rather than a child’s hands, but Sheila told herself that anyway.

Once, she seriously wondered if she came to like being hit at all, and with this, she could finally set one worry aside.

‘I’ll really kill him. With my own hands.’

Enduring the unpleasant pain, Sheila adjusted her clothes once more and headed back toward her workplace.