Grace got up furiously, her face flushed with rage. She was about to throw a fit. Fortunately Mr. Watson returned back at that moment. He didn’t even care about where Amy went. Instead, he explained the meaning of the essays he will teach today to Mary first, although Grace and Luna were supposed to learn them.
Mr. Watson saw Mary as his star pupil. Mary also tried her best to live up to his high expectations of her. Like a prodigy she would excel in everything she was taught. Seeing him so proud filled Mary with guilt. She was not a prodigy in reality. She had just learned everything beforehand.
Finally the class was over. Mr. Watson gave his students a lot of homework, especially Mary. Her homework was to write a hundred words, and to recite two articles he taught today.
The ladies always used to have their lunch in their own yards. Grace and Amy would eat with the side consort. Luna on the other hand preferred to eat on her own because her yard was relatively near to the main kitchen. She was a lady favored her parents, so the food she got from the main kitchen always hot and diversified.
However Mary’s yard was far away from there. No one liked her and sometimes the staff in the main kitchen didn’t even serve her.
That’s why one day Luna invited Mary over to have lunch in her yard.
Mary politely declined. Although she knew that Luna’s intentions were genuine, it didn’t mean that she can make friends with Laura.
Even though Luna was disappointed, she was tactful in accepting Mary’s firm refusal.
Grace finished her lunch. The side consort was still feeling upset about Amy so she wasn’t paying much attention to Grace. Grace went to bed but couldn’t fall asleep. Luna was the one who was always in the limelight. How come Mary got so much Luna’s attention today?
Tossing and turning, she thought about how their father disliked Mary in the past. He still allowed her to take part in the classes though. Wasn’t that strange? After Mary recovered, she grew up to be a very beautiful girl. Perhaps she should also make friends with her?
Grace couldn’t stay in bed when thinking about what happened with Amy. She got up right away and asked the maid to open the trunk and selected some of her old unwanted dresses, intending to present them to Mary later. In this way, she thought she was doing Mary a favor and Mary might thank her.
In the afternoon class, Mary ran into a problem. In her past life as a spy she had learned almost everything, but she never got the chance to learn embroidery. Fortunately Ms. Allen was a kind-hearted widower so she didn’t scold her. After checking Grace and Luna’s works she showed Mary everything starting from the basics.
The embroidery lesson took only two hours, and then there came an Art Class. Mr. Watson also came as a teacher of the art class.
Grace and Amy decided to learn Chinese zither while Luna had picked the flute. Mary, after looking around, chose to learn painting from Ms. Allen. Mr. Watson was disappointed that Mary hadn’t selected his class. He even asked her to come learn music with him in her free time.
The afternoon passed by in a flash.
Back in her yard, Mary was listening to Daisy complaining about the staff in the kitchen. But she didn’t care about what they had done to her. They were such a bunch of clowns; they will start flattering her straight from today.
“Daisy, what did the third sister do today?”
Daisy nodded and replied conspiratorially, “Miss, after you went to class this afternoon, I went and checked up on them from my friends. The third lady was sent to detention by Lord Regent and had to write the rules and regulations 300 times.
Mary scoffed. That punishment didn’t sound very hard.
Daisy took out a small porcelain bottle, which looked ancient, from the drawer and handed it to Mary. She whispered, “After I came back, I found this bottle on the desk. I don’t know who could have sent it or for what reason, it’s really strange!”
Seeing the small bottle, Mary’s eyes lit up, the Norman Leeway must’ve sent it! She hurriedly took it from Daisy and carefully uncorked the stopper. Sure enough, like she had deduced there was a small piece of paper inside. She eased it out. There was only one line written in it, “Apply it on your ankle sprain.”
Mary couldn’t help but laugh. It had been two days, but he still cared about her ankle sprain.
“Miss, what is this?” Daisy asked curiously.
Mary quickly slid the bottle into a small drawer in the dressing table, and warned Daisy, “You didn’t see anything here. Don’t speak a word about this to anyone.”
Daisy nodded solemnly in understanding. Although she wasn’t very bright, she was still loyal to Mary.
Then Daisy brought out a bag of clothes and showed it to Mary. “Miss, the second lady sent you this. I checked them just now; they are of your size. And we can resize them to fit you better if any of them are ill-fitting. They’re not too bad.”
Daisy was beside herself with joy because her lady had never worn such good-looking dresses before. She praised Grace. Grateful, she said, “The second lady really is such a thoughtful, generous girl. Oh she even considered about the weather today. You still haven’t tried on the cotton jacket, Miss.”
Mary didn’t even bother sparing a glance at it. Among the girls of the Debeur family, Grace was famous for her modesty and charitable personality. Amy on the other hand was renowned for her poetry and literary talent. Luna was famous as a pretty and energetic beauty. She didn’t really care about Amy or Luna. But dealing with Grace, who only seemed gentle on the surface, was a little tricky.
“What about the fifth lady?”
Suddenly they could hear Amber outside. Mary wanted to win her over, naturally she would not offend her at present. So she took Daisy to greet Amber at the door.
The curtain was still in place. A large hand suddenly shifted it aside and someone sauntered in with powerful strides.
Mary hastened to bow, “Please accept your daughter’s greeting, honored father.”
The Lord Regent waved his hand, motioning for Mary to get up, but frowned after looking at her up and down, “Why are you dressed like this?”
Seeing that he was displeased, she hurriedly showed him the bundle of dresses that Grace had sent. Smiling she said, “I was just in the middle of choosing what to wear with Daisy, so I didn’t have time to change.”
The Lord Regent had never been close with Mary, and so felt awkward talking to her. Trying to be patient he asked, “Who gave this to you?” At a glance he reslized that these were clothes that have been thrown away and he grew even more displeased. Mary, his daughter, was content having secondhand clothes from others.
Not realizing that the Lord Regent was still angry, Mary answered him cheerfully, “It was given to your daughter by the second eldest sister. She might have noticed earlier in class today that I did not have a cotton jacket, so she was generous in gifting me so much.” Feeling pleased she continued, “There are so many dresses; I will not need to buy clothes for a long time.”
The Lord Regent stared at Mary’s satisfied face for a while, fuming with rage inside and suppressing his impulse to give her a slap. Her living quarters were worse than even his servants. As a lady of the Regent Mansion, she only had a maid, and the maid had a small frame and looked like she was underfed.
He walked to the window sill towards the coin chest which he sprang open all of a sudden only to find five copper cashes inside. He turned and leveled his stare at Daisy, who then fell to her knees, afraid.
“Did you not collect the monthly silver allotment this time?”
Daisy was terrified and started trembling, “To answer his Lordship, this maid did go to collect the silver, but the accountant manager Eugine informed that our young mistress broken a silver bottle last month. Therefore the cost of it has been deducted from the allowance this month.” In fact he withheld the silver like this every month. Eugine was the side consort’s lapdog; he loved to harass Mary like this.
The Lord Regent’s face remained impassive like stone. “What about this season’s clothes? Were you neglectful in picking them up?”
Daisy felt tongue-tied in fear. “To answer his Lordship, this maid did go! But the seamstress said that this month the royal family is busy celebrating the birthday of the Lord. It’s hard to spare people to make clothes for the Lord, Her ladyship and all the young mistresses. Because our mistress is of the youngest among the sisters, she is towards the back of the queue in terms of priority.
“Bullshit! That’s nonsense!” The springtime clothing for even the servants here was obviously being made, yet there was nothing for his daughter to wear.
The Lord Regent was so furious that he even cursed. Noticing that he was still in the presence of his daughter, he calmed himself down. He pointed at Amber and ordered, “Go and call Seneschal Travis to report to me!”
Amber hurried off to comply.
Mary gestured Daisy to prepare tea and then served it to the Lord Regent by herself, “Father, please calm down and have some tea. It doesn’t really matter, they were probably busy.”
The Lord Regent glared at Mary. Was his daughter really this dense? She was being bullied to such a degree that she couldn’t even stand up for herself. If it weren’t for Amber and Mr. Watson talking about her old cotton jacket today and Amy creating such a scene, he wouldn’t have thought of going to check on Mary. She might still be continued to be bullied like this in the future too.
As he looked at the old cotton jacket on Mary, the Lord Regent felt his blood boil. He said gruffly, “Go change out of those clothes!”
Mary felt like as if she had just received a royal pardon and happily set off with Daisy to go try on the dresses Grace had sent.
“Get back here!” The Lord Regent yelled, “Don’t you have your own clothes? Why do you have to wear castoffs from others?”
Mary feeling grieved and replied quietly, “But it’s just that, the second eldest sister’s dresses are so good and new…”
The Lord Regent took a sip from the tea and spitted it out when hearing her words. First of all because of what Mary had just said, secondly the taste was terrible. No one deserved to be made to drink something like this, even a servant.
Setting down the teacup, the Lord Regent walked over to Mary’s trunk. Picking it up with both hands, he turned the whole trunk upside down. The trunk was old and worn so the latching wasn’t fastened properly at all. All the clothes inside fell out.
The Lord Regent inspected it quietly for a long time, and finally sighed, picking out a relatively new cotton jacket. He handed it to Daisy, “First help your lady to change into this and then go call a seamstress. Bring her here; tell them this is an order from the Lord.”
Daisy thinks excitedly, “Miss, is this going to turn things around now? The Lord Regent got personally involved even though this was such a trivial matter!”
After a while, Daisy helped Mary change out of her clothes. She didn’t even ask if she should brush her hair again and left in a hurry for her second task, fearing that she would be late and the Lord Regent would change his mind.
Mary stared at Daisy as she left, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. After tying up her hair in front of the mirror she returned outside. She stood beside the Lord Regent with her eyes downcast in reverence.