Chapter 56
Thump, thump, thump!
At the sound of someone pounding roughly on the door, she woke with a start.
“Get up! It’s already seven in the morning. Change your clothes and come down at once. Since you got up late, there’s no breakfast. Got it?”
A curt male voice rang out from beyond the door, and, startled, she hurriedly climbed out of bed. Her small hands moved mechanically, picking up the little work clothes and apron hanging over the chair. Without even a moment to be bewildered, she quickly threw off her nightclothes and changed into her work clothes.
Mr. Robin hated tardiness.
……Ah, right. Mr. Robin. It’s Mr. Robin. That man. Then what was the name I’m using now?
When the young girl came down from the attic, Mr. Robin jerked his chin toward the worktable. She roughly wiped her face with her palm, rubbing away the sleep from her eyes, and sat down at the table.
“Here’s your share for today. Anna. Sew on the buttons first.”
Anna. Right. I’m Anna.
Little Anna nodded and opened a nearby box, taking out thread and a needle first. Her small hands threaded the needle with machine-like skill. Mr. Robin chewed on freshly brewed coffee and bread that had gone hard as he looked over the mountain of receipts piled on the table.
“At this time of year, all I get are heaps of petty repairs that don’t even make money. The social season needs to start soon. Ah, of course, before that I’ll have to finish the new dress designs. Ha, I’m truly buried in overdue work.”
With her small hands, Anna deftly sewed buttons even smaller than they were near the neckline and said to Mr. Robin,
“Then may I work on the dresses too?”
Hmph. Mr. Robin snorted.
“You want to touch dresses that badly?”
Anna nodded.
“Yes. Someday, I want to make dresses with my own hands too. Like you do, Mr. Robin. You’ll teach me everything, won’t you? I’ll learn it all. I’ll practice every night without sleeping.”
Mr. Robin answered without even looking at her.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t teach you. Well, if you want to make dresses that badly, once you leave the orphanage, try becoming an apprentice at another dressmaker’s.”
“…….”
At Mr. Robin’s indifferent reply, Anna blinked, looking blank for a moment.
“Pardon? The orphanage? But I already left the orphanage. You took me……”
“That’s how things have turned out. Anna. You’re going back to the orphanage in two weeks. My father is ill. Once I sell off this season’s dresses, I’m closing the shop right away and going back to my hometown.”
You adopted me. You brought me here, saying you needed a child with quick hands. You said you would teach me anything.
You said you would teach me a skill so I wouldn’t have to live by begging. You did.
……You were different from the other adults, the one who looked at my usefulness instead of only my appearance.
……You were the only adult like that.
“…….”
“…….”
Those words could not possibly come out of young Anna’s mouth. Because young Anna knew better than anyone that she was not in a position to complain of such childish longing or hurt in the first place.
Mr. Robin said he would take Anna back to the orphanage in two weeks. It was the dissolution of an adoption. Yes. Less than a year after adopting Anna, he was giving her up.
In a way, wasn’t it a generous measure? It was something, at least, that he was not immediately throwing her out onto the street. Mr. Robin had, in his own way, endured the orphanage director’s complaints to arrange a place where Anna could stay.
“Anna.”
“Yes.”
“Keep doing what you were doing. You have to finish everything there today. You can’t sleep until it’s done.”
“Yes.”
Anna began sewing mechanically again.
After calmly delivering words that shook Anna’s life to its very roots once more, Mr. Robin went into his office. Left alone in the cramped workroom, Anna looked around.
The old dressmaker’s shop came into view all at once. Wherever one stepped on the floor, the old wood creaked and groaned, and the walls often shed the plaster powder daubed over them, along with grit from the stone beneath. Even so, Anna had liked this place.
At least she had not had to jostle with the other children and eat as if waging war. Here, young Anna could receive food and clothes according to the work she did.
I don’t want to go back to the orphanage.
But she had no choice. If Anna, only seven years old, ran away because she disliked the orphanage, she would simply die an early death out in the streets.
“…….”
Anna looked at the heap of hundreds of buttons and rubbed at the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand. Tears that had not yet managed to fall were crushed in clumps, wetting her hand.
Here, I was Anna.
Then when I go back, what name will they call me by next?
The caretakers at the orphanage changed often, and every one of the new people was equally lazy to the bone. Thanks to their atrocious record-keeping, Anna would surely have her name changed again once she returned to the orphanage.
“……I don’t want to go back.”
Mr. Robin.
“Please take me with you too. ……I’ll do anything. Please.”
Even though she had already wiped them away once, tears fell again with a plop.
Again they fell with a plop, spreading over her clothes.
＊＊＊
It was early dawn. The moment she woke, she realized that she had been crying.
Not only her temples, but both sides of the pillowcase were damp.
Having just awakened from the dream, she had no sense of reality. She fumbled for the lamp nearby and picked it up. Beneath the hazy light of the kerosene lamp, she saw silk sheets crumpled terribly. She fumbled for the mirror on the nearby bedside table as well. Then she quickly looked at her own face.
It was Sasha Grayson.
Sasha touched her face with her hand, then pinched it lightly. It was not a dream. Good. This is reality. I don’t want any dreams within dreams.
Because she had dreamed of a time she did not particularly miss, sleep had long since fled in her displeasure. Sasha wrapped a nearby shawl around herself and headed to the window.
It was still so early that the sun had not yet risen, and the sky was dark. The mansion’s garden, too, was sunk in darkness. With an expressionless face, Sasha rested her elbow on the windowsill and propped up her chin, gazing down indifferently.
Just then, something out of place suddenly moved in the darkness. Something huge that had been stirring in the dark whipped its head around and looked at Sasha.
It was that man, Isaac.
“…….”
The man abruptly lifted his head and looked at Sasha, then scratched his cheek as if somewhat embarrassed. His short, curly black hair was more disheveled than usual. Perhaps he, too, had not been awake for long and had simply come out without thinking.
When Isaac looked up at her with that awkward expression and bowed his head in greeting, Sasha smiled back and carefully waved her hand. Then she quickly drew back from the window, closed it, and even lowered the curtains.
……The room sank into darkness once more.
＊＊＊
Due to the circumstances of the jeweler and the craftsman, Sasha and Isaac had only managed to order their engagement rings yesterday. They were planning to order the wedding rings again in a few days.
As for the dress and frock coat, for now they had both merely had their measurements taken by the tailor. The tailor, too, would revisit within a few days, carrying each of their fitting garments.
Good. Then what else is needed now? She had to write to the priest to ask for a wedding venue and an officiant, and while she was at it, she also had to request a special marriage license by invoking his friendship with Lady Rosalyn.
“Is the captain in the breakfast room?”
“Yes. He is having breakfast.”
The maid answered as she helped Sasha into her dress. “I see.” Sasha replied briefly and looked at her reflection in the full-length mirror.
A beautiful, slender woman. Well-groomed, lustrous hair, and slim, soft fingers that looked as if they had never once done hard work.
Her hands, which had borne blisters and calluses at the tender age of seven, were now, no matter who looked at them, the hands of a precious young lady who had never done a day of work.
Over the past dozen or so years, Lady Rosalyn and Mrs. Mom had trained her harshly, so now she could fairly well behave as if she had been a precious young lady from birth. But being good at acting and being shameless to the core were separate matters.
‘A person can’t live their whole life telling lies.’
Her current luxurious life was, to her, nothing more than a time bomb that could go off at any moment.
Sasha muttered inwardly and resolved that, no matter what happened, she would make this marriage succeed, and that she would, without fail, walk away with that enormous inheritance in her hands as her retirement fund.
For a very brief moment, the face of that soldier with the stubborn-looking expression—Isaac Pinscher—flickered before her and vanished.
Sasha shook her head to drive him away.
‘In any case, he has nothing to lose from this. So I don’t need to feel guilty.’