Episode 68
Mr. George Butler was a man of cleaner, more presentable appearance than expected. As Sasha watched him greet her politely, she tried to recall when on earth she had seen him before, but nothing came to mind.
At any rate, Mr. Butler, having been guided by Jason into the drawing room, removed his hat the moment he entered and offered Sasha a courteous bow. When Sasha returned the greeting, he somehow grew restless, repeatedly lifting his hat to his chest and lowering it again.
“Would you like to sit?”
“Ah, yes.”
Mr. Butler sat across from Sasha without refusing, and Sasha told a maid to bring tea for both Mr. Butler and herself. Even after one maid withdrew, another remained standing in the corner of the room.
On top of that, a male servant stood guard outside the door.
Unlike the rather one-sided way he had written his letter, seeing Mr. Butler like this, Sasha found him to be quite normal-looking, so she relaxed. Besides, her people were everywhere nearby. Her people. Yes. In any case, they were people who followed her now.
“The scent… of the tea, is… lovely.”
When the maid approached and set down the tea, Mr. Butler lifted his teacup and spoke while savoring its aroma. Sasha looked at him with a polite smile. A gentleman of moderate height with neatly combed brown hair. No matter how one looked at him, he was a man with a clean, respectable appearance.
“An acquaintance of my late grandmother sent it to me. The tea leaves come from a faraway country called Cowen, and because the scent is unusual, people I serve it to tend to be quite divided in their preferences. It seems the tea suits you well, Mr. Butler.”
As soon as she finished speaking, Mr. Butler brought his nose to the tea more blatantly than before and sniffed at it. As if checking whether something strange had been put in it.
Then, when his eyes met Sasha’s, he smiled unnaturally as though he had never done any such thing.
“I-I’m sorry… for coming so… suddenly.”
Mr. Butler spoke, drawing out his words rather unnaturally.
“I, I would like… to be alone, with Miss Grayson… If you could send the maid away, please?”
A rather reasonable-sounding apology was followed by an unreasonable request.
Sasha listened to his stammering words with the same smiling face.
“Of course, Mr. Butler. You must have come all this way in person because what you have to say is that important, correct?”
Sasha sent him those words with a subtle barb hidden in them, then glanced at the maids. They soon nodded, closed the drawing room door, and left. They were probably waiting just outside.
The drawing room was bright. It was midday, so sunlight was pouring in through the windows, and since it was around the time when the amount of sunlight reached its peak, the room was even brighter.
“…I, I came… to apologize.”
Once the two of them were truly alone, Mr. Butler obediently opened his mouth. Then he offered an apology she had not expected.
“It must have… burdened you. I, I did it with good intentions, but…”
A brief silence fell. Sasha stopped fiddling with her teacup and stared at the man, who was pale and could not even properly meet her eyes.
“Not at all, Mr. Butler. I also regretted sending such a reply. In truth, it wasn’t something you needed to come here deliberately to apologize for.”
His behavior still left something unpleasant lingering, but seeing him offer an apology despite his stammering loosened her wariness a little. However, it did not last even a few seconds.
“I, I thought it was something… worth apologizing for. Since you threw all those f-flowers away like that…”
“……”
“I saw them, thrown away… in a heap. Y-you did that on purpose so I would see it, didn’t you?”
Instead of answering him immediately, Sasha took a slow breath.
“No, Mr. Butler. That is, that was…”
All right. Let’s just be honest.
“The flowers were so large and numerous that there wasn’t really a proper place to put them, and I thought they would be difficult to manage. Even so, I shouldn’t have disposed of a gift in that manner. I was thoughtless, Mr. Butler.”
“…No. It was my fault for sending a gift so one-sidedly… Th-that aside…”
Mr. Butler, who had not been able to properly meet Sasha’s eyes the entire time, lifted his pale face and fixed his blue eyes on her.
“You’ll need… to apologize for something else.”
“Something else? What do you mean?”
“For going around… telling other people… about m-me.”
“……”
Sasha fell silent for a moment instead of reacting immediately as she had earlier.
The flowers at the mansion had been left to the gardener to dispose of as he saw fit. They had probably been gathered in one place to be used as compost, but there was no way they had been placed somewhere guests coming and going could see. In other words, this Mr. Butler had perhaps been watching all along from a place where he could see the garden at a glance.
On top of that, Mr. Butler was now demanding an apology from Sasha for something else. In other words, this was a little absurd.
“You mean I spoke about you, Mr. Butler? To other people?”
As for that burdensome gift of flowers, she had only exchanged a few words about it in relation to Captain Pinscher, and even when Miss Carol had suddenly asked as if probing, she had not so much as uttered the “B” in Butler.
Instead of asking others for help in advance, Sasha had dealt with Mr. Butler’s burdensome letter alone, within the limits of what she could handle herself. She had read it alone, judged it alone, and written the reply alone without anyone else’s help.
“I think there’s been some misunderstanding. I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t even gone out of the mansion much.”
“……”
Mr. Butler fell silent. As if to say that he knew that as well.
…For a fleeting instant, Sasha’s expression went blank, and then she put on a smile more artificial than usual.
“There seems to have been some mistake. I have not gone around speaking to others about you, Mr. Butler.”
“…People are already… talking about me. They say I’m a stalker who follows Miss Grayson around…”
“Who, exactly? I can step forward and explain together with you.”
Mr. Butler was no longer sweating profusely like before.
He was stammering far less than he had earlier.
“…Even if Miss Grayson… did not go around talking… people are already saying that about me. It is all, all because of you, Miss Grayson.”
“……”
How on earth is that my fault? It’s your fault for going around acting strangely in the first place.
Such an extremely reasonable and perfectly justified retort merely tickled inside Sasha’s throat. Wisely.
“Because of you, Miss Grayson… I have become a mad stalker. Because of you, Miss Grayson… people point fingers at me.”
“……”
“I w-would like you… to apologize and take responsibility.”
Perhaps it was when she was around six years old. While drifting briefly through life on the streets, she had learned one lesson.
If someone looked obviously insane to anyone’s eyes, one should not speak to them in the first place, nor have anything to do with them.
There had also been the lesson that if one unavoidably ended up in such a person’s line of sight, the only way to survive was simply to go along with them. Like the owner of a nearby tavern who, without showing the slightest reaction, had shoved an entire crate of beer at a madman who was brandishing a knife and shouting for liquor from anyone and everyone.
“I’m sorry.”
Rather than pointing out that he was mad and not in his right mind and fighting him, that would instead be a loss. More than a loss, it would be like throwing herself into danger. Sasha did not want to take such a risk.
Without needing to think long, Sasha apologized neatly to Mr. Butler.
“I apologize to you, Mr. Butler, for any hurt you may have suffered due to my lukewarm response. If you wish, I can also step forward and explain it to others. That Mr. Butler simply wished to get along with me with pure intentions.”
The apology flowed out smoothly, one word after another. Sasha simply wanted to go along with this madman and get rid of him quickly.
“…I will accept your apology. Then will you promise not to reject me and to get along with me now?”
“Of course. Let’s exchange letters often and keep in touch.”
“Not something like letters.”
“Of course we can see each other in person too. Let’s often have tea together.”
Mr. Butler went even further from there.
“And cut things off with that bastard too.”
In truth, the line of common sense had already been crossed long ago.
“Write to h-him as well… just like you did to me. Say you’ll n-never contact him again.”
“…Of course.”
Sasha answered quietly, her cool gaze sweeping over the table. The teacup and saucer. The small teaspoon.
Regrettably, if the other party made up his mind, those were things that could somehow be used well enough as weapons.
“I will do as you say, Mr. Butler.”
And that applied to her side as well.
Sasha looked at Mr. Butler and answered calmly.