After Mother’s icy warning, the dining room fell so silent that not even breathing could be heard, only the occasional clink of tableware.
And no wonder, when the second-in-command of the mansion was sitting there, making her displeasure abundantly clear.
“Hic...”
It was an uncomfortable meal for everyone.
The servants’ faces were growing paler by the second, and Emily, who had been unwillingly dragged into the seat closest to Mother’s anger, was trembling at the fingertips as she forced herself to hold back an adorable hiccup.
I couldn’t just sit there and watch Emily be that tense, far too tense, so I set down my fork and carefully took her hand where Mother couldn’t see.
“Uht...”
Her body flinched, and a faint moan slipped out.
It wasn’t loud enough for Mother to hear, but Emily glared at me with eyes full of resentment and bit her lip.
“......”
When I met Emily’s eyes with a faint chuckle, she primly turned her head away and shook off my hand.
Was she a little angry?
Still, she seemed to have relaxed, so that was good.
She’d been dragged here because of me, and seeing her walking on eggshells had been so uncomfortable I thought I’d die.
“Are you finished eating?”
“Ah, sorry.”
As the corners of my mouth twitched, Mother speared the last piece of meat with her fork and glanced at me.
At the look in her eyes telling me to stop fooling around and hurry up and eat, I picked up my fork and resumed the meal I had briefly paused.
—Clatter!
“......”
After placing the last remaining piece into her mouth, Mother set her fork and knife down on her empty plate, dabbed her lips with a handkerchief, then crooked her finger to summon the head butler standing behind her.
The head butler approached Mother’s side and lowered himself by bending one knee.
“You called, my lady?”
“I have something I wish to discuss with William alone. Everyone, leave us.”
“Yes, my lady.”
With a disciplined motion, the head butler placed his right hand over his chest and bowed. Then he stepped back and gestured to every servant remaining in the dining room, conveying Mother’s will.
Even Emily left, and the dining room was truly left with only the two of us.
Even after everyone disappeared, Mother remained silent for a while, fixing me with a sharp gaze.
Ah... I haven’t even eaten half of it yet...
“......”
Feeling as though I’d get indigestion if I kept eating under Mother’s stare, I carefully set down my fork and knife.
“Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Um... I was late for breakfast?”
“No.”
“I stayed up all night?”
“Not that either.”
“I ran noisily through the corridor?”
“Close, but no. More importantly, do not make this mother of yours sound like someone who gets angry at a grown child over something so childish.”
“Hmm... Is it because of Emily?”
“Now that is finally an answer I like.”
Mother smiled coldly, like a Northern Grand Duke from a romance novel, then raised her left hand and held up three fingers.
“You dressed Emily in clothes I had never seen before.”
Her thumb folded down.
“While holding hands with her affectionately.”
Her index finger folded down.
“And ran through the mansion as if you intended to spread rumors across the entire estate.”
Then, strangely, the middle finger that remained until the very end folded down as well, turning her left hand into a fist. Mother clenched that fist and rested her chin atop it.
“What do you think?”
“I’m a total bastard.”
Mother’s lips curved gently into a smile.
“I am truly relieved you know that. If you had not, I was thinking of throwing you out of the house.”
“Haha...”
“This is not a laughing matter. She may be a maid, but she is a child I cherish, and thanks to someone, the marriage prospects of a child I cherish have been completely blocked. Truly, I feel so wronged I could go mad.”
“Uh, I’ll take responsibility somehow—”
“How?”
“Um... If there’s really no other way, I’ll have to take her in and live with her.”
“Ha—”
Mother let out a hollow laugh and narrowed her eyes.
“Your attitude may be frivolous, but I do like your spirit.”
“Haha...”
“I will let this pass lightly today, thinking it was a mistake. But if something like this happens again, I will not sit still. Understand that.”
“Yes...”
I nodded, answering in a voice that nearly crawled into my throat.
Mother lowered the chin she had been resting on her left hand and crossed her arms, then asked a new question with a displeased expression.
“Putting that aside, what on earth possessed you to cause such a commotion? If a belated rebellious phase has come upon you, this mother of yours would be saddened.”
“That’s not it.”
“Then?”
“Um... I made Emily some new clothes, you see, and they were so pretty. So I wanted to show everyone.”
“What a truly idiotic reason to cause trouble, you stupid son of mine.”
“Haha...”
“Good grief. How frustrating.”
I let out an awkward laugh and gently scratched my cheek.
I had been so absorbed in showing off our pretty Emily that I’d gone and done something moronic.
Mother looked at me with pitying eyes, then exhaled from deep within her chest and lightly tapped her breast a couple of times.
After spending some time patting and rubbing her chest to calm her rising temper, Mother leaned back against the backrest, her expression languid as if all the strength had drained out of her, and opened her mouth.
“So, I am curious what you meant when you said you wanted the maids to wear those clothes you were so eager to show off.”
The hellish scolding ended, and the question I had been hoping for most finally flowed from Mother’s mouth.
I smiled reflexively and quickly brought out my answer.
“I tried making the clothes as practice, and the result came out fairly well, so I brought it up because I wondered how it would be if the other maids wore them too.”
“Clothes? You said something like that when you were young and gave up. What has gotten into you that you would bring it up again?”
“It’s because of what you said at the banquet celebrating the end of the war.”
“Explain in more detail. I find it difficult to understand how you reached the conclusion that you should make clothes from my telling you to socialize with people.”
“Mother, I hate the sight of people’s clothes.”
“William, you do not harbor some impure ideology of aspiring to nudity like a heretic, do you?”
Mother, briefly at a loss for words, furrowed her brow and spoke in a voice filled with concern.
“No! That’s not what I meant by hating them!”
Startled by Mother’s offhand remark, I raised my voice and shook my head.
At that, Mother lifted one corner of her mouth and spoke as if teasing me.
“It was a joke.”
“Haa...”
My stomach hurt.
A few days ago, I’d been suspected of being impotent or gay, so it was hard to tell whether she was joking or serious. My heart had genuinely gone cold.
“So?”
“Haah... Anyway, clothes are uncomfortable to look at, so meeting people is a little difficult for me. Because of corsets, people look like hourglasses, and since everyone dresses themselves up so extravagantly and dizzyingly, they all look grotesque, you know?”
“Hourglasses, you say. What a fascinating impression.”
Mother chuckled at the word “hourglass” and nodded.
“So I wanted to throw all those clothes into the trash. I ended up wanting clothes with fewer decorations, clothes that don’t forcibly exaggerate the body.”
“Hmm... This mother of yours does wish for that a little as well. Dresses are terribly expensive, after all.”
“Right?”
Seeing Mother glance at her own dress and shake her head as if fed up, I felt a little better.
There might be some differences, but at least we now had the common ground of being dissatisfied with current clothing.
While I briefly imagined a hopeful future, Mother took her eyes off her dress, tilted her head slightly, and asked a question.
“But why the maids’ clothes, of all things? From what you are saying, it sounds as though you want to change the clothing of nobles.”
“Think about it, Mother.”
“...?”
“If I make clothes, do you think nobles will wear them?”
“Oh...”
As if she had gained profound enlightenment, Mother let out an impressed sound, lightly clapped three times, and crossed her arms again.
Then a cynical smile returned to her face.
“For someone who started acting deranged first thing in the morning, you understand your place quite well. I am somewhat relieved.”
I shrugged.
Though I do turn into a complete idiot whenever I stand in front of Emily, I am a person who thinks things through in my own way.
“So, while wondering what would face little resistance yet allow me to build a track record, I thought maid uniforms would be good. I have my personal tastes as well.”
“Tastes?”
“I like clean designs, as you just saw.”
“I see...”
Mother nodded faintly and gently closed her eyes, falling into thought.
With her arms crossed, quietly tapping her forearm with her index finger, Mother sat there for a moment.
“I understand that you suddenly want to make clothes.”
“Yes.”
“But is there a reason we must go out of our way to designate clothing for the servants?”
A reason...
Rather than speaking blindly, I wanted to hear Mother’s thoughts first.
“Mother, what is the reason you view it negatively?”
“Maids are not ladies-in-waiting or attendants. Nor do they stand at the forefront of receiving guests like butlers. They do not often appear before people, and even when they do, only the head maid shows her face. In that case, why should we make uniforms for maids whom people will not see? And even if we were to make them, do you know how many maids there are in our mansion? Have you calculated how much money would be required to provide clothes to every maid?”
A very reasonable point.
“Ha.”
A laugh slipped out before I knew it.
After all, I had been worried that she might stubbornly oppose it just because she disliked it, but she was voicing exactly the concerns I had anticipated in advance.
“Yes, of course you have never—”
“It’s not as if I’m doing it with my own money, so of course I calculated it.”
“You calculated it?”
Mother’s eyes went round like a startled rabbit’s.
I met her gaze and smiled with complete composure.
“Which would you like me to explain first, the reason or the money?”