Swan Grave - Chapter 13

CHAPTER 3. The Demon, Rothbart

When Anna woke up in the morning, she rummaged through her personal belongings box with a troubled face. But no matter how hard she searched, it wasn’t there.

She muttered in dismay, “My undergarments are gone.”

“What? You mean those silk undergarments?”

Her voice was small, but it was enough for Susan, who used the bed next to hers, to hear. At the mention that undergarments had gone missing, Susan jumped up.

They weren’t silk but rayon, yet to others they would look the same. In this place, most wore cotton undergarments.

Those undergarments were something Anna had brought with her from her original world. She had sold off most of her clothes for convenience, due to others’ gazes, but she had kept her undergarments since there was no need to sell them.

“You didn’t drop them while doing laundry?”

“No.”

“Then maybe someone among us stole them…”

Susan whispered in a lowered voice with a serious expression. In this world, silk undergarments were rare. Not a single maid who shared their room had failed to admire Anna’s undergarments.

But Anna shook her head. It wasn’t a handkerchief or some other item, it was undergarments. Used undergarments, at that. What would anyone want with those?

“No way.”

“No, it’s entirely possible… Of course, I don’t think it was any of the girls in our room. Oh, come to think of it…”

Susan, who had been thinking for a moment, added even more cautiously than before, “Yesterday I saw the head maid coming out of our room.”

“The head maid?”

“Yes. I thought it was just a surprise inspection…”

It wasn’t unusual for the head maid to barge in to check the condition of the room. But to think something would go missing afterward. And of all things, undergarments.

“Do you think the head maid really took them?”

“She might have, saying they were disruptive items… Why don’t you ask her?”

Susan’s words made sense. Since relationships between men and women in the mansion were strictly regulated, clothing and personal belongings were also carefully controlled. Perfume, dark rouge, lace stockings… flashy undergarments were also subject to restriction.

Anna sighed. Whether the head maid had taken them or not, it would be troublesome to try to get them back. As regretful as it was, she had no choice but to give them up.

“…If that’s the case, she’ll call me to say something. For now, don’t tell the others my undergarments are missing.”

“Alright. Don’t be too down. I’ll help you sew some lace on your new undergarments.”

“Thank you.”

Anna forced a smile at Susan, who was trying to cheer her up. But she couldn’t force her sunken mood to lift.

With that, the last item she had brought from her original world was gone. It was nothing much, just a possession, and yet it felt as though the way back to her world was growing ever more vague and distant, leaving her heart unsettled.

***

As expected, before long, the head maid summoned Anna. So it had been the head maid who took the undergarments. She was in for a scolding. Anna let out a quiet sigh.

From the morning, dark clouds had gathered, and by the afternoon, heavy rain poured down. As she walked down the corridor, the sound of rain beating against the windows echoed endlessly in her ears. On days like this, the mansion felt all the more eerie and chilling, and she couldn’t help but chew over the nickname “Swan Grave.” Was it truly given just because the corpses of swans lay scattered near the mansion?

Anna couldn’t simply dismiss it as that. Travelers from another world were called swans, and swans had indeed stayed in this mansion and left again… Could that really be just a coincidence? The name weighed on her with ominous meaning.

Those thoughts ended when she reached her destination. Anna knocked on the door.

“You called for me, Madame Head Maid.”

“Yes. Come in.”

Madame Dova, the head maid, was a forty-year-old widow. She had precariously perched glasses on the tip of her nose as she looked over a ledger, and as soon as Anna entered the room, she closed it.

Anna stood obediently before Madame Dova and glanced at her cautiously. Madame Dova looked straight at Anna and asked, “No discomfort?”

“No. I’m doing well.”

“If anyone bothers you, tell me. That governess too.”

“Yes. Thank you for always looking out for me.”

Anna felt more discomfort from Madame Dova’s kindness than from Rose, who always attacked her. At least Rose’s behavior was clear. Since her malice was plainly visible, Anna didn’t have to waste effort guessing her intentions.

But Madame Dova was different. Naturally cold and unwilling to give the maids any leeway, she strangely paid particular attention only to Anna. Out of sight of the others, when the two of them were alone like this.

At first, Anna thought it was just the head maid’s skill to act strict before others and show kindness when alone, but after hearing Susan and the other maids talk, she realized that was not the case.

After a few months, Anna came to understand that she was the only one Madame Dova treated with such consideration.

But she couldn’t simply be thankful. For even while seeming to care, Madame Dova would at times subtly urge her to quit her work. Anna could never figure out what the woman was thinking.

“I called you because I have something to tell you.”

“……”

Even if Madame Dova treated her kindly, it didn’t mean she refrained from nagging when it came to Anna’s shortcomings. Anna lowered her gaze quietly, waiting for the scolding to drop.

“The Marquess has said he will take you as his personal maid. From tomorrow on, you will clean the Marquess’s office, not the young master’s room.”

“Pardon?”

At Madame Dova’s thunderous declaration, Anna forgot to nod meekly and jerked her chin up in shock.

The Marquess’s personal maid, all of a sudden? Did such a thing even exist in the House of Lohengrin? The Marquess had never taken a personal maid before…

At the words that the Marquess himself had designated her, Anna’s heart pounded violently.

“Why… why so suddenly? Why me…”

The answer came to her even as she asked. The memory of that day, when the Marquess had returned, tightened around her heart.

Could it be that he remembered what had happened then?

She had thought he had forgotten, and with relief she had been able to breathe again. But she was wrong. He had only let her relax, only to strike her from behind like this…

‘I thought he would cut me down at once upon discovering what I was, but…’

He had more patience than she expected. Well, it was no wonder. This was the man who had longed for his departed wife for more than ten years.

In any case, she had to refuse becoming the Marquess’s personal maid no matter what. Whatever he intended, nothing good could come from being close to him. The risk outweighed any gain.

“I… I don’t think I can do well, Madame Head Maid. It hasn’t been long since I entered the household. There are many maids far more capable than I am…”

But Madame Dova cut off Anna’s words firmly.

“That’s not for us to worry about. If the master gives an order, all you need to do is quietly obey. Since you know your own shortcomings, that just means you can work that much harder.”

“But…”

When Anna tried to protest, Madame Dova waved her hand and opened the ledger again as if the matter was finished.

“In any case, that is the decision. Keep it in mind.”

Anna opened and closed her mouth several times, but with Madame Dova’s blade-like attitude, she couldn’t add another word.

In the end, she would have to serve as the Marquess’s personal maid. Unless the Marquess himself changed his mind, there was no way out.

Perhaps there was still a chance if Svanhild, her current charge, begged to keep her by his side…

“I want a mother, Anna.”

Svanhild’s words whispered in the corridor still rang vividly in her ears. The thought of it made her shiver again. Svanhild would only push her straight into Rothbart’s arms. Anna could only acknowledge that she had been driven into a corner.

She turned unsteadily to leave the room.

At that moment, Madame Dova’s murmur, as though to herself, caught her by the ankle.

“Perhaps this was bound to happen from the beginning. In the end, you were bound to be noticed…”

What did she mean?

Anna turned her head to look at Madame Dova. But the head maid sat calmly with her ledger, as though she had said nothing.

Thinking she must have misheard, Anna quietly left the room. The matter of who had taken her undergarments was left a mystery. But Anna no longer had the luxury to care about such things. The new problem pressing upon her weighed far heavier.