The Whipping Maid of House Calley - Chapter 66

Sheila walked back along the road she’d taken earlier, crying. A moment ago, when she thought that if she was lucky, she might see her older sister eating a meal at the restaurant, felt like a dream.

If only this moment were a dream instead.

Jerry supported Sheila when she staggered, barely holding on as she walked by sheer willpower.

Duker’s house was not far from his shop.

“Wait here!”

Duker, whose voice was needlessly loud, said as if shouting.

“I, I’ll gather them!”

“Who’d let a bitch with bad luck into our house?”

As the atmosphere turned vicious again, Jerry grabbed Sheila’s shoulder and shook his head.

It was his house, so whether to let her in or not was his right. Besides, it was obvious that seeing the place where her older sister died wouldn’t do anything good for Sheila, this small young girl.

Duker glared at Sheila as she collapsed and then went into his house.

Jerry pulled Sheila, who was sitting on the ground, and sat her against the wall.

After a while, Duker threw out a few pieces of clothing, baby clothes that looked like Fabiola had made herself, and a doll of a little girl.

Sheila clutched her older sister’s clothes and cried for a long time right there. With Jerry’s help, she was able to carry them and return to the restaurant.

The restaurant also ran an inn on the second floor.

Sheila, who couldn’t gather her older sister’s things, had to stay there. It wasn’t just the things. Sheila still couldn’t accept her older sister’s death.

“The Master says it’s better to burn the deceased’s belongings.”

Jerry, who had shown her to her room, carefully spoke.

Sheila silently nodded at the words of the boy her age who had shown her kindness.

After entering the room, Sheila hugged her older sister’s clothes again and burst into tears.

Only after crying until her eyes were raw did Sheila finally look through her older sister’s belongings one by one.

Even if you called them belongings, it was nothing more than a few outfits, including clothes she wore at home, one pair of shoes, and the baby clothes and doll she’d made by hand.

As she wiped her tears while looking through the items, Sheila found the name “Sheila” on the brown-haired girl doll. It was lettering her older sister had embroidered on one corner of the doll’s clothes.

And on the inside of the baby clothes, Sheila’s initials were embroidered too, without fail.

‘So you were going to name the baby Sheila?’

“Unnie…! Huhh…!”

Sheila spent the whole night sobbing, exhausted, falling asleep, then repeating it.

The next day, when Sheila opened the door, she ran into Jerry, who was pacing with a tray.

“Ah! Hi.”

Jerry gave an awkward greeting, then changed what he was going to say.

“Hi… isn’t it?”

Before Sheila could even reply, Jerry quickly held out the tray.

“It’s an omelet I made.”

“I didn’t order it.”

“The Master told me to bring it. He also told me not to take lodging money.”

“I’m paying the lodging money. I’m not a beggar.”

“She’s really twisted up right now.”

“What?”

“Do whatever you want about the lodging money. Just eat this. We can’t throw away food.”

Jerry held the tray out again.

The omelet, with the egg softly broken apart around the filling, looked pretty decent.

Absurdly enough, seeing an omelet made by a kid like Jerry made Sheila’s mouth water.

She hadn’t eaten anything since the meal before she left the Calley mansion the day before.

And she’d cried all night, squeezing out tears, so she was exhausted to the bone.

Sheila decided to accept Jerry’s kindness.

Anyway, there were things she had to do after eating and getting her strength back. Burning her older sister’s belongings. To do that, she would need Jerry’s help more.

“Thank you.”

At Sheila’s words, Jerry smiled brightly. Then, as if he realized something, he reined in his expression.

“It’s fine. You can smile.”

Two years ago, when her father died, the neighbors said.

The living will live.

Even Sheila, who had been steeped in grief for a while, later came to understand what those words meant.

She knew she wanted to take all of her older sister’s clothes with her, but she also knew she couldn’t.

Because she’d seen them bury the clothes and shoes her father had worn when they sent him off.

So when sending her older sister off, it was right to burn the clothes she couldn’t bury with her and send them up to the sky.

“Then eat, get ready, and come down.”

Sheila nodded.

After finishing her meal, Sheila put her older sister’s belongings into the bundle the guild had lent her. When she went downstairs, Jerry, who had been waiting at the bottom of the stairs, reached out his hand toward the bundle.

“It’s fine. I’ll carry it.”

Sheila quietly refused Jerry’s kindness and gripped the bundle tightly.

Even though going to burn them felt like such a waste, she wanted to hold them in her arms at least until then.

Her older sister occupied one plot in a bleak cemetery.

“Unnie….”

Tears dripped from Sheila’s eyes as she stood before Fabiola’s grave.

She had sworn she wouldn’t cry in front of her older sister, but it was impossible.

“Stop crying. If your older sister sees you crying, she’ll be sad in heaven too.”

On the way here, after talking about this and that, Bill was already speaking casually to Sheila.

At Bill’s rough comfort, Sheila burst into even louder sobs.

“Damn it.”

Bill cursed under his breath.

This was all because of that damn buy-and-sell marriage. Bill wanted, at least for guild members, to forbid buy-and-sell marriages, but realistically there was no way to stop it.

Duker had been the one to go around thoughtlessly talking about it being a buy-and-sell marriage, but if he’d just called it a matchmaker’s marriage, no one would’ve known.

Jerry busily built a bonfire.

When the bonfire that had been crackling began to blaze, Bill said, “Now, burn them and send her off.”

Jerry, who was beside her, held out his hand.

After hesitating several times, Sheila handed the bundle to Jerry. She couldn’t bring herself to put her older sister’s clothes into the fire pit with her own hands.

Jerry spread the bundle on the ground and began putting the clothes into the fire one by one. If he threw them in all at once, the clothes might not burn and the fire he’d worked so hard to build could go out.

“Burn the baby clothes too.”

They said the baby her older sister had wanted to name Sheila had gone to the afterlife too.

How sad must her older sister have been?

Watching the clothes burn red, Sheila prayed for Fabiola and the baby who never got to see the light of the world.

Then she burned her older sister’s old worn shoes and, along with them, the shoes she’d bought new on the way here.

The time her older sister bought Sheila black leather shoes even though she didn’t have the means was a memory that stood out.

Sheila had also promised herself that when she earned money, she’d buy her older sister good shoes. She hadn’t known it would end up like this.

The well-tanned brown leather shoes burned for a long time.

Sheila watched them, and only belatedly noticed Jerry trying to throw the doll.

“Ah! Not that!”

But it was too late. The doll had already left Jerry’s hand.

Sheila reached out, but she couldn’t reach it.

Before the doll fell into the fire pit, the one who snatched it was Bill.

“Tell me in advance,” Bill said bluntly and handed the doll to Sheila.

“Waaah!”

Hugging the doll that had almost been burned, Sheila let out one last huge wail.

“Damn it.”

Bill spat out another rough curse, like he felt he’d made Sheila cry.

***

“Then, thank you.”

After stubbornly paying even the lodging fee and the omelet money, Sheila greeted Bill.

“Yeah. Go on.”

With that short greeting, Sheila left Bill’s restaurant.

Jerry would take her to the carriage stop.

The reason was that he couldn’t just put her on any carriage.

“You can get on here.”

At Jerry’s words, Sheila replied, “Thank you.”

Then she added, “Thank you for everything.”

She’d only met Jerry yesterday, and yet up until now he’d shown her kindness. And because Sheila had stubbornly paid even the omelet money, Jerry was a little sulky.

“Whatever.”

“I’m telling you, the omelet was so good. If you don’t pay for food that good, what are you even paying money to eat?”

Jerry said he was learning to cook at the restaurant. And the omelet really was excellent, to the point that it was hard to believe he’d only recently started learning.

Sheila, seeing Jerry still seemed not to have cooled off, had no choice but to offer a final farewell.

“Bye. Take care.”

Only then did Jerry look at Sheila.

“You’ll come again, right?”

Sheila thought of her older sister’s grave. Since her older sister was here, even if not often, she’d come again someday.

Jerry, unable to wait for an answer, said, “If you need help again, come and tell me. We handle simple jobs here for you. Of course, sometimes it costs a little fee.”

Help…

When the older sister who had taken care of her was no longer in this world, what kind of help would she ever come all the way here to ask for?

Sheila shook her head bitterly.

“Hah, forget it.”

“I’m serious. If someone’s bothering you, tell me. We can go and take care of them, just like that.”

Jerry made a gesture of drawing a line across his throat.

At Jerry’s bravado, Sheila just laughed.

“Hey! I’m serious. Even if it’s not that, you have to come. I’ll surprise you with an even better omelet.”

Jerry seemed to want to see Sheila again. Sheila, too, even though she’d only met him yesterday, didn’t feel distant from Jerry, who had helped her so much.

“Okay. I will,” Sheila answered with a faint smile.

“Please take her to the Calley estate. She’s a maid of the count’s estate, so safely, got it?”

Jerry told the coachman the destination instead of Sheila.

When Sheila climbed into the carriage, Jerry waved his hand.

Sheila also placed her hand against the window.

When she tried to leave the place where her older sister was, tears welled up again in her eyes that still hadn’t dried.

Sheila cried the entire way back to the estate.

To think she could’ve come here just by carriage… she should’ve come much sooner.

In Sheila’s head, the conversation she’d had with her older sister on the day her older sister married flashed back.

“Unnie, you’ll come visit sometimes, right? You’ll come to see me, right?”

Fabiola didn’t answer. She knew what her situation was, being sold off, so she couldn’t easily give a definite promise.

Sheila, who didn’t know any of that, thought Fabiola was doing that because she was watching her new husband’s mood.

Sheila hurriedly changed her words.

“No, I’ll go. You said Mr. Duker in Holzeroad, right? When I grow up, I’ll go to see you. I’ll earn a lot of money and I’ll definitely come find you.”

In the end, Sheila couldn’t keep the promise she’d made that day.

Using the excuse that she didn’t have leave yet, using the excuse that she had to save money to come, she dragged her feet and it became too late.

She might not have been able to pull her older sister out of that hell, but maybe she could’ve kept her older sister from going so alone.

‘Idiot! Moron! Stupid slowpoke!’

Sheila blamed herself for becoming a liar without meaning to.

Regretting that she was too late and crying endlessly, before she knew it, she arrived at the count’s estate.

Getting down from the carriage, Sheila wiped away the tear stains with effort and went into the mansion.