Chapter 2
***
1. Employment contracts
…
"Diana, Diana!"
Nephrin, the only daughter of Viscount Depierre, was a very demanding and sensitive young woman.
She had just celebrated her twenty-fourth birthday a few days earlier, and she had a nasty temper, one of which was directed at the maid who tended to her.
"Diana, you lazy bitch, fetch the wash water. Now!"
The bell dangling from a string rattled loudly. Nephrin acted as if she couldn't move a single step from her bed without her maid.
There was only one maid in Viscount Depierre’s household who could attend to Nephrin. At the slightest hint of a woman other than the one she was accustomed to, Nephrin would lash out and throw things at the door.
The butler, who had trudged wearily down to the servants' quarters, knocked on the door.
"Diana, the young lady is expecting you a little early today."
"Yes, I'm on my way."
The maid, who had just popped her head out of the doorway, answered meekly.
She was a rare beauty, with mysterious wheat-colored hair and delicate features. Her skin was as white and transparent as moonlight, and her thin neck and long, slender limbs gave her the lightness and grace of a dancer.
"She's unusually sensitive today. Soothe her well."
"Yes, butler."
The maid bowed her head. The butler stepped aside by the door for her as she lowered her eyes and took a cautious step.
This was her seventh year working for Viscount Depierre. Diana was relatively senior among the maids.
The fact that she was in charge of Lady Nephrin’s care was a good thing for everyone but herself. She didn't have to cater to her sensitive mistress. It also helped that Nephrin’s hysterics had become less pronounced since Diana began serving her.
Besides, she was the only maid in the house who would never be kicked out.
As Diana calmly walked to the front of the stairs, a voice called out from across the hall.
"Here, I've got the water!"
Helen, Diana's roommate, held up a basin full of water.
"Go on, Diana, or the lady will come down here and throw a tantrum demanding to beat someone. Good luck today!"
Helen, who had been flogged by Nephrin years before for displeasing her, worshipped Diana.
Diana climbed the stairs, carrying a basin larger than her body. Each step was deliberate, but not precarious or unnerving, and her gaze remained fixed on a single point in the air.
Servants who spotted her climbing up the stairs carefully moved out of her way, sympathetic glances following her back, her face, and even her silent toes.
"I feel sorry for her, she's such a pretty girl, and then she gets caught by Lady Nephrin...."
Diana’s name had always been prefixed with a number of modifiers.
Diana with nowhere to go, Diana blind.
Poor Diana, chained to this mansion for the rest of her life.
But Diana, the most beautiful woman in the capital.
It was said that the hardest thing to do in Liporsa, the capital of the Karman Empire, was to make eye contact with the cleaning maid.
It was half joke, half truth. Among the commoners of Liporsa, Diana was a celebrity. Her beauty was said to rival that of the former Empress Adele, who was considered the most beautiful woman in the Empire.
Many men came to her with interest, but few were able to lock eyes with her on the first try. In fact, none until now.
That was because she was blind.
When she arrived at the room that her tyrannical mistress called her own, she was lying in bed without even a blanket over her. Nephrin glared at her, not moving a muscle, until Diana placed the basin on the side table.
"You're late."
"I'm sorry, my lady."
"Late because you were shaking your ass at Bill the stable hand again?"
Bill was a kindly middle-aged stable hand in his fifties. He treated Diana like a daughter, getting her many of the things she needed. When she saw her with him, Nephrin insulted her, using every crude word she knew.
"Whore. Did you enjoy fucking him in the stables?"
"Don't take this the wrong way, my lady."
Diana replied mechanically and opened the window. Nephrin had slandered every man who had ever crossed Diana’s way.
"You did that to Louis and Tom, didn't you? How many times did you spread your legs for them? Did you expose your breasts? Do they know you're a putang?"
A ‘putang’ was a prostitute who sold her body to the lower classes in a brothel. The term was used to describe all prostitutes, male and female, who were treated worse than commoners.
'The butler said she was being particularly fussy this morning, and it's true.’
Diana silently helped Nephrin wash her face as she endured the verbal abuse hurled at her. When Diana didn't seem to react to the breathless insults, Nephrin changed her tactics and became sarcastic.
"You should be grateful to serve such a generous and compassionate master as me, for who else would use a maid who is blind and ignorantly busty?"
"Yes, my lady. I'm always grateful."
"Hmph, gratitude."
Nephrin snorted in amusement. Diana snorted inwardly after her.
Who wouldn’t know why she can’t fire me.
Diana was blind. But she hadn't been blind since birth.
Her eyes had been sighted until she was fifteen, seven years ago, when she first started working at Viscount Depierre’s household.
Diana went blind literally overnight.
It was Nephrin’s doing. She had been jealous of Diana since the very day she first started working at the manor. She harassed her with ridiculous quips, picking only the hardest errands, sprinkling tea on her immaculate maid's dress, making her clean the fireplace, and then sending her out into the street, all black and tattered, to be laughed at. The harassment was varied, and most of it was childish.
But on one occasion, Nephrin’s behavior was anything but childish.
It happened when the eldest son of the Duke of Gaspard, potential fiancé, visited the manor and fell in love with Diana. The next day, Nephrin summoned her to her room and, for some reason, served Diana tea and expensive chocolates for dessert.
She ate it, and then passed out. Immediately that night, her vision began to get blurry, and when she woke up the next morning, the world was pitch black.
The doctor Helen went to fetch diagnosed her with a very nasty poison.
"It's a complicated concoction of ingredients not readily available on the market. It's called mor noir because it makes the whole world go black, like looking at the pitch black wall. If it's so hard to come by, and so expensive, how did you end up eating something so horrible?"
All Diana had eaten the previous day was tea and chocolate from Nephrin at lunch and a small dinner shared with Helen.
She staggered back to the mansion, clinging to Helen. As she climbed the stairs on all fours to find Nephrin, the long- awaited laughter returned.
"Oh, my, was that potion toxic? I didn't know that? Oh, good, now you look like you belong!"
Nephrin looked down at Diana, who fumbled in front of her with her hands, and laughed, the most vicious laugh she'd ever heard in her life.
Ever since she'd gone blind overnight, life had been hard. But even the bottom of the well seems to receive a ray of sunlight, and her heretofore largely unrecognized constitution shone through.
Thanks to this, she had managed to avoid major accidents despite her blindness. It had been seven years.
Mechanically helping Nephrin wash her face, Diana stepped back quietly when she was done.
'Rustling at the foot of the bed. She’s kicking at the covers.’
Then the sound of feet on the floor, as stealthy as possible. The slight squeak of flesh as the soles of her feet rubbed against the floor. The smell of thick powder that grew stronger and stronger, and the faint sound of breathing.
It didn't take Diana long to guess what was coming next. She feigned a step to the side and twisted her shoulder slightly, narrowly missing a hand that tried to push her away. Off-balance, Nephrin stumbled and tumbled over the basin.
With a loud splash, water spilled everywhere.
***
To donate for extra chapters for my series or to tip me visit my kofi page
Write a comment