I wanted to breathe some life back into the manor after Dahlia showed me around. Maybe it was presumptuous of me, but since the head of the house himself told me to do as I pleased, I accepted his invitation and took the liberty of doing just that.
On top of that, given that the servants here are all experts, if I could get them to teach me their housekeeping tricks and tips, I’d have ‘marketable skills’ to really make a living when the time came to leave.
I wonder if they’d write reference letters for me...
“Are you really going to wear that, Madam?” chided Mimosa as we stood in my room.
“Er, yeah. I mean, it’s easy to move around in, and it doesn’t matter if I get it dirty.”
Mimosa had reluctantly provided me with a servants’ uniform, which I currently had draped over my shoulder. It had three-quarter-length sleeves that made it easy to move my arms, and the A-line skirt had a lovely knee-length drape to it that didn’t look half bad when I moved. The color was a neat deep blue.
That’ll hide the dirt real nicely. The dust will stand out, though.
I hummed a happy little tune as I put it on.
“Something cuter would suit you much better, Madam...” Mimosa had said, when she brought it to me. As much as Mimosa apparently wanted to play dress up with me, I was never interested in fashion, being the plain girl that I was. Although she was reluctant to bring me the dress, she did help me put it on.
“I’m not worried about being cute. This is more than fine.”
“It’s incredible, though. Even our humble uniform will look stylish if you’re wearing it, Madam. You’re tall, for one thing, and you have a delicate slim figure. You’d probably like something more prim and sweet than our simple outfits.”
The pout from earlier vanished, and Mimosa smiled when she saw me once I was done getting dressed.
I gave her too much credit, though.
The people who wear these outfits didn’t actually get to pick them! And the dress was designed to look like this no matter who’s wearing it, so even my lanky, scrawny body looks great in it.
Yes, finally something that looks good on my flat chest! No, it looks even more sleek because I don’t have a chest—that’s even better! That must be the hidden power of this uniform!
I was talking to myself yet again.
“Oh, thank you,” I smiled and thanked Mimosa for the compliment.
I know it’s just how she is, but ‘sweet’? Really?
The servants were required to tie their hair back to keep it out of the way, but Mimosa said that she’d give me a cuter style as she combed and braided my strawberry blonde hair that reached just below my shoulders.
“Your hair is very easy to comb, with its gentle waves.”
“Is it? I don’t do anything to take care of it, though. It’s a nightmare when it gets frizzy, too.”
“It gets easier to manage when you take good care of it. So just leave that part to me! Heheheheh...” As Mimosa said this, her smile in the mirror became a little bit creepy.
After that, I was hard at work at a wide variety of tasks.
First off, I helped out with the cleaning.
Since the Fisalis family was wealthy, they had vases and other decorations scattered all over the place. Seeing all these expensive ornaments stuck everywhere, like they were a dime a dozen, made me feel so lightheaded that I had to sit down. These luxurious decorations could only be left under the care of professionals, like the servants—anyone else would be in over their head!
Currently, I was in a room that was primarily made of stone. I was mopping the shiny marble floor.
I found out that the servants were responsible for cleaning the floor of the third story, where they themselves lived. Technically, only cleaning the second and first floors counted as ‘work.’ It was still a very big house, though, and I got quite the workout.
Now for the main feature of the manor... which was its abundant use of high quality glass.
Glass windows were common across the land, but their price was based on the size of the sheet. Windows made of rather large panes were in every room of the manor, and the window facing the garden in the dining room in particular was one enormous sheet of glass. It was plain as day that it was worth a fortune! It was perfectly transparent, too, which meant it was even more expensive.
It was all for nothing, however, if it was dirty.
Cleaning windows this size was no easy task, though. You had to climb a ladder to get to the part near the ceiling! The servants did everything they could to talk me out of doing just that, so I quietly let it go.
But even I could clean a little flower vase.
So there I was, wiping away at that little vase while the pros cleaned the window next to me. I found a camellia tree in the garden, so I extracted the oil from the skin of its fruits and used that as a polish. Its fruits were yellowish green, bigger than a fist, and tasted bittersweet. You could find them all over the place, but they were also cultivated specifically for their fruit.
As I was wiping away with a cloth, whistling as I went, the housemaids who were cleaning along with me asked, “Madam, may I inquire as to what you’re doing?” I guess they were curious about my polishing method.
“Oh, I’m using the sap from camellia fruit skins as a polish. It removes grime and gives a nice sheen—two birds, one stone!”
I showed them my bowl of polish.
“Oh, I see! It’s not just a polishing or shining powder!” one of them said, surprised. I told her that we didn’t have the extra money around for that sort of thing at my house, but we did have a camellia tree in the yard. There was no reason not to use it.
That, and it was free.
Just a little life hack, there.
“That’s right! Plus, when you use this stuff, it leaves behind a camellia scent, which is nice and refreshing! You can use it when I’m done.”
“I’m sure it will smell great!”
“It sure will! I highly recommend it. And since the skin of the fruit is something you’d usually throw away, this is very economical!”