Imagine having your engagement revoked and being banished from the country. It really happened—not to me, Francette, but to my older sister, Adele. The crown prince, Mael, had even denounced her in public.
My sister was a diligent girl who had endured her strenuous royal etiquette training without a word of complaint, yet she had been cast away simply for admonishing Prince Mael for his wild behavior and warning his mistress not to draw attention to herself.
The punishment hadn’t ended there. Our ducal family had had all of its assets seized, bankrupting us overnight.
My mother, a princess of a neighboring country, had left home to join my banished sister. From what I’d heard, the two of them were now living happily over there. Two years after the incident, I had received a piece of good news: apparently, my sister had gotten engaged to that country’s crown prince. All’s well that ends well...for her, at least.
As for me, I was living a modest life of poverty in the old part of town, sharing a one-story house with my father, who had stayed in the country. Why didn’t I go with my mother, you ask? Well, because I was fed up with high society. It wasn’t that I was worried about my father. In fact, he continued to go out every night with his mistresses. Even if he’d lost his fortune, the ladies hadn’t abandoned nobility’s number one womanizer. With them taking care of him, I only had to worry about my own life.
A fallen noble like me wasn’t going to come across any suitors, especially without any help from my laissez-faire father. It would’ve been a different story if I could use magic, though. I’d heard that the magician population was on the decline. Thus, there were many nobles who wanted to bring magician blood into their families. Unfortunately, we—the Blanchard family—were only distantly related to such blood.
If only I could use magic, I could make money off of “enchanted items”—everyday goods infused with magic, I always lamented. Instead, I currently made a living by consigning sweets to a pastry shop in the central district. I’d once learned a few recipes from a pastry chef in order to do charity work—who would’ve thought the skills I’d acquired to help others would end up being used to help myself? You never know what will happen in life.
Some pitied me for working so hard, but I didn’t care. I was working and getting paid. I held the fruits of my labor in my own hands. People who didn’t work wouldn’t know how wonderful that felt.
I was satisfied with my life. I wasn’t well-off, but my days were peaceful and relaxing.
This morning, I woke up to the quacking of a duck as usual. I got out of bed and stretched. Peering out the window, I saw the cause of the commotion.
I took a deep breath and shouted, “Heeey! No fighting the newspaper deliveryman!”
The duck quieted down. She lived with me, but she didn’t have a name, so I simply referred to her as “the duck.” I had encountered her in a nearby park and protected her when she was being chased by knights for attacking people. She had probably been a noble’s pet or a duck farm escapee, but I hadn’t been able to find her owner, so I had ended up taking her in myself. The old one-story house my father owned had a pond where she could swim around and bathe, making it a suitable environment for raising her.
As was just demonstrated, the duck had a fierce temperament. She threatened—and sometimes even attacked—anyone who tried to set foot onto our property. A bit extreme, but considering that my father hardly ever came home, it was good to have a guard duck around.
For what it was worth, I did have a signboard at the entrance gate that said, “Beware of violent duck!” However, there were people who didn’t think a duck would be able to hurt them, and it didn’t stop them from taking that fatal step inside.
The duck brought me the newspaper she’d snatched from the deliveryman.
“Thanks,” I said, extending my hand out the window.
She snuggled up to me. As far as I was concerned, she was just a cute, friendly duck.
“All right, time for another productive day!”
Before our family’s ruin, my day had begun with a gentle rousing from a maid and a leisurely cup of tea. Now that our assets had been seized, we didn’t have anywhere near enough spare money to hire a servant, so I had to take care of everything by myself. I had learned how to change clothes, cook, do laundry, and clean at the orphanage I volunteered at, so I was able to get by. I no longer owned a single frilly or lacy dress. Instead, I now wore an apron dress every day, just like the ones worn by maidservants. I was actually quite fond of it because it was easy to move around in.
I put on a shirt that I had washed and ironed yesterday. The fabric was rougher against my skin than the clothes I used to wear. That was the one thing I’d never gotten used to.
I went to the bathroom and looked at the clouded mirror, which never cleared up no matter how hard I scrubbed it. I sighed at the sight of my commonplace brown hair. My sister had beautiful raven hair which she had inherited from our mother. Unfortunately, I had inherited our father’s plain color instead. However, I did take some pride in having our mother’s wisteria-colored eyes.
But this isn’t the time for ruminating.
After carefully combing my hair, I gathered it into a ponytail at the back of my head. I washed my face with rainwater from a barrel and brushed my teeth. In the past, this would’ve been the point where I’d have put on makeup. But now, not only did I not own any makeup, I wouldn’t have time to apply it anyway.
“All right!” I pumped myself up and went outside.
In spring, the yard was a vivid green, shining in the sun. Wildflowers like thistles, daisies, and scarlet pimpernels were swaying in the breeze. Though it was spring, it was still chilly. I had to finish my errands quickly.
The duck came up to me, flapping her wings. She probably wanted food. I usually fed her vegetable peels and unsold fish from the market. Sometimes the merchants would even give me ingredients for myself as well. The people at the market knew I was dirt poor, so they were all nice to me. It was thanks to them that I was able to live like this.
By the way, the duck also ate harmful insects. I was impressed when I saw her pecking at the grasshoppers and crickets that were eating the crops in my garden. But she also loved the vegetables themselves. After she’d run out of insects, she would sometimes take a bite of the vegetable leaves too, and I really wished she wouldn’t.
While the duck was eating, I peeked into her straw nest.
“Oh, would you look at that!”
Since this ferocious duck was female, she laid eggs for me—not every day like a chicken would, but quite frequently. Her eggs were larger than chicken eggs, so making one into an omelette was enough for a full meal. I gratefully took the egg.
I harvested some potatoes and spinach from the garden. The spinach had some beak marks on it. I chose to think of it as us sharing our food.
Today’s breakfast was an oven-baked potato, a spinach omelette, and herbal tea made with fresh chamomile from the garden. I dropped a generous chunk of butter onto the potato and added my homemade tomato sauce to the omelette.