She glanced around and looked inside the maid’s room, but there was no one.
After Sally entered and locked the door, she glared at the luxurious shopping bag as if it was a ticking time bomb. After she pondered over and over again, she finally opened and squinted her eyes.
‘…What kind of whim is this again?’
The first thing she took out was an ointment in a small box.
…It was to apply to wounds on the face.
Since when did Winston pay so much attention to the wounds of a maid? Just in the mansion kitchen, there are a lot of maids who cut their hands, and he should send it there. He was not a normal thinker, so it wouldn’t mean an apology. What kind of trick was this…?
Putting put the ointment box in the drawer and going through the shopping bag, inside were twelve flat, square boxes.
A vicious sigh escaped Sally’s mouth as she opened a box with a colorful pattern on it.
Silk stockings.
It was three times more expensive than what Sally picked up and placed this afternoon. It also contained three pairs of each color: black, white, brown, and peach.
Jimmy’s absurd command repeated in her mind as she stared at the twelve bomb boxes lying on her bed.
“…Please don’t do this.”
º º º
A hum came out of Sally, who was cleaning out Winston’s annex dressing room. Govurn’s rescue operation was going to be an unexpected good fortune.
Winston went to Govurn the day after the operation and did not return until today, three days later.
‘Do not come back forever.’
A ray of scarlet sunset light leaked through the gap in the curtain that covered the long window. It seemed that he would not come back today, considering that even at dusk, Lieutenant Campbell had not made a call to prepare something for Winston’s.
Winston had been sleeping a lot in the annex bedroom rather than the main building in the past few months.
As a result, Sally was really busy as she took care of his personal belongings.mAs she picked up the officer’s uniform from the laundry cart and hung it neatly in the closet, she frowned as she recalled the gossip in the laundry room the other day.
“All the button threads are tattered.”
The maids in charge of the laundry smirked at the fact that Winston’s trousers had to be re-buttoned with strong thread. She was obviously referring to the pants he was wearing the day she attacked Sally.
“What made him so excited that the button broke?”
“Didn’t you hear that he had a date with the Grand Lady that day?”
Crazy bastard…
He spent all evening with her fiancee and tried to attack the maid as soon as he returned.
“He’s tall, and his hands are big, so, hmm, would it be big?”
One of the maids whispered, the other clenched her fist and shook her forearm.
“It’s obvious just by looking at the stretched thread. Won’t it be this big? Don’t you think it must have been outstanding there, too?”
At that moment, without realizing it, Sally remembered the large ‘cigar’ and wrinkled her expression as if she had chewed an insect. Why the hell was they curious about the dirty parts of that garbage…? Even though she didn’t want to know, it was just a shame she couldn’t undo it anymore.
Her cart was almost empty. All that was left were small items like socks and handkerchiefs.
Sally, who had inadvertently picked up the ironed and neatly folded white silk handkerchief from the basket, frowned again.
‘Is this that damned handkerchief?’
Originally, as soon as she found it, she put it on the stove and held back that she wanted to burn it. She thought of his eccentricity, and it was clear if she had burned what he had left behind on purpose, he was obviously going to investigate.
Sally tucked the handkerchief, all clean, in the middle of the tightly packed handkerchiefs in the drawer.
‘Shall I just get kicked out?’
She brought the laundry cart back to the ground floor and made her way up to the attic to get her share of dinner.
A good idea suddenly came to mind.
His engagement to the Grand Lady has not yet been finalized, although if there are rumors of an affair with an insignificant maid… Mrs. Winston would drive her out at once.
So, it meant that she didn’t have to embark on a new mission, did she?
Nonetheless, her terribly terrifying sense of responsibility caught Sally’s ankle. She infiltrated the Winstons with difficulty and successfully. If she left without planting anyone, it would be like building a strong foundation and setting them on fire on the way home.
Even with Fred, frankly, he was untrustworthy. It was because Winston didn’t trust him. She didn’t know when he would act on a whim and send him to another unit or class.
‘Don’t ever come back. Or is he falling in love with another woman in Govurn… Oh, why is this happening again…?’
After the meal, Sally let out a long sigh as she went to the small bathroom attached to the maid’s room.
She turned on the shower valve, and no matter how long she waited, only ice-cold water poured out. There were times when the boiler in the basement of the annex was old, and the hot water did not come up to the attic.
The reward for hard work was an ice shower. She couldn’t stand it.
Even so, the bathroom under the attic was already as cold as ice.
Shivering in only her underwear, Sally stared at the pouring icy water and stopped the water. Sally put back the clothes she had taken off, grabbed the clothes to change into, and headed downstairs since Winston wasn’t coming anyway.
º º º
As the dancers climbed onto the stage, the whistle of the men drowned out the sound of the music. The only thing the female dancers wore was a short skirt with flamboyant tassels and beads, and a necklace of imitation pearls hung in layers around their neck.
Leon stared blankly at the women dancing with their chests exposed. Why were they so obsessed with just the flesh…? It was nothing more than a chunk of meat stuck in a butcher’s shop.
Of the five officers seated at the table, Leon was the only one who felt that this was boring.
Unable to bear the boredom, he glanced lightly at Lieutenant Colonel Humphrey, who was sitting next to him.
The superior was smacking his red lips, not knowing that the cigar was turning to ashes. He had a serious expression like a doberman in Govurn, though the moment he left there, he started to laugh like a monkey.
It was not enough, he led the intelligence service officers to the cabaret for a farewell party for the commander who would soon return to civilian life.
A party without the main character…
There was only one thing that was interesting to Leon, the contradiction. As he clenched his chin at an angle and slowly shook his bottomed glass, the lieutenant colonel tilted the whiskey bottle over him.
“Isn’t it fun?”
“It’s just that I’m picky with my taste.”
At his candid answer, the lieutenant colonel shook his head and laughed.
“Then, how about that girl?”
The lieutenant colonel pointed to the dancer standing in the center of the stage with the tip of the cigar. The girl who kissed the audience with her gorgeous smile was the most popular girl in Winsford’s entertainment district. It also meant that her night was the most expensive.
“Kitty Hayes. She is a woman no one can afford.”
The middle-aged man placed his arm around Leon’s shoulder and whispered, giving him valuable information.
“Hey, you are lucky today. This cabaret owner owes me something.”
Didn’t he once him Leon to be careful with women…? Leon took a sip of his whiskey and twisted the corners of his lips.
“Thank you, but I don’t like it. I will decline.”
“Look, once you roll around dirty, it’s supposed to get better. That’s how everyone starts, isn’t it, Johnson?”
Major Johnson, who sat across from Leon, shrugged his shoulders.
“You are right, lieutenant colonel. However, it wouldn’t be bad to get married without knowing the fun like this. Won’t it be a problem if he falls into it late and loses his mind?”
The major winked slightly at Leon.
It had always been his job to stop the lieutenant colonel from pushing Leon, who didn’t like it every time he came to the cabaret, into a hotel room. Even though the major had a higher military rank than Leon, he had a lower social rank than the great landowners of Camden, including Winsford.
“Ah… right. That noble Grand Lady. How is it? Is she your taste?”
“I don’t like getting married.”
The lieutenant colonel burst into laughter.
“It is.”
The lieutenant colonel, who was stroking Leon’s back with a thick hand as if he had said the right thing, muttered softly.
“But keep this in mind.”
“….”
“A hot night doesn’t always end badly.”
Leon just smiled bitterly.
The lieutenant colonel knew that he was reluctant to meet a stranger for fear that he would face a disastrous end like his father. He continued to point to the dancers on stage one by one, annoying Leon.
A woman approached this way with a luxurious black tray with a string tied around her neck. She was called by Lieutenant Campbell’s hand gesture, who was sitting next to him.
Leon stared quietly at the woman as Campbell paid for a pack of cigarettes and a few gums from her tray. She was a poor woman selling cigarettes.
…She was no less than that maid.
Soon, a slanted smile was carved on his face.