Some Time With Lydia

Afte breakfast, I spent some time with Lydia, she was busy with work as the head of the family, so I had learned the least about her situation. Though it was clear that the cause was probably more how Samantha had messed up, rather than Lydia explicitly beating her. She had a pillow for her chair at the main desk, and two maids in the room with her, but they were doing nothing.

I clapped my hands twice.

All three of them looked at me with confusion. Oh, right. I guess that wasn’t anything notable to them. Well, should I try involve myself here if I am unwanted?

“Everything okay Celeste?” she asked.

It was so easy when the standard was simply whatever Master wanted. Hmm, maybe… maybe I could do this. “Yes, well, rather it will be. You two, why are you simply doing nothing?” I asked.

“I am awaiting her orders as she has trouble reaching things,” one maid said.

“And you are both needed for such?” I asked. “You please bring some cleaning supplies.”

“You want them to clean?” Lydia asked. “They did just clean three days ago.”

I nodded. I then ended up sending the other maid for tea. While she was gone, I helped Lydia out of the chair. She wasn’t even that far along her pregnancy, but she had always been a bit fragile.

“You didn’t know this did you?” I asked as I adjusted the chair a bit before tossing the pillow away.

She sat down and breathed a sigh of relief. “That is so much better, how did you know about that?” she asked.

“Grandfather built this chair, but he had adjusted it to Mother, but she is shorter than you, and with the pillow, it just looked uncomfortable. I remembered when he showed us all this chair.”

“To think you remembered, but I presume you sent them away because you wanted to talk in private?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I did not, actually. I thought I did, but right now. I just want to help.”

“You always were good at directing others,” she said as she stretched a bit before returning to her book.

Once the maids returned I poured my sister tea. It wasn’t as good at it should be, they had steeped it to long. Just another thing for me to fix later on. Apparently they had been cleaning the study on weekend only, when Lydia stayed out of the room for a break. Hmm, how annoying. Perhaps their approach was the more standard, but my sisters wouldn’t have allowed this. We… we had more pride than that.

I took a deep breath. Was I trying to just remake the castle here? Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed how she was wiping the table down. So random with her motion. It just made me wanna explode.

“Not like that, your mising so many spots, and it so uneven, come now, you have more pride than this don’t you?” I asked.

They looked a bit confused. “Do you really think we were doing a bad job?”

“I…” I paused. “I didn’t mean to say it like that, but, you can do so much better, why would you not want to do better?” I asked.

They looked at each other and nodded. “Very well, it is worth trying at the very least.”

I smiled. “I’ll handle the area behind Lydia,” I said as I grabbed a washrag.

“You are going to work as well?” One maid asked.

Right. I wasn’t supposed to. If Mother say, it would just be another moment of being told not to act like staff. Lydia hadn’t even noticed because she was engrossed in her papers. “I feel like lightening the load today, so rather than concern, just say thank you,” I said as I grinned.

I was moving much faster and more efficiently than both of them, so I had covered about half the room before they each finished a quarter. I was working up a sweat, if it wasn’t for these stuffy clothes. It still felt nice to see how clean it was.

“Celeste?” Lydia asked as she looked up. “Why are you like that?” she asked.

“Like what?” I felt normal. It wasn’t sure in what she was referring to.

“Your dress,” she said pointing, I looked down and realized I had removed my blouse, and as a result, my bra and belly were visible. It was a struggle for me to personally identify this as anything like a problem if I were being honest. Like, what did it matter? I know this was not a normal dress for a commoner or noble but why not? My skin was clean, I was warm and I felt good.

“My apologies my Lady,” I said with a bow.

“My lady?” she asked. “Celeste, are you feeling well? I was gonna seek your help on some paperwork but perhaps you need some time to rest.”

My Lady. Oops. I was showering her defferiance on accident. I mean, she was the head of the house, was that so bad? I picked up my blouse from the chair I had set it on.

The door clicked open. “What is going on in here!”

We all looked over and realized Mother had walked in. The two maids were still cleaning their half, but she was more focused on me, nearly topless, sweat beading off my head. “Nothing to be concerned with.” I said. I knew she’d consider it a lie but I tried all the same.

“Celeste! Why are you indecent! And in front of staff! You… and Lydia! This is no way to honor your position! I am disappointed in all of you. Ugh! Celeste, get dressed. Now!”

I tossed my blouse back on and bowed. “My apologies-”

“Did you forget already? Samantha may be rough, but at least even she understood the basic idea that you should not be so quick to apologize. My heavens. We need to get you some help. You are clearly worse off than we realized,” she paused and looked the the maids. “You speak one word of this and I will ensure your lives are short.”

I sighed. I didn’t remember my mother being so awful. I wondered what had caused her to change. She directly for me to follow her and so I did.