He Will Not Return
Anastasia peered through the gap in the curtains at the world outside. Several splendid carriages had arrived, and from them an endless stream of boxes was being unloaded. Whatever could they all be? One thing was certain: the large ribbons affixed to them marked them unmistakably as gifts. In this mansion, only three people could possibly receive presents in such quantity—the noble Lauderdales.
She remained standing at the window, watching the carriages until the sun began to sink and they finally departed.
“Oh…”
Even though nothing remained but an ordinary landscape, Anastasia still let out a soft gasp of wonder. In the ten years since she had come to this place, she had never once looked upon a sunset from such a height. The very ground she had never left in all that time now felt utterly unfamiliar.
“It’s beautiful…”
Facing the sunset of her paradise for the first time, Anastasia could only marvel. Edenhurst, when one gazed up at the red sky from the forest and gardens, and when one looked down upon it from the mansion, were two entirely different sights.
Only after the crimson carpet of light that had blanketed the earth began to fade did she finally return to the bed. Seated on its edge, she regarded her own feet. In the week she had spent in this room, her injuries had nearly healed.
The physician summoned from the village visited every day to examine her wounds and apply salve. The medicine in the round pot gave off a strange odor she had never smelled in her life. He soaked a cotton swab in the deep red ointment—the color of blood just beginning to clot—and pressed it to her injuries. The pain was as sharp as when glass had embedded itself in her hand, yet Anastasia clenched her teeth and endured it.
“You bear it well.”
The doctor deliberately increased the pressure on the tweezers holding the cotton, but Anastasia never once let a single sound of pain escape. Yesterday had been his final visit; he declared there was nothing more for him to check and instructed that the salve simply be applied once a day. When the maid inquired about the medicine Anastasia was to take by mouth, he replied that it came not from him but from the physician attached to the mansion, and that she should ask him.
The maid had glared irritably at the tray holding the bottle, cotton, and tweezers the doctor had left behind. More work for her.
Anastasia waited for the maid who still had not come even after darkness fell.
He said to take the medicine after eating.
On the table, barely discernible in the gloom, sat the medicine and water. That was the remedy prepared by the man named Igor who had arrived with Mikhail. Anastasia was someone who obeyed whatever others instructed. Therefore, taking the medicine before a meal—as the doctor had directed for the salve—was simply out of the question.
After waiting a long while longer, she climbed onto the bed and pulled the covers over herself.
Looks like she isn’t coming today.
Since moving into this room, Anastasia had received three meals every single day without fail. What’s more, those meals were the very same dishes the cook prepared for the masters of the house: fragrant, soft, freshly baked bread rich with butter; a cup brimming with juice; well-roasted vegetables and eggs, bacon, beans; and roasted potatoes topped with a sauce whose name she did not know.
Foods she had only ever tasted as kitchen scraps on special days like the Lauderdales’ birthdays. To be given them three times a day… Anastasia had been certain she could never finish it all. Yet the human body proved wickedly cunning; even after she had swept away more than twice her usual portion, far from feeling burdened she only craved still more. And so she was afraid. Was this the sin of gluttony her father had spoken of, the endless hunger of a starving ghost? Even so, the temptation of soft bread and butter was simply too strong to resist. When the meal ended and the maid left, Anastasia took her medicine and then offered a prayer of penance to God.
“….”
She lay for a long time, yet sleep would not come. It was strange. Ever since she had come to this room, after eating and taking her medicine she had grown so drowsy she could scarcely finish her prayers—yet now her mind was perfectly clear. Just as she thought she might as well rise and pray again, a maid’s voice sounded in the corridor.
After a brief hesitation, Anastasia simply pretended to be asleep. She knew that if she appeared to be sleeping, the maid would set down the tray and leave at once. If she were awake, the maid would stand beside her the entire time she ate.
A moment later a knock came, and the maid entered the room.
“She’s really asleep?”
“See? I told you she’d be sleeping. She collapses and sleeps the whole day long. What a lucky life.”
The maid had not come alone. Behind Anastasia’s turned back came the sound of a tray being set on the table and a chair being pulled out to sit.
“I came late on purpose.”
Looking at Anastasia lying as if dead, the maid smiled with satisfaction.
Lately, every time she collected Anastasia’s meals from the kitchen she had claimed the girl ate a great deal and requested extra. Naturally every last scrap of that extra food had gone into the maid’s own mouth. The kitchen never questioned it, and Anastasia seemed like a halfwit who never noticed even when the plates were disturbed—so there had been no trouble at all.
Thanks to that, the maid had been enjoying bread and meat of late. Besides, once Anastasia fell asleep she never woke.
“I figured she’d be out cold. So for a while we can eat and relax here in comfort.”
Extra food they had finagled, and a quiet room no one else ever visited—moreover, a place they would never ordinarily dare enjoy. The maid in charge had brought her closest friend among the other servants; smiling, she produced a small bottle of liquor she had smuggled in.
Before long the two maids sat as freely as if the room were their own, eating the food brought for Anastasia while they talked.
“Did you see the gifts piled up in the entrance hall today?”
“Of course I did. How could anyone miss them? Even the gardeners were peeking into the main house to gawk.”
The gift boxes Anastasia herself had watched that afternoon. The moment conversation turned to the very thing she had been wondering about, she held her breath even more carefully and strained to listen.
“I’m so jealous of the young ladies. Just marrying a man that handsome would be enviable enough—but he’s fabulously rich on top of it.”
“Lady Catherine’s maids say that according to something Lady Catherine read in a magazine, Lord Mikhail’s fortune might even surpass the imperial family’s. They call him the Emperor of Sokolov.”
“It’ll be Lady Elizabeth who marries him, of course. I’m so envious…”
At the maid’s murmur Anastasia, though she knew she must not move, found herself nodding. She was envious—not of Elizabeth marrying him, but of the proud right to do so without shame.
“When are they getting married?”
“Who knows… Noble marriages are different from ours. They take time.”
“So he’ll stay here the whole while?”
The maid who asked sounded excited.
“No. I hear he’s returning to Sokolov soon.”
At the answer Anastasia’s body gave a small start. The maids, however, growing tipsy, noticed nothing. They had already forgotten they ought not to finish everything and were reaching even for Anastasia’s share. Conversation continued, bread and meat serving as their side dishes.
“Why? Going to Sokolov so he can come back with more gifts?”
“No. They say Lord Mikhail won’t return to Edenhurst again. The young lady is the one who’ll go to Sokolov. He’s a busy man—hard for him to stay here long. The match is as good as settled already… so Lady Elizabeth will go there to prepare for the wedding.”
“But he’ll be the Count of Lauderdale, won’t he? I heard the old Count only went to the capital during the social season or when the imperial family summoned him.”
“Come on—even if Lord Mikhail becomes a count, he still has his business. He may like Edenhurst, but going back and forth to Sokolov all the time would be exhausting. He’ll probably only come for summer holidays. And with so many summer villas elsewhere, maybe he’ll only stop by Edenhurst once in a blue moon.”
“Then it’ll just be Madam and Lady Catherine left here.”
“I don’t know. Maybe those two will go up as well. That’s why so many maids have been trying to get into the young ladies’ good graces lately. When the ladies leave for Sokolov they’ll take a few servants with them, and everyone wants to be among the chosen.”
“Not us, I suppose?”
“Wake up. They’ll be picking from among the maids already serving them. No amount of sucking up from the likes of us now is going to catch their eye. I don’t even care about becoming a lady’s maid—I just want to set foot in Sokolov once. They say it’s more magnificent than the capital now. Lady Catherine mentioned they’re building a seventh pier.”
“Seventh pier? What’s that? Is it a big deal?”
“The capital’s harbor only goes up to five piers. But Sokolov’s grown so much it already has seven. And every last one of them belongs to Lord Mikhail.”
“So what?”
“Are you stupid? Any ship that enters the harbor has to dock at a pier. And it has to pay the docking fee every single day. Sometimes even if they pay, the pier won’t take them. Then they can’t unload properly, can’t get supplies, can’t even buy food. That’s why every merchant who trades bows his head to Lord Mikhail. Didn’t you see the president of Ilenka today? He was practically crawling in front of him.”
Anastasia could not fully grasp everything the maids said. But she understood clearly enough that Mikhail was a formidable man.
After chattering for a long while, the maids rose and left once the liquor ran dry. Anastasia carefully turned over. The small lamp they had left behind still burned quietly. When she approached the table she found plates messily piled with what was unmistakably half-eaten food.
Her body, now accustomed to three meals a day, clamored for her to eat at once—yet Anastasia simply sat in the chair and stared blankly at the dishes. One of the things the maids had said kept echoing through her mind.
Lord Mikhail won’t return to Edenhurst again.
“He’s not coming back…”
Anastasia’s shoulders sagged. For the past several days, whenever her eyes were open she had gazed out the window. She had told herself it was to admire Edenhurst’s beautiful scenery, but in truth her gaze had been scanning every person who passed by. She knew perfectly well whom she was searching for. Mikhail. She had wanted to see him just once more.
She had caught sight of him a few times. Each time he had always been with Elizabeth. Sometimes Catherine or the Countess had been with them as well.
Anastasia had hoped he would marry Elizabeth. Then… as long as she remained at Edenhurst, if luck was with her she might still be able to see him. But he would not return.
Just then footsteps sounded in the corridor. Realizing they were approaching her room, Anastasia startled and slipped back under the covers. The maid had already gone—had she forgotten something?
Knock, knock. A brief rapping at the door.
In that instant Anastasia understood. The person outside was not the maid. Then who?
When she remained still, a creak of the opening door came, and the figure outside stepped in. Her body froze with terror—until the owner of those footsteps spoke.
“You haven’t taken your medicine, Miss Anastasia.”
The voice belonged to Mikhail—the very man she had been secretly watching for.