Cry, Even Better if you Beg

✧Delivered Girl✧

The little girl arrived at the mansion by a mail wagon in the early spring.

It was around late afternoon when Bill Remmer was hard at work planting rose seeds.

“Are you Mr. Bill Remmer?”

The child asked carefully, in a smooth accent that gave off quite a peculiar feeling.
Bill Remmer simply stood still with a stupefied look on his face.

“Yes, I’m Bill Remmer.”

Bill took off his straw hat with the same hands that had scrubbed off the dirt from his clothes. The child swallowed when his tanned face, hidden in the shadow of the broad brim, was revealed.

For Bill, the child’s reaction was nothing out of the ordinary. Anyone who first saw Bill Remmer usually reacted the same way because of his rugged appearance.

“Who are you?” Bill’s face appeared more frightening as he frowned upon the child.

“Hello, Uncle Bill. I am Leyla Lewellin. I came from Lovita.”

The child spoke clearly and slowly.
Lovita… Bill soon realized why her accent had sounded a little different.

“Did you cross the border to the Berg Empire and come here all by yourself?”

“Yes. I came by train.”

The child smiled awkwardly, as she unnaturally straightened her posture. At that moment, the postman who had brought the child approached them from behind.

“Ah. This child finally met you, Mr. Remmer.”

“Good timing. Why did you bring her here?”

“She was walking all alone with her luggage in front of the station. So, when I asked her where she was going, she said she was on her way to find Bill Remmer, the gardener of the Herhardt family. I brought her here because I was on my way to deliver some letters.”

The postman explained with a smile and handed over an envelope to Bill Remmer. It was a letter from a distant relative living in the neighboring country of Lovita.

Bill immediately ripped the envelope open. The letter contained the story of an orphaned child who had previously been taken in by relatives who were now no longer able to foster her because of their “poor” circumstances.
The child’s name was Leyla Lewellin. The little girl standing in front of Bill was the orphan mentioned in the letter.

“Damned people. They sure are telling me this news fast.”

Astonished, Bill lost his breath. No one in Lovita could foster this little orphan. Bill Remmer was the last among those who had a direct connection with the child. So they had delivered the child to him.

According to the letter, Bill could leave the child in the orphanage if his situation was not favorable enough for raising her.

Bill grumbled and tossed the crumpled paper to the floor. “These people should go to hell. I don’t understand how they could send this little girl here all by herself.”

As he understood the full extent of the situation, Bill’s face turned red with outrage. The child was treated like a mere toy, passed from one relative to another, and doomed to be dumped when no one else desired her. Eventually, she was sent off to a foreign country and given the address of a distant relative she had never met.

“Excuse me, Uncle Bill. I am not that young.”
The little girl who had been observing Bill quietly suddenly spoke up.

“I’ll be twelve in a couple of weeks.”

Bill chuckled with delight as he listened to her rather mature manner of speech. He felt reassured when he learned that she was older than expected, considering the girl looked smaller than her age.