The Last Princess

Chapter 84

Lotus shifted on her feet nervously.

Mrs. Arum was there, inspecting the library, since we had just cleaned the last section yesterday. We were doing the very first section today, all the way on the left, so we were wasting some time, but the other two maids had recovered and were ready to work with us, which would provide us some relief. Though you wouldn't know it by the looks on Lotus' and Vanilla's face.

Begonia and Celosia Waratah shared the same blond hair, though Celosia's was thin and straight and a bit feathery, while Begonia's was thick, short and kind of wavy. Begonia had deep red-pink eyes and was shorter, though she was older. Celosia was tall and thin, with dark magenta eyes. They were both unusually pretty, and their hair and eyes were very much like ours, which was slightly worrying, but their other features were different.

Mrs. Arum inspected everything, then turned to us. "Quite good work, considering only four of you were there." Vanilla's shoulders relaxed, and Mrs. Arum finally left through the large door. "Well. Let's get to work." Lotus said.

"What, you're not asking us if we're well?" Begonia asked. Lotus discreetly rolled her eyes at us, then turned back to her. "If you're working, you're obviously well." Celosia huffed. "I suppose you couldn't, even for the sake of manners- oh wait, I forgot, you lack the capacity to demonstrate manners at all."

Lotus' pale cheeks pinked, but she didn't respond. "Who are these two?" Begonia asked, turning to us. "Tulip and Calla Wisteria." Vanilla said. "What's that?" Begonia asked, like she hadn't heard. Vanilla' cheeks turned red as well. "Tulip and Calla Wisteria." Lotus said, glaring at the sisters.

They were being blatantly rude to those two. Celosia smiled artificially at us. "Hello." Maple said hello back, and I smiled. They stared at me curiously, probably wondering why I had breached protocol by not saying hello as well.

"She's mute." Lotus stepped in. Their expressions morphed into the worst charade of sympathy I had ever seen. "Oh, dear, that's awful." Begonia gushed. "Poor you." Celosia said, sounding equally sorrowful. If nothing else, they were incredible actresses. "Well, we'll take you under our wing. We, also, joined only a few weeks ago." Begonia said.

However tempting that offer sounded, I was not in the least inclined to accept it. So Maple and I just smiled politely. "Shall we get to work then? We have a lot to do!" Lotus said, getting us to focus.

We walked to the first section. Lotus and Vanilla again took the main bookshelf, Maple and I the one on the right, and Begonia and Celosia the one on the left. Then I began to see why Lotus and Vanilla disliked them so much.

Aside from being plainly rude and disrespectful, the Waratah sisters shared a dislike for hard work, which led me to question why at all they were maids in the first place, and tried to get out of whatever work they could. They also hogged the food at meals, though it wasn't exactly plentiful. They used their recent illness as an excuse to get out of dusting, claiming it irritated their eyes and nose, but Vanilla confidentially told me that their 'illness' had most likely been fake. Which I had pretty much guessed on my own.

They pretended not to hear anything Vanilla said, talked too loudly, made fun of them for not having 'manners' (as if their own were very refined), and, all in all, I quite understood why Lotus and Vanilla were so glad when they weren't there, though it meant extra work for them.

Finally, Maple got around to asking where they were from. "Oh, we were practically born in the palace, we visited it so many times. Many generations of our family have worked here, including our parents. But they left before we were born, because the didn't need to work any more. We're here honoring their memory." Begonia said snottily. Then Celosia added in a low voice, as though she was trying to conceal her words, "They should only let people like us in, not any of those low-born elves we are forced to rub shoulders with."

But of course we all heard, and Lotus' whole face turned bright red. That had been a direct slight to them, given that they had bee brought up in an orphanage, with no idea of their birth. "Well, if they only did that, there would be hardly any maids, and you would probably be cleaning this whole library on your own!"

Yesterday she had been so sweet, but it was obvious that Begonia and Celosia Waratah rubbed her up the wrong way. I saw Vanilla's hand go over Lotus' for a brief moment, calming her down. Celosia sniffed haughtily, but didn't deign to reply. Because what Lotus had said was quite correct.

When we were done with our bookshelf, and Lotus and Vanilla were cleaning the window (how did those two work so fast?), Begonia and Celosia, as if on cue, dropped their dusters and sank into the sofas, claiming exhaustion. "Get up! Those are't meant for us!" Lotus exclaimed sharply.

"Oh, we can't take it...We're awfully weak after our sickness." Celosia claimed pathetically. I rolled my eyes, but Maple and I took over their work (Lotus made them sit on the floor, not the sofas, though). Thankfully we only had to clean half of that bookshelf. There were no accidents like yesterday, and when we were done, we joined the other two in dusting the furniture, and Lotus hauled those two up to sweep the floor (though they did it even worse than I did, and I'd only ever swept a floor yesterday). 

Vanilla exchanged a glance with Lotus and they silently went over the area the Waratah sisters had swept.

Soon we were done, though it was dark again. Having two other people hadn't seemed to make much of a difference. But Begonia and Celosia seemed oblivious to our exasperated attitude as they continued gossiping. "So, so you know, that this guard proposed to me, and I..."

Half their stories were probably false, and an attempt to make us jealous, but none of us paid them any attention at all. Especially the guard one, because Lotus informed us in private that such a rumor would probably have gone through all the maids in the palace already, and a thorough grilling and background check of the poor guard in question would have taken place.

Still, they continued talking, and Lotus left with a thankful expression. But they informed us that, to our delight, of course, they had to walk halfway with us to get to their room, and it would be such a pleasure for us to be informed on the latest palace gossip.

All I could do was think with pity for poor Vanilla, who, before our coming, would have had to endure these nonsensical sisters on her own.