Karen Florence (9)
I waited outside the stable for Karen Florence with nothing to do but wait.
Waiting at the stable meant, in turn, coming face to face with Sean, the stablekeeper — and keeping company with a man who had worn such a dark expression ever since Bianca's disappearance was, to put it kindly, no pleasure at all. I made no particular effort to speak with him. I hadn't the composure to spare much sympathy for his circumstances, and besides, pity offered by one of the very people responsible for his worries would have been nothing more than deception dressed up as kindness.
The later the hour grew, the chillier the autumn night became, as though it were rehearsing for winter. The sweat I'd worked up had long since cooled, stealing away what warmth I had, and I couldn't help but feel the cold. I rubbed my shoulders with both hands and exhaled; a hazy puff of breath drifted apart in the air like cigarette smoke.
It wasn't far off now. Whether I failed and was disposed of by Rihardt, or succeeded and broke Karen Florence — either way.
Karen Florence. Rough as her first impression had been, she was in truth a simple, guileless sort. Even the hostility she'd shown me fell within a range I could understand; she was not a woman ignorant of circumstance or courtesy. If we'd met anywhere but here, might we have gotten along rather well? I even caught myself wondering how things might have gone had I become her maid instead.
I know. I know all too well that this is nothing but clumsy escapism.
If Karen had been someone too vile to be endured — the sort of person you couldn't share a room with — my conscience would have weighed lighter on me. Then I might at least have had that flimsy cloak of righteousness to hide behind.
This is the road I chose in order to survive.
What else was there to do? In that situation, it was the best choice there was. Isn't the real fault with a situation like this — one that shoves a person down a dead-end road and leaves them there?
A vicious disgust welled up at my own mind, so busily scrambling to make the pieces fit. Damn it all. Linger beside a gloomy Sean long enough, it seemed, and you start catching his strange thoughts as well.
Just as my self-loathing threatened to sink to some new depth, a bright voice sounded at my ear.
"Huh? Lucy, what are you doing here? And another thing — whatever happened to the girl who wouldn't stop singing about needing a bath the entire time she traveled with me? Why are you still looking all grimy?"
The one I'd waited for had come. Karen Florence herself.
I gestured to her, anxious that none of what we said might reach Sean's ears — a signal that we should talk elsewhere. A question mark all but floated on her face, but she followed me all the same.
"What is it? Why the face frozen like stone?"
At her words I nearly reached up to smooth my own expression. A hollow laugh spilled out of me. Was this really something to be so rattled by?
"I heard that you were leaving."
"Ah — sorry I never said anything. I kept meaning to tell you, and then it clean slipped my mind."
An excuse that was Karen to the bone. Which made it all the more believable.
"But did you wait out here all this time for that? To say goodbye to me, or something?"
"Does that look like something I would do? The young master sent me."
Doubt clouded her face at my words.
"Rihardt did? Why? Our talk ended so well, though?"
What talk, ended well? I had no pressing need to know.
"He said letting you go like this left him with regrets, and told me to ask whether you wouldn't care for a... tryst."
"A-a... a tryst!? That Rihardt!? R-really!? This isn't a d-dream, is it!?"
A voice burst out of her loud enough to render pointless all the distance I'd put between us and other ears.
"Lower your voice. What will you do if someone hears?"
I pressed a fingertip to her lips, demanding quiet, and she clapped both hands over her own mouth, glancing rapidly left and right. Only after she had spotted Sean nearby did her voice settle to a more reasonable level.
"I-I'm happy, of course I am! But why the sudden change of heart? I never saw a single sign of anything like this!"
Well, of course you saw no sign. There wasn't one to see.
Hauling up the corners of a mouth that refused to cooperate, I said, "And if I told you this was a splendid gift the young master had prepared — would you believe me then?"
A lie improvised on the spot. And yet, to Karen, words sweet as honey.
"How romantic."
Watching her eyes dissolve into a dreamy haze, I very nearly burst out laughing. What part of meeting in a basement was supposed to be romantic? If that counted as romance, it was the coldest romance imaginable.
"S-so where is this tryst supposed to happen?"
Perhaps my wordless stare had flustered her, for Karen barreled quickly on.
"Could you step out of the estate and wait nearby for a moment? I'll follow right after you."
"Do we have to? W-we could just enjoy the tryst right now, you know!"
Karen Florence struck a pose so stiff with forced bravado that it showed plain as day. I did my best to talk down the wildly flustered woman.
"Then it stops being a secret tryst, doesn't it? It becomes a meeting in full view of the world."
"Hm, true enough! Rihardt really is such a shy one!"
From where I stood, you looked to be the more embarrassed of the two.
Before long, Karen nodded, the look of a woman who had settled something in her mind.
"I was going to give him his present when I left the estate, but it'll be even better to give it at the tryst! Rihardt will be so touched, won't he?"
I opened my mouth, then thought better of it. Whatever I said now would never reach her ears.
Who was it who said that people see only what they wish to see? I could only hope that Karen's eyes and ears, fogged by my honeyed nonsense, would stay fogged a while longer. Please — let her not catch wind of anything amiss.
Karen Florence rode off the estate grounds on her horse, Flee. Exactly ten minutes later, I left the estate as well.
A maid in Rihardt's exclusive service was, with his sanction, granted a fair degree of autonomy. There was no need for me to mind the eyes of the other servants.
Haah... haah...
I'd told her to wait somewhere nearby — just how far out had she gone? A thought flitted through my mind that come tomorrow, I'd be paying for this walk in aching muscles. Who knew how far I had trudged through that wretched, pitch-black dark. Little by little, an ominous fancy began to creep in: what if I had strayed from the path entirely? In that case, a fine catastrophe indeed — today's plaything would be me.
All at once, hoofbeats rang out, joined by a horse's whinny. There was no need to guess who it was. It was Karen.
Watching the red-haired girl draw slowly nearer, I let out a surly mutter.
"You said you would be nearby."
"Think of it as my broad mercy, meant to build up that pitiful stamina of yours?"
"Most people would call that sort of mercy plain mischief. Besides, one's stamina doesn't exactly shoot up just from walking like this."
"You won't know until you try!"
I didn't bother to answer. This was Karen Florence for you — beaming without pause, as though my frosty reception were the finest treat she'd had all day.
"Hop on."
She held out her hand, just as she had last time.
"...My thanks for your kindness."
First times are always the astonishing ones. Repeat the same experience twice, and you find yourself more or less used to it.
"Where to?"
"To the largest tree in this area, if you would."
"The largest tree? Hmm... that one over there?"
Somehow, in the middle of all this darkness, she sounded as though she'd spotted something.
"That would be the one, most likely."
"Then I'll head that way for now?"
As we rode, Karen asked every now and then whether this was really the right way, and I told her we were headed exactly where we ought to go — because we were. The farther we went, the more the scenery came to resemble the novel's descriptions, and before long we reached the great tree that concealed the passage leading in from outside, hardly any trouble at all.
"Remarkable. You found it at a glance."
"All thanks to how well you explained it, Lucy."
"Let's just say you have sharp eyes, Miss Karen."
I had expected the search to eat up a fair stretch of time. Things flowing this smoothly left my stomach twisted in knots.
I know the novel did say it would be easy to find, but all the same...
Locating it on the first try, at midnight, was another matter entirely. At this rate I was beginning to wonder whether this nun wasn't some beast wearing human skin.
"Hey... it really isn't a lie, is it?"
"About what, exactly?"
"Th-the tryst."
Her face was plain to read — torn with doubt over whether Rihardt, sitting back at the estate, could truly slip away unseen and come all this way. But unlike her worry, Rihardt would come down to the basement no matter how much of a chore it proved.
After all — to catch at least one of us. Me, or you.
Supposedly a mechanism lay hidden behind the great tree. I already knew exactly where, thanks to the novel. At my clumsy hand-gesture the device answered, and a door hidden beneath soil and weeds revealed itself. Whether the contraption itself delighted her, Karen's eyes had gone wide and sparkling.
"Wow, they really went all out! With something like this, no one would ever know!"
A perfectly composed reaction, cowed not the least little bit. The question left me before I could stop it.
"Does none of this frighten you? It looks rather grim to me."
"I can beat down whatever comes crawling out of there. Why would I need to be scared?"
My eye fell on the iron mace hanging at her hip. That was the poise of those who trust their own strength — a boldness only they could wear so easily.
"Besides, it's where Rihardt will be, isn't it? What could possibly go wrong?"
I wanted to scream it right then and there — that her excessive faith would be the very thing to drag her down into the pit.
"Are you scared, Lucy?"
"I am."
Had she never expected me to answer honestly? Her eyes went round as saucers.
"Then I'll hold your hand!"
A small hand reached out toward me. I could only stare at it, blankly. I couldn't bring myself to take it.
"Don't tease me."
"I'm being serious!"
Looking at her — at that Karen — I felt, for some reason, small and shabby inside.
"...Allow me to escort you in, then."
"Mm!"