Chapter 11. A New Meeting, Part III

Despite the labor that Aria put her through, Jessie did not retort and began to carefully organize the clothes back into the closet. It wasn’t anything new because she had been subjected to Aria’s capricious nature in the past, so she did not complain about it at all.

It took a long time, but Aria watched Jessie act on her instructions without any complaints. As soon as Jessie finished her job, Aria immediately told Jesse to stay outside for a while. Jessie wondered about Aria’s strange command, but she did as she was told and waited outside the room.

‘There must be a match somewhere.’

There was a match used to light the scented candle. She had bought it to replicate the elegant noble ladies that used them, but she remembered that she had locked it in a drawer without using it. Due to the fact that it had happened over a decade ago for her, her memory of it was dim. Of course, only a few months had passed in reality since she had bought it, but it had been a long time ago for her mind to remember correctly.

“I found it!”

The match was rolling around the corner of the drawer along with the scented candle. It was so deep in there that even the maids couldn’t clean it up. Aria, who lit the match that she had just found, threw it into the closet. A lot of her time had been exhausted searching for the match, so a while had passed since Jessie had left the room.

Aria, who briefly monitored the situation, screamed several times with a very composed face.

Jessie, who was standing outside the door, heard the screams and entered the room surprisingly quick, facing the terrible situation that Aria had created.

“Ah, Miss!? What is this…?”

The surprised Jessie hurriedly tried to put out the fire, but the fire, which had been set on flammable fabric, began to grow quickly and become so huge that she could not go near it. The fire burgeoned beyond the clothes and the closet, looking as if it would swallow Aria’s room at any moment.

Fortunately, those who heard Jessie’s screams followed by Aria’s came to the scene before the fire grew bigger and became dangerous, and the fire that had burned all the clothes and consumed half of the closet soon disappeared.

It was done for the time being, and Aria, who was in tears, sat down among the matches scattered on the floor and spoke in a pitiful voice, “I made a mistake while trying to light the scented candle… It had been a long time since I had handled the match… What do I do?”

Aria’s face as she said that looked very pitiful, and the look on Jessie’s face was distorted in a way that was difficult to tell whether she was smiling or crying.

Of course, Aria did not hear any offensive words from anyone. It would’ve been the obvious result, but she was not scolded or reprimanded at all. The only person who could admonish her had already departed for the North, and Cain had already returned to the academy. As for the countess, she had no reason to scold Aria, and Mielle couldn’t scold her since nobody had been by her side.

“It’s something that anyone could’ve done at your age. It’s a relief that the fire didn’t spread.”

“All of my clothes were burned down in the fire. What am I supposed to do about this? I was about to go out, but…”

“You can’t go out in your indoor clothes… You should borrow clothes from someone with a similar build.”

The countess quickly recognized the intentions of her cute daughter, giving her a clear answer.

‘Do you want to buy new clothes?’ she thought.

Of all the things in the room, only the clothes had caught fire and burned down. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

Mielle, realizing that the countess was referring to her, narrowed her eyes. Since the servants and maids could not glare at their little master openly, they could only give her a covert glance.

Since all of her clothes had been burned, Aria had to go out and buy new ones, and in order to do so, she needed some clothes.

Like Mielle, all of the maids that had followed her hardened their faces and began to appear uncomfortable. That was due to the fact that though Aria seemed to be well behaved recently, she had again caused trouble for their master. Since they could not gaze at the face of a noble without permission, they had to keep their eyes down, but even that couldn’t hide the fierce glare in their eyes.

‘How dare you?!’ Noticing this, Aria quietly gritted her teeth. ‘In the past, did I receive such glares?’

She had been so jealous of Mielle at the time that she hadn’t been able to look around and feel those gazes. There had always been people around encouraging and praising her for her misdeeds.

Regardless of whether they were Mielle’s maids, since they had been hired by the family, they were also Aria’s maids.

‘But, how can they express such hostile attitudes?’

If possible, she wanted to grab them by the hair and rip it out, but knowing that that would only increase the number of bad rumors about her, she changed her mind, thinking about the past instead. She had realized that there was a more effective way to achieve what she aimed for than expressing frustration or anger after her return to childhood.

The person before her eyes would use that method long before, but Aria had realized it only after her head was cut after acting like an idiot.

Aria’s eyes turned red. Along with that, transparent tears began to fall and reflect the green light. Those tears went down from her eyelashes pitifully and soaked her beautiful pink lips, entering her mouth. Fiddling with her fingers, she became a figure that seemed as if she was shivering in the rain, like a baby cat.

That little creature, who looked as if she was about to break, opened her mouth and said, “Mielle, I’m truly sorry… Because I had matured, I didn’t want to burden you anymore, but things have gone awry. Of course, you don’t want to lend me your clothes. They are your precious things… Even though it will be a bit embarrassing, I’ll just go out in my indoor clothes. If I go and quickly return, no one will notice. There are not a lot who’ll notice my face either.”

‘What a pity!’ it was the common thought in the minds of some of the people who had witnessed the Aria at that moment. It was a pitiful scene that could make them completely forget about the rumors about her and her previous actions. Human beings were sight-dependent animals, so the sad look of a small, pretty child made them sympathize with her.

In addition, she was Aria. She had only shown her the bad side of herself so far, so they couldn’t help but feel pity when they saw her weak appearance. At most, she was only a small child, but her thoughtfulness of Mielle was deeper than the sea.

Normally, she didn’t have that kind of personality. If there had been anything Aria had wanted, she used to be the type to secretly take it for herself. The maids of the mansion had clearly seen and heard about it for the past year.

‘After she was assigned a teacher of etiquette… Could it be that she really changed after being educated?’

That was the only conclusion that they could think of. Her origin was quite low, and it could be that she might have realized how stupid and shallow she was being through her education. It was a bit pitiful thinking like that. Their eyes, which had always been full of hostility against Aria, now looked at her with pity, sympathy, and regret.

In the meantime, only the countess watched joyfully as her daughter played her tricks.

‘How could you resemble me so well?’

The countess was very proud of Aria, who had realized that it would be foolish to fly into a tantrum.

“It’s truly OK, Mielle. Don’t worry about this. I’m originally a commoner… So, indoors and outdoors clothes are not that big of a deal.”

Since Aria continued to act pitifully, Mielle was now unable to decline lending her clothes. If she were to decline here, she would’ve been labeled a cold-hearted girl who had ignored a poor little girl who had nothing to wear.