The Maid Under the Stairs - Chapter 13

< Chapter 13 >

“Wait.”

As Mabel walked through the leafy street, placing her hand on his strong arm, she paused and spoke. She had just shown William the Cheshire Hall auditorium.

“Did you bring the Venus chocolates I asked for as payment for the university VIP tour in the letter?”

“Venus chocolates? Oh.”

William recognized Mabel’s playful tone and responded. Then, for a moment, it felt like his blue eyes were avoiding Mabel’s gaze.

“Oh, no, I was just joking. I wondered if Mr. Edmundstone would actually steal cookies from the reception?”

Mabel hastily explained, taken aback by William’s reaction.

“I only asked because I was curious, for I had never heard of them before, and I didn’t think to ask Irina or Mary if they were the sort of sweets that ladies might have tried or my status would be affected.”

“I didn’t bring any, but it was the first time I’ve seen those sweets too.”

William replied, slightly awkwardly, furrowing his eyebrows as he met Mabel’s eyes again. Mabel worried that she had teased William too much, but she quickly forgot and began describing the preparations she had made for William, who had missed the first day of the festival.

“The place you saw earlier was where Mary was preparing for the club parade, and I was working on the pamphlets. Sounds quite serious, doesn’t it?”

Mabel said excitedly.

“But if you don’t pay attention to Mary, the topic of the meeting changes to something irrelevant. Of course, thanks to that, we couldn’t stop laughing where we were sitting.”

William laughed along with her story, sometimes quietly listening. What remained unchanged was his affectionate gaze upon her.

“Julia asked me several times to join her at gatherings. But how do I explain that as an orphan maid, I can’t attend gatherings that are concerned with social status? So when I said that if I went to a gathering like that, I wouldn’t be able to write novels anymore, Julia confessed that she prefers reading what I write rather than attending gatherings with me.”

It had been a long time since she had felt free to share her thoughts, thoughts she hadn’t been able to share with her college friends as the only maid. This brought a smile to Mabel’s face as she chatted nonstop with William.

As the final part of the brief tour, Mabel wanted to show William the dormitory kitchen where she made syrup. The dormitory wasn’t far from where his car was parked, and since she didn’t have much, she wanted to give him homemade syrup as a gift.

“Listening to Mabel’s stories, it’s clear you’ve made some good friends.”

Descending the stairs towards the kitchen, William spoke.

“Right. They’re all kind and have something to learn from. People say Irina is arrogant, but that’s because she’s strong-willed. Mary may be mischievous, but she knows how to enjoy each day, and Julia, though timid, is a lovely lady who cares for everyone.”

Mabel replied with a grin. To think she had such smart and wonderful friends as a mere maid, she felt proud in an instant.

“And Miss Mabel here seems to bring balance and harmony to everyone.”

William said to Mabel, who was busy connecting with others.

He was well aware of the family backgrounds of the ladies who came to the college. Most were from affluent households with multiple governesses for each subject. They were accustomed to having servants and rarely heard unpleasant remarks, from those wealthy young ladies.

So, to gather such ladies and build friendships, there must have been someone quiet and humble.

“Oh no, balance and harmony? My role is probably the annoying and boring person that each group inevitably has. While other ladies talk about exciting plans or dream about the future, I always find reasons why things won’t work. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived as a maid with many constraints, I’ve gotten into the habit of extinguishing the enthusiasm in conversations.”

Mabel’s face flushed slightly. She had rarely received compliments from anyone other than her writing skills, so she felt extremely embarrassed by his words. Because of that, she ended up saying more self-deprecating words that lowered her own worth.

‘Even unable to gracefully accept a courteous compliment. If it were someone like confident and witty Irina or Mary, they would have quickly come up with a clever response.’

Thinking of Vincent, who used to burst into laughter at Mary’s eloquence, Mabel felt even more embarrassed.

The dormitory kitchen was filled with the scent of warm and sweet syrup and traces of bustling work. Small glass bottles and pots filled with chilled maple syrup were placed around, and various cookies were beautifully arranged on plates, perhaps prepared for the sponsor’s tea party.

Tall William bowed his head as he passed through the kitchen door and hung his hat and coat on the rack.

“If Mr. Edmundstone hadn’t come today, I would have sent it in a prettier bottle… I even bought a beautiful glass bottle from a shop near the College to send to Lord Alfred as well.”

Mabel said as she poured syrup into a bottle.

“I’ve heard that Summerhill Festival’s syrup is very famous. It’s been over five years since I became a sponsor, but I’ve never tasted it. Thanks to Miss Mabel, I can finally taste it this year.”

William stood leisurely behind Mabel, leaning against the high shelf as he spoke. While she concentrated on pouring syrup into the narrow opening of the small glass bottle, she was as busy as a little bee.

In front of Mabel were elegantly arranged cookies, with neatly handwritten name cards, that had been served at today’s guest tea party, which she had never seen in her life. Then her gaze lingered on one cookie by chance. It had a unique shape she had never seen before.

[Capezzoli di Venere]

Below the name tag written in Italian, the cookie was a tempting hemisphere shape with pure white chocolate turned over, and in the center, a convex brown chocolate with a reddish hue was embedded.

Having taken Latin this semester, Mabel unfortunately managed to read the name of the cookie. The name of this cookie was ‘Venus’ Breasts’, and its appearance was more blatantly reminiscent of a woman’s breasts than its name suggested.

‘Could it be that the cookies I asked Mr. Edmundstone for were literally chocolates shaped like breasts?’

Mabel was shocked as she remembered William’s expression of embarrassment when she asked him earlier.

Inviting him as her guest to the college festival, asking him to bring chocolates shaped like women’s breasts—it was a situation perfect for a naive woman’s clumsy seduction.

“Can I help you?”

Suddenly, as Mabel froze while pouring syrup, William, unaware of the reason, kindly approached her and asked.

“N-no, it’s fine!”

Thud, clatter.

William hurriedly turned around, not realizing he was right behind her, and Mabel ended up overturning the pot of syrup she was holding against his chest.

The golden syrup began to stick to William’s body, only wearing a shirt and started to show through inside.

“Oh my!”

Mabel, unsure of what to do about her actions, grabbed any towel she could find.

Whether it was her instincts as a maid or her surprise at her foolish request, she didn’t know. She simply stood there, trying to wipe off the syrup that had stuck to his chest and stomach.

“It’s okay, Miss Mabel. Let me…”

William tried to stop her and finally lightly held Mabel’s wrists to prevent her.

It was only then that Mabel realized she had been awkwardly patting this gentleman’s entire body with a wet towel.

Unfortunately, the towel she grabbed still had some moisture, only making his shirt wetter. As a result, the white shirt was now semi-transparent, revealing his skin tone and his strong muscles protruded through the shirt.

Mabel’s face turned red as if it could burst at any moment.

“Just a moment.”

Almost sitting down, William wrapped his arms around Mabel’s waist, who was wiping his body, and lifted her.

As if to reassure the embarrassed Mabel, William met her eyes with a calm gaze that contrasted with the muscles that seemed to be showing anger.

However, William was also flustered. Besides the sticky syrup covering his entire body, he felt an inexplicable sense of urgency rising within him as he watched this small woman busily patting his chest and stomach, her face turning red.

Then, the voices of several female students could be heard from across the kitchen entrance.

“I’ll get more cookies from the kitchen. But is anyone in the kitchen? Didn’t you hear anything?”

“I heard that if you leave the window open, weasels come in and eat syrup!”

Mabel, distinguishing Julia’s voice among them, immediately scanned for a place to hide.

Calculating that if William, who couldn’t even freely show himself at this college party, were seen in the kitchen of the women’s dormitory with a soaked shirt, it would be even more disastrous, Mabel gestured for silence to William and quickly pulled his wet shirt towards the opposite door of the kitchen. 

Through this door, she could easily make it to her room on the second floor without being noticed.

“We need to hide quickly. Just like Mr. Edmundstone, I also don’t want to show myself with a man who is not my fiancé at the gathering. So…”

As the footsteps of the gathering attendees drew closer, Mabel, forgetting her embarrassment, whispered to William as she approached him.

“My bedroom is down this way. Let’s go there.”

Only after she finished speaking did Mabel realize how strange her words sounded.

From asking for a date, mentioning Venus’ breasts, and now inviting him to her bedroom—it seemed like she kept saying things that a lady shouldn’t say to William, whether out of ignorance or unintentional circumstances, Mabel thought.