The name of the second roommate, with impressive black hair and black eyes, was Jemima Laurel, the second daughter of the Laurel comital family. Lady Jemima also ordered tea in an arrogant tone, but it was so obviously forced that Bronwynner felt sorry for her instead.

“Will Lady Jemima be sharing a room with me tomorrow as well?”

At Bronwynner’s question, Jemima avoided her gaze. Pretending not to notice, Bronwynner said,

“If roommates keep changing, I’d like to share a room with Lady Celestine Harrows too.”

“Celestine doesn’t come here.”

Jemima cut in.

“Why is that?”

It was likely because, as Maude had said, Lady Devon and Lady Celestine each controlled half of the social world. Even today, the two had never appeared in the same class. As if they had agreed in advance not to show up in the same place.

“Well……”

Jemima changed the subject. “You brew good tea, Pemberton.”

Bronwynner smiled.

“Lady Jemima, you must be quite knowledgeable about tea.”

Until the incident with Alec Bingham, Bronwynner had a daily routine, and it wasn’t always arduous. Elise and Kaylee followed their governess well, and the baroness wasn’t inherently a bad person, occasionally showing kindness as if on a whim.

Bronwynner’s tendency to be grateful for small things, developed due to her upbringing, helped her everywhere. She didn’t complain about every little thing.

For instance, things like having her roommate change almost every day.

Or how they all openly displayed their curiosity, asking questions and pointing things out.

Or how even after nearly a week, no one invited her to have tea or walk in the garden together.

Except for the prohibition on going out, students could live freely within the walls of Whitman School. After the not-too-demanding classes, they spent time with those they got along with. Bronwynner looked for Celestine through the library window. In doing so, she naturally learned various things about the dynamics within the school.

Devon was surrounded by many peers like a queen, and her favorites changed frequently.

Those who received her ‘favor’ happily performed tasks like brewing tea or brushing her dazzling platinum blonde hair. The school had maids for laundry and cleaning but no personal attendants. Devon seemed to have found a way to pass off tasks that young ladies had to do themselves to others.

In contrast, Celestine maintained appropriate distance from everyone while getting along well with all. It was a sociability befitting her pure and lovely impression compared to the flashy Devon. Celestine would listen to others’ stories and then speak at critical moments, seeming to enjoy the attention. She was especially beautiful when she spoke with a gentle smile, captivating everyone regardless of what she said.

On Thursday night, Jemima came to Bronwynner’s room again. She didn’t even try to hide that she had been forced to take on an ‘unpleasant task.’ This time, she didn’t even comment on the tea Bronwynner served.

At dawn, Bronwynner woke to the sound of Jemima quietly sobbing.

Moonlight streaming through the window illuminated the thin back of Jemima sitting on the bed.

“Lady Jemima, what’s wrong?”

“……I’m annoyed.”

Jemima muttered. Bronwynner got up and went to Devon’s bed, where she noticed the stain on the white sheets and understood the situation.

According to the rules, laundry was to be put out twice a week. Since those two opportunities had passed this week, they would have to use the sheets as they were until the weekend when they could be changed.

“Why did this month start so early.”

Jemima sniffled. “I can’t tell Devon. She’ll despise me.”

Is this something to be despised for? It was something all the school’s students went through once a month.

“If that’s the case, we could just switch with the sheets in your room.”

“Then Devon would find out. And I don’t know how to change sheets.”

Bronwynner was surprised that someone wouldn’t know how to change sheets since it was very similar to making a bed, but she didn’t voice this. She had many things she didn’t know how to do either.

“Then, let’s switch with my sheets. Lady Devon won’t know then. We can say I made a mistake.”

Jemima glanced at Bronwynner’s bed.

“But then Lady Devon would have to sleep on sheets you used.”

Bronwynner didn’t take offense at this either. Young Kaylee always slept on a blanket that had been washed hundreds of times and looked like rags not fit for a pigsty. She thought Devon might be similar, only able to sleep on specific sheets, so she had no reason to be offended.

“Lady Devon doesn’t even come to this room anyway.”

Then Jemima seemed to realize she had no further grounds for objection.

A light of relief appeared in Jemima’s small black eyes.

While Bronwynner changed the sheets between Devon’s bed and her own, Jemima stood at a distance.

“You’re just like a maid, Pemberton.”

“When there are seven women in a house, someone has to do it. Being the youngest, I had to do whatever my sisters told me.”

Bronwynner made up this excuse. Jemima turned her head, trying not to laugh.

When the sheet change was complete, Jemima awkwardly asked,

“Are you really okay…… sleeping there?”

Bronwynner folded the blanket in half and slipped between it to lie down.

She had slept on sheets where Elise had vomited and Kaylee had wet the bed. Sometimes even without a blanket. The orphanage beds were infested with fleas, but the competition to claim those beds was still fierce.

“I don’t mind.”

“How nice to be insensitive.”

Jemima said this as if genuinely envious.

‘You have plenty of potential yourself.’

Bronwynner answered only in her mind.

* * *

Friday tea time took place in a more lively atmosphere than usual. Everyone seemed excited by the fact that they could go home on Saturday. Listening to those boasting about their fathers or brothers coming to pick them up, Bronwynner wondered inwardly.

‘Will Lady Windell come with Seth……?’

It would be nice if Maude came too, but after the theater incident, the duke probably wouldn’t send his sister to Whittingham.

Just then, Jemima hesitantly approached the sparse tea table where only Bronwynner and etiquette teacher Miss Herman sat. Miss Herman brightened up.

“Lady Jemima, come sit with us here.”

“Oh, I came because I have something to tell Miss Pemberton.”

Then Jemima bent down and whispered to Bronwynner.

“There’s a ‘night tea party’ welcoming new students at midnight today. Come to the atelier at that time. The dress code is nightwear.”

Before Bronwynner could ask more, Jemima quickly turned and returned to Devon’s table. Neither Devon nor anyone else at that table looked in their direction.

‘A night tea party……?’

“What did Lady Jemima say, Miss Pemberton?”

The etiquette teacher asked. Bronwynner gave a vague answer.

“Oh, she just greeted me and said she’d see me next week.”

“My, how kind.”

Miss Herman smiled and said something about her own weekend plans. Nothing registered in Bronwynner’s ears.

Whether they were really preparing a welcome party or not, no one came to her room that day.

According to the living guidelines, wandering the corridors after ten o’clock at night was prohibited. However, there wasn’t a specific monitor for this. The dormitory supervisor mainly controlled the students’ appearance and outings. The teachers’ quarters were located away from both the student dormitory and the atelier, so there was little worry about getting caught.

Still, Bronwynner worried constantly until the grandfather clock struck twelve times.

‘What if I break the school rules and get expelled……?’

But perhaps attending the new student’s ‘night tea party’ was a kind of rite of passage. If she thought of the constantly changing roommates and how no one had approached her first as tests for the new student……

Perth Orphanage also had a harsh initiation for new residents. Whitman School, being a gathering place for refined young ladies, would welcome newcomers in a much more elegant way.

‘Maybe Celestine will come to the tea party……’

Jeremy had instructed her to monitor Lady Celestine’s every move and write reports. So far, the content was no different from Celestine’s class schedule, so Bronwynner needed to find something to write about.

Finally, she put on a night robe over her nightgown.

The air in the corridor was freezing cold. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she couldn’t sense any presence from behind the tightly closed doors.

Walking down the corridor by the light of the moon streaming through the windows, Bronwynner was seized by a very strange feeling.

She, a former orphan from Perth Orphanage and governess for a baronial family, had been invited to a secret social gathering at a bride training school that not just any noble young lady could enter, and was walking down this corridor at this hour. It was something she couldn’t have imagined a month ago. She hadn’t even known such a world existed in Lennox.

⌜You’ll disappear from the Lovedale family forever in three months.⌟

Of course, she would have to leave this world in three months too, but right now she was Bronwynner Pemberton of Whitman School. Then she needed to do what Pemberton would do. With something like a sense of mission, she knocked on the atelier door.

There was no answer from inside.

‘Did I get the time wrong……?’

Surely, she hadn’t been tricked.

Just then, someone touched her shoulder, nearly making her scream. It was Jemima.

“You came, Pemberton.”

Jemima was holding something like a ribbon in her hand.

“Come here. I’ll blindfold you.”

As she said this, Jemima covered Bronwynner’s eyes with the band. An instinctive sense of rejection welled up.

“Lady Jemima, do my eyes really need to be covered?”

“We’ve decorated the inside magnificently. We want to surprise you.”

In a place full of ladies like Jemima who couldn’t even change a bed sheet, how magnificently could they have decorated it?

“It’s still too uncomfortable.”

“I’ll take it off soon.”

Reassuring her, Jemima gently pushed her shoulder.

The atelier was a room large enough for all students to enter, with rail doors that could divide the space in two. Bronwynner thought carefully as she walked that people must be gathered inside the divided door.

Jemima opened the sliding door.

“Everyone, I present Miss Pemberton!”