I was going to go insane, all my life I had simply rolled my eyes at men who laughed when women differentiated between subtle shades of various colors. Now I understood them, if only just a little bit. It's not that there were no differences between the drapery and tablecloths laid out in front of me for my perusal, it's just that they were so minute as to be meaningless.
This seriously might be the end. To think, I had suffered bodily harm to get where I was and yet I found myself about to be defeated by choosing between cream and eggshell white. If I had my choice I would have chosen the first option available to me and been done with it. But despite it being "my choice" it wasn't, it was the neurotic head maid's choice and no matter which one I picked she wasn't happy.
If I tried to choose cream it was suddenly too yellow toned for a proposal party but egg shell wasn't the right choice because it would clash too harshly with the red undertones of the guests' clothing. Twenty minutes of this woman talking herself in circles was making it increasingly difficult to bite my tongue. My reputation as a bully preceded me but my reputation as a changed woman preceded even that, and I wanted to keep it that way; which is why I had been very patient with this woman.
"Look Mila, I do appreciate that you've been the one spearheading the preparation for this party and I understand you want to make sure I have some say in what is happening. However, I truly do not care what shade of off white the drapery and tablecloths are. They could be bright pink for all I care," I said this to the head maid with a pacifying tone. The more I interacted with her the more her countenance reminded me of a paranoid chihuahua and any perceived wrongdoing against her could be a proverbial doorbell that would set her off yapping.
"Oh but Princess, how can you be so calm. This is your proposal party, you only have one of these in your life! If even the slightest thing is off the entire aristocracy could crumble!"
I highly doubted that the fate of this country rested on my choice of curtains. There was no making her see the light on this matter though. Nor was there any way of convincing her that my presence was useless and would be much better served elsewhere. I needed an argument that was both a great emotional appeal as well as slightly backed logic.
"You said eggshell would clash with red right? Well I happen to know that Anna will be wearing a red dress and I wouldn't want to seem as if I was insulting my soon-to-be sister in law by making her clash with the curtains. So I think we should choose cream," I explained, hoping this would finally put an end to all this madness.
She thought for a second before visibly brightening,"this is why I knew I needed to consult you. I would have never thought to pay any mind to what the Countess would be wearing."
At last I was free, at least I was free to stop thinking about curtains, or so I thought.
I had only a few moments to celebrate my victory before Mila asked,"silk curtains or satin curtains?"
And thus I spent the vast majority of my day outwitting the tightly wound Mila. At one point I even turned it into a little bit of a game, how could I sneak Anna into my answers? It turns out I could use her in nearly every response. The embroidery on the tablecloths were roses because Anna loves roses and I should take heed to remember to include every part of the family in my party. The flowers in urns distributed throughout the ballroom should include minimal roses because Anna hates roses and I wouldn't dare accidentally ostracize a member of the family.
I felt a little bad watching Mila nod along dutifully to my brazen and often contradictory lies. Not that bad though, she could play the fool for a little while if she was going to make me spend hours fretting over minutiae. In the end, the only real decision I made was the inclusion of a harpist in the orchestra. This was simply because I liked harps but of course I made sure to let Mila know that Anna's favorite song included a harp and that it would be improper to not play it during the festivities.
By dinner time I was exhausted. I ate in my sitting room as much as I could stand before I laid on the couch with my arm over my eyes. I wondered if this place had a library, I wasn't quite tired enough to sleep yet I was too tired to pace. I considered looking around the sitting room for something but was stopped when someone knocked on the door.
Not expecting anyone at this hour, I hurriedly sat up on the couch and tried to make it less obvious I was laying down before saying," the door's unlocked. You can come in."
I was surprised to see Nikolai on the other side of the door, awkwardness apparent. He couldn't decide if he wanted to come all the way in or stand out in the hall. Clearly he felt it was uncouth to be in a lady's chambers at night yet at the same time he also considered it rude to stand in the door frame and talk. Unable to choose, he waited for me to make the decision for him.
I freed him from his plight by gesturing at him to sit in the chair across from me.
He did so, and took to quickly explaining himself,"I'm sorry for not seeing you all day, I had to deal with the serfs causing problems again."
"What do you mean causing problems," I asked, genuinely interested.
"They say our estate demanded more time laboring for the estate and as such they didn't have enough time to tend to their own fields. As such they're asking for some of the manor's harvest."
"Well, are you going to share it with them? They were the ones who grew it for you after all."
"And why should I? If they were really worried about starving to death they would have labored during the day and tended to their own fields at night."
All at once my idealized view of Nikolai crumbled apart. Yes he was not a sadist but he was still someone who thought others owed him something simply from the position he was born into. In a way the matchup between Kitty and Nikolai was perfect, both were a benign sort of evil.
"Listen to yourself, that's ridiculous. If they followed your suggestion they would have dropped dead from exhaustion or been beaten for not meeting quota."
"They do this every winter. They claim that they don't have enough yet they always somehow make it through."
"Yes but how many die in winter compared to the rest of the year? If there's a spike, surely they are actually starving."
"The only ones who die are the elderly and children, hardly worth caring about."
"Hardly worth caring about? Children are our future! How do you expect our estate to survive if we are callously allowing all the children to starve to death? Soon we will be left with vast lands with no one to care for them. Not worth caring about? They are children, Nikolai! If you would let babies starve in order to make a few extra rubles on the sale of grain perhaps I should call off this wedding after all," I was seething with anger at his flippancy towards human life. Who cares if they weren't real people? He thought they were and were willing to let them starve for no reason.
My angry answer seemed to come out of left field for Nikolai. He looked as if I was the first person to challenge his preconceived notions of what was right and wrong. He started and then immediately stopped talking several times. He couldn't come up with an answer to please me.
Finally, with a defeated tone in his voice, he said,"to think you of all people would be lecturing me about humane treatment of servants. I will capitulate to you and see the demanded grain be distributed to the serfs. Know my stance hasn't changed, I'm only doing this to save you from making a very rash decision."
"If I can force you to attribute humanity to the people who serve you for even a second I would gladly throw it all away."
"Please refrain yourself from doing such things. Anyways, onto lighter subjects, I was told you spoke to my sister this morning."
"Yes, I did," I said, keeping my explanations brief in light of the conversation I had with Katarina earlier.
"I was surprised, she doesn't take visitors. I can count on one hand the amount of interactions I've had with her in recent years."
"I see," I replied. It made sense, if these were all characters in a game to her I also wouldn't interact with them unless I had to, especially when they had rotten moral compasses.
"Did she say something to upset you? You've become rather short now that the subject has come to my sister," he furrowed his brows a bit saying this.
"No, she was lovely. I'm just tired. That head maid of yours was driving me up the wall all day with asinine questions."
"You'll have to excuse Mila, she's a bit uptight but she's really a good woman. After my mother died delivering Anna she's become somewhat of a second mother to me."
'So peasants you have an emotional connection to are exempt from your scorn,' I thought to myself before saying,"I have nothing against her, she clearly cares. Maybe too much in my opinion.
Nikolai laughed before saying,"Yes, that is a good way to describe her. Anyways, I will not take up anymore of your time. Sleep well Princess, I look forward to our official engagement tomorrow."
After he left the room I went back to laying on the couch. In my relaxed state I accidentally fell asleep and was only awoken when Katarina got worried about not being called and came to check on me. I was happily disrobed and put on my nightgown as quickly as possible. Still half asleep, I quickly fell asleep now that I was in bed. Any worries I had about tomorrow's event and its participants faded into the background as I slumbered.