Endurance
From that day, Emily was under a microscope. Victoria ran the mansion like a chess board, sliding staff around as if they were disposable pieces. Emily did not break. She rose before dawn, polished brass until it gleamed, dusted chandeliers rung by rung, kept laundry moving with watchmaker precision. She never complained—even when Victoria set impossible standards.
“Emily,” Victoria growled at breakfast, “this coffee is tepid. Make another pot.”
Five minutes later: “Now it’s too hot. Can you do anything right?”
Where others saw torment, Emily saw a strategy. Victoria thrived on reactions: the louder the protest, the harsher the punishment. So Emily gave her nothing—no excuses, no tears. Only quiet competence and an unwavering gaze.
It unsettled Victoria.
One evening, Andrew paused in the doorway to find his wife scolding Emily over folded napkins. Emily bowed her head respectfully, but her hands did not shake. Later, swirling scotch in his study, he asked, almost idly, “Why hasn’t that one quit?”
Victoria’s jaw tightened. “She’s stubborn. Or stupid.”
Andrew felt something else: intrigue. He’d built empires by recognizing strength—in partners, in rivals, in overlooked opportunities. Now, under his own roof, he saw that same quiet resilience in the young woman enduring what others could not.
Days bled into weeks. Emily mended the hem of Victoria’s evening gown by hand, stayed up past midnight polishing silver after gala after gala, worked until her eyes burned. She learned Victoria’s unspoken preferences—the twist of lemon in her water, her dislike of lilies, her obsession with punctuality.
Then the edges began to fray. Victoria’s barbs grew sharper, her tone more caustic—underlined by frustration. Nothing cracked the maid.
Late one night, Emily passed the study and heard Victoria’s voice, low and rough on the phone: “Andrew doesn’t see me. He married me for optics. I’m just filling space in his house.” The first fracture in the ice. Emily kept walking, but the sound shifted something in her. Beneath the cruelty was something fragile: a woman starving for regard, respect—maybe even love.
