The Civil Officer Can Have Sweet Dreams

Chapter 02

Because of Priscilla’s affectionate nursing, just as their parents expected, the more Peter grew, the more he recovered his energy. The number of times he stayed in bed gradually decreased, and suddenly, he became healthy, and seemed more like a kid his age — mischievously running outside, and having a healthy appetite.

By the time Peter turned 10 years old, he had completely changed into an ordinary boy, and blurting out things like, “I’ll become a knight in the future!” Priscilla narrowed her eyes at her lively younger brother as she watches him brandish a wooden branch.

With this, it seems like it was a load off of Priscilla’s mind. Her younger brother didn’t need her hands anymore. Nowadays, she uses her hands exclusively for the backs of her grandmother and the attendants. At this time, Priscilla was 18 years old. The age at which the female nobles around her start getting married.

Until now, both her parents thought to let Priscilla do as she pleased, such as dedicating her time to Peter. If she were to get married, she would need to look for a partner, and because of that, they had granted her the freedom to choose whether to study a bit longer.

In the midst of making her choice, Priscilla wished to attend an etiquette school. Of course, she had learned about general subjects, but in that school, there are various livelihoods being taught, such as etiquette and cooking.

At 18 years old, Priscilla entered as their senior, and was eventually made to look after those younger than her, but because she had become used to caring for others such as with Peter, she enjoyed doing so instead.

A majority of the ladies attending that school were commoners, with just a small portion of the nobles being of lower class pedigrees like that of Priscilla. Thanks to that, she enjoyed the freeing mood. She realized that she’s more of a commoner than a noble.

A true noble would learn higher knowledge with a private tutor, and attend elite schools that earnestly specialized in studies for nobles. The commoner ladies that were in her etiquette school were those that wished to be in service at upper class places, or noble residences.

Because true nobles have attendants doing day-to-day chores, they believe it’s unnecessary to learn manual labor. Rather, numerous nobles think it’s embarrassing.

However, when Priscilla thought of her own future, she could not imagine marrying a noble man who had a higher rank than hers, and living in high society. It’s not as if she particularly hates that kind of life, but above all, she didn’t feel as if she’d fall in love at first sight with that kind of man.

The good thing about the Land house and other similar, lower class nobles is that they were very likely to marry a commoner man. She also had a fear of not being able to marry. She wanted to avoid troubling her younger brother with succeeding the Land house if she couldn’t marry.

In case she couldn’t marry, she’ll have to get a job. Either way, Priscilla thought that she had to gain necessary knowledge of livelihoods, and went to school for this reason.

She thought that even if she got married, she would have to take care of household matters on her own, but in the case that she couldn’t, she’d have to work as a live-in attendant somewhere. For now, it’s because she could not depend upon a life where attendants do everything for her.

In a sense, the Priscilla who thought of a dreamless future did not feel pessimistic whatsoever. School was fun. The school life that she had where she soothed feisty, younger classmates, and made good-natured friends was as fun as when she played everyday with Peter.

All of her younger classmates were fond of her. Around the time when the end of her two years of school life was nearing, she thought, Aiming to be a teacher might be a good idea as well, and was called out by a teacher who had favored her.