Marrying My Bully

2 - The first task

I waited for a minute, two… But there was nobody around. The footstep sounds also faded away but then came back once in a while from a different place. I heard wood creaking from somewhere around the house. Was this place haunted?! Did they send me here to make me go insane?! No way, no way, this wasn’t happening. Ghosts didn’t exist. Or at least they didn’t make such awful sounds to scare a person with good intentions away!

I wanted to pick up my suitcase and take a run for it. I didn’t want to stay another second in this weird place. But my feet were glued to the floor. I wasn’t moving. My right hand was just squeezing the suitcase handle hard. I took a shaky breath.

“H-Hello?” I called out timidly. No answer. The place was quiet. See, I told you so, Soph! There’s nobody in this house. No footsteps, no creaking floor… All just your own imagination. There is nothing that would be making you go insane! I sighed in relief and closed my eyes for a while to calm my frantically beating heart.

“I thought you were supposed to arrive only an hour later.” I jumped up and shrieked loudly. I ran to the stairs, not even looking back. Ghost! Ghost!

“Ahem.” I heard the same voice, now coming from where I was standing a while ago probably. I dared to look there, opening my eyes one at a time. And there it was. A ghost. A female ghost. I hope it’s not some vengeful virgin ghost! Those are the worst, given she is wearing glasses and has her hair in a bun, the clothes she’s wearing look quite stern! A virgin ghoooooost. This is bad. This is baaaaad. What am I gonna do? My knees were shaking while I was holding onto the stairs’ railing.

“You don’t even answer the questions? Just how did your family bring you up into such a brat?!”

“What? Have you seen a ghost or something?” Ghost asking that question, what an irony! I should be asking you the same!

“Or you don’t know how to speak? Should I call the main house and ask them to take you back?!” The way she was speaking was worse than how the teachers at the high school treated me when they wanted to show me how much they despised my low-class status.

“The driver took a few shortcuts,” I mumbled, carefully treading.

“I see. Well, you couldn’t have let me know as you didn’t have the contacts for this place. Take your suitcase and bring it to the room at the end of the corridor on the upper floor to the left. Nobody is going to take care of your things here.” She crossed her arms in front of her. I nodded and slowly took the steps towards her.

“There are no ghosts here. See?!” She grabbed the handle of my suitcase and brought it closer to me. I gulped. She was right. So I was just overreacting a while ago. Her eyes were piercing through me. She had to hate being in this place with me.

“Well then, now that we have dealt with this… My name’s Mathilda Clarke. I am the caretaker of this house.” She stretched her arm to me. I hesitantly took it and shook it shortly.

“Sophia. Sophia Reed, miss.” I managed to squeeze out of me these few words. I was still in shock over all of this. And this woman wasn’t going to treat me as well as I might have thought she would.

“Miss Clarke.” Her eyebrows shot up to her forehead while her gaze dug into me.

“Miss Clarke,” I repeated after her. She finally let go of my hand and took a step back. It was as if she even hated breathing next to me. Well, it wasn’t anything new to me. I had dealt with this so many times already and yet it had always managed to surprise me how people could behave the same way without even knowing anything about me.

“Unpack first, we’ll have an afternoon tea in the living room, which is right this way. Do not expect me to give you a tour of this house.” She frowned and after showing me with her arm where the living room was, she walked away. I was left alone in the entrance hallway with my suitcase and silence all around me.

“Okay, so she said… upper floor, end of the corridor on the left.” I talked to myself while I was lugging the suitcase up the squeaky wooden stairs. The whole upper corridor was dark and I didn’t know where the switch was, so I just took out my phone and used it as a light to see where I was going. I finally found the function and turned it on when my eyes saw shining eyes staring at me from the floor. I shrieked. A low deep woof was an answer to my despair.

“Who could have known there was a dog!” I let out all the air in me, feeling like swooning at any moment.

“This is going to be the death of me…” I mumbled as I was pulling the suitcase with me, the dog following after me.

“And stop following me! It’s creepy!” I turned around to yell at it. But the dog didn’t seem to mind at all. I sighed. Nothing was going according to my plan ever since I stepped a foot out of the car. I should have agreed to Benjamin escorting me here! It would have been so much easier! But no, Sophia can do things alone as a big lady who graduated high school and has the whole summer free until she enters university! Why couldn’t she take on one of the challenges given by Ben’s father! Seriously! I dropped onto the bed, being angry with myself.

“It’s supposed to be summer vacation. Not working vacation!” I grunted, kicking my legs up and about. I groaned, stopping all movement and just resignedly staring into the ceiling. It was quiet except for the dog that was sniffing my suitcase and then came to sniff my feet and lick my knees.

“Stop it! Seriously! Can’t I have a moment alone?!” I got up, reprimanding the dog with my words. But I regretted it right after. The sad puppy eyes that were staring at me didn’t deserve such bad treatment.

“Fine, fine… I’m sorry… There.” I started petting its head. The dog happily closed its eyes. She said afternoon tea. Afternoon teaaaaaaa. At this point, I really wish she was a ghost. I fixed my hair and walked out of the room, with the fluffy thing right behind my heels.

“Miss Clarke, I’m here,” I announced myself as soon as I stood at the door of the living room.

“Right, sit.” She pointed to the couch right opposite her. The living room was quite small and everything in it looked old yet well-cared for. I sat down at the spot which she had shortly pointed to and took a cup of tea she offered to me. I took a small sip, waiting for her to start talking. This was quite awkward. She wasn’t saying anything, the dog kept waving its tail while staring at the maisonette with sandwiches, scones, and some cupcakes, and I was just sitting here, hoping this was just another short nightmare in my life that was about to end in a few days.

Benjamin

“Is this really necessary?” I asked my father, who dragged me to the office in the early morning. I had already finished my first year at university while living away from my father. There was no way I was going to live with him if Sophie was to move in with me. All of his rules and ideas on how to make her more into his dream daughter-in-law were just insane to me. But if I didn’t agree to it, all hell would break loose with him, which would mean only bad news for me and Soph.

“Yes, it is. You have to learn how to run this company. Nobody is going to help you in the future. You need to learn how to do things and how to be responsible for your decisions.” My father started liking giving lectures recently. Even so much that he had given lectures at my own university in my own classes!

“Don’t give me that look, Benjamin. You know that in this situation you have to work twice as hard as you normally would. Our social circles won’t accept her that easily. SHE needs to prove that she can withstand the pressure and that she is more capable than others think. And if you want her to survive all of that scrutiny, you need to become stronger as well. So suck it up and get to work.” He pushed a big folder full of papers into my arms. I didn’t say anything back. He was right. I had to work harder to become Sophie’s shield and support. I couldn’t win this fight for her.

“And don’t forget we’re having lunch today!” Father called out to me when I was about to close the door.

“Fine,” I muttered and finally closed it. My starting job was as a junior member of the accounting team. According to my father, I had to experience all kinds of jobs in the company before he would even let me into the higher management.

I wonder how Sophie’s doing. I hope our old ancestral house didn’t give her a fright. He seriously couldn’t have chosen a better place to send her. I clenched my fists.

Sophia

“So, you’re telling me that my first task in this house is to get the garden into a presentable state? You mean THIS… garden?” It’s more like a jungle than a garden.

“We don’t have any other garden.”

“But I’ve never even done any gardening before. And all my plants I had died. I even managed to kill a cactus. And not just once!” I was horrified.

“Well, better get to work, then.” Miss Clarke didn’t seem very keen on helping me at all. Instead, she had decided to completely leave me alone in this mess. I sighed as I dropped down to a squat.

“What am I going to doooo…” I let out a few whimpers. The phone in my pocket started vibrating. I took it out to see who was calling. I took a deep breath as tears wanted to get out of my eyes. That’s how helpless I was feeling.

“Hello, grandma.” I forced out a smile and a positive tone.

“Dear! Am I bothering you?”

“No, no way. You never bother me. How was your day?” I tried cheering myself up by thinking about how my grandma has to be doing.

“Well, it was marvelous…” All the rest of her talking just disappeared into the background. My thoughts about the garden were stronger than listening to my grandma’s card games and chess and whatever else she was doing with the other ladies in the hospital.

“I can call at another time.”

“No, sorry, it’s okay. Grandma, do you know anyone I could ask for advice about gardens?”

“You were never really interested in gardening. Is something going on?”

“Ah, no, it’s just that the garden in the house I was assigned to is a bit unkempt and I wanted to make it a bit prettier since I have to live here for a while.” I was never really good at lying.

“I see… Well, grandpa always talked about one store where he used to get his plants. Maybe they can help. I will ask Dan to send you the number by text.”

“Grandma, Dan? Who is Dan?” I lifted my eyebrows. Grandma never really mentioned anyone’s name before.

“Oh, he’s a new nurse. A really good boy. So, I will text you the number. I won’t take much of your time anymore. Take care, honey!” I sighed. She sometimes ended the call so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to remind her how much she meant to me.

“Well, it wouldn’t be me to not stand up for a challenge like this!” I stood up, rolling my sleeves to my elbows. The house dog barked in agreement. My body twitched in surprise as I didn’t hear him coming.

“Thanks, but nobody really asked you,” I mumbled in response.