GBHDF 06

Chapter – 06

Hehe.

“I’ll say it again, Rowena. In front of the Madam, you must always be polite and…”

Hehehehe.

“…and if you don’t behave yourself, you’ll be punished severely. Understand?”

“Of course, Teacher!”

Inside the rattling carriage, Rowena’s cheerful reply rang out.

Normally, she would have let a childcare teacher’s nagging go in one ear and out the other, but this time, Rowena listened carefully to every single word.

Her bright, sparkling eyes were shining just as brilliantly as they had on the day she’d managed to have an entire apple pie—a special treat—all to herself.

And really, it was only natural.

She was going to see Madam Heyworth again, someone she had thought she would never meet again!

‘Of course, the official reason is that I’ve been invited as her companion.’

Still, what mattered was that she’d been given another chance!

Rowena happily swung her short legs back and forth, humming under her breath.

‘Madam Heyworth definitely likes affectionate children.’

Maybe it was because children reminded her of her deceased daughter.

After all, Madam Heyworth had once been a mother, too.

Rowena had no intention of letting this opportunity slip away. Taking her previous failure as a lesson, this time she was determined to make her ‘request’ to Madam Heyworth.

‘I’ll show her my three ultimate tricks of cuteness.’

They were secret weapons she normally only brought out when chocolate arrived at the Townsend orphanage as a snack, but this time, there was no helping it.

An orphanage packed with children was practically a battlefield. Children of this age were less like well-trained human beings and more like starving beasts.

It was a terrifying place where, in the blink of an eye, snacks left on a desk would disappear, and if you let your guard down for even a moment, your nose might—

Well, they wouldn’t actually cut off your nose, but the shiny, fancy button attached to your chest would mysteriously vanish.

That was the kind of place an orphanage was!

‘And I’ve survived ten whole years in that environment.’

On top of that, she was quite the honor student. Ahem.

Anyway, as long as she had her ‘three ultimate tricks of cuteness,’ there was nothing to fear.

At last, the carriage came to a stop in front of the Heyworth estate.

Rowena hopped down from the carriage and hurried inside.

Now all she had to do was meet Madam Heyworth, and then everything would—

‘…Huh?’

Rowena abruptly stopped in her tracks.

The usually quiet estate seemed strangely chaotic.

People were rushing about, while small groups gathered here and there, whispering worriedly among themselves.

‘And that person running over there…’

Wasn’t that a doctor’s medical bag in his hand?

Rowena was close enough with the old doctor who had diagnosed her illness that they could sit side by side and share boiled eggs.

Thanks to him, she also knew quite a bit about the medical bags doctors carried.

‘All my medicines are in here. It’s my lifeline.’

‘But they’re all made of glass. Isn’t that dangerous?’

‘It is. That’s why doctors can’t run, no matter how busy they are.’

If a man who had once even served as a physician to the Imperial Palace said so, then it was probably true.

In other words, if a doctor was running while carrying his medical bag, something serious must have happened.

Rowena quietly followed behind the person who had run past her.

She pressed herself against the wall and cautiously peeked around the corner.

Several people had gathered outside a room, all of them wearing worried expressions.

Among them was someone Rowena knew.

‘The man who brought me cookies!’

The man Madam Heyworth called ‘Henry’—or perhaps ‘the butler’!

At that moment, ‘Henry, or the butler,’ spoke with a troubled expression.

“Why does something like this keep happening to Madam…?”

“This is already the third time just this month. She doesn’t have any serious illness that we know of. I’m afraid something terrible might happen if this continues.”

“We’ve asked her to tell us if something is troubling her, but she won’t say a word. If she collapses again…”

At their words, Rowena’s heart sank.

Because, in summary, what they were saying was this:

‘Madam Heyworth collapsed?!’

Just yesterday, Madam Heyworth’s complexion had certainly not looked like that of a sick person.

Even if she did have a pollen allergy, who collapsed from something like that?

Well, perhaps a child who wanted nothing more than an excuse to lie down in bed might.

But it certainly wasn’t a convincing explanation for Madam Heyworth’s condition.

“Could it still be because of that incident…?”

“But it’s already been more than a year since then. And Madam remained remarkably healthy even after the incident. It’s been too long for it to suddenly become the cause of an illness like this.”

The ‘incident’ they were referring to was a simple one.

It was the death of Madam Heyworth’s daughter, Rose.

The middle-aged woman nodded at ‘Henry, or the butler’s’ words.

“Indeed. Madam was so strong back then that Heyworth managed not to collapse.”

“That’s right. If that incident were going to cause problems, it would have happened long ago.”

“She’s always been such a strong woman. Which makes me even more worried about what could possibly be troubling her now…”

“The attending physician believes that, most likely, some problem of the mind has manifested itself as a physical illness.”

“Then I wish she would at least tell us what’s wrong. If Madam were to collapse as well, what would become of Heyworth…?”

The two continued talking quietly, their faces filled with concern.

When the doctor finally came out after examining Madam Heyworth, they left together.

They were the butler and head maid who managed the affairs of the Heyworth estate, people who kept a close eye on everything that happened within the household.

But this time, so distracted by their concern for Madam Heyworth’s health, they overlooked one thing.

After they left, a small shadow slipped silently deeper into the hallway.

Tiptoe.

A pair of footsteps so quiet they could barely even be called footsteps carefully approached the bedside where Madam Heyworth was sleeping.

When their owner tilted her head slightly to the side, her hair—tied into two pigtails like rabbit ears—tilted along with it.

‘Her breathing sounds peaceful.’

The old doctor had told her that if someone’s breathing was even and steady, she could at least be reassured for the time being.

Leaning against the tall bed, Rowena looked down at Madam Heyworth’s face as the older woman slept, seemingly unconscious.

Even in sleep, Madam Heyworth had a slight frown on her face.

Just as one might expect from someone with such a strict personality.

But, put another way, that meant Madam Heyworth’s mind was troubled enough that she couldn’t even relax in her sleep.

‘Actually, Madam Heyworth barely appears in the original story.’

The only time Madam Heyworth appeared was when Seymour, the main villain, was mentioned.

Even then, it was usually in the context of someone saying something like:

‘If only Madam Heyworth had been well when this happened…’

In short, at the point when the original story began, Rowena wasn’t the only one who wasn’t doing well.

Throughout the story, Madam Heyworth remained bedridden with illness.

‘But that was seven years from now. I thought she was fine at this point.’

Apparently, that wasn’t the case.

Or perhaps this illness would gradually worsen until it eventually drove Madam Heyworth to her death.

The problem was figuring out what was causing it.

‘They definitely said it was a sickness of the mind.’

‘Henry, or the butler,’ had said that it had nothing to do with the incident from a year ago.

But Rowena thought differently.

‘In the original story, Madam Heyworth briefly showed an improvement in her condition after meeting the heroine.’

The heroine of White Thistles was said to look astonishingly similar to Rose, her deceased daughter.

But by then, Madam Heyworth’s illness had already progressed too far.

That resemblance alone wasn’t enough to bring about any meaningful recovery, and in the end, Madam Heyworth succumbed to her illness and died.

Moreover, judging by how Madam Heyworth had become increasingly strict and obsessed with perfection after Rose’s death, it wasn’t difficult to guess what kind of mental illness she was suffering from.

‘She just can’t reveal it to anyone.’

If Madam Heyworth herself were to falter, then all of Heyworth would falter with her.

The green eyes of the child lost in thought glimmered with an unusual light.

‘Then…’