Chapter 08
In the newspaper Dolores had seen yesterday, there had been an article saying that the second son of the Durand de
Morton Company might inherit part of their business, and that he had returned after studying political economy at
Rudigeden Academy in the neighboring country of Triavol for that very purpose.
Dolores had heard that Xavier had gone abroad to study, but she had never heard the details directly from him. She knew almost nothing about it.
There was one question that had been lingering on the tip of her tongue.
That, at least, she could not bear to leave unanswered.
“……Did you quit completely? The violin, I mean.”
Instead of answering, Xavier turned toward her and raised the corners of his mouth mischievously.
“If you missed me that much, why didn’t you come visit me at least once? Whether it was a trip or an extended stay…”
“Why are you changing the subject?”
“Pab told me. He said you missed me a lot.”
“You’re the one who left without saying a word.”
“What would have changed if I had told you I was leaving?”
Dolores fell silent.
She hated to admit it, but there was not the slightest lie in his statement.
“Fine. I was being pathetic.”
“What do you want me to say?”
Don’t call me that. Just don’t call me.
Anger rose all the way to her throat, and the veins on the back of the hand gripping her cane stood out.
When she could do nothing but glare at him in silence, Xavier casually rose from the swing.
“You still don’t know what you want.”
“How do you know what I do or don’t want?”
“Because I do.”
His absurd shamelessness left her speechless.
Xavier took a step toward her.
“If you’re happy that I came back, then say you’re happy. If you missed the days when we used to spend time together, then say you missed them.”
“I’m not happy, and I don’t miss them.”
“Not ‘I wasn’t’?”
Xavier slipped his right hand into his pocket and tilted his head until he was at eye level with her.
He was smiling.
His left hand covered the back of Dolores’s hand, the one gripping the handle of her cane.
“Tell me what’s really on your mind. I don’t care if it’s something that bothers you.”
Dolores pushed his hand away and looked him straight in the eye.
“When I say I’m not interested in your explanation, I mean that it isn’t even worth spending my time on you.”
When she had met him a few days ago, Dolores had shown him more than enough sincerity.
She had made her position perfectly clear: she was refusing him.
What irritated her even more was that Xavier knew this and simply did not care.
Just like last year, when he had left without caring about her as a person at all.
“I know.”
“Then go back.”
“Clody will be upset.”
“You can meet her separately and say goodbye before you leave.”
Xavier stared at the stubborn Dolores for a moment before giving her a gentle smile.
Then, as though he had never been clinging to her in the first place, he simply walked past her.
“Stay home. It might rain this evening. See you soon.”
The sky looked far too clear for rain.
Dolores glared at the back of his neck as he walked away.
She called after him that she would send back the money he had given Pablo, but he did not seem to hear her at all.
Watching him disappear made her feel uncomfortable, like looking at a button fastened into the wrong hole.
She returned to the front entrance.
The faces of her two younger siblings were pressed against the window beside the doorway like barnacles.
“What did that guy say?”
“Sister, what were you talking about with Xavier?”
Anais looked sullen, while Pablo looked as though he was expecting something interesting.
Dolores stared intently at her siblings.
Then, instead of continuing upstairs, she abruptly turned around and walked toward the window.
She held out her hand without ceremony.
“Pablo. Give it to me.”
“Give you what?”
“The money Xavier gave you. I’m going to return it, so hand it over.”
Anais’s eyes gleamed.
Pursing her lips into a round little O, she looked at Pablo and said loudly enough for him to hear,
“Oh my, the eldest son of the Artois family has been bribed!”
“Stay out of it, Sister!”
“So that’s why you’ve been saying such nice things about him all this time? This will be interesting if Father finds out. He’ll get furious and ground you, won’t he? Let’s see… Two weeks this time? Three weeks? How long do you think your house arrest will last?”
Pablo’s face began turning red enough to burst, while Anais seemed to regard his reaction as proof that she had scored a glorious victory.
“Stop!”
Before Dolores could put much effort into intervening, Anais’s relentless attack did the job.
Pablo huffed angrily, dug into his pocket, and pulled out the money.
Two crumpled one-hundred-livre bills.
“There! Happy now?”
It was not an enormous amount of money, but it was certainly not insignificant.
Two hundred livres was enough to see a performance by the famously expensive Vaguesdorées Municipal Ballet Company from first class, or to watch a performance by an Avi Toulouse troupe at Bayno.
For someone else, it might simply have been several days’ wages.
Anais snatched the bills from him and fluttered them in her hand.
“For a son of the Bransen family, why is his hand so small? Then again, I suppose that’s how they became rich—by being this stingy.”
Influenced somewhat more strongly by their father, Anais had always tended to be cynical toward bourgeois and gentry families.
As she entered adolescence and began to understand what their own family was like and who the people with real influence in Langet were, such an attitude had come naturally to her.
“Sister, I’ll keep these and give them to that guy when I see him. He’ll come again anyway.”
Dolores was about to absentmindedly say sure when she suddenly caught Anais as she was naturally slipping the one-hundred-livre bills into her small wallet.
It had been so smooth that Dolores had almost fallen for it.
“How are you planning to meet Xavier and return them?”
“He’ll come again. It’s just the kind of person he is.”
“Sister, you’re trying to steal it!”
Pablo, who had been watching Anais suspiciously, suddenly jumped up as though he had seized his opportunity.
“No. Give it here. I’ll take care of it.”
Dolores snatched the bills away.
Anais’s eyes widened indignantly.
“No, really! Are you seriously treating me as though I have no loyalty, like Pab?”
Dolores merely shrugged calmly.
“Now, everyone rest quietly until dinner.”
Then she headed straight back to her room.
Before dinner, Dolores thought it would be better to get at least a little sleep.
She absentmindedly looked out the window.
The sky was still clear.
There was absolutely no sign of rain.
She fell into a deep afternoon nap just like that.
She dreamed.
It was raining.
The sound of things becoming soaked, raindrops striking the ground, the wreckage of an overturned carriage, and the pounding of a heartbeat…
When she opened her eyes, the day was already beginning to fade.
Outside the window, the sky was turning pink with sunset.
Thank goodness.
Since it had not rained, the laundry would not have been soaked.
Still dazed, she lowered her gaze.
She was still holding the two hundred livres in her hand.
Just then, a loud commotion rose from downstairs.
The moment she heard her father’s voice, she came fully awake.
Dolores hurriedly threw on her robe and grabbed her cane.
She had just realized that she had failed to prepare dinner in advance.
They were not financially well-off.
During their mother’s illness, they had lost much of what little wealth they possessed.
As a result, the only household help they received from anyone was Aunt Audrey from next door coming over a couple of times a week to clean their ambiguously grand yet old house and help manage the household.
Technically, it was not even help.
She was simply an occasional paid housekeeper.
Fortunately, Anais had prepared dinner downstairs.
No—
It seemed they had already eaten.
“Ana and I had something simple with Pablo.”
Dolores brushed back her fallen hair and looked into the living room.
Her father was already drunk and asleep on the sofa.
“He said something good happened. I didn’t ask what it was… He went straight to sleep. He didn’t even know you were sleeping.”
“Pablo went to the barn just now.”
Anais watched Dolores with a look of relief before ladling soup into a fresh bowl for her.
“I saved this for you. You eat this.”
Shredded carrots and cucumbers, the bread they had eaten earlier, and freshly made chicken soup were laid out on the table.
Dolores ate while staring at Anais with a strange feeling.
Throughout the meal, Anais sat across from her and flipped through a book.
She was working on an absurd idea of creating a code using a book, so she merely kept flipping from one page to another.
“Why are you interested in making codes?”
Anais answered without looking up.
“There’s something appealing about having writing that only I know and the other person knows.”
