ORBT 06

Episode 6

When Rose had asked how a marriage so mismatched in status could possibly have happened, her father had told her it was because he was politically useful to the Crawfords.

She hadn’t been interested enough to ask further at the time, but now she was beginning to wonder just what kind of help he could possibly have been offering for this refined family to decide to accept her.

And after spending a month in Ortura, the truth was that her existence seemed much closer to a political burden than any sort of help.

When a servant cleared away the napkin that had fallen to the floor and brought her a new one, Agatha finally seemed to come to her senses. She composed the face that had been openly displaying her confusion.

“Yes. You were in a special situation, after all……”

Agatha unfolded the neatly folded napkin and took a deep breath.

“That is true. It was a noble thing to do. In such circumstances, yes, you couldn’t have done otherwise. You did something brave and admirable. It couldn’t have been easy.”

Agatha’s attempt to settle the situation with the sort of moral lesson a school headmistress might give was almost heartbreaking to watch.

Couldn’t have been easy?

Teaching children who started whining that they were bored after practicing once or twice was far easier than understanding—or enduring—this situation.

“Don’t you understand? The opportunity of a lifetime has come to you, and you don’t even realize how great an opportunity this is for you! You actually believe you can refuse it! I raised you to be like this. It’s my fault.”

Suddenly, Rose remembered something her late mother had once shouted.

When Rose had tried to refuse this marriage, her mother had looked at her as though she were some kind of madwoman.

That expression, the way her mother had looked at her own daughter as though she were a strange monster, was something Rose would probably never forget until the day she died.

Was there something wrong with her, just as her mother had once said, and just as Agatha was saying now?

“But it would be best not to mention that matter again. The circumstances are different now, aren’t they? Beth, you watch what you say as well. Rose, don’t tell Beth just anything simply because you’re family now. As you can see, she’s still very young.”

So this was the problem.

Rose found it difficult to understand that the fact she had once taught someone the piano belonged to the category of things that were not to be talked about.

It wasn’t as though she had committed a crime.

The things these people had naturally absorbed as common sense were simply difficult for Rose to understand.

“I didn’t know having a profession was such a problem. The Duke of Crawford himself is a minister, after all.”

At Rose’s involuntary remark, Agatha’s napkin slipped weakly from her hand and fell to the floor again.

“Rose, what on earth are you talking about? A profession?”

Despite having just struggled to compose herself, Agatha’s face was now completely twisted with shock and horror.

As though Rose had somehow insulted her son.

Rose, startled by the reaction in turn, dropped the cutlery she was holding.

“That’s service!”

Agatha’s shrill voice rang out at the same moment the silverware struck the floor.

The servants began moving to clean everything up. Ever since Rose had started working in this household, this was the first time she had seen them have to move around so frequently.

“Yes?”

Now Rose was the confused one.

Realizing that Rose hadn’t been trying to argue with her and genuinely didn’t understand, Agatha wore a hollow expression, wiped once at the corner of her mouth, and let out a long sigh.

“Do you really think Ray spends his precious time becoming involved in politics, working as a minister and doing all those tiresome things, for his own benefit? Or to get paid? For that pittance?”

Agatha continued in a patient, coaxing tone, as though she were dealing with an uneducated child.

“It is service to this country, and we have a duty to do so.”

By then, clean napkins and spotless, gleaming silverware had once again been placed neatly on the table.

The servants who had accomplished it with astonishing silence were already standing against the walls as though they had never moved at all.

Their excessively swift and flawless efficiency felt strangely intimidating, and Rose could no longer bring herself to say anything.

“Rose, let us not bring up this subject again.”

With a deep sigh, Agatha brought the conversation to a firm end.

“Whatever kind of life you lived before, forget it. You must live as though it never existed in the first place. You are a Crawford now, and everything that came before is no longer part of your life. There is no need to tell anyone about it.”

Rose had thought the same thing.

That she had left everything from her former life behind.

That from now on, she would simply live by doing whatever she was told.

But every time she saw people become shocked by the things she said or did without thinking, she realized that she had never completely erased her former life.

“Remember what I said, Rose. Bolton, and everything that happened there, all of it is gone now.”

Those cold eyes, so vividly blue that they were almost intimidating—the very same eyes as Ray Crawford’s—stared relentlessly at her as though demanding an answer.

“……Yes.”

Even in that single word she had forced herself to utter, Rose could hear her own foreign accent, the unmistakable trace of an outsider that she simply could not hide.

She was worried about how she could ever erase something from her past that was still so vividly alive within her.

Apparently satisfied with Rose’s obedient answer, Agatha finally accepted the dessert brought by the servant with a pleased expression.

“Elton. Have the piano in the drawing room prepared. I’m sure Lady Greenwood will want to play.”

Agatha’s voice was considerably softer as she gave the order to the solemnly standing butler.

Come to think of it, there were two pianos in this enormous mansion.

One was beside Beth’s room, and the other was in the drawing room.

The piano in the drawing room was always covered with a cloth.

As though no one ever played it.

Then why had it been there in the first place?

Only now did Rose find herself wondering about the owner of the piano that no one ever played or even paid attention to.

“Sorry I’m late introducing myself. I’m Sophia Greenwood.”

The woman with rosy cheeks that immediately brought to mind a midsummer peach smiled brightly at Rose.

Even before meeting Sophia Greenwood, Rose already felt as though she knew everything about her.

Agatha and Beth had talked about her so much.

She was the eldest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Halland. She had three older brothers and had married the Earl of Greenwood, becoming the Countess of Greenwood.

She was beautiful, intelligent, kind, wonderful, and bright-natured, and had been friends with this family since she was very young.

Everyone liked her.

She played the piano beautifully.

And so on.

“Oh, honestly, I can’t tell you how relieved I am to meet someone my age! All my friends married off to foreign countries. Or they live far too far away.”

Her full, beautiful curls rippled charmingly across her forehead whenever she spoke. Her glossy black hair suited her rosy cheeks perfectly.

She was only a year younger than Rose, yet somehow she didn’t feel anything like someone Rose’s age.

She had married young and already had two children.

“Though Beth is far too young for me to play with.”

Sophia leaned closer and whispered as though sharing a secret, then giggled.

Rose had no idea how to respond to this remarkable sociability, the kind that showed absolutely no sense of distance even between two people meeting for the first time.

More than anything, Sophia seemed completely unconcerned even when the other person gave her no response at all.

Rose had managed to say nothing beyond hello so far, and yet somehow a conversation was taking place.

“By the way, how could you marry a man like Ray? My goodness, it’s incredible. I could never do it.”

Rose was startled once by Sophia’s boldness as she casually linked arms with her, and then again by the familiarity with which she casually called her husband by a name Rose herself could barely bring herself to say.

“Agatha would have something to say if she heard me, but…… Ray is terribly boring, isn’t he? Don’t you think? He’s been like that since he was little.”

And then came her mother-in-law’s name, spoken just as naturally.

Rose remembered the faces of Agatha and the servants becoming warm the moment Sophia Greenwood appeared at Crawford Manor and scattered her sunlight-like smile around the room.

They were truly unfamiliar faces.

The Crawford servants always treated Rose with impeccable courtesy, but there was always a certain distance.

And concern, too.

She could feel their hesitation, their worry that this foreign duchess might somehow bring harm to the family.

It was strange to Rose that the people who worked in the mansion seemed to feel the same pride and attachment to this family as its actual owners did.

Sometimes, the Crawford family felt as though it belonged not only to Agatha and Ray, but to the people who worked for them as well.

When Rose had lived in Bolton, she had worked as an accompanist at a cathedral, but she had never particularly cared whether the cathedral itself prospered.

So this feeling was difficult for her to understand.

The servants, whom Rose still found awkward to be around, greeted Sophia Greenwood as warmly as relatives who hadn’t seen each other in years.

Even Ray Crawford’s face, normally as cold as the bitter northern wind, briefly held a smile.

Just as Beth had said, Sophia was undoubtedly extremely close to the Crawford family.

And she was clearly a woman everyone loved.

“I was four, and how old was Ray again? Was he about eleven? He used to sternly scold me and tell me to stop whining. To a four-year-old, no less. Can you imagine?”

No.

Even the imagination of a Boltonian couldn’t possibly conjure up such a sight.

Ray Crawford at eleven years old.