WPO 4

Chapter 4

Even after settling in quiet Olga, Mother and Father lived their daily lives without deviating even an inch from my expectations. Perhaps the income from renting out the cypress mansion was not enough to satisfy him, because Father said he would soon hold a grand banquet.

To commemorate the move, he would gather the wealthy of Katree, respectable ladies, and their children and throw a ball.

Setting aside his grand ambition to build the business up greatly and return to the cypress mansion, the immediate problem was preparing for the dinner party right before our eyes. Mother, who had never done a day of housekeeping in her life and whose fingertips were soft,

believed that everything would be solved if she simply hired two kitchen maids, three cleaning maids, and one dedicated maid to be her little daughter’s conversation partner. She even acted as if she deserved credit for having drastically reduced the scale in consideration of the family’s worsened circumstances.

But for six skilled maids that Mother wanted to pack their bags and come all the way down to distant Olga would take at least two months. Maids with bad rumors, maids with sticky fingers,

maids who made a habit of fleeing in the night when wages were low, maids without a recommendation letter from a trustworthy lady—how many were there to filter out? Mother’s standards, which she claimed to have lowered considerably, were still stuck in the Sidore days.

“One?”

“Yes.”

“No… how are we supposed to get work done hiring only one? Right now, banquet preparations, clothes to mend—there’s a mountain of things to do.”

Mrs. Asher, who was in charge of managing the villa, was also in a position of receiving wages and helping out, but to have her manage the drawing room, the bedrooms, mend clothes, and clean on top of that? Moreover, if she were saddled with preparing a banquet for an unknown number of guests, the lady would surely faint.

“Please ask Aunt to send us some people for a few days.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Well, that side is a no.”

The maids willing to come all the way down to Olga seemed to be trusting in the Moremon family’s wealth. If they were paid generously, they would pack their bags that very day. If Mother and I were asked to handle the work that thirteen people would divide among themselves, the rumors would be uncontrollable. No matter how I thought about it, Aunt’s support from Sidore was desperately needed.

“If it’s truly too hard, we’ll have to cancel the banquet. Fortunately, we haven’t sent out formal invitations yet.”

“Should we?”

Mother and Father’s great strength was that they listened to my advice. I felt pity for Mother, who shed tears while longing for the past when she had commanded dozens of maids at the cypress mansion. Just then, she glanced at the grandfather clock and rose with her pink pouch bag. Mother, who had been about to wake the sleepyhead Floni and had set down her teacup, looked up in confusion.

“Where are you going? Flona. We still have things to discuss?”

“I’m going to the academy starting today. I sent letters and finished the minor enrollment procedures before we came.”

“Ah, the academy….”

Since the moment I knew the decision to move could not be reversed, I had prepared thoroughly. It would have been better if I had taken Aunt’s advice to heart and prepared myself mentally earlier. My mistake was dismissing her warnings that day as mere exaggeration.

“I’ll be back.”

“All right… come back early. Let’s discuss with your father whether to hold the party.”

For Mother, who had grown up like a rose in a greenhouse, the harshest trial that had ever befallen her was always Floni. The same was true for Father, who had lived as the eldest son of the Moremon family without fear of anything in the world. Floni, with her slender frame, had been diagnosed with weak lungs around the age of seven. The doctor had not been a quack, it seemed, for my sister could not escape her stifling bedroom even at the age when she should have enrolled in the academy.

Once, greedily going out for a winter walk, she had collapsed at the front door and come to the threshold of death. How must Floni have felt, unable to mingle with peers her age and having only Mother to interact with? Our parents, who had nearly received a death sentence for their daughter, spared no expense on renowned doctors and medicine. They had gambled on the possibility of Floni’s complete recovery rather than her death.

My weak and naïve parents would probably invest in anything that might cure Floni until the moment they squandered the family fortune. It was no wonder they pushed the family’s major and minor affairs (though they kept silent on the actual core business matters) onto me as if by default.

“Flona. We don’t even have a carriage, how will you… What if my pretty daughter’s skin gets damaged?”

Mother, glaring up at the strong sunlight at the front door as if it were an enemy, did not seem to have any particular solution. It was good that I had toured Olga with Mick yesterday. I needed to find out the academy’s location and means of transportation on my own. Of course, I was also in a position to secure other information without my parents’ help.

“Miss!”

It was right then that Mick appeared, pulling the cart with a straw hat pressed down on his head. Mother gasped in shock at the sight of the two scrawny donkeys.

“No, even so… this is too shabby. How about attaching some flower decorations at least? Or asking Mr. Asher?”

She seemed to harbor doubts about whether young Mick could protect me in an emergency. Mick, who had risen early to polish the donkeys and cart until they gleamed, looked flustered. Having peeked at the boy’s efforts while airing out the bedroom, I gathered my skirt hem without hesitation and climbed onto the cart.

“Don’t worry. Mick knows Olga’s geography well, so it’s comfortable. And Mr. Asher has a lot of work to do.”

“M-Mick? His name is Mick?”

Mother, who had grown noticeably thinner from eating less, was like a fragile flower planted in the villa. Except when she was arguing with doctors over Floni’s health, she wore a similar expression every day. When I adjusted the hat that matched my skirt color, Mick finally began to roll the cart wheels.

Mother’s face, waving her hand to see her daughter off, was full of worry. When would sickly Floni be able to set foot in the academy? I had unwillingly acquired the ability to read Mother’s inner thoughts, poorly acted as they were.

“Miss. Do you remember my friend I mentioned before?”

Only after leaving the white mansion did Mick open his mouth and bring up the past. It was the promise to introduce me to a friend who attended the academy. I gave a slight nod to indicate I remembered, and Mick drove the cart vigorously.

“I met him yesterday and talked, and he said he’d wait at the entrance to the hillside vineyard. He’s a good guy, so don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried.”

Mick was only fourteen, yet he helped his parents and contributed to the household. To exaggerate a little, Mick was far more mature than Mother and Father combined. Unaware that he had won in my sharp assessment, Mick called out to someone standing in the distance.

“Over here! Sivon!”

I had a prejudice that the boys working on farms would all be dark and scrawny. And a boy whose appearance fit my prejudice to a tee was waiting, mounted on a pony. From what I had heard yesterday, he was sixteen—two years older than Mick.

The boy Sivon’s curly brown hair was charming. Mounted on the small pony, he turned to look back, and his eyes went wide.

“Sivon. This is Miss Moremon from the white mansion.”

“Ah….”

Sivon used a large sack for carrying apples or grapes, tied to his back, as a bag. Seeing his sturdy frame and solid shoulders, he truly had the body of one tempered by farm work.

“I’m Flona Moremon. Let’s get along well from now on.”

“Ah, hello.”

Since we would be attending the same academy, I had no intention of demanding special treatment. Sivon, after exchanging a brief morning greeting with Mick, pulled on the horse’s reins and took the lead. Mick’s driving became rougher than yesterday as he chased after his friend. I pressed my hat down firmly with my hand so it wouldn’t fly off in the wind.

“Um, by any chance… are you the same age as me?”

“No. After my birthday soon, I’ll be nineteen.”

“Ah, so you won’t be at the academy long.”

Sivon spoke to me while skillfully driving the horse without even watching the road ahead. Every time he glanced back, his book sack rattled as if it would spill at any moment, but he seemed to be the only one unaware of the danger. Instead of telling him to look ahead, I steered the conversation using the speech patterns I had favored in Sidore.

“What’s over there? Is it a good place for a walk?”

Following the direction I pointed, Mick’s and Sivon’s gazes moved simultaneously. At the point where the fork in the road began, trees with green so deep they looked black were densely gathered. It was a place I hadn’t even heard explained when I had gone out with Mick. Mick’s lips, which had answered without hesitation whatever I asked, pressed firmly shut. It was Sivon who broke the silence, swaying lightly on his horse.

“It’s best not to go into that forest. It’s not a forest a woman can walk through alone.”

“That’s right. It’s a forest even the people of Olga rarely visit.”

I had no intention of walking there alone anyway, but the urge to uncover the forest’s true nature did stir in me. After all, the boys who had been lavish in their praise of Olga’s flour had clamped their mouths shut.

I stared long at the forest, marked with a label of inaccessibility, as if I were well acquainted with it. The dance of the black leaves that the wind would not let go seemed like a warning.