RS 06

Chapter 6

  2. Ballet and Violin

“Have you heard about that bizarre contraption the Bernards made? Just looking at it makes me dizzy and nauseous. I’d rather die of boredom riding in a carriage.”

Aunt Audrey’s voice, who had visited her father about five days ago, replayed in Dolores’s mind.

About half a year ago—or was it six months ago?—the academic journals had published an article about the Bernard family, who ran the papermaking company Montgore, conducting experiments to make a machine fly through the sky. Aunt Audrey had been ranting about it.

No, perhaps it had been six days ago?

The exact timing didn’t matter.

The dining table, far too expensive for their means, had one leg that creaked, while the coldly placed candlesticks were covered in clumps of hardened candle wax.

On the table sat soup loaded with enough onions to make anyone sick of them, bread that was neither hard nor soft, and eggs fried in oil.

Her father sat at the head of the table, while her two younger siblings sat across from him…

Nothing was different from any other morning, yet Dolores was reminded of Aunt Audrey because her father’s face, Count Simon Artois, was the exact same color as the dingy apron Aunt Audrey had been wearing that day.

“What else could the end of the world look like if not this?”

His face even seemed a little more ridiculously red than usual.

Her father, the living embodiment of stubbornness itself, was already worked up before breakfast had even begun. He was the sort of man who would get a toothache in his molars if he couldn’t read the same newspaper at the same time every morning.

“To think that Marquis Grinda would make such an outrageous testimony! This—this has to be some kind of mistake!”

“……”

“Those lowly people targeting Lenore have conspired to slander His Highness Adrien…! The principles and rights they’re talking about are ultimately even more absurd than these people claiming they can fly through the sky, yet they don’t understand that! Ah!”

Dolores could do nothing against her father’s temper as she watched the severely crumpled Romerto Journal—one of Bellov’s three major newspapers—fly through the air at high speed before landing on the frayed carpet.

It wasn’t difficult to guess which article had angered Simon. It was plastered across the front page.

[‘The Changed Grinda!’ Marquis Hardy de Perpeng Has His Beard Pulled Out! Ninac’s Betrayal!]

It had been around this time last year that His Highness Adrien, the First Prince of Bellov, had given up his position as Crown Prince and departed, hadn’t it?

Marquis Hardy de Perpeng had been the lord of the Orsh region and had died two years ago. He had caused an uproar throughout Bellov society by claiming that His Highness Adrien, the First Prince, had been secretly colluding with foreign powers.

Marquis Grinda, a staunch member of the Orthodox Lion Party, had been one of the people who trusted the First Prince until the very end and had launched a fierce attack against Marquis Hardy de Perpeng.

The fact that things had ended up like this was enough to crush the hopes of people like her father, who had continued believing that the First Prince might return.

“Getting so worked up is bad for your heart. You collapsed last year, and the doctor told you not to get worked up.”

“Anyone with a passionate heart should be outraged by this, and it is only right that we be outraged!”

Yes, yes.

Dolores answered half-heartedly as she stood and picked up the newspaper.

She glanced at it before returning it to her father, but the contents were rather unfortunate. The next page and the one after that contained nothing that would please him either.

One article reported that a lord’s wife had squandered part of the family’s fortune on gambling before her husband’s death. Another discussed the aftermath of the Bonel family’s recent success in purchasing a title through means that were utterly ridiculous.

Apparently, they had celebrated by tossing one another into the air and throwing an enormous champagne party, proclaiming that they had officially become nobles.

Neither story looked particularly pleasant, but her father especially hated the latter.

“What are you standing there reading for?”

Her father held out his hand impatiently, and Dolores suddenly realized she had been staring too long. She handed him the newspaper.

“There’s another article about the Bonels. I don’t think those people have any shame.”

“We’d be lucky if they merely had no shame. This is what happens when you accept people just because they have some money. Those foolish Bellovians…”

Ah, she’d made a mistake.

Her words had triggered one of her father’s long lectures.

Her father had a tendency to obsessively delve into political circumstances that had absolutely nothing to do with him. He even believed that there were specific factions plotting against Bellov.

Uncle Rudolph summed up her father’s condition in one sentence:

He’s got a political illness.

“Even weeds would be more useful than those people. I don’t understand why the royal family doesn’t realize that allowing nouveau riche fools to run wild without knowing their place is a problem.”

Across the table, Dolores made eye contact with Anais, who was resting her chin in her hand with a bored expression.

Anais was unusually intelligent for a child and equally haughty, so whenever their father started talking like this, she almost never listened.

Her attention had already shifted to the pepper shaker.

“It’s also a problem that people only care about pointless private academies and such without even knowing what they truly need to learn…”

“It’s a problem, all right. We even have one academy student in this house.”

Anais reached toward the pepper shaker, but the mischievous Pablo caught her in the act.

Pablo was currently home for vacation from Sophino Academy, and he often behaved as though he had contracted some sort of illness that made him want to come up with a new prank every moment of the day.

He made a strange dolphin-like noise before swiftly snatching the pepper shaker away, inevitably starting a fight.

“Give it back.”

“Nope.”

Dolores reached under the table and smacked both of her siblings on the legs.

“Ow.”

“Ah.”

“Quiet! Quiet! Ana! Show some decorum!”

Their father bellowed.

The arrow of his anger had struck Anais rather than Pablo, and her expression immediately turned into a pout.

“Anyway, the people you associate with are important. You must absolutely avoid associating with greedy people who happen to have a few pitiful coins in their hands. Especially you, Pablo.”

“Can’t we just be friends with everyone? The more friends you have, the better, right?”

Her father widened his eyes and sprinkled salt over his eggs.

“No.”

“But—”

“Ahem! Pablo! The reason you need to graduate from Sophino Academy is so that you can familiarize yourself in advance with the level of refinement of the people you will meet there. It doesn’t mean you should associate with commoners!”

Once again, their father returned his focus to Sophino.

He had long been proud that Pablo attended Sophino Academy, but at the same time, Dolores felt that he also harbored an inferiority complex about it.

Pablo looked slightly dejected as he lowered his head and answered,

“Yes…”

Only then did their father smile in satisfaction.

Anais leaned slightly toward Dolores and muttered as though speaking to herself,

“I miss Uncle Rudolph so much.”

At times like this, Uncle Rudolph really was the only person who could save them.

After lunch, their father went out.

He had an appointment to meet members of the Platypus Party at an inn downtown.

Her father considered meeting influential figures to be part of his job.

When their father left, the house became little more than a lawless wasteland.

The younger siblings, who behaved so obediently whenever their father was around, became colts with their reins cut loose.

They didn’t pay the slightest attention to Dolores or Uncle Rudolph.

Today, Anais confessed that she had secretly read Pablo’s diary, even though she didn’t need to confess it at all.

Pablo immediately retaliated by throwing Anais’s beloved doll into the fireplace.

Fortunately, it wasn’t the season for lighting the fireplace yet, but the soot and piles of old ashes hadn’t been cleared away, so the doll was rescued in a truly miserable state.

“Are you crazy? Are you insane?! I said, are you crazy?!”

“You looked at it first! You came into my room!”

“You left the door wide open, you idiot!”

“Eeeeeeeh!”

Screams and shouting continued without end.

The seventeen-year-old tomboyish girl and fifteen-year-old boy were simply incompatible under the same roof.

Leaving the ear-splitting noise behind, Dolores limped slightly as she cleared the dining table.

Normally, Anais helped a little, but today she didn’t seem likely to be of any assistance.

Dolores returned to her room.

Her second-floor bedroom received plenty of sunlight. An old bed that creaked whenever it moved and a bedside table were positioned slightly to the right of the center.

Two drawers stood near the window, while a bookshelf and a wardrobe with a broken handle stood to their left.

The sounds of her two younger siblings bickering still filled the first floor.

My head hurts.

Dolores hung her cane on the wall and walked toward the window, dragging her left leg slightly.

Perhaps she had overexerted herself. Her weakened left leg trembled intermittently, barely able to support her weight.

It happened particularly often on days when she had a migraine.

Warm light streamed diagonally through the windowsill.

Even though it was autumn, the light seemed almost like spring emerging into bloom.

She pulled her heavier leg up onto the chair and rested her chin on her knee, staring at the countless specks of dust dancing in the sunlight.

The air inside the house wasn’t cold at all, yet her lower back felt chilly.

Perhaps it was because her father’s sharp contempt and disgust had once again been served alongside the meal like a garnish.

She missed her mother, whose warmth ran deep beneath her rough, unpolished manner.

Dolores brushed her ripe wheat-colored hair behind her ear and lifted her head.

Two picture frames resting atop the bookshelf directly in front of her were reflected in her brilliant scarlet eyes.

The dust covering the frames was as thick as the years they had been neglected, stretching away like lingering attachment.

It was a confusing day, as though she had left her mind abandoned somewhere outside the house.

Time passed unbearably slowly.

Eventually, in order to escape her own tedious thoughts, Dolores opened a book of fiction someone else had written.

As she repeatedly forced herself to pour her mind into another world, the pain in her knee gradually subsided.

During that time, the first floor had also grown quiet.

The white light streaming through the window slowly turned crimson.

How long had she been reading?

The door suddenly flew open, and Anais poked her head inside.

“I’m opening the door, okay? A letter came for you.”