A Mad Lady’s Confession - Chapter 73

The bedroom was quiet. As though no one were there.

As though a spirit of the night might visit in the owner’s absence, only to discover Matthias and recoil in surprise, he abandoned himself to the darkness and silence until they seemed one with his body.

Clink. Only the glass in his hand made a sound that roused him. Quietly bringing it to his lips, he recalled his conversation with Dr. Milton that afternoon.

“She never openly confided in me, but based on my observations and counseling sessions over the past two years… Eleanor Brynhill appeared to imagine that she had a sister named ‘Del.’ To be certain, I asked the Brynhill family, but they told me no such person existed.”

“I imagine she was very lonely. The late Count Brynhill didn’t care for his children at all.”

She was called the child who devoured her own mother. They said the count wasn’t a man capable of embracing the child who had cost him the woman he loved, even if she was his own daughter.

“Del was probably the only existence who comforted her through her wounded childhood. It’s common for children to create imaginary friends that way, but in Eleanor’s case, it seems to have manifested somewhat differently….”

The bitter liquor traveled down his throat and into his esophagus. Heat flared inside him as though flames were spreading.

“My only friend. The most precious one.”

He remembered Eleanor Brynhill saying those words.

Could that friend with the large hands have been Del? Because Del didn’t actually exist, had the imaginary “Del” sometimes been a man and sometimes a woman?

What in the world had you been thinking? When you said those things, who had you been picturing in your mind? An imaginary, formless friend who didn’t even exist, yet you….

“I believe it was a type of personality disorder. As she grew older, the imaginary friend likely became identified with Eleanor herself. In fact, although Eleanor couldn’t remember anything about that night, she never hesitated to say it was her fault. Deep inside, she knew. She knew it was a crime she had committed.”

She’d tried to find Giela Düsseldorf, saying she wanted to apologize to her.

She’d readily confessed that the events of a night she couldn’t even remember were her doing and had sought out the victim to beg forgiveness. All those actions had actually been because she knew it was her own fault.

He’d thought the truth of that night didn’t matter. It had already happened, and discovering the truth would’ve been of no use to him. She was someone he would send away after a year.

Yet even after deciding to keep the woman by his side, he hadn’t tried to learn more. He’d pretended not to know.

Because the truth was, he’d been afraid. He knew that whatever the woman was hiding would shake him completely.

No, the truth was….

He’d known. No matter what past Eleanor Brynhill revealed, whether she was a criminal, a villainess, a madwoman, or anything else, even if Matthias learned the truth and it shook him violently… he knew his choice wouldn’t change.

Matthias Nielsen would’ve kept Eleanor Brynhill beside him no matter what she was. Even if it destroyed him, destroyed Nielsen, and ultimately shook and twisted everything beyond recognition.

Why didn’t you tell me anything? After making so many confessions, why didn’t you ever truly tell me anything?

Because I didn’t want to know.

Because I avoided it. Because I turned away.

The woman had known that too.

Something hot gathered around his eyes. Something surged from the deepest part of his heart and rose back up his throat, more bitter, painful, and scorching than the liquor. At last, it became the clearest, hottest moisture and spilled from his eyes.

“Ha… ha, ha….”

He laughed as he cried.

Because he was astonished that what he was shedding were tears. Because he found himself repulsive for shedding tears at all. Because even as he sat there like this, he still didn’t know where she was.

Eleanor Brynhill had left him of her own will. His heart, which had suffered because it couldn’t accept that truth, shattered into pieces with a realization.

You said you would fulfill your duty to me.

You said you would make me happy.

You said you loved me.

I couldn’t give you a single answer to any of those countless confessions. The realization hurt as though it were tearing his heart apart.

Only now did the heart of the woman who had expected no answer to any of her words pierce his own. It stabbed again and again, cutting him to pieces at random.

The one holding the knife was his past self. The sins committed by the former Matthias Nielsen, indifferent and arrogant, for whom everything was easy and smooth and therefore boring.

Only now did he recognize the way he’d treated the woman, keeping her at an ambiguous distance without ever fully accepting or considering her. He’d seen Eleanor’s lonely expression countless times, yet pretended not to notice and told her to bury everything.

His belated realization and excuses struck him from within.

Only now did he understand why he couldn’t help behaving that way.

Because Matthias Nielsen knew he would come to love Eleanor Brynhill.

Because he’d already fallen in love with her.

Because he knew that single truth would eventually force him to surrender everything he’d stubbornly preserved throughout his tedious life.

His family, honor, dignity, duty, responsibility.

He’d sensed that he would let go of all of it, cling to the woman, and collapse beside her. He’d known this was love, so he’d pretended not to.

He quietly drew a breath. He tried to sense the scent of the moisture running down his cheeks and the breath of the room that was now empty, abandoned by its owner. Perhaps he might find some trace of the woman.

Nothing remained in her room. As though she’d always known this day would come, the woman had left nothing behind in her room at the Nielsen mansion in Belgar when she departed for Gammelstad.

Just as she’d suddenly appeared before him one day, she abruptly vanished from his sight.

Without a word or a clue.

She’d evaporated completely, as though telling him not to search for her, as though he had no right to find her.

There was nothing Matthias could do in that empty room but sob. For the first time in his easy, uneventful, tedious life, he felt as though he’d reached a dead end.

He could only cry from helplessness, self-loathing, and the sense of loss that made it feel as though a hole had been blasted through his heart. Bitter regret and self-reproach were the only things left in the world he’d shared with her.

That was how the summer ended.

Leaving behind only the sea, the waves, and the warmth of the woman who had once been there.

***

August 31, Emergency Extra!

Young Imperial Prince Dies Suddenly!

Passes Away Before His First Birthday

Last night, an imperial secretary officially announced the sudden death of Prince Rüntgen.

Despite being of imperial blood, Prince Rüntgen had remained in an uncertain position for some time. However, he recently received the emperor’s recognition and was formally granted the status of an imperial prince.

The imperial family stated that he suffered from a high fever of unknown cause before passing away yesterday afternoon.

Prince Rüntgen’s death has greatly shocked both the imperial family and the public. His birth mother, Lady Charlotte, is reportedly overcome with grief so profound that she is unable to function.

The imperial family has expressed its condolences and will announce the funeral arrangements at a later date under the direction of Crown Prince Klaus.

***

At the end of the summer when Eleanor Brynhill vanished from Römern, many things happened in the capital.

Prince Rüntgen, the son born to the emperor and Lady Charlotte, died suddenly before reaching his first birthday.

The people’s alliance that began in Catalman faced a crisis once, but soon rallied its forces and rose in revolt again.

The imperial family belatedly sent the Imperial Army to suppress them, but instead suffered a counterattack that only further inflamed their anger.

The emperor was deeply disheartened and weakened by the grief of losing his youngest son. Crown Prince Klaus firmly supported him during that time and gained the emperor’s trust.

Amid all this, someone offered the emperor concerned advice regarding the crown prince’s health, but the imperial family flatly dismissed the rumors that Crown Prince Klaus was ill.

Crown Prince Klaus, who had once been regarded as little more than a severed rope, was once again revered as the next ruler of Römern.

Matthias Nielsen returned to Gammelstad near the end of summer.

The butler and head maid of Solvikviche, Theobald and Mrs. Melissa, conceived a child late in life. The two felt deeply apologetic about receiving such happy news in their mistress’s absence, but Matthias paid it no mind and presented them with a congratulatory gift of money.

Matthias lived as he had before. He attended to his work at the naval residence, monitored the trading port, and personally checked and cared for every minor matter concerning his estate.

In their eyes, Matthias Nielsen was no different from before.

In autumn, Daphne Fram requested permission to convalesce in Gammelstad, saying she was struggling to bear the grief of losing her newborn half-brother.

Daphne Fram spent the entire autumn in Gammelstad.

Then, in December, an invitation arrived to a banquet hosted by the crown prince to celebrate the end of the year and his successful suppression of the people’s uprising in Catalman. Only then did she leave Gammelstad.

Together with Matthias Nielsen.