A Mad Lady’s Confession - Chapter 82

El and Del stared up in terror at the man towering over them.

Although moonlight was the only thing illuminating the dim room, El recognized him at once.

Bloodshot eyes, a beard covering his jaw, gaunt features, and brown hair. He was unmistakably the man in the portrait.

The man’s eyes were empty. His unfocused gaze, as though he were drunk, fell upon Del. In that instant, hatred filled his eyes with astonishing speed.

“…Little rat.”

“….”

“You sucked your mother’s blood dry and survived…!”

Muttering, the man raised his thick hand into the air.

If that hand came down on Del, it would break bones. Del might die.

El drew a sharp breath and hurriedly shielded Del’s body with her own.

He was going to hit Del. Del’s bones would break…. The fear crept up around her ears and sent goose bumps prickling across her skin, but she couldn’t let him hurt Del. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“….”

No blow came. Eleanor cautiously cracked open her eyes and looked up at the man. Astonishingly, the terrifying malice she’d seen moments earlier had vanished from his eyes.

As though it had never been there, the man reached out with eyes brimming with tears. Ignoring Eleanor’s flinch, he took hold of her long hair.

After quietly stroking it for a while, the man slowly turned away. Like someone walking through a dream, he staggered out of the room.

That was the day El and Del met their father for the first time.

Several years later, on the morning after they drew the sixteenth tally mark on the wall.

El was brought down to the second floor, where the Brynhill family lived. She left Del alone in the room beneath the roof.

***

“They say Count Brynhill has lost his mind.”

Del said this and flopped onto the bed. Fingers interlaced behind the head, hair still hanging down to the waist, and loose pajamas still enveloping that small body, Del frowned.

“That’s what all the maids say. I think so too. That man is insane.”

Ever since they first left the room beneath the roof at ten years old, the two explored the mansion almost every night.

Quite a few maids believed the children sneaking around in the middle of the night were real ghosts. Hiding from sight and roaming throughout the estate, they truly were like “little rats” in some ways.

“…I still sometimes hear sobbing from the fourth floor.”

On dark, secluded nights, Count Brynhill often left the countess’s mausoleum and went up to the fourth-floor room containing the portraits.

El and Del first learned when they were ten that he would stand before his wife’s portrait all night, sobbing with a pale, expressionless face like a corpse.

“Perhaps madness runs in our blood, El.”

Del spoke gravely, the already furrowed brow narrowing even further.

“Maybe there’s a mad disease living in our blood.”

“….”

When Eleanor gave no answer, apparently frightened, Del quickly relaxed that expression and looked at her. Soon, a mischievous smile appeared as Del teased, “Oh, to speak of mad blood in the presence of a lady without equal in this world! I’ve committed a grave discourtesy, my lady.”

“…Don’t tease me.”

“I mean it. Eleanor Brynhill, who would ever call you a little rat beneath the roof? Just look at you now. When did you learn to sit with your back so perfectly straight?”

At Del’s words, Eleanor looked down at the way she was sitting.

In the old room beneath the roof, still cluttered with heaps of blankets, cushions, and pillows, the girl who used to sprawl around with her limbs thrown out carelessly like Del was gone.

Only a few months after moving down to a second-floor room because she had to make her debut, Eleanor now sat with her back straight wherever she was. Just like a properly educated young lady.

“Don’t even mention it. You have no idea how frighteningly the eldest sister teaches me…. She strikes the back of my hand every time I let my posture slump….”

It was truly difficult. Eleanor lived until the age of sixteen without receiving any real education. Her only stroke of luck was that one of the apprentice maids brought in by old Jules possessed a little compassion and brought her books while teaching her how to read.

All she knew were stories about princes and princesses in fairy tales, but now she had to memorize everything, down to the angle at which she bent her knees and the slightest movement used to spread her dress.

Remembering how harshly she was scolded for the smallest mistake, Eleanor sniffled in self-pity.

“…I envy you, El.”

“….”

“If I were like you, could I have gone down to the second floor too?”

Eleanor immediately realized her mistake. Apparently reading her expression, Del sat up and smiled.

“I was only saying it. It’s because you look so, so pretty, like a princess now.”

“…Del…. I’m sorry….”

“Why are you apologizing? I’m the one who said something silly. Forget that and tell me about your debut. What was it like?”

That was why Eleanor secretly came up beneath the roof that night in the first place. Faced with Del’s impatient, eager expression, Eleanor slowly began to speak.

“It was just… nothing much. Everyone was so pretty and splendid…. You wouldn’t believe how sophisticated they were.”

“Did you dance too? Did anyone ask you to dance?”

“Yes.”

He was a young gentleman with curly hair who stood about as tall as Eleanor, but she’d been so nervous that she didn’t remember him very well.

“I stepped on his foot twice while we were turning…. He might have gotten a bruise.”

Del giggled at Eleanor’s dejected lament.

“What about your prince? Did you meet him?”

“…No.”

Eleanor had admittedly harbored a little hope, so she smiled with regret.

Del tucked Eleanor’s stray hair behind her ear and looked at her proudly.

“El, there’s no need to feel intimidated. Just look at you.”

The eyes gazing at El, Del’s only friend, blood relative, and other self, were indescribably warm and affectionate.

“Just wait and see. You’ll probably become the most beautiful lady in all of Römern.”

“…Hmph.”

Though the praise made her shy for no reason, Eleanor’s heart ached. Unlike her, Del remained unchanged.

Compared to El, who wore a dress and had her hair styled and pinned up, Del remained thin, pale, and shabby. As long as Del stayed in this room, that would probably never change. The thought made Eleanor sad.

Once, she gathered her courage and went to see Count Brynhill. Merely setting foot behind the mansion, where the secluded stone mausoleum stood, filled her with fear. The knowledge that her mother and father were there did nothing to lessen it.

Her visit was in vain, as Count Brynhill never appeared. No matter how many times she knocked on the mausoleum door, he didn’t come out.

“Um, Sister…. C-Could… ‘that child’ beneath the roof… study with me too…?”

In the end, the person from whom she sought help was the one she called her eldest sister, whose frightening face she encountered every other day. It was difficult even to catch a glimpse of the back of the elder brother who handled Count Brynhill’s affairs in his stead.

At the words Eleanor summoned the courage to utter, her eldest sister’s face turned terrifying. Faced with an expression so furious that she could never raise the subject again, Eleanor had no choice but to close her mouth.

Because I’m a coward. Eleanor hated herself.

Even more so because Eleanor knew that if their positions were reversed and Del went down to the second floor, Del would have taken Eleanor along no matter what happened.

Del ate the scones and dried fruit Eleanor brought in a small basket. The fact that such snacks were all she could do for Del made Eleanor terribly sad.

Why can we only live like this? Whenever that question arose, she remembered what the maid Jules used to say.

“Because you’re beings who deserve to live that way.”

She’d always accepted it as natural because Jules said that was how it had to be, but lately Eleanor often found herself questioning those words.

Why, specifically, had El and Del become beings who deserved to live that way? What in the world had made it so?

Did all the peacock-like young ladies she met at her debut live that way too? Leaving their friend and blood relative behind in a room beneath the roof?

“…Del, don’t you want to go outside too?”

She blurted out the question impulsively because she couldn’t find an answer to those doubts.

“Do you mean exploring the estate at night?”

Every damp, dark, shadowed corner of the four-story estate. That was the entirety of the world Del knew.

“No, not that. I mean outside this estate.”

If she couldn’t find the answer, perhaps she could make the answer come to her.

If they truly were beings who deserved to live that way, then perhaps seeing what happened when they refused to do so would provide an answer.

No, in truth, more than that….

“Del, I want you to know too. The light, the scents, and the temperature of the world outside.”

That was what Eleanor wanted. She wanted her one precious blood relative to experience the things she’d seen, endured, and encountered. The world was filled with curiosity and dazzling light.

“H-How?”

Apparently not opposed to the idea, Del’s eyes shone with anticipation and doubt.

Eleanor drew her lips inward and bit them for a moment. They could find a way. It wouldn’t be difficult.

The following night, Eleanor and Del searched the fourth-floor storage room and found several old dresses, along with outdated accessories and several coarse, disheveled wigs.

They were things no young lady their age would ever wear, but that didn’t matter to two children who knew nothing about fashion.

“Del, now you’re going to become me out there.”

Del’s gaze, filled with fear and anticipation, longing and yearning, fell upon the old corset Eleanor brought.

When Del’s trembling hands took hold of it, the two faced each other and smiled with faces that seemed so similar yet so different.