Maylily - Chapter 26

“No need to put on such an innocent face. I came because I heard the rumors.”

The damp breath warming her ear and the pungent perfume stinging her nose were unbearably repulsive. Maylily quickly stepped back to put distance between herself and Seth. In her wide eyes that fixed on him, clear wariness welled up.

“What… rumors?”

Seth smirked insolently as he closed the distance between them in a stride.

“I think I could pay you better than that Cartian man. How about it?”

Only then could Maylily roughly guess the rumor Seth was talking about.

She had thought it strange these past few days, how even troupe members who had always been indifferent were glaring at her with contemptuous looks and whispering whenever she passed… So such a rumor was spreading.

In an instant, her hands and feet burned hot and trembled as though in a fit. Seth curled his lip as though entertained by Maylily’s shocked inability to respond.

“Don’t you think I have a decent face and body? I’ve always wanted to sleep with you. I bet your naked body would be really beautiful.”

“Hey, that’s enough. She’ll cry.”

Nathan, who had been watching the two of them from the side, intervened, draping his arm casually over Seth’s shoulder.

“Actually, we made a bet between ourselves. Whether the rumor about you is true or not.”

“…It’s absolutely not true! Never! Where on earth did you hear such a thing?”

Though she wanted to respond with poise and firmness, her protesting voice shook pitifully. Nathan, looking down at Maylily’s trembling, pale lips, gave a mocking laugh.

“Well, you don’t need to know that much. Seth, hand over 100 grand. Didn’t I say it wasn’t true?”

“Ah, damn. What a waste.”

Cursing, Seth pulled a bill from his wallet and handed it to Nathan, then smacked his lips as he let his gaze roam over Maylily’s body. Everywhere that gaze touched, she felt the grotesque illusion of a snake crawling.

“Maylily, are you really saying no? I was serious when I said I want to sleep with you.”

Bastard. Nathan slapped the back of Seth’s head with a chuckle. Their laughter, voices, and eyes, treating all this as some kind of joke, were so disgusting that nausea welled up.

Without managing even a single curse, Maylily turned and fled, forcing her shaking legs to carry her to the dressing room. And before she could even calm the shock, she faced yet another torment.

“What is this…”

Whore, courtesan, slut…

Looking over the filthy words, too vile to even speak aloud, that had been painted across her personal cabinet, Maylily squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

If I cry here, it will only mean admitting those words, admitting that rumor.

Taking deep breaths and swallowing her rage, Maylily began changing clothes with trembling hands. From a short distance away came the low giggles of Vanessa’s group, but she desperately focused only on her own task, over and over.

That evening, for the first time, Maylily made a mistake in her lyrics during a performance. Her desperate efforts to shake off the absurd scandal and slander failed, because again and again surfaced the memory of the Count of Everscourt.

Could she really say that all of it was truly absurd? She herself was no longer certain.

The more clearly the Count’s face surfaced whenever she recalled the defiled cabinet, the more everything else blurred away.

***

Victor had been in Purdshire for two weeks. In that time, there had been some meaningful progress in the search for Maylily, but it had not gained as much speed as he wished. The start had been screwed from the beginning.

“Maylily Aile? I’ve lived in this house nearly thirty years, but that’s a name I’ve never heard.”

The short, stocky detective in Buhin had given him a false address, claiming it was where Maylily had once lived. With the feeling of searching for pearls in the sea, Victor gradually widened the scope of his investigation to neighboring villages, cursing the damned pig of a man.

Just as he was growing weary of the search yielding no results, he was finally able to obtain information about Maylily in the fifth village he visited. While seeking shade beneath a tree to rest from the scorching spring sun after making inquiries, he encountered an elderly man.

“The name Aile sounds familiar… Ah, yes! Peter’s surname was Aile.”

He said that about fifteen years ago, a tailor named Peter Aile had moved there with his granddaughter, but when the child turned ten, they had left for another village. When Victor slipped a few bills into the man’s rough hand, more useful information came out.

“Peter’s granddaughter was so doll-like and gentle, even at such a young age, that I still remember her. Her hair color was just like a lily dipped in honey. I believe she wanted to learn either an instrument or singing, so they moved to send her to a music school. Peter didn’t want to send such a tiny child off to a dormitory alone, since he doted on her unusually.”

If his words were true, Maylily, already an outstanding beauty from childhood, had grown up under her grandfather’s devoted care, receiving musical education and becoming a woman of artistic refinement.

As a commodity on the marriage market, was she not the very finest quality? Imagining his daughter’s present self, Victor rejoiced as though he had discovered a gold mine.

Filled with anticipation at the prospect of handling a fortune large enough to clear his debts and still have much left, he investigated the music school in Purdshire. As Purdshire was considered a city in the relatively underdeveloped north, and inter-regional travel cost much, he reasoned that Peter and Maylily had not left the area.

Since there was only one music school in Purdshire, it was not difficult to identify it.

Victor had his errand boy deliver a letter to the school in order to secure an appointment, disguising himself as a nobleman with wealth and education. In the letter, Victor introduced himself as a nobleman who had succeeded in business abroad and had belatedly come to find his daughter.

And today was finally the promised day. Dressed in expensive clothes, Victor traveled by hired carriage and arrived at the school just after lunch. He was soon escorted straight into the principal’s office.

“To think that a dependable father has appeared for such a beautiful and diligent child, it should be something to celebrate… Fate is truly strange.”

The principal, dressed in finery rare in this city, elegantly set her teacup down on its saucer.

“What do you mean by that?”

When Victor pressed her to explain her cryptic remark, she looked away with a somewhat troubled expression before speaking.

“It’s true that Maylily attended our school, but she was unable to graduate. After her grandfather passed away, her family’s circumstances deteriorated rapidly, so she dropped out.”

She mumbled something about Maylily possibly having gone to live with relatives. In her attempt to help, the principal brought out an old record with Maylily’s address, but it was one Victor already knew.

He had wasted both time and money for nothing. Leaving the school gates, Victor violently kicked the iron gate.

“Damn it! Why call me here when you don’t know a damned thing? Are you trying to make a fool of me?”

Spitting in the direction of the principal’s office, Victor fumed for a while before heading toward the carriage stop. Just as he was nearly out of the tree-lined alley, he stopped short. With a low mutter, a sardonic laugh slipped out.

“This is troublesome.”

There had been no one in the alley in front of the school, blocked at one end. But now, as he walked along, he heard faint footsteps following him. It meant he was being tailed.

Even as he lit a cigarette, not a single person passed him by, confirming his suspicion.

Had they followed me from Roden? Who sent them?

There were too many people who bore him grudges. He couldn’t even guess.

After mulling over it for a while, blowing smoke into the air, Victor decided to pretend not to notice and keep the tail for the time being to watch the situation unfold. Soon, crushing the short butt of his cigarette on the ground, his feet moved again.

***

In the box on the table, an ivory-colored dress glowed softly in the afternoon light that filled the parlor. David asked gently as he looked at Maylily’s face, which showed no particular expression as she stared at the dress sent by the man she was to dine with that evening.

“Do you not like it?”

“Oh, no. It’s beautiful, so beautiful that… I was only wondering if it’s really all right for me to accept such a dress.”

Her delicate face, faintly smiling, seemed unusually lacking in energy today. It appeared she had suffered considerably under the unpleasant rumors that had recently spread within the opera company.