Maylily - Chapter 37

“Daisy?”

At Maylily’s cautious voice, the doll who had been crouched, clutching a bag as big as herself, suddenly lifted her head. Then she beamed and waved brightly at Maylily.

“Hi, sister!”

***

“I finally found my dream, but Mom keeps saying absolutely not. Why does she ignore my dream?”

Sitting squarely in the middle of the parlor sofa, Daisy pounded the cushions as she poured out her frustration. Maylily listened quietly as Daisy explained how she ended up coming alone to Roden. She couldn’t say she didn’t understand those feelings, but neither could she blindly take the side of her runaway cousin.

“Still, how could you come here without saying a word to your family? Think how worried your mother and father must be.”

Maylily clasped Daisy’s cold hands, chilled from waiting outside, and tried to soothe her. Daisy pouted, tracing circles in Maylily’s palm with her finger.

“Dad maybe not, but Mom won’t even bat an eye.”

“Don’t say that, Daisy. Of course your mother worries about you.”

“Ugh, I don’t care. If she’s so worried, she should let me go to fashion school.”

On her last visit to Roden, Daisy had been jolted wide awake.

To think such a splendid world existed! The capital, with its gleaming streets, tall buildings lined up, and lamplights glowing bright at night, was far more dazzling than anything she had ever imagined.

And Maylily, who was chasing her dream of being a singer while living in a spacious house with a view of the river, looked all the more amazing.

So Daisy decided. She would become a wonderful city woman like Maylily.

After much thought, the method she found was to become a seamstress. If she graduated from fashion school and got a job at one of Roden’s famous dress shops, she could achieve her dream of being a city woman and even live with Maylily in this nice house. It was the perfect plan.

“What on earth got into her? A girl who can’t even sew properly at her age, and she wants to be a seamstress?”

Her mother opposed her, pointing to Daisy’s clumsy sewing hands, but Daisy thought there was another reason.

Money. In the end, it all came down to money.

Of course, there was a way to learn the craft by working as an apprentice without going to fashion school. But Daisy didn’t want to start at the very bottom, enduring paltry wages and hardship.

“How expensive can tuition be? And yet she says no. She let you go to music school just fine. Why am I the only one who has to rot in the countryside forever?”

Maylily, suddenly cast as the guilty party, sat in silence as Daisy sighed so deeply it seemed the ground might sink beneath her.

“Sometimes, I think maybe Mom is your real mother, and my aunt.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, Daisy.”

“I’m serious. From when we were kids, Mom never once scolded you. But Liam and I, the slightest mistake and her hand would fly to our backs right away. You don’t know how fierce her hand can be, do you?”

“……”

Even considering that Maylily had been a quiet child, unlike troublemakers Daisy and Liam, it was true that their aunt had been especially lenient toward her.

Their aunt had done everything she could so that Maylily would not grow up as a pitiful orphan bullied by relatives. But that considerate affection ironically reminded Maylily all the more that it wasn’t truly hers.

Whenever her aunt gave her something nice, pretty, or delicious, Maylily felt a burden, as though she were sharing in affection that should’ve gone to her younger cousins. No matter how much her aunt tried to raise her as her own, she could never be her real child.

There were times she had even wished her aunt would scold her, and felt a little sad thinking she might never know how harsh her aunt’s hand could be. But such a spoiled complaint was not something she could share with Daisy, who had always suffered losses because of her.

“Ugh, this is depressing.”

Sighing again and again, Daisy flopped across the sofa like damp laundry. Watching the usually cheerful younger girl’s shadowed face, Maylily felt it was time she repaid her aunt’s family even a little. After some hesitation, she made up her mind and spoke firmly.

“I’ll try to arrange the tuition for fashion school.”

“What? Really? Really, you mean it, sister?”

Daisy shot upright and grabbed Maylily’s hands tightly, her voice raised. Though she had come to Roden with the faintest hope, she never expected Maylily to actually say it. Daisy was overjoyed. Of course, her sister was an angel.

“Yes. If the tuition issue is solved but your mother still opposes, then it’s up to you to persuade her. You’ll need to explain carefully how you’ll live at fashion school and how you’ll find work after graduation. Not run away like this time.”

“Yes, yes! I’ll do everything you say. Thank you, sister! I knew coming to you was the right choice.”

Daisy rubbed her face against Maylily’s arm with a beaming smile, acting coy. At her appearance, like an excited puppy, Maylily gave up on keeping a firm attitude and let out a small laugh.

“I promised to help you, so you have to go back to Purdshire tomorrow. Understood?”

“……”

For some reason, Daisy’s mood quickly dropped, and she pressed her lips together.

“What is it? Do you have something else on your mind?”

“You see, sister, I…”

The way Daisy dragged out her words was a sign that she had a request.

“What is it? It’s fine, just say it.”

“Couldn’t I just stay for two more days? I spent so much money on the train fare, it feels like such a waste to just turn right back. Let’s go sightseeing, just a little? Sister, it was fun last time, wasn’t it?”

“What about school…”

“It’s not like there’s anything to learn there anyway. Missing a day or two won’t change anything.”

At Daisy’s persistent persuasion, Maylily eventually raised the white flag. It was an entirely natural outcome. Maylily, who already had a soft heart, was even more prone to yielding when it came to Daisy.

“Then, the day after tomorrow is my day off, so let’s go sightseeing together then. But tomorrow you have to stay home quietly. You don’t know your way around here. If you wander off alone, you could get lost.”

When Maylily gave her permission, Daisy leapt and threw her arms around her tightly.

“Yes, yes, I’ll do that! You’re the best, sister! I love you, so, so much!”

The next morning, on her way to work, Maylily stopped by the telegraph office and sent a message to her aunt, letting her know Daisy was with her. Her steps toward the theater felt lighter than usual, buoyed by the thought of tomorrow with Daisy.

***

Having gained nothing at Purdshire’s music school, Victor struggled for a time in his search for Maylily. Since she had moved when she enrolled at the music school, there was no way to track down the house she had once lived in.

Wandering aimlessly through the residential streets near the music school for several days in mounting frustration, Victor decided to try a different approach.

I’ll check every tailor shop in the area!

If someone had taken over the tailor shop once run by Peter Aile, there might be a new lead there. There were only a handful of tailor shops nearby, so it didn’t take half a day to finish the investigation.

And the strategy worked. The owner of a tailor shop located on a market street not far from the school turned out to have once been Peter Aile’s apprentice.

“After Mr. Aile passed away, Diane—ah, that is, Mr. Aile’s daughter—took in the child. At the time, they lived in Sercock, just over there, though I can’t say whether they still do. I haven’t had contact with them in years.”

Introducing himself as Maylily’s father, Victor listened as the middle-aged man with a kindly face searched his memory and told him everything he could recall. The man even revealed details about Maylily’s aunt’s family, trusting Victor completely despite it being their first meeting, for a simple reason.

“And you look so much like Mr. Aile’s eldest granddaughter. I always wondered who she took after to be so beautiful… If he knew the granddaughter he cherished so dearly had found her real father, Mr. Aile would be overjoyed, even in heaven.”

Everyone falls so easily for this pretty shell.

Mocking the man’s simplicity, Victor left the shop and set off for Sercock that very afternoon. Having drunk heavily the night before and overslept, he arrived later than planned.

The village square, just after the market had ended, was filled with vendors clearing their stalls and residents loitering about.

“Excuse me, may I ask something?”

From several people he questioned, Victor learned that Maylily’s family had left the village about five or six years ago. No one knew where they had moved.

“Damn it all!”

Dropping onto a faded bronze bench, Victor cursed and lit a cigarette. How could a family move around so often, like it was nothing? Even as he blew out one puff of smoke after another, his irritation refused to subside.

Was this how she repaid the bitterness of growing up without a father? Though he knew it was an unfair suspicion, the thought that his daughter, said to resemble his face, might hold a grudge filled him with resentment.

All the more reason to find her.

I’ll find her, make her a viscount’s wife, and properly fulfill the father’s role I couldn’t until now.

Resolving to scour the village until he uncovered a clue, Victor ground the cigarette butt roughly under his heel.

“First, I’ll need a meal.”

The humble restaurant he stepped into to fill the emptiness of his stomach had no customers, the lunch hour long past.

In no time, the sausage-and-potato fry and beer he ordered arrived at a sunlit table by the window. As Victor set down the glass after a long gulp, he turned his head toward the square, where he spotted a man leaning casually against the wall of an old building on the corner—clearly a tail.