Maylily - Chapter 51

“That can’t be true….”

After hearing everything Victor said, Maylily murmured in a daze. Her face, dimly lit by the corridor’s faint lights, had turned pale.

“It’s only natural that it’s hard to believe. It was difficult for me to accept your existence at first too.”

Even at Victor’s seemingly affectionate tone, the shock on her face refused to fade.

For a while, Maylily only blinked her wide eyes like someone who had fallen into a world where time had stopped. Even that helpless look of hers was as lovely as a doll.

How could she resemble me so much? Truly a masterpiece.

As Victor admired the result of his superior genes, Maylily slowly lifted her eyes from where they had been fixed on the floor. Her gaze, wavering uneasily, turned toward him.

“I don’t mean to doubt you, sir, but… from your words alone, it’s hard for me to believe that you’re really my father. There could be some misunderstanding or mistake, and you might have confused me with someone else.”

I knew this would happen, so I brought something.

“Here, take a look at this.”

Victor pulled out an old envelope from inside his coat pocket. On the front was a postmark from Purdshire.

“It’s a letter your mother sent me right after you were born.”

Maylily looked between the envelope and Victor’s face with widened eyes before carefully taking it. Her small hands trembled noticeably as she unfolded the letter.

Victor’s gaze trailed along her slender wrist and quietly examined her clothes, hat, and bag. Every single item was worn and out of fashion. Her modest appearance, ill-suited to someone who performed before the public, revealed the child’s humble nature.

Viscount Dawson will like her even more.

She’s as pretty as a flower just as she is, yet she’s also frugal. That miserly old man will welcome such a bride with open arms.

“You truly are… the one this letter belongs to?”

By then, Maylily’s gaze had returned to Victor, her eyes glistening with moisture. It was the expression of someone finally beginning to grasp the truth.

“That’s right, my dear,” Victor replied, feigning a slightly emotional expression.

“Then it’s really true….”

Maylily traced her mother’s name written at the end of the letter with trembling fingers before her throat tightened and she fell silent.

“Yes, I’m your father. I’m sorry it took me so long to greet you.”

Finishing his daughter’s words for her, Victor removed his black fedora as if offering a formal introduction. The shadow cast by the brim disappeared, revealing neatly groomed golden hair.

At that moment, Maylily’s eyes, trembling like a quaking leaf, stared blankly at Victor’s face as though bewitched.

The vivid gold hair, the eyes resembling the clear sky, the slightly downturned gaze, and the small mole beneath his lip….

Her blue eyes, tracing over every mark that proved their blood connection, trembled uncontrollably.

Before the tears welling in both eyes could spill, Maylily hurriedly wiped them away with the back of her hand.

“I… I don’t know what to think.”

At the end of an ordinary day like any other, a man claiming to be her father—whose very existence she had never known—had appeared like an uninvited guest. Even if the moon outside the window suddenly fell before her, it wouldn’t have felt more unreal than this.

Should she resent him for coming so late, or cry because she had missed him all this time….

Maylily didn’t know how to face someone who had never once existed in her life. Shaking her head as she kept repeating that she didn’t know, she showed just how deep her confusion ran.

“I know this must be hard to take in. I can imagine how difficult things have been for you.”

Victor took a handkerchief from his coat pocket and handed it to Maylily, whose shoulders drooped helplessly.

“Please, let me be a father to you now, even if it’s too late.”

At the unfamiliar warmth that brushed her fingertips, Maylily finally let her tears fall. She stood there for a long time, unable to either tightly grasp the handkerchief Victor had offered or push it away.

***

Her mother’s last letter had been left unfinished in sleep.

Maylily found it in the drawer of the nightstand beside her grandfather’s bed. It was on the day she and her aunt were sorting through his belongings after his passing.

There was no recipient’s name written. But even as a child, Maylily easily knew who the letter had been meant for. Her mother had been pleading and begging desperately not to be abandoned, for the sake of herself and her baby.

That wish, never sent, had been left to her grandfather. And he, in place of the man who had abandoned his daughter, had devotedly cared for the child she left behind.

The letter that carried those thirteen years of time was old and faded. Maylily couldn’t imagine what her grandfather must have felt each time he took it out to look at it. Yet her heart ached all the same.

Clutching the letter, Maylily cried soundlessly. Her aunt, who later found her in that state while she was tidying up her grandfather’s clothes, burned the letter.

Unlike her grandfather, who sought traces of her mother in Maylily, her aunt wanted to erase them. As though she feared that such remnants might taint Maylily’s life. The only thing she couldn’t take away was the music Maylily longed for and loved.

Even as a child, Maylily faintly understood her aunt’s feelings. So she followed her wishes obediently, even though she longed desperately to keep the only item that still held her mother’s touch.

She didn’t know how many times she had read the letter before it was burned. Even so, among the fading memories, there remained one thing she could still recall clearly: her mother’s name.

The first letter, written with a long stroke unlike any ordinary handwriting. It was her mother’s sad voice, begging not to be forgotten.

That long-forgotten voice, Maylily found again one day in the letter presented by the man who suddenly appeared, claiming to be her father.

It was unmistakably her mother’s trace.

There was no way she could doubt it.

When she finally accepted that truth, the man’s face came into focus. Within it were the origins of her light-blue eyes and golden hair.

Thus, in Maylily’s world, the name “father,” which had never existed before, came into being in an instant.

***

“Hmm….”

Standing before the wide-open wardrobe, Maylily hummed softly with a serious face as she pulled out a lilac dress.

It was the one she had received as a birthday gift from the Count of Everscourt. Unlike the ivory dress that had been his first gift, this one fastened at the front of the bodice, which had delighted Maylily even more.

“No, I can’t wear this.”

After briefly holding the dress up to the mirror, Maylily shook her head.

It was because she wanted the Count to be the first to see her wearing the clothes he had given her. Besides, the lavishness of such attire was far too much for her station and could draw unnecessary suspicion.

Keeping their patronage a secret was also safer this way.

In the end, Maylily chose a neat navy dress.

Today, she had an appointment with Victor. During their first meeting, her emotions had run so high she could barely speak, but today she wanted to have a proper conversation with him.

“Please, let me be a father to you now, even if it’s too late.”

Before deciding how to answer that remorseful request, Maylily wanted to know what kind of person her father truly was.

“Father….”

After buttoning up to her collar and straightening it, Maylily quietly called the name that still felt unfamiliar to her.

He had said that it wasn’t by choice that he’d left her mother, and that he had been forced abroad by his family, who opposed their marriage. Because of that, he hadn’t known of Maylily’s existence.

“From now on, I want to live faithfully as your father and atone for what I owe your mother and you.”

If those words were sincere, she wanted to give him a chance.

Then, when the day came that she could be sure neither she nor her mother had truly been abandoned—when she could fully accept the existence of her father—she wanted to take his hand and visit her mother and grandfather’s graves together.

Maylily hoped that she could somehow ease, even a little, the sorrow of those two souls that had been buried in the faded letter from long ago.

She wished earnestly for that day to come.

With that heavy hope in her heart, Maylily sat at her vanity and brushed her hair. Her gaze fell upon the small vase beside her. The lilies of the valley, delivered that morning, were releasing their fresh fragrance.

Even while he was away on a business trip to Cartia, the man had been thoughtful enough to arrange for flowers to be delivered to her every morning.

I take after my father too.

She wondered if the day would come when she could smile and say to him that this was the answer to the question she had thought she would never find for the rest of her life.

She wished, once again, that such a day would come.

Engraving that cautious hope in her heart once more, Maylily finished dressing and left for the meeting place.