Obituary 9

Chapter 9

***

"How lovely, I heard it well—two words would have sufficed. And you know, you're supposedly a pianist, yet you ask what tune someone wants to hear—"

Agatha's nagging went on endlessly, but it left no trace on Rose and faded away meaninglessly.

Only Sophia's flawless performance remained like a terrible afterimage, endlessly replaying in her mind.

* * *

In the quiet study of the mansion after the guests had departed, Ray habitually put a cigarette in his mouth.

Taking a deep drag on the lit cigarette, his body, stiff with slight irritation, finally relaxed.

Amid the hazy smoke, Ray quietly contemplated the root of the problem: his own wife.

That madwoman who had dared to speak of being a pianist to none other than the Duke of Haland's daughter.

People said Rose didn't seem much like a Bolton, but while her appearance and temperament might not be typical, her way of thinking was unmistakably Bolton.

But that woman should no longer be a Bolton.

Leaving the woman who had been his wife for nearly a month to his mother and the housekeeper was partly due to genuine busyness, but partly also to remind his mother of her responsibility.

To make her realize the price of insisting on such a daughter-in-law.

Yet even the proud Lady Crawford seemed to have failed to turn this woman into an Orthuran.

How dismal.

A long, sigh-like stream of smoke escaped from Ray's lips.

The occasions requiring him to bring his 'wife' along would only increase. He couldn't very well tell her to keep her mouth shut for the rest of her life.

She was already practically confined within Crawford Manor. How much more could he possibly caution her?

His mother had even stopped inviting anyone to the mansion altogether.

Admitting that even such desperate concealment was insufficient didn't look good, so he couldn't keep her locked up at home forever.

Moreover, her very existence was the problem; caution alone wouldn't solve it.

<Crawford Wavers, Conservatives Waver>

Ray's gaze fell on the headline of the Daily Oakley Review newspaper resting on his desk.

The pathetic title made him chuckle involuntarily.

The article, clearly bearing Archibald Avery's touch, was utterly ridiculous.

Everett might have published it to attack him, but didn't the claim that Crawford's wavering meant the Conservative Party was wavering sound exactly like saying Ray Crawford was the party's center?

It was a shoddy tactic to begin with, and now it was misdirected too.

Whenever Avery's stupidity surfaced like this, it invariably robbed Ray of any faint consideration he might have had about taking him seriously.

Ray knew types like Archibald Avery well, and knew them well enough to despise them deeply.

The sort who resort to cheap tricks because they don't know how to win fairly.

The sort who don't understand that admitting defeat with dignity is preferable to fighting beyond one's station.

Ray valued the method of victory almost as much as the victory itself.

That's why he detested the approach Everett had chosen to attack him.

"Well, I must say... this puts me in a rather awkward position. Still, I couldn't let this news reach other newspapers, so I paid for it myself."

Everett's hypocritical face, feigning ignorance after setting the trap himself, was vividly etched in his mind.

"But is it true? The late Earl of Crawford... Good heavens, it's hard to even speak of it."

Everett had blackmailed Ray's father with his mental illness.

That Ray's father, who had died a war hero, had actually succumbed to insanity.

With this vile threat of a major newspaper exposé, he had shifted the marriage proposal meant for himself onto Ray.

Everett was the Home Secretary and a prominent Conservative politician, but he was somewhat advanced in age and a man with children.

Elliot Davies likely proposed the match thinking this flaw somewhat balanced his own fatal flaw—that he and his daughter were from Bolton.

Elliot probably didn't realize why Everett had offered up Ray Crawford, a better catch, instead of rejecting the match himself. But regardless, the nouveau riche didn't let this stroke of luck slip away.

Everett had always feared Ray might gain even greater wings through marriage into a better family, so this was the perfect check.

Ray judged it would have been better if his father's insanity had been reported, and that opinion remains unchanged.

It might become gossip people clink glasses over, but it wouldn't deal Ray any political blow.

But his mother saw things differently.

Agatha vehemently opposed revealing her husband's medical history, even refusing meals. She was willing to accept a Bolton daughter-in-law as the price.

This was the result.

"There's no wheat in Bolton, no oats, hardly any food at all."

A chuckle escaped him as he recalled Rose's voice—unblinking as she spat out the lie, boldly delivering a veiled taunt disguised as a joke to none other than the daughter of the Duke of Haland.

In the deep silence, the cigarette grew shorter and shorter.

Finally, Ray stubbed it out in the ashtray, slowly rose from his desk, and left the study.

Even as he headed toward his bedroom, he hadn't properly decided what exactly to do to Rose, or what to say to her.

He knew he had to take some kind of action, but he couldn't grasp what form that action should take.

He didn't think he'd ever felt this way, even in the thick of battle.

He was curious too.

What on earth was she thinking about, living her life with that blank expression on her face all the time?

Did the woman who constantly made strange noises, startling people and keeping them restless and sleepless, sleep soundly herself?

By the time he entered the passage connecting his bedroom to Rose's, any anger or irritation about the situation had already faded.

Only the weariness brought by an unwelcome presence remained, settling like ash piling up in an ashtray.

It was the first time he'd walked this passage since the wedding.

His reluctant, slow steps halted only when he was almost at the Duchess's bedroom.

Some singing had slipped between his steps.

Ray leaned against the hallway wall, silently observing the source of the sound.

His wife, intruding into his perfect life as unpleasantly as that very sound.

The woman lay sprawled on a long sofa, not a bed, humming a song in Antaka. Her pale golden hair was wildly disheveled over the sofa's armrest.

The lyrics were childish, like a nursery rhyme. The woman's fingers tapped the beat on her thigh as she quietly hummed a song that featured the word "home" far too often.

Her voice, which had seemed awkward when speaking Orthuran, fit perfectly when she spoke Antaka—or rather, when she sang.

Was her voice always like this? Suddenly, the woman felt unfamiliar.

"Come see the roses that bloom in May."

The lyrics, meant to sound sweet, strangely sounded infinitely bitter. The already petite woman looked as if she might vanish at any moment.

Wondering if all these feelings stemmed from Rose's pretentious attitude or that unfamiliar voice, Ray suddenly recalled her staring blankly at Sophia Greenwood playing the piano.

Even a soldier who lost his country wouldn't have made such a face.

For a mere piano, she made such a face.

That woman often glanced at the piano in the parlor.

The piano her father used to play, and which her mother had so detested.

Though she never played it herself, she would sometimes move her fingers through the air as if playing.

Tapping the table, tapping the saucer of her cup—her fingers rarely stayed still.

That manner, that attitude, was infuriating.

Her sentimental obsession with meaningless things only highlighted her flaws.

Such traits invariably made a person weak.

Endlessly pondering why he couldn't bring himself to like the woman who had become his wife, Ray roughly wiped his face.

He knew exactly where all that discomfort, that unease, came from.

This marriage was ultimately no different from something forced upon him because of his dead father.

That the woman he ended up with reminded him of that father felt like some cruel joke of life.

"Sometimes... it feels like your mother just dislikes me."

His father's words, spoken during rare moments of lucidity before dying, echoed faintly in his unpleasant memories. His father was forcing a weak smile.

The expression Ray had shown his father back then was probably...

"You're thinking, what does that even matter? Is there really not a single part of you that takes after me?"

It must have been a look of utter disappointment. Judging by how his father had laughed awkwardly while saying that.

Even after he died like that, his thoughts hadn't changed.

Mother might have thought him pathetic, but she didn't hate him. And even if she had, their marriage had no problems whatsoever.

That was what marriage should have been.

Considering the devotion Mother showed during his father’s final moments—when he raved, unable to recognize his own wife and children—it was more than enough to serve as a model for marriage.