TBDF CH 06

Chapter 6

Hehe.

“Let me say this again, Rowena. In front of the Grand Lady, you must be polite…”

Hehehe.

“…And if you don’t behave properly, you’ll be severely scolded. Understood?”

“Of course, Teacher!”

Inside the rattling carriage, Rowena answered energetically.

Normally, she would have let the orphanage teacher’s nagging go in one ear and out the other.

But today, she listened to every word.

Her bright eyes were shining as much as the day she got to eat an entire special apple pie by herself.

Which made sense.

She was getting to see the Grand Lady of Hayworth again, when she thought she never would!

Of course, officially I’m being called as a companion to keep her company.

But still—a second chance was a second chance!

Excited, Rowena swung her short legs and hummed to herself.

The Grand Lady definitely likes cute behavior.

Maybe it reminded her of her dead daughter.

After all, she had once been a mother.

And Rowena had no intention of wasting this opportunity.

She planned to learn from her last failure and finally make her “request” this time.

I’ll show her my ultimate three-piece charm attack.

Normally, she only used it when chocolate snacks came to Townsend.

But this time, she had no choice.

An orphanage full of children was basically a battlefield.

Kids that age were less like well-mannered people and more like hungry beasts.

If you blinked, your snack disappeared from your desk.

If you let your guard down, the shiny button on your chest might mysteriously vanish.

That was the terrifying world of the orphanage.

And I survived there for ten years.

And I’m even one of the top students. Ahem.

Anyway, with her “ultimate three-piece charm attack,” she had nothing to fear.

At last, the carriage stopped in front of the Hayworth estate.

Rowena hopped down and hurried inside.

Now all she had to do was meet the Grand Lady and—

…Huh?

She stopped in her tracks.

The usually quiet mansion was strangely chaotic.

People were hurrying past.

Small groups were whispering anxiously.

And that person running over there…

He’s carrying a doctor’s bag?

Rowena knew exactly what that meant.

She had been close enough with the old doctor who diagnosed her illness to sit beside him and share boiled eggs.

And because of that, she knew about doctors’ bags.

—

“This contains all my medicines. My lifeline.”

“But they’re all glass bottles. Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Exactly. Which is why a doctor never runs, no matter how urgent things are.”

—

If a former royal physician said that, it had to be true.

Which meant—

If someone was running while carrying a doctor’s bag…

Something serious had happened.

Quietly, Rowena followed after him.

Pressing herself against the wall, she peeked around the corner.

There were several people gathered outside a room, all looking worried.

And among them—

That’s the man who gave me cookies!

The man the Grand Lady had called Henry.

Then “Henry or the butler” spoke with a troubled expression.

“Why does this keep happening to the Grand Lady…”

“This makes the third time this month. She doesn’t even have any major illness. At this rate…”

“Even when we ask if something is troubling her, she says nothing. If she collapses again…”

At those words, Rowena’s heart sank.

Because what they were saying meant—

The Grand Lady collapsed?!

Just yesterday, she hadn’t looked sick at all.

Sure, she had a pollen allergy.

But no one collapses from pollen.

Unless they were a child making excuses to lie in bed.

That wasn’t the Grand Lady.

“It must be because of the accident…”

“But that was over a year ago. And the Grand Lady remained strong after it. It’s too old to explain a sudden illness now.”

The “accident” they meant was obvious.

The death of her daughter, Rose.

At Henry’s words, a middle-aged woman nodded.

“That’s true. It was because the Grand Lady remained firm that the Hayworth family didn’t collapse back then.”

“Exactly. If that were the cause, it would have shown long ago.”

“She’s always been so strong… so what could be troubling her now? That’s what worries me.”

“The physician says it seems to be a sickness of the heart turning into illness.”

“If only she would tell us. If even the Grand Lady falls…”

The butler and head maid spoke in hushed voices full of concern.

Then, once the doctor finished and left, they moved away as well.

As the people who managed the household, they were normally aware of everything.

But this time, distracted by worry—

They failed to notice one thing.

After they left,

A tiny shadow slipped deeper into the corridor.

***

Softly.

A set of barely audible footsteps approached the bed where the Grand Lady lay sleeping.

The owner tilted her head slightly.

Her pigtails tipped like rabbit ears.

Her breathing sounds steady.

The old doctor had once said that if breathing was even, that was a good sign.

Leaning against the tall bed, Rowena looked down at the sleeping Grand Lady.

Even in sleep, the woman’s brow was faintly furrowed.

As if her strict personality showed even unconscious.

But—

That also meant she wasn’t at peace, even in sleep.

Actually, the Grand Lady barely appears in the original story.

She only appeared when Seymour was mentioned.

Usually in lines like—

“If only the Grand Lady of Hayworth had been well at times like this…”

Which meant—

By the time the original story began, it wasn’t only Rowena who was unwell.

The Grand Lady had been bedridden throughout the story.

But that was seven years later, so I thought she was fine for now.

Apparently not.

Maybe this illness had already begun and would gradually lead her to death.

The question was—

What caused it?

They said it was a sickness of the heart.

Henry had claimed it wasn’t related to the accident from a year ago.

But Rowena thought otherwise.

In the novel, the Grand Lady improved briefly after meeting the heroine.

The heroine of Until the Lily Withers looked astonishingly like Rose.

But by then, the illness had progressed too far.

That alone wasn’t enough.

And the Grand Lady eventually died.

Besides—

After Rose died, she became increasingly strict and obsessed with perfection.

That alone made it easy to guess what illness burdened her heart.

She just can’t show it to anyone.

Because if even she faltered,

The entire Hayworth family would falter with her.

Lost in thought, the child’s green eyes gleamed strangely.

If that’s the case…