Chapter 7
The Grand Lady of Hayworth, Freya, slowly lifted her heavy eyelids.
The first thing she saw was the familiar ceiling.
I lost consciousness again…
With a miserable feeling, Freya shut her eyes tightly.
Once again, it felt as though a heavy block of lead had been placed on her heart, pressing down on her chest.
It was a familiar suffocating sensation that never left while she was awake.
Sometimes, though, that dull pressure would change, becoming a sharp pain that stabbed and squeezed her heart.
And when it grew too severe—
She would lose consciousness like this.
It’s getting worse by the day.
How much time had passed?
Freya instinctively searched for the clock.
The child was supposed to come today… and I collapse at a time like this.
She thought of the little girl with wheat-colored hair.
Rowena Whitfield.
The orphan child Freya had unusually invited to the estate today.
There was a simple reason Freya had called the bold little girl back, despite no longer enjoying meeting people.
Because she kept remembering—
“C-could you… let me kiss your cheek when we say goodbye by the carriage?”
The moment she heard those words, she had realized something.
I reacted too harshly to the word “request.”
Thinking about it now, she was only a ten-year-old child.
Too young to truly understand the world.
And even if a child made a request, how serious could it be?
It had been childish rudeness at most.
She could have let it pass.
Only afterward had it occurred to her that she had been too sensitive.
And more than that—
Seeing the child kiss her cheek before leaving had awakened a memory from over ten years ago.
“Mom, kiss! Hehe.”
Her daughter Rose.
The daughter who felt as if she might come running the moment she opened the door and call out “Mother.”
Just thinking of her name made that throbbing pain return.
Freya knew.
This was a sickness of the heart.
But how could such a thing be cured?
A sickness caused by losing a daughter more precious than gold itself.
Even now, when she closed her eyes, she could clearly see Rose’s face.
It felt as though, if she stepped out the door, Rose would be looking for her hat, saying the weather was nice and she wanted to go outside.
It felt as though she could still hear her daughter complain that “Mother” sounded too stiff.
Rose had been a hard-won child.
Which made her even more precious.
And that was why Freya could not show her grief.
She was the last adult left in the Hayworth family.
Its pillar.
That was why she took off mourning clothes as soon as the funeral ended.
Why she did not cry easily.
Because if the one who should have grieved most cast aside the shadow of death—
Others could too.
And only then could Hayworth regain life as if nothing had happened.
I cannot fall apart.
Especially not when her son-in-law Seymour was so unstable.
Now, she had no reason to live except Hayworth itself.
It was the only reason she must not die.
The only thing left worth protecting.
Henry is going to scold me again. What excuse should I make this time…
Tap.
Just as Freya tried to sit up, something brushed her fingertips.
Too light to be a blanket.
Too rough in texture.
Slowly, she lifted herself and looked.
“…Flowers?”
Folded roses made from napkins were scattered across her blanket.
Not one or two.
There were so many that if she lifted the blanket, they would spill down in piles.
The blanket had been turned into a flower field.
Freya, who was rarely shaken, stammered in surprise.
“W-what is this…?”
“Oh, you’re awake?”
At that moment, soft footsteps sounded at the door.
Turning her head, she saw a small girl smiling.
Arms full of more folded napkin flowers.
It was Rowena.
But that didn’t make the situation any less unbelievable.
“Rowena. Did you do this?”
“Yes!”
At Rowena’s cheerful answer, disbelief spread across Freya’s face.
“Who gave you permission to do something like this? Who said you could?”
“The old doctor said pretty things are good when you’re sick. That’s why people bring flowers when they visit patients.”
“…What?”
The answer was so unexpected that Freya was caught off guard.
Even though she had raised her voice, Rowena only smiled, trotted over, dropped another armful of flowers onto the bed, and rested her chin on her hands against the mattress.
“I thought about picking real flowers outside…”
“But then the flowers would get hurt.”
“And I didn’t think you’d like that, Grand Lady.”
Her clear little voice softened Freya’s anger.
But Freya still wasn’t going to let it slide so easily.
She coughed and said sternly,
“Ahem. Even so, who told you you could use napkins however you wanted?”
“The head cook did!”
“…The head cook?”
“Yes! He taught me how to fold roses and butterflies and gave me permission. I’m the best at paper folding in the orphanage.”
Napkins were expendable.
And apparently the cook had taken pity on her.
Rowena arranged the flowers neatly.
Then she crouched beside them and framed her chin with both hands.
Her round cheeks puffed adorably as she smiled.
“It’s a flower garden for you, Grand Lady!”
Her fingertips were slightly red.
She had folded all those flowers one by one.
At that pure kindness—
Freya suddenly felt something tighten painfully in her chest.
A memory surfaced.
“Mother, look! A bouquet!”
“Rose, why didn’t you ask the gardener for flowers? Why go through the trouble of folding them?”
“Because flowers would get hurt. I know, because I’m a flower too! I’m Mother’s prettiest rose!”
Her little daughter, smiling with her chin in her hands.
Even when she died as an adult, Freya had only ever seen her as that child.
Her child who would never grow again.
And so Freya had sworn never to bring out that grief again.
Even if it festered like poison inside her.
But…
Looking at this child—
It felt as if new flesh were forming over an old wound.
Perhaps that was why she had called Rowena back.
Freya reached out a hand.
She didn’t even know what meaning the gesture held.
But Rowena, looking puzzled, took it.
And somehow—
That small warmth brought comfort.
I never thought I’d feel something like this at my age.
It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling.
Freya opened her mouth more gently.
“Your name is Rowena, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, Grand Lady!”
At the bright answer, a smile appeared on Freya’s lips.
“Could you do me a favor?”
***
Freya’s request was simple.
She only asked Rowena to come with her to a certain room.
Holding Freya’s hand, Rowena followed as she opened the door.
Inside was nothing particularly special.
A perfectly ordinary noble young lady’s room.
The kind found in any aristocratic house.
But the fact that the door had been opened—
Meant a great deal in Hayworth.
“The Grand Lady really opened Lady Rose’s room?”
“That’s what I said! She asked the orphan girl to open it.”
“My goodness, she hasn’t opened it once since Lady Rose died! Even when the butler suggested it, she refused…”
Though no one had used the room for over a year—
It was spotless.
As if its owner might return at any moment.
Because Butler Henry had always ordered it kept clean.
Ignoring the murmuring servants, Freya stood in the empty room for a long time.
“…That is enough. Stop tidying things.”
With that, she left Rose’s room.
But she no longer looked entirely lonely.
Because beside her—
Was a little girl holding the old lady’s hand.
It was a sign that spring was beginning to come to the barren Hayworth estate.
Though neither Freya nor Rowena knew—
Some servants watching the scene were in tears.
And then—
As Rowena hurried down the stairs—
She came upon something unexpected.
G-goodness!
What in the world is happening?!
