She arrives at dusk.
Chloe hurries to the reception room on the butler’s word, and there is her fiancé’s mother, the Duchess of Linden, who rises hastily from her chair the moment she sees her.
[Lady Chloe…… I beg your forgiveness for descending on you without warning like this!] (D)
She bends deeply at the waist and delivers her apology in an anguished voice.
[For the discourtesy of my son, and the enormous trouble and offence it has caused you, I offer my sincerest apologies. To have brought such shame upon you — there are no words to make amends……] (D)
[No. Please, raise your head, Duchess of Linden.] (C)
Chloe’s words seem considerate on the surface, but her voice carries a coldness that cuts the air. The duchess registers it and hesitates to lift her head, and Chloe begins speaking regardless.
[Duchess. Are you aware of what your son has done?] (C)
[…………Yes. Before coming here, I heard it directly from the mouth of my foolish son. That he gave you…… an outrageous article……] (D)
Her voice shakes as she answers. Whether it comes from fear at having shamed someone of higher standing, or from the shame of her son giving his fiancée something off a street stall, is hard to say. Probably both. If Chloe were in her position, she’d be unable to bear the embarrassment.
[I see…… So it’s true after all……] (C)
Chloe lowers her eyes and murmurs it with real sorrow on her face, in a voice that sounds ready to fade out entirely.
She turns quietly and instructs the maid waiting behind her to bring the gift in question. A short while later the maid returns with a shabby box. Chloe opens it without a word and presents it in front of the duchess.
[This is what your son gave me.] (C)
[…………!?] (D)
At the sight of the hairpin the duchess covers her mouth with both hands, too shocked to speak, and draws a sharp breath.
It’s more wretched than she imagined, obviously unworthy of a noblewoman at a single glance. And for Chloe, of such exalted blood, all the more so.
[Th…… this, my son gave this…… to you……] (D)
The shock leaves her voice trembling and her words broken. Her face is rigid at the unbelievable fact that he sent something this old and dull and cheap to the daughter of House Calendula.
[I was happy, you know. It was the first ornament Leonardo-sama had ever given me. I was so pleased that I wore it to a tea party…… and then, from everyone’s reactions, I understood. What Leonardo-sama truly meant by it……] (C)
She never once breaks from the posture of grief rather than anger.
Inwardly she may be thinking the nerve, handing me this rubbish, but outwardly she plays the young lady in sorrow: I was so delighted…… and it was a gift meant to mock me all along.
Because that way, Leonardo’s scumminess is thrown into sharper relief. Show Chloe as a victim unjustly mistreated, and his viciousness stands out all the more. She wants to be angry, truly, but for now she forces that feeling down to the bottom of her heart and stages the tragic noblewoman.
[To go so far as to give me a thing like this to convey his feelings…… Does Leonardo-sama perhaps have some misgiving about our engagement……?] (C)
A tear spills from those sapphire eyes, and the duchess catches her breath. It stirs her guilt powerfully — and it is a sight beautiful enough to hold the eye.
[No! Nothing of the sort! Our entire house considers it a great honour to be connected to yours. This is entirely my own failing. I can only say that I raised him wrongly. I shall speak to my son severely and never let him do such a thing again! That I have caused you such grief — I am truly, deeply sorry……] (D)
The duchess presses her lips together as though biting down on pain, and bows deeply once more.
‘The mother has perfectly ordinary common sense. So how did the son grow up without any……?’
He was relatively normal when the engagement began, surely. When exactly did he become that arrogant, senseless man? Or was that his true nature all along, and time simply wore the plating off?
Most likely the latter. But she can’t shake the feeling that Sherry’s influence counts for a great deal as well.
From what the collaborator’s reports say, this woman Sherry makes a great many remarks that would have anyone holding their head in their hands. Chloe wondered at first whether that was simply the commoner outlook in this world — but the collaborator, a commoner herself, also finds it strange, so apparently not.
[No, there’s nothing for you to apologise for, Duchess. I’m sure Leonardo-sama simply doesn’t think well of me…… They say a person’s feelings show not in their words but in their conduct. ……The value of this hairpin must be my value to him.] (C)
She turns the meticulously constructed sorrow on the duchess and lets her see all of it. In truth she isn’t sad in the slightest. Rubbish giving rubbish only reads to her as like being given like.
[Lady Chloe……! That is absolutely not so! The idea that your worth is anything of the kind! My son…… Leonardo…… something has gone wrong with his eyes and his head both……!] (D)
Head still lowered, the duchess clenches her hands tight and says it as if forcing out something she can no longer hold in.
At the sight, Chloe feels a small ache somewhere in her chest. She knows the woman is here out of a single-minded wish to protect her house as its mistress. Even so, she can’t hand out easy forgiveness to a Leonardo who made a fool of her to that degree.
That aside, she agrees strongly with the sentiment about his eyes and head. To begin with, the eyes that picked out something that old and dirty for a noblewoman, and the head that judged it acceptable, are both defective.
If there had been clear malice behind it — let’s give Chloe something to sting her — the choice would at least make sense. But nothing in Leonardo’s manner suggested anything of the kind.
[Then…… why did he give me such a thing? The others all said it was the sort of item one finds at a market stall……] (C)
At the words the others, the duchess’s shoulders jolt.
She came to apologise because she heard the rumours in society. For a woman as proud as she is, the fact that such a shoddy object was her son’s gift — and that other nobles saw it — must be unbearable.
Chloe is sorry to have humiliated her that far. But wearing the thing out in public was a good deal more embarrassing for her.
[………………Yes. The truth is that my son was deceived by a disreputable merchant and bought that article from him. He foolishly believed a transparent lie: that it was an item of distinguished provenance, once worn by royalty in some foreign kingdom……] (D)
[What? I…… He was deceived……?] (C)
The duchess comes out with something so unexpected that Chloe’s voice rises in surprise.
This was bought at a market stall, on the smooth talk of his lover Sherry. Where on earth did a ‘merchant’ and ‘royalty in some foreign kingdom’ come from?
Chloe tilts her head, and the duchess, eyes still down, begins to explain.
[The merchant summoned to help select your gift was an appallingly unscrupulous man, and Leonardo, being immature and unable to judge the quality of anything, fell for his patter completely and purchased this shoddy piece — and at great expense……] (D)
[My…… what an ordeal that must have been……] (C)
Listening in a daze, Chloe suddenly sees it. ‘Ah. So that’s the game.’
‘I see…… The duchess wants it on record that Leonardo was deceived by someone and palmed off with a defective item……’
The duchess would far rather have it be deceived into buying something shoddy than chose to buy something shoddy. The former means his eyes and head are defective; the latter means he was simply taken in. Being taken in seems fairly fatal for a noble too, in its own way, but it’s perhaps preferable to being thought a man capable of nothing better than picking out an article like that.
Even so, it’s quite a stretch. Chloe looks at the hairpin lying in front of the duchess.
She wore it to a tea party, and not one guest judged it to be an antique of any value. They all, without exception, took it for cheap goods of the sort commoners wear. So if Leonardo genuinely believed this was an expensive piece of royal provenance, then his eyes are as clouded as the glass set into it.
[I will see to it that my foolish son, who was deceived and then made you wear such a thing, calls on you to apologise in the proper form. I am truly sorry. If you would permit it, I should like to take this eyesore away with me. And in its place, might you accept this?] (D)
What the duchess holds out is a hairpin of delicate silverwork. Pearls are set here and there along it, and they catch the chandelier light and glitter.
‘Beautiful……’
It’s a fine enough piece that Chloe finds herself gazing at it in spite of herself, enraptured. Set beside it, Leonardo’s gift isn’t even worth the comparison.
[Duchess, this is……] (C)
[It was purchased at a specialist shop in the royal capital. I thought it would set off your silver hair.] (D)
It’s plain at a glance that it suits her. Beautiful enough that Chloe herself genuinely wants to wear it.
[……How lovely it is. Thank you for your kindness. Since you’ve gone to the trouble, I shall accept it gratefully.] (C)
[Not at all. I’m glad it pleases you.] (D)
Once Chloe accepts the apology gift, relief shows plainly on the duchess’s face.
Making his mother clean up after him to this extent is pathetic. The more Chloe thinks it, the deeper her loathing for Leonardo grows. Whether he came to apologise or to complain, he ought to come and do it himself.
[I shall certainly bring Leonardo to apologise as well. He is in something of an unsightly state at present…… but I beg you to forgive the offence to your eyes.] (D)
What? An unsightly state?
Unable to gauge what the duchess means, Chloe finds herself blinking.
Simplyrical 