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The obituary arrived like an invitation.
A hollow laugh escaped the lips of Ray Crawford as he quietly read the fine paper bordered with a black band.
The sound of the slow waltz from the phonograph had already begun to feel like an unpleasant noise.
Until he received this news, his day had been flawless.
The headlines of the morning newspapers were the same.
<Conservative Party Wins 3 of 5 By-Elections, Boosted by Foreign Minister Crawford's Popularity>
The newspapers, one and all, were telling him in a single voice that he was, as always, right.
It was a perfectly normal day. Until he received this obituary.
No. That's not it.
'As always' might be the wrong phrase. For some time now, his days hadn't been quite so perfectly perfect.
Tracing back the origin of that change, he slowly closed and opened his eyes.
That woman.
Ever since the forced marriage to a woman whose very existence he was unaware of began to be discussed, incidents that ruined his mood like this had started occurring.
This unexpected obituary was also part of that absurd affair.
"What will you do?"
Agatha Crawford, seated across from him, asked her son.
Her icy blue eyes, which gave a cold impression, and her lips that pressed tightly together the moment her question ended seemed to reveal her personality.
"I must go. Unofficially."
From her son came a concise answer, not a hair's breadth off from what she had expected.
"I see…"
Her son's face had already regained its composure, as if he had never let out that hollow laugh.
His hand, quietly setting down the obituary as if it were nothing significant, betrayed no particular emotion.
Even though she knew her son's personality mirrored his appearance in being exactly like her, she sometimes found herself clicking her tongue.
Agatha had tried very hard lately to remain detached from the fact that a foreign woman had suddenly entered Crawford Manor as her daughter-in-law over the past month, but the outcome was never good.
"Right, I suppose. It's only proper to go, even if it's not ideal…"
Out of sheer absurdity, she always ended up adding a comment like this.
Even she, who had pushed for this marriage, sighed occasionally, but her son, who had been reluctant to marry, had been nothing but composed ever since the matter was decided.
"I was anxious thinking I wouldn't see my daughter's face until the wedding day, but perhaps that would have been better. Not only do we settle matters before the ceremony, but to meet your fiancée for the first time at a funeral…"
"It doesn't seem like things can get any worse now."
At the lighthearted reply, which was hard to tell if it was a joke or serious, Agatha agreed with silence.
No matter how many funerals they attended, this marriage couldn't get any worse. The marriage itself was the worst possible thing.
Ray, turning his gaze away from his mother who seemed to have complex feelings, looked down again at the paper bearing the obituary.
The subject of the obituary was his fiancée's mother. An utterly unfamiliar name.
The marriage discussion had only arisen two months ago, and they hadn't even formally gone through an engagement.
However, the dowry had already been received, and they were at the stage of simply choosing one of several proposed dates, so not attending seemed improper.
Even though his fiancée or her mother were strangers he had never met, they would have become his mother-in-law if she had lived just one or two months more.
"At least I can verify before the wedding if what Elliot Davis said is true."
"Has that fellow ever said anything useful enough to warrant verification? 'Virtuous,' 'beautiful'—what else did he say besides that?"
The foolish prospective father-in-law merely repeated, 'She is a stunning beauty endowed with virtue,' without any intention of showing his daughter.
Seeing his insincere and exaggerated attitude alone made one wonder if he even actually knew his own daughter.
Even a description of a stranger would have more sincerity than that.
"Even if that were true, what difference would it make? It doesn't change the fact that she's a Bolton woman, nor does it change her father's origins. If she were truly a suitable woman, Archibald Avery would have taken her as his own wife. Not threatening you to marry her."
Ray didn't bother pointing out that such a threat wouldn't have worked in the first place if it weren't for his mother. They had already had one tiresome argument over this issue.
"Well, the second condition is somewhat important. There's no harm in her being beautiful."
Instead of saying that it was his mother who had yielded to such a vulgar and pathetic threat, he changed the subject.
"You're joking in this situation?"
Despite the reproach, Ray merely offered his customary smile.
He did genuinely want to at least see the woman's face, whatever she was like. If they were making such a fuss about not showing her, there must be a reason.
He had received a report that the woman had no notable physical defects, but well, a woman who couldn't marry until she was twenty-six surely had some problem or another.
"I should prepare to go to Bolton."
His mental preparation had been made from the moment they discussed the wedding date.
Preparation to accept, no matter what kind of worst possible woman he might meet.
"Right… no need to delay what's already decided. And Tommy, turn off the phonograph, will you? My head aches now."
As the servant moved to obey the Dowager's command, the overly sentimental music abruptly ceased.
Feeling his mind clear, Ray Crawford finally took a sip of his tea.
Ready compliance never meant resignation or defeat. Ray was simply quick to acknowledge. To acknowledge the situations he could change and those he could not.
Having won wars, what was one woman?
Ray Crawford had never lost a single battle in all the battlefields of his life.
Even if the process might flow somewhat differently than he thought, the result would be the same.
As always.
\ \ *
Bolton was a republic.
A country without a king.
Among the neighboring countries of Orturan, several had become republics, but that was a recent development. Bolton had existed without a king for much longer.
For the first time in his life, Ray Crawford set foot on the soil of a country without a monarch.
"Nothing particularly different. Do you think Bolton people have tails, Spencer?"
Ray asked his accompanying secretary, looking over the mourners gathered in a rural Bolton church.
"I wouldn't know, sir, but the older generation probably thought differently."
Paul Spencer, the accompanying secretary, answered earnestly even to his superior's question, which sounded like something from an old, mocking fable told by elders long ago.
As the old fable indicated, Orturans' dislike of Bolton wasn't solely because they were the type to have fits over words like 'republic' or 'democracy.'
It was due to a complex history full of numerous conflicts, and differences in character and disposition greater than the difference between heaven and earth.
Orturans looked down upon everything about Boltonians: their excessively frank way of speaking, their fiery temperament loyal to emotions, their voracious appetite for turning all things in the world into food.
"Well, perhaps."
His superior, with his peculiar sense of humor, chuckled to himself at something he found amusing.
But he wiped the smile off his face as if it had never been there when Elliot Davis, who had been talking with the bishop for a while, approached.
"Ah, Minister, Minister."
"It's burdensome when I'm not visiting in an official capacity. Please call me Lord Crawford."
Ray shook his head, placing his index finger on his lips, toward Elliot, who was showing excessive deference to a man twenty years his junior.
"My condolences. May your wife rest peacefully in God's embrace."
"Thank you, Minister… I mean, Lord Crawford."
"I'd like to offer my condolences to your daughter in person as well. If she is indeed my fiancée."
Perhaps sensing something unusual in his polite face and tone, Elliot looked around the church interior with an awkward expression.
Ray was well aware that the woman who was to be his fiancée was not inside the church.
Having stood inconspicuously at a distance, he had watched the back of the woman standing beside Elliot throughout the service.
The woman wearing a hat adorned with a black satin ribbon had hidden herself in the crowd and disappeared as soon as the service ended.
"She was very attached to her mother, so she's having a hard time. She's not herself today. We sent the obituary as a matter of propriety, but for a meeting today, it seems…"
"I'll wait."
Ray naturally cut off the other man's words.
"Having crossed the border, waiting a while is nothing."
"…Then please wait a moment. I'll go find her quickly."
As the man bowed hastily and made his escape, Ray maintained a formal smile until the end.
Secretary Spencer surreptitiously glanced at his expression. The corners of Ray's mouth were fixed as if measured with a ruler. A smile raised ever so slightly, just short of a straight line.
His superior wasn't a stingy person with smiles. But they were rarely sincere.
"It seems it'll take a while anyway, so I should step out for a moment."
'Step out for a moment' meant he was going out for a smoke. Ray lightly gestured to stop his secretary, who habitually moved to accompany him.
"No, I'll go alone. No need for us to miss each other."
Behind the church, a cemetery spread out widely.
The dreariness imparted by the dense gray tombstones was somewhat obscured by the trees growing thickly around.
As Ray, looking for a place without people, approached a large tree beside the cemetery, a strong sweet scent stabbed at his nose.
An unfamiliar fragrance…
Ray, momentarily captivated by the purple berries emitting the sweet scent, soon had his gaze stolen by a black hem of a skirt peeking out from beside the pillar, carried by the wind.
Unconsciously moving his steps behind the tree, he saw a woman in a black dress crouched, leaning against the tree.
On the hat perched on the woman's head was the same black ribbon he had watched throughout the service.
The moment the familiar black satin ribbon fluttered in the wind, Ray knew. That she was his fiancée, the woman who would become his wife.
Had she come out secretly to cry or something?
Just as he was wondering if he should offer comfort, for which he had no talent, the woman moved.
Pale green eyes looking up to check the intruder met his, and from her colorless lips, white smoke rose with her breath.
The sweet scent of the nameless berries and the smell of tobacco mixed confusingly.
Looking down at the stick precariously dangling from the woman's fingers, Ray couldn't help but laugh.
His fiancée was indeed exceedingly virtuous.
Exceedingly.
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