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“Someone in this Crawford house must act responsibly, even if it's only one person. Mother made the absurd vow to welcome anyone without so much as a single investigation, but surely I cannot do the same?”
“Raymond.”
Ray looked at his mother in silence.
The mother who had passed everything down to him—not only her appearance, but her very personality.
Agatha and Ray did not converse often, but it wasn't because they were on bad terms.
It was because their opinions aligned so perfectly on everything that there was simply no need for discussion.
This marriage was the first time they had ever disagreed.
“You probably don't regret it even now. Forcing this marriage upon me, that is.”
It was a truly incomprehensible decision.
However, Crawford did not belong to Ray alone.
It was a name built by countless ancestors, and further shaped by his father and mother.
Because he respected and recognized the lifelong effort his mother spent protecting that name, Ray had conceded once.
Agatha held a stake in Crawford; it was hers as well.
Furthermore, she was the one who had practically shouldered the responsibility of the family when a frail man like his father was the head of the house.
And Agatha seemed poised to not care even if she were to die of starvation.
Having already lost his father to mental illness, he could not stand by and let his mother starve to death.
“...Yes. I do not regret it. Do you think I didn't consider the worst-case scenario? But even if that girl played the accordion in some ridiculous circus, it is better than having such a thing reported in Avery's newspaper!”
Such a thing.
“Surely you aren't intending to criticize the fact that my father fell ill. Anyone who experienced the war could suffer aftereffects like Father did; injuries can occur not only to the body, but to the mind as well.”
At Ray's quiet retort, Agatha's face completely contorted, as if she had suffered an unprecedented insult.
“I am—I am not criticizing your father! I am trying to protect him!”
Ray could not agree that trying to hide something with all one's might out of shame constituted 'protecting' it, but he said nothing.
They had already had this argument before the wedding, and since they hadn't reached an agreement then, there was no point now.
Ray had simply succumbed to Agatha's stubbornness.
“Then endure the price.”
Agatha looked at her son, who spoke with an utterly cold demeanor, with a heart full of misery.
Her son looked exactly like she once had. The rational, cold version of herself that had strongly urged her husband to participate in the war.
“The public disclosure of Father's mental history would have ended after one instance. But since you've brought this woman into Crawford, how many more times must we endure this?”
“Ray.”
“You chose the difficult path, so endure it. Am I not remaining without a single complaint?”
“No. You tell me. Avery inflates even a speck of a flaw into something massive. Do you truly think the story of your father would have ended after being played with once by Avery's hand?”
Agatha's voice, which had been continuing calmly, began to tremble.
“Do you think it would have just become a piece of gossip and ended? Avery would have brought it up whenever he was bored, inflating every eccentricity my husband committed while he was ill.”
Ray unconsciously frowned.
Agatha was strangely emotional.
She had struggled somewhat after her husband died, but it was the typical level of grief a widow experiences, and she hadn't acted this emotionally back then.
“Do you—do you really want to drag your father into such a mudslinging mess? Do you want to let insignificant people presume to pity him? That poor man, how could you...”
“Father is not a poor man.”
Ray cut her off firmly once more, but Agatha did not give up.
“It is better to bring in a stranger and let that girl be covered in the mud instead. And as long as there is a target to attack, Avery will not touch your father.”
“That mud will splatter onto Crawford as well.”
“Is it not just a drop or two? Even if a few drops splatter on us, it is better. We are Crawford; we can recover. We have the ability to do so. But your dead father has no ability to defend himself, does he?”
Agatha's words weren't particularly wrong, but...
As expected, her concern for his father's mental history was excessive, while her concern for the scandal Rose would bring was insufficient.
“And all this commotion will eventually quiet down. Once the marriage stabilizes and the Orturans adjust to Rose, this topic will one day become a stale, old story.”
On that point, Ray agreed.
Eventually, people always grow tired of things.
“Just because I forced this marriage on you, does that mean you can remain ignorant of facts you need to know?”
“When you pushed me to succumb to Avery's blackmail, there must have been a promise you made then.”
Agatha closed her mouth again with a stiff expression.
“You said you would never again present a dissenting opinion to me on any matter. You said you would leave everything regarding Crawford to my judgment.”
“...Yes.”
“I will decide what to inform you of. Therefore, Mother, please endure the Duchess you chose yourself, without my help. Even if you had no countermeasures, surely you had at least that much of a plan.”
A sharp silence sliced between mother and son.
Two pairs of identical eyes stared at each other.
“Yes, Ray. That is exactly why. The plan.”
When Agatha's voice finally emerged, it was far calmer than before.
“I have no right to interfere with you. Unless it concerns your father, I have no intention of asserting my opinion on anything else. However, I can at least think of a plan to help you. To do that, I believe it's best if I know what I need to know in advance.”
Agatha concluded the conversation in a surprisingly rational tone for someone who had entered her son's bedroom first thing in the morning.
“Share it with me if you change your mind. I apologize for greeting you in bed. It was such a great matter that I lost my composure.”
“Do not worry about it. I understand your intentions, Mother.”
Ray played along without a word with his mother, who acted as if no incident or argument had occurred.
Agatha gave a slight nod and then left the bedroom with her head held high, as if she weren't leaving her son's bedroom.
Now able to enjoy the quiet silence again, Ray stared blankly at the newspaper placed on the nightstand.
To be precise, at the photograph.
The woman who was the cause of all this commotion looked peaceful.
She wasn't the only one who had lost her reason yesterday.
After hearing the word 'blackmail'—which the woman had unintentionally uttered—he had been enraged. By this irritating reality.
He had kept his words to himself, knowing that telling the truth would only become a pathetic weakness, but he couldn't hide his anger.
He shouldn't have revealed his emotions so much over such a worthless matter.
Ray stared for a long time at the photograph of his wife, who always unexpectedly tested his limits.
A woman with a serious expression, holding a cigarette in her hand, completely immersed in reading a book.
What on earth was she reading?
It was hard to believe she was the woman who had married him.
Because the woman in the photo looked too much like a living person. Just like last night.
* * *
Returning to her own bedroom, Rose sat blankly on the bed.
Having received the newspaper from the housekeeper, Mrs. Selma, in the morning, Rose had walked through the corridor connecting the bedrooms to explain to her husband—who was likely reading the same content—that she had never said such things.
However, there was already a guest in Ray's bedroom, and Rose had overheard their entire conversation from the corridor.
“Or did your father blackmail you?”
The words she had spat out last night in a fit of rage were, absurdly, half-true.
This man had married her because of blackmail.
Fortunately, it wasn't his father's blackmail, but the blackmail of that bastard named Archibald Avery.
Did her father know this? No, considering how he had grumbled in his letters that the son-in-law wouldn't give him the time of day, he clearly didn't know.
Therefore, to that man, this marriage was close to a scam, and Rose was a divine punishment.
She recalled those blue eyes that looked at her as if she were the most annoying existence in the world.
'So that's why he hated me so much.'
Only now did she understand the attitude of this household.
No one here wanted her. Rose wasn't even the result of a fair trade.
Knowing the full truth, she even felt a sense of fear.
At that inhuman coldness—how he calmly explained, 'It is simply a fact that you are lacking,' even while a woman who fell like a divine punishment lost her reason and screamed.
Does a person not even get angry?
Rose wasn't sure whether she should feel ashamed or sorry for the fact that she had screamed at that man without knowing the truth.
The only thing she was sure of was how ridiculous she must have looked to him.
Yes, in truth, she had thought she was 'adjusting' to this peculiar country, Orturan. Quite arrogantly.
The voices she heard in his bedroom still felt vivid, as if they remained.
“That girl's flaw.”
“How many defects she has.”
It was the first time Rose realized she had so many problems. She thought she had lived a plain, decent life without committing any particular sins.
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