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Unable to resist the child's persistence, Rose sat on the piano bench. The child, perched on her lap, pressed random keys enthusiastically before beginning to tug and shake her arm.
“Oh dear, what to do. I gave the children strict warnings, and yet... shall I tell them to get down?”
At the director's flustered voice, Ray shook his head. Letting a child sit on her lap was certainly excessive, but she wasn't exactly a proper Orturan noble anyway.
Now that a photo of her smoking had been splashed across the front page, it would only be laughable for her to pretend to be aristocratic; this level of impropriety didn't seem to be a major issue.
The time spent in worry and conflict that clouded the face of the woman holding and soothing the child was longer than expected.
Even after placing her hand on the keys, Rose remained still for a long time, as if reluctant.
Before the large, albeit worn, piano, the woman—looking so utterly lost—made the instrument look like a monster.
It was as if the piano were about to devour her. Absurdly so.
At that pitiful and nonsensical sight, an unwelcome image inevitably intruded into Ray's mind. Simultaneously, his jaw tightened.
Once, his father had suddenly collapsed onto the keys while playing the piano and wept.
The image of him sobbing, gasping for breath as if the piano were eating him alive, was vivid.
He could no longer remember if he had felt fear or disgust at the sight, but that image remained damnably clear to this day.
“How kind of her.”
The director's voice, speaking right beside him, sounded faint, as if coming from far away. Ray snapped back to his senses and tried to refocus on reality.
After agonizing for a while, the method Rose chose was to play using the child's hand.
Holding one of the child's hands, she pressed the keys to play a very simple nursery rhyme. The child giggled, finding even that amusing.
Watching Rose let out a sigh of relief, Ray momentarily held his breath at a sudden surge of nausea.
He knew the end that awaited sentimental and fragile humans. He knew what happened to them when insurmountable hardship or pain arrived.
The futures of such people were as transparent as an open book, and he knew how much they exhausted those around them.
“I suppose the newspapers really can't be trusted, can they? She's so kind.”
Ray merely nodded without answering.
Now, Rose was finally fleeing far away with the satisfied child. Away from the piano.
Watching her, Ray finally made his decision. He put an end to the deliberation he had been wrestling with for a month.
He had to divorce that woman.
He simply could not endure everything she reminded him of.
* * *
Archibald Avery, who had rushed to the official residence at the Prime Minister's summons, found his newspaper, the Daily Oakley, placed before him.
It was the issue containing the article about Crawford's new Duchess.
“Are you doing this because you believe you can handle the consequences?”
The Prime Minister's question was insulting.
It sounded as if he believed Avery would be unable to defeat Ray.
“Do you truly not realize that if you don't win decisively, the Conservative Party will only be shaken? Go ahead and advertise it in your newspaper. Advertise that there is internal strife within the Conservative Party. While the opposition is watching us for any opportunity!”
Seeing the Prime Minister clicking his tongue, Avery frowned deeply. If the Prime Minister hadn't taken Crawford's side at every turn, this fight might have already been over.
“Whose side are you on, Prime Minister?”
“...Are you a child? You call that a question! I am on the side of Orturan.”
“You are also the Prime Minister of the Conservative Party.”
“Yes, I am on the side of Orturan, and I am on the side of the Conservative Party. Satisfied?”
The man, who had become Prime Minister simply because he was the oldest, grumbled as if exhausted.
He wasn't someone who had desired such a heavy responsibility, but when the party faced the risk of splitting between Avery and Crawford over the next party leader candidate, he had reluctantly taken the office of Prime Minister.
“You ultimately gave your support to Crawford regarding the military welfare bill. Have you confirmed Crawford as your successor, Prime Minister?”
“Now, really, is that something I decide? Time will tell.”
Watching the old Prime Minister speak like a slippery eel, Avery felt a surge of irritation, but he barely managed to suppress it.
That slippery eel always wanted both Crawford's public popularity and Avery's influence within the party.
“Do you not realize how dangerous Ray Crawford is? He is a man who will put the Conservative Party in peril,” Avery spat out, almost grinding his teeth.
“If you grant welfare for soldiers—or rather, a waste of money—who do you think he will ask for next?”
A certain resolve could be felt in the voice that chewed through every single word.
“Next, he'll say we must give money to pregnant women, then to the elderly, and then even to the lazy beggars on the street. Where will the money come from? From whom will we take it?”
“You're treating an Orturan war hero like some sort of communist. If we don't provide at least that much courtesy, where will we get the votes? Have you forgotten the crushing defeat in the general election that happened because we ignored such demands? We only barely won the election again after the war broke out.”
“Do not be blinded by immediate popularity, Prime Minister.”
War hero.
Avery chewed over that damn phrase. It was the greatest of the many political assets the obnoxious Ray Crawford possessed.
“Yes, people call Crawford a war hero who returned with his limbs intact. But I don't think so. He is not intact. The war clearly damaged his head.”
Avery raised his hand and placed his index finger against his own head.
“His ideology has become warped. To resort to filling bellies to gain votes... he is teaching Orturan commoners the bad habit that if they throw a tantrum, they will be heard.”
“And do you have an alternative? As far as I know, we won the by-election thanks to Crawford.”
Naturally, he had an alternative. This time, Avery intended to get rid of Crawford for good.
Even if he couldn't force him out of politics entirely, he would at least make him leave the Conservative Party.
“There isn't only one way to gain the support of the commoners. Giving them food every time they whine about being hungry is a crude method. Wouldn't it be better to make them forget the distinction between noble and commoner?”
The low-class Bolton father and daughter were like a stroke of luck for Avery.
“We must expand the sense of belonging. We just need to make them realize that we are all the same Orturan people.”
The Prime Minister's indifferent gaze landed on the newspaper article on the table.
<The True Orturan Soldiers' League>
The organization mentioned in the article was, by its very name, distinguishing who was a true Orturan and who was not. It implied that simply living in Orturan did not make one an Orturan.
At the top of the article was a woman who clearly wasn't Orturan, smoking a cigarette.
It was an era where voting rights were granted to everyone from nobles who could have an audience with the King to street butchers slaughtering pigs. And the direction of those votes was split by social status.
The only justification for them to become one was their shared identity as Orturan. Just as all Orturan people, regardless of origin, had gathered under patriotism when the war broke out.
“Right, so this is your alternative. You're not splitting the Conservative Party, but doing this to get votes...”
The Prime Minister let out a deep sigh.
“I understand what you're saying. No, really. I understand. I even agree.”
As Avery was about to flare up again, the Prime Minister waved his hand dismissively.
“But Archibald, we live in a world where people will cut off the King's head and eat it if they're hungry. This kind of method only works if you keep them moderately starving.”
The Prime Minister pondered how many breadcrumbs were left in the pockets of the Orturan commoners.
If there was nothing but dust in their pockets, he wondered what they would do. Exploitation was only possible when the underlings actually had something to possess.
“Do not worry. They will reach a point where they won't even know they are hungry.”
The Prime Minister looked at the man with the genial face and the most sinister intentions in all of Orturan, and finally sighed once more.
He just wanted to retire.
* * *
The days were more peaceful than expected.
Once Avery's incompetent internal affairs were temporarily forgotten due to the Bolton commotion, Avery stopped his mischief. And he likely had only a few cards left regarding Rose.
The smoking card had been played too early, and perhaps all that remained was the son born from Elliot Davis's double life.
But such domestic strife was a common occurrence even in Orturan.
“I heard she skipped dinner again yesterday. That's going to become a habit.”
Ray, who had been reading the newspaper, briefly looked away from the pages at Agatha's sudden remark.
Soon, Ray realized his mother was talking about his wife.
Agatha hesitated, watching her son for a long time as he quietly turned the page of the newspaper without a word.
“To be honest, I cannot say I am entirely fond of her. She has too many shortcomings. I thought education would solve everything, but I realized my judgment was wrong. There is no helping the ideology and life of twenty-six years that were beyond my reach.”
Did she come to her son's study so early just to criticize her daughter-in-law?
Fortunately, before Ray could doubt his mother's dignity, she continued.
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