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"Oh, no wonder you were conversing so skillfully with the Antakan ambassador earlier. I have some history with Antaka as well. What was your mother's maiden name?"
Someone asked cheerfully.
"Detwa."
Rose responded to the man's pretentious inquiry with a formal smile and a perfunctory reply.
Her mother was Antakan, but it was a stretch to call her a noblewoman.
Her maternal grandfather was the third son of a low-ranking Antakan noble, inheriting neither title nor property, and unable to pass any on to his children. However, he did bequeath a sense of pride as ambiguous as his own position.
Her mother, who took after her grandfather...
No.
Stop.
Rose ruthlessly severed the train of thought that had begun to wander on its own.
She didn't want to think about her mother. Especially not in a place like this, where everyone was busy watching for any misstep she might make.
"Well then, how did your mother's mother end up living in a place like Bolton?"
Such seemingly innocent questions, and remarks that treated living in Bolton as equivalent to choosing the lowest rung of life, no longer surprised her.
When she first arrived, she had been shocked to realize the extent of the contempt for Bolton was far greater than she'd imagined. But hearing such things daily had begun to inure her to it.
"I heard there was another large-scale strike in Bolton this time. And women participated in such antisocial collective action! I'd heard Bolton women do all sorts of things, but... It's unthinkable in Orturan. How! I simply cannot imagine."
"Now, don't be too disappointed."
Rose managed a smile without much difficulty.
"Orturans already have so much to be proud of; they don't need to be as imaginative as Bolton."
It was maddeningly frustrating that such a simple thought as 'Your imagination must be impoverished indeed' had to be phrased in such a roundabout way.
For a country with such advanced machinery, it truly had an inefficient way of speaking.
Now, Ray Crawford was staring intently at her. Perhaps it was a signal to be quiet.
Rose smiled at her husband and continued speaking nonchalantly.
"And what about Queen Catherine? I heard you had an audience with Her Majesty a few days ago? Please, tell me about it. I don't get to see her often and am always curious."
When she wanted to steer the conversation, bringing up the Orturan monarch worked every single time.
Orturans, fascinated and sometimes pitying her for coming from a country without a king, would eagerly launch into lengthy speeches about their monarch.
Their arrogance in interpreting her simple curiosity as awestruck envy was remarkable.
"Her Majesty is remarkably robust for her age. While the monarchs of this country have traditionally been so, she is truly exceptional..."
Listening to the most boring story in the world, Rose looked at the pianist playing in the corner of the hall.
The pianist's hands gradually slowed to conclude the nocturne that had, unbeknownst to her, reached its end.
The piece the pianist chose was famous, lived up to its fame, and the performance was flawless. The aftertaste of the wine she had sipped earlier turned bitter.
<We could not find any particular reason to publish Miss Davis's compositions.>
As the content of that short, depressing letter received before her marriage surfaced, her wrist seemed to ache for no reason, and Rose clenched and unclenched her fist pointlessly.
Suddenly, everything felt meaningless.
A loveless marriage in an already meaningless life, this country that looked down on her—were they really that significant?
As the publishers had said, there was nothing particularly special about her. If so, there was even less need to stand on pride and spare herself.
She was nothing, and nobody, in this vast world.
The moment she re-realized that fact—the one her mother had tried so hard to impart before she died—Rose's smile deepened.
\ \ *
Orturan was a country where the sun rose late.
Having finished preparing to go out and descended to the main hall on the first floor of the mansion, Ray Crawford looked out the window at the still bluish morning sky and received the head butler's greeting.
He wanted to think it was the same scenery, the same servants, the same morning as always...
"Where is Mrs. Crawford?"
He managed to utter the words, swallowing the awkwardness that felt like chewing sand.
The head butler seemed quite surprised that Ray was looking for his wife so early in the morning.
Understandably so. Ray neither mentioned nor sought her out unless absolutely necessary. The couple had remarkably little contact.
"She is taking a walk in the garden."
"At this hour."
Ray quietly repeated the butler's words.
It was seven in the morning.
"She went out quite some time ago."
An absurd woman.
Ray wasn't so reckless as to show displeasure about his wife in front of the servants, but he couldn't stop the criticisms of her from surfacing in his mind.
"She seems to have something troubling her."
At the head butler's cautious, lowered-voice report, Ray didn't agree at all but merely nodded.
The day before, a newspaper article had come out stating that the woman's father was meeting all sorts of city hall officials under the pretext of business.
The head butler, who had clearly read that paper, seemed to guess that was the reason for the early walk.
Troubled by that, he says. That woman.
Hardly.
It was a rather unconvincing speculation.
In Ray's judgment, the woman named Rose Davis, taking after her father, was quite brazen.
He could still vividly recall her expression in the embassy gallery room a few days prior.
All sorts of insignificant people were wagging their tongues because he had made a low-level marriage.
It was laughable to even react to the pathetic people who had too much time on their hands grinding their gossip mills, so he mostly let it be. But shouldn't the woman react a little?
The woman, having confirmed the scene unfolding because of her own existence, simply watched him quietly without a word.
So she was...
How to put it? Excessively composed.
No proper sense of guilt was visible. Nor shame.
Always that doll-like expressionlessness.
"I'll go see."
Though reluctant, he had something to confirm with the woman today.
Trying to forget the feeling of insult—a first in his life—and this unpleasant mood, rekindled by his wife whenever he was about to forget it, Ray Crawford headed out to the garden.
"They don't need to be as imaginative as Bolton."
However, the memory of the woman who had uttered those words in a sing-song voice, with a smoothness that made it seem not like sarcasm, instantly made all his efforts futile and left him incredulous.
Having seen what her husband had to hear because of her existence, he thought she might at least keep her mouth shut that evening, but that was expecting too much, as usual.
The woman would occasionally say inappropriate things even when sitting quietly.
Was she in her right mind?
Shifting the topic from the Bolton strikes to this country's monarch was beyond bold; it was dangerous.
In that brief conversation, the Orturan King had been placed on the same level as the Bolton strikes.
The woman would casually bring up this country's king in that manner. As if the king were some light topic of conversation.
Fortunately, Orturans seemed not to notice, thinking the woman was merely fascinated by and envious of the monarch's existence—as she should be. But who knows.
A woman born in a country without a king, who spent her whole life there...
"Do you think we'll be better off if we win the war? Do you? Do you think we, will last?"
A memory surfaced of his father muttering from his sickbed once.
He hadn't understood his father, who had been anxious as if the monarchy would collapse any moment, but now he couldn't say that concern was overly sensitive.
After all, the King of Flanto had been beheaded on the executioner's block even after winning the war.
That woman kept reminding him of things he didn't want to recall.
Annoyingly so.
Stopping his steps, irritation welling up to his throat, Ray saw her.
The woman was sitting on a bench, head bowed. Though there was nothing on the ground, her face and gaze were completely downward.
Already small in stature, sitting like that made her look as if she might topple over.
Was she crying?
Taking a cigarette from his pocket and putting it in his mouth, Ray looked at Rose indifferently.
Well, even a woman who didn't particularly care that her husband heard this and that because of her might be upset about her father or her own reputation.
Frankly, just by her appearance, it wouldn't be strange if she cried at any time. She looked like she cried easily.
Even if not, it was about time she cried.
Ray wasn't unaware that Orturans treated her like an animal in a zoo or a circus performer.
Even when he or his mother were watching, people would occasionally make snide remarks; it must be worse when they weren't.
But... while her seemingly thoughtless expressionlessness was irritating, crying was even more detestable. Too bothersome to console.
Just as he was considering turning back, Rose lifted her head.
And then she yawned.
A big, long one.
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