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LOS 10
2.
Lily Belmore
I do not wish to dwell long upon my childhood. Not only do I have no desire to remember it in detail, but I know that no one wishes to listen to a tedious tale of misfortune for very long. I simply happened to be born to the wrong parents. That is all.
Some might argue that such a claim is absurd. They would say that merely avoiding the fate of a beggar is a stroke of luck, and that being born as the daughter of a noble is a great blessing regardless of the circumstances.
Well, that is half true and half false. I am well aware of how difficult it is to attain the status of a noble. However, that only applies when one is treated as a noble, equal to the rest of the family.
Nobles, by nature, are a breed whose heads are filled with nothing but pride. They are people who dread dishonor more than death and fret incessantly over whether they might become the subject of gossip among their peers.
The maid should not have become pregnant. Originally, that night should have ended as a mere moment of impulse.
But misfortune never knocks before opening the door. I was conceived in that single night, and that was the beginning of all my misery.
If there is anything that can most fatally stain the honor of a noble, it is a bastard child. Do I really need to explain how they treat an unwanted bastard?
I spent my days locked in a room. The room I occupied was a disused space tucked away in the deepest reaches of the mansion, where even the sunlight rarely reached.
Amidst utter indifference, I grew stubbornly, like a weed. Fearing that rumors might spread that the Bismar family had produced a filthy bastard, my father did not dare cast my mother and me out of the mansion. Instead, he intended to keep us from ever leaving the estate until the day we died.
Well, there is nothing more to explain about my early childhood. I was a pale, scrawny child who lacked sunlight, and my mother used to hide discarded newspapers in her apron just to teach me how to read. Occasionally, stolen bread was tucked away in that same apron.
My mother, who struggled desperately to keep me alive, vanished when I was around fifteen. There is no way for me to know what they did to her. I can only infer it from the events that took place outside the attic before she disappeared.
I was fifteen at the time. Though I remained scrawny due to malnutrition, my body was nevertheless edging closer to adulthood with each passing day.
My mother used to warn me. Never leave the attic! She drilled it into me so relentlessly that I never dared to disobey. It was like an iron rule that governed my life. Thus, for fifteen years, I stayed quietly within the attic.
However, every fifteen-year-old girl goes through puberty. As a child entering that stage, a sense of rebellion was growing within my heart.
I think that was when I began to ask questions. Why can't I go outside the room? As I grew larger by the day, the attic was becoming too cramped a space. Until then, I believed that living confined to the attic was solely my mother's decision.
Defying my mother was easier than I thought. One day, I stealthily opened the door and stepped outside. Beyond the door lay a world far wider and more beautiful than the room I had lived in.
Being an ignorant child, I wandered about, oblivious to my place, marveling at the grandeur of the mansion. The funny thing was that none of the people who passed by me recognized who I was.
Over the course of fifteen years, no one had bothered to observe what the bastard's face looked like, and since it had been a long time, the servants seemed to have been replaced several times.
Rather, because my face resembled my father's, the servants bowed to me, though they seemed uncertain. Maidservants, horrified by my appearance in a simple chemise, dragged me to a room filled with lavish dresses and dressed me up.
In an instant, I was transformed into a young lady of the Bismar house. It did not take long for my father to discover me.
He, too, had completely forgotten about the bastard born fifteen years ago. Count Bismar seemed quite flustered by the appearance of a girl he had never seen before.
Having never learned nor cared for the etiquette of the nobility, I simply stared blankly at my father. The Count became even more confused.
"Who are you, and how did you enter my mansion without notice?"
I thought he was asking for my name.
"I am Eloise."
Then, I raised a finger and pointed upward.
"I live in the attic at the very top."
He looked as if he had been struck by lightning. The fact that the bastard he had sired fifteen years ago was still alive, and had grown into a girl who resembled him, seemed to have come as a great shock.
However, instead of throwing me back into the attic, Count Bismar regained his composure and began to scrutinize my face from every angle. He looked like a man appraising whether an object would be useful.
Having decided something upon seeing my face, the Count put on a belated, fake smile and spoke.
"Ah, I see. Eloise. Why didn't you come down to see us sooner? Now, you look hungry; shall we bring you some food?"
It never occurred to me that he might have a foul plan in his head. At fifteen, I was a foolish child who knew nothing. I was so excited by the promise of food that I even asked:
"Will you give me white bread?"
The Count's expression cracked for a moment. But it was only brief.
"Yes. Of course. You are my daughter, after all."
Only then did I realize that the large man standing before me was my father. I liked him. It was because he told me he would give me a 'meal' instead of stolen bread. And unlike my mother, he smiled warmly at me.
And so, I believed he was a good person.
With my appearance, a great upheaval occurred within the Bismar mansion. I was given a real room, something I had never possessed in my life. It was a room so vast that I couldn't tell if it was a bedroom or a living room.
The servants brought dozens of dresses and indoor clothes from who-knows-where. Attendants clung to my side, fixing my hair and massaging my feet in warm water.
As if they had received orders, they struggled proactively to turn me into a noble lady. Setting aside my thin frame, I was completely devoid of the refinement expected of a daughter of a Count's house. All sorts of tutors, renowned even in Beldam, flocked to my side.
The Count's obsession with my education was excessive, almost pathological. He would summon me to check on the progress of my studies. On days when I failed to satisfy the Count, I was not allowed to sleep until I had perfectly mastered everything I had learned that day.
Under the pretext of correcting the lower-class speech I had naturally acquired from my mother, the tutor pushed seven large glass marbles into my mouth.
"My lady, now read the book I gave you. Clearly and slowly! Follow my lead."
The tutor read the book first. Naturally, I was unable to say a word. It was maddening. I wanted to find whoever had first come up with the theory that one could learn the speech of high society by stuffing marbles in their mouth.
But I had to succeed. The Count, who was desperate to make me a member of high society, and the Countess, whose gaze showed deep distaste for my very existence, were gradually tightening the grip around my heart. I believed it was all my fault.
I thought: It's because I'm not lady-like enough. I must finish my studies as quickly as possible. Then everything will return to normal.
It took several full months before I satisfied their expectations. Even then, it wasn't perfect, but compared to the beginning, I had become a completely different person.
Disappointed in my own slow learning and drowned in fear of the day that would begin again tomorrow, I spent my nights tossing and turning—so much so that I didn't even think of my vanished mother. I was too busy taking care of myself.
I must be a good daughter.
If I become someone who fits in this mansion, the Countess will love me too.
Crushed by the excessive schedule and pressure, I was on the verge of fainting. It was only natural, as I had to cram into my head in a few months the process that other young ladies learned step-by-step before the age of five.
But I didn't even know how other young ladies lived. I believed all of this was solely due to my own deficiencies.
Only when autumn arrived, having completed most of the educational curriculum, was I finally able to breathe a little. I no longer let lower-class speech slip out, nor did I make mistakes by suddenly forgetting etiquette.
As everything was winding down and I began to have time for myself.
I loved playing the piano in the small recital hall. The piano was the only thing that did not torment me. Playing the piano was not painful. Rather, bringing out the beautiful music hidden like a code within the score was... immensely joyful.
On that day, too, I was playing the piano during my free time. Music made even the passing time slow down and cultivated my withered heart into abundance. I was the same. Just as I was admiring the composer's artistry and making his score entirely my own, he arrived.
"A beautiful performance."
Startled, I spun around. A strange man was standing in the doorway, watching me. Until that moment, I had not dared to even imagine that the reason I was able to become a member of the Bismar family was because of that man.
Duke Johan Meyer, the fiancé of my half-sister, stared at me as if piercing right through me.
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