Episode 37
It was a honey-sweet weekend afternoon.
Not only the leisurely nobles, who were idle by nature, but also businessmen filled the theater.
The reason Sasha was deliberately wasting this precious holiday was obvious. Watching this absurd classical play had also been written in the old lady’s will.
As Sasha stared at the tedious play whose lines she had now memorized, such thoughts crossed her mind plainly.
Perhaps the lady had not regarded me as her granddaughter, but as her substitute. Otherwise, she could not have left behind wills so full of her own tastes and way of life.
The reason she had invited Miss Merillson to a play she had originally intended to see alone was, in truth, also because of the will.
As a condition less outrageous than that ridiculous marriage, but still quite troublesome, Lady Rosalyn had demanded that Sasha make a friend her own age from a respectable family.
It was truly laughable. When she was alive, she had locked her up so she could go nowhere, and now she wanted her to make friends and even marry.
……Truly laughable.
As if she were only now setting her real granddaughter free.
“I’ll send you the package as soon as I return home.”
“Thank you. How could I possibly……”
“You don’t need to repay me.”
Regarding the original novel in question, Sasha and Mr. Merillson conversed in a relatively amicable manner.
“How very considerate you are. I’m so pleased that my sister has become friends with a young lady of such fine character as Miss Grayson.”
‘Friends.’
Sasha paused for a moment. Then, searching for Miss Merillson, who was nowhere to be seen in the first-floor audience seats, she merely smiled modestly and said, “Not at all.”
The play was already racing toward its middle act. Sasha rose from her seat during the performance and slipped out into the corridor, intending to go to the restroom for a moment.
Sasha had finished her business in the restroom, washed her hands, and was on her way out.
As she was about to return to her seat, she saw Miss Thompson and Miss Huffin sitting side by side.
The two were not even glancing at the play and were chattering among themselves. Perhaps because they were in the VIP seats, they did not even whisper, but giggled and talked in high tones, so everything could be heard whether one wanted to or not.
“I’m so bored I could die. Of all the plays they could have chosen, why something like this?”
“Actually, it’s rather famous. Everyone who’s talked to her knows. Her tastes are truly old-fashioned. They say talking to her feels like talking to some old person, not someone from our time.”
Miss Thompson agreed with Miss Huffin’s complaint.
Miss Thompson then added this.
“Not even our parents. She’d be perfectly suited to talking with my grandfather.”
“Oh, that’s exactly right, Kitty. Miss Grayson’s grandmother was just about the same age as your grandfather.”
Sasha stood expressionless, took out a handkerchief, and wiped her dripping wet hands.
Then, without letting anything show, she stood there and continued listening to their conversation.
“We’ll have to teach her properly. We’ll teach her everything that’s fashionable these days. Right?”
“More importantly, Josephine was really desperate.”
At Miss Huffin’s resolute words, Miss Thompson brought up Miss Merillson.
As if it were hardly surprising, Miss Huffin replied sharply.
“Because if her brother and Miss Grayson get married, their family’s debts can be settled in one stroke.”
In other words, it was not exactly something that surprised her greatly anymore.
Sasha herself was well aware of how Sasha Grayson was viewed by others.
However, hearing it directly from the mouths of the people concerned felt quite different.
Sasha finished wiping the moisture from her hands with the handkerchief.
“In any case, if Mr. Merillson and Miss Grayson get on well, Miss Merillson will be able to reconcile with her fiancé again too.”
“Hmm. Their family would quite literally rise again.”
Miss Huffin had been speaking eagerly when, for some reason, she suddenly felt an odd chill and turned her head.
“What is it?”
The place she looked back at was empty. Of course it was.
Miss Thompson asked with a puzzled face, “What is it?”
Without realizing it, Miss Huffin made an uneasy face and shook her head. “Nothing.” Then she adjusted her posture and sat properly again.
Then, as if suddenly realizing something, she snatched Miss Thompson’s opera glasses and looked toward the seats where Mr. Merillson and Miss Grayson should have been sitting.
“……Miss Grayson isn’t there.”
“Really? Did she go to the restroom?”
At Miss Huffin’s meaningful murmur, Miss Thompson replied as though it were no great matter.
At that moment, through the lenses, Miss Grayson came into view as she sat down again beside Mr. Merillson.
“Good heavens. Surely she didn’t hear us talking.”
＊＊＊
Mr. Merillson was enthusiastic. Perhaps because of his family circumstances, no matter what Sasha said in response, he smiled kindly and answered at length.
Sasha looked at Mr. Merillson’s neat face.
His desperation for marriage seemed, at a glance, similar to the situation Isaac Pinscher was in.
But if there was a difference, it was that for this Damian Merillson, the other party absolutely had to be Sasha Grayson, while for Isaac Pinscher, it did not matter who the other party was.
If he had not been in such desperate circumstances, Damian Merillson might also have been included among the husband candidates who met the conditions Sasha had screened for in the beginning.
Husband candidates. Just thinking of the words made her stomach turn. Sasha fell back into idle conversation with Mr. Merillson.
“The play was quite entertaining. How was it for you two?”
Miss Merillson, who had not been seen throughout the play, appeared as soon as Sasha and Mr. Merillson came out and asked.
Miss Huffin and Miss Thompson came out after her, and they—or rather, Miss Huffin in particular—could hardly meet Sasha’s eyes and tried to avoid her.
The reason seemed obvious somehow. But Sasha acted as though she had not noticed anything and paid Miss Huffin no mind.
The five of them stood in front of the theater and briefly exchanged their impressions of the play, and soon Miss Huffin and Miss Thompson said, as if they had planned it in advance, that they had prior engagements and would have to leave.
“Actually, since I came here, there is someone I’m supposed to meet. If you don’t mind, Miss Grayson, would you return with my brother? I’ve educated him well, so at least when it comes to escorting, you can trust him completely.”
“Josephine, what is this impudent nonsense?”
Mr. Merillson grumbled as if displeased by Miss Merillson’s words, but he did not deny them.
With an accepting expression, Sasha said, “Very well. Then the three of you, please get home safely.”
Unable to hide her smile, Miss Merillson gave her brother a meaningful look, then quickly turned away.
As Mr. Merillson watched Miss Merillson, Miss Huffin, and Miss Thompson grow distant, he offered Sasha his hand.
“Then shall we go, Miss Grayson?”
It was a weekend afternoon, and the streets were moderately crowded. The weather was especially fine, so Mr. Merillson kept casually hinting that it would be a shame to go home early on such a day.
Sasha was responding formally despite hearing Mr. Merillson’s deliberate remarks.
As they walked straight toward where the carriages were, Sasha noticed someone raising his hand as if he recognized her.
It was an unfamiliar face. Yet at the same time, the man felt somehow familiar.
His slicked-back, neatly combed hair and the clothes he wore attested at a glance that he was a man from a respectable family.
“Miss Grayson, what a coincidence to see you here. Ah, and the person beside you is…… Damian!”
When the man greeted them, Mr. Merillson’s complexion quickly hardened.
The man had been leaning against the carriage he had ridden in, smoking a cigarette. He chuckled, then threw away the cigarette he had been smoking and crushed it out beneath his foot.
His loose, delinquent manner, and yet the confidence born from his background, were strikingly similar to someone else’s.
“Have we met before? Are you a friend of Jeffrey’s?”
Sasha asked with a smile. At Sasha’s words, the man raised his eyebrows slightly, then nodded.
“How disappointing, Miss Grayson. I even greeted you once before. Ah, now that I think about it, we weren’t able to exchange greetings then, were we? Your grandmother was glaring at us so terribly strictly.”
The man’s long-winded, sarcastic words began to grate on her ears.
“I see. If it is not too late, would you be so kind as to introduce yourself?”