Chapter 46
“Isaac.”
“Yes.”
Caroline was silent for a moment. Soon, she gazed at him steadily and spoke in a calm voice.
“Come here.”
“I refuse. You’re going to hit me.”
A brief silence passed, and Isaac, left with no choice, stood and lowered his head toward her as though offering a greeting.
Caroline’s fan struck the crown of his head as if it had been waiting for him.
How was it that as she aged, instead of losing strength, her blows only grew more forceful?
Isaac rubbed the top of his head, thinking that with an indifferent air.
“Sit back down.”
“It is troubling when you do this in front of others. I have my dignity too.”
“I said sit.”
Isaac stood there for a moment, staring at her as if in defiance, but soon sat down without another word.
Being stubborn with an old woman was, from the side, hardly a sight to behold. It was a scene Sasha Grayson, of all people, must never be allowed to see.
“Please make things clear. Because of you, Grandmother, that child called Philip or whatever is suffering too.”
“He is your cousin, Isaac. Say his name properly.”
This time, a chilling gaze that could no longer be brushed off as a joke pierced him. Isaac sighed and reluctantly nodded.
“What harm, exactly, is that child Philip suffering?”
“You are subjecting him to torture by hope. That young child.”
“If you truly do not marry, then that will become true. So why?”
“Because thanks to you, Grandmother, I have ended up truly getting married.”
Isaac spoke in a voice that had sunk into a rather ominous darkness.
“Which means that child has been made to swallow false hope. Do you really think that young child won’t be hurt at all?”
Gentle words would not come easily. Even knowing that among his blood relatives, the only one who looked after him was Lady Caroline there, he could not hide his displeasure.
“Isaac.”
The old lady removed the glove she had been wearing and took a handkerchief from her bosom. Then, with an unruffled face, she wiped the sweat from her temples.
Isaac looked at his grandmother without answering.
“Unlike your brother, how can you be so kind?”
“Grandmother. Why bring up someone who is already dead…”
A subject he could not help but feel repulsed by kept leaping out.
His half-brother, Edmund. When the name of the man who had unfortunately died in a carriage accident and, unintentionally, opened a way for Isaac to survive came up, Isaac gripped the hem of his trousers so hard that the veins stood out on his fist.
“There is no need to worry about that young child, Isaac.”
Caroline said with a face more indifferent than before.
“Of course, since he is young, the first taste of disappointment may feel bitter, but that child is more cunning than you think. He is Elizabeth’s relative. Even by blood, he resembles Edmund far more than he resembles you.”
Elizabeth.
When the name of the first wife, who had borne Edmund before her mother married the count and then died, was mentioned, Isaac’s face stiffened in another sense.
“They truly had high hopes on that side, thinking that the title might pass to a collateral branch they had never expected. So high that they were already acting as if they had become a count’s family.
They forced themselves to move into a larger house, hired more people to serve them at home, and since Philip might, in name at least, become the next count, they even hired a new tutor to teach him.
And was that all? Since Rachel might become the sister of a count in name, they began actively supporting her, whom they had neglected all along.”
The old lady fanned herself, driving away the cold sweat. As the sweat cooled and a faint chill crept over her, she stopped fanning and stared intently at Isaac.
“For that alone, those children received far more than they would originally have been given.”
“I don’t understand. Wouldn’t they instead resent me as if they wanted to kill me, begrudging the investment they made? I’m not saying this because I’m afraid of being hated. I’m far too used to that. What I’m worried about is…”
At her grandson’s calm words that he was used to being hated, the old lady’s indifferent face turned cold.
She raised her fan to one side, slowly unfolded it, and began to fan herself.
“Even if their disappointed parents cut off their support, Isaac, they have already tasted it once. For the sake of a more abundant life, they will do anything and everything, even more than before.”
“…Ah, I see. A lesson? That ignorant courage to stop at nothing for a higher place. Are you saying there’s no need to feel guilty because you taught them that?”
“Yes. If someone must feel guilt, I will suffer for your share as well. Will that do?”
Isaac let out a hollow laugh, dumbfounded.
“To begin with, I was also swept up in that scheme of yours, so why should I feel guilty?”
“If not, then never mind. If that were not the case, would there be any need for you to hound me so?”
At an answer that sounded almost lively, unbecoming of her age, Isaac was left speechless in many ways.
“Vent your anger as much as you like.”
“I am not venting my anger.”
“Very well. Then let us call it acting spoiled.”
“I am not acting spoiled either. How old do you think I am?”
“You grew up without even being able to act spoiled properly, so what harm is there in trying it now? Of course, you must not do this to Miss Sasha either.”
The mechanical motion with which he had been lifting his teacup came to a stop.
“Whenever I bring up that child, you break down.”
“Why do you call her so familiarly? We are not anything to each other yet.”
“Did you not say with your own mouth that you would marry that young lady?”
“Nothing is certain yet.”
It was already certain.
More than certain, he probably would not be able to find an alternative equal to her.
Even so, Isaac stubbornly answered that way.
Caroline merely said, “Is that so?” as if she were used to it.
“I came by because of that matter, as it happens.”
“…That was the main point only now?”
Seeing her sit up straight as if she were truly about to begin the proper conversation only now, Isaac asked in disbelief.
Lady Caroline looked at him with a furrowed brow, as if she had been asked some utterly absurd question.
“Then why did you think I came? To tell you to comb your hair?”
“I suppose not.”
“Of course not. But hair like yours ought to be combed before you go about. Shall I buy you a comb?”
“No need. It is curly, so even if I tidy it, it doesn’t last long.”
“Good heavens. It seems you have at least tried. Very well. How long does it last? Young people these days put something in their hair, I hear. Shall I buy you that?”
“…Lady Caroline.”
Isaac was the one who felt like saying, Good heavens.
Though she was indeed his grandmother, she was a person who failed to act her age in all sorts of ways. There was none of the dignity or weight that people of her age naturally acquired.
When Isaac wordlessly addressed her as Lady Caroline, as if giving her a look, Lady Caroline raised her brows as though to say, Look at this?
Before she could stand again as she had before and tell him to come here, Isaac opened his mouth.
“So please tell me why you really came.”
“What else? Because of your marriage.”
“I will handle it myself.”
“What exactly do you mean, you will handle it yourself? Ruining every matchmaking meeting you attend is your specialty, so how on earth do you intend to prepare for marriage? You should have come to me first, so that I would not have to come all the way here. Ah, honestly…”
Looking at Isaac as if frustrated in every possible way, she took another sip of tea, then grimaced for the third time and set it back down.
“Brew me a fresh cup.”
Isaac rose from his seat without complaint.
“I detest things like iced tea. Brew it properly, hot. What taste is there in drinking that, exactly?”
“It’s summer, isn’t it?”
“Summer or not, I prefer things the way they originally are.”
Then, as expected, the words, “Young people these days…” followed.
Isaac walked toward the kettle, lit the fire, and opened a new teabag from the nearby shelf.
Judging by the thick layer of dust piled on the box, it seemed to be tea that had been opened long ago, but since it was dried, should it not be fine?
“Not a teabag, Isaac. Proper tea.”
“There is no proper teapot here, Grandmother.”
“Then what is that beside you, if not a teapot?”
Isaac silently put the teabag back and slowly took out the tea leaves. Then he roughly shook them into the teapot.
When the water boiled, he opened the teapot lid as it was and poured the water over them.
He blocked her with his large frame so she could not nag him to brew it properly to the very end.
What sort of commotion was this over brewing one cup of tea?
“Does Miss Grayson come here to visit often?”
Caroline asked, belatedly using a proper form of address.
“Who knows. She doesn’t come these days.”
“I see. She must be busy. The capital is in the middle of the social season, after all.”
She had not particularly seemed like someone who went around attending parties.
Isaac was about to reply as much, but stopped.
“When was the last time you went on a date with her?”
“Who knows.”
At Isaac’s sullen reply, Caroline cackled with even more amusement than before. What was so entertaining about prying into her grandson’s love life? Like an ordinary grandmother.
…Like an ordinary grandmother.
Isaac quietly turned that fact over in his mind. It was the moment when he finally faintly understood what Sasha had meant, saying that they seemed not merely close, but as though they shared an especially deep bond.
The truth was, he knew.
Caroline always tormented him, and whenever she saw his face, she only found fault with him, but among his family, there was no one who cared about him as much as she did.
No—she was the only one.
“Isaac, the tea can wait. Come here and sit.”
With an unreadable expression, Isaac approached his grandmother and sat down.