Chapter 112
“My husband says that for someone like Miss Lizan, whose vitality has been worn down after experiencing the rise and fall of life all at once, even the process of meeting someone new would be terribly exhausting. So instead of a formal introduction, he suggested something more like a brief passing encounter. A one-time thing.”
“That may be better. Less burdensome.”
For Lizan, who was currently keeping even those close to her at a certain distance, a completely unfamiliar, anonymous stranger might be better instead.
“However, my husband says he cannot be certain what kind of influence he will have on Miss Lizan.”
“It will be better than doing nothing. As long as it brings about some sort of change in Lizan, that’s enough.”
To that end, arranging an inevitable meeting disguised as coincidence was nothing difficult.
So long as it might provide a clue to unravel the present stalemate.
“Lizan, sit here for a moment. I’ll bring your lunch.”
No matter how tangled and chaotic his thoughts were, Ezekail only felt at ease when he personally took care of Lizan’s meals. She could now eat well without being picky about the kind of food, but the sight of Lizan when he had first brought her to the mansion, her insides so badly injured that she could only swallow a little thin soup at a time, remained with him as an aching afterimage. Ezekail seated Lizan in an armchair, received a lunch tray from a servant, and returned.
He unfolded a small table and was about to set down the food when the angle at which she sat, leaning askew in the armchair, looked strangely uncomfortable. Wondering why, he soon found the reason. The spot where the chair had been placed was far too bright. It was an unusually glaring day, and the sunlight seemed to be pouring straight in, dazzling her eyes.
Ezekail pushed the table aside and approached, unconsciously undoing the buttons on his sleeve.
“Shall I move you over here?”
It happened the moment he lifted Lizan up, chair and all. With the movement of his muscles, his sleeve rolled up, revealing his bare forearm.
“……Will this do?”
Even after seeing the streaks of blood drawn across his forearm, Lizan showed no particular reaction. Ezekail, having moved the chair, also naturally lowered his sleeve and buttoned it again.
After adjusting the backrest of the armchair, Ezekail set the dishes down on the table one by one. It was originally work for a servant to do, but it had been quite some time since strangers had been restricted from entering this room.
These were all things Lizan had done herself at Derosa’s detached residence. There was no reason Ezekail could not do them.
He cut the meat into generous pieces and diligently moved them onto Lizan’s plate. He pushed forward a plate of bread divided into bite-sized pieces, then shelled shrimp and clams from the seafood stew and placed those on top as well. Lizan looked at him with an expression that said she could not eat it all.
“Eat only as much as you can and leave the rest. I’ll eat what’s left.”
Watching Lizan’s slow meal closely, he continued to speak to her.
“Lizan, don’t you miss your family these days?”
Lizan’s family had now almost recovered their health. The doctor had also said that all that remained was for them to nourish themselves well and recuperate for a while. He had suggested that, if she wished, they could dine together, and since there were many charming places within the mansion grounds, they could even have a picnic. Yet Lizan’s visits to see them had instead decreased compared to before. Even now, she did not seem particularly inclined.
Had some friction arisen with her family?
He wanted to ask, but even if he did, Lizan would not answer.
Around the time the meal was more or less over, Anna appeared carrying her knitting and knocked on the door.
It was time for him to make way.
He gathered up the tray and rose reluctantly.
As Anna entered the room, she bowed her head politely. Anna, who was teaching Lizan to knit, had already finished half of the sweater she was making for her family back in her hometown. Lizan, however, had made little progress, repeatedly casting on clumsy stitches only to unravel them again.
Until just before leaving the bedroom, Ezekail could not take his eyes off Lizan as she moved the long needles and tangled the yarn. The way she hooked the thread between her fingers and stitched the knots closely together still seemed, by now, to have become rather familiar to her hands.
He wanted to watch longer, but it would be awkward for him to stand there staring blankly at two women knitting.
Not for Ezekail, but for Anna and Lizan.
In truth, even when he simply sat watching Lizan asleep, he lost track of how time passed. Lizan, alive and breathing before him, seemed nothing short of a miracle.
After yielding Lizan to Anna for a while, he walked briskly wherever his feet led him and before long arrived near the annex. As it happened, Lizan’s parents were outside in front of the annex.
“Ah, young master.”
Upon discovering Ezekail, they bowed deeply like the other servants. Though they were no longer servants of Valdemaera, the middle-aged couple still addressed him as master.
“The doctor said walking a little at a time would help with recovery.”
Though he had said nothing, Lizan’s mother began by making excuses. Perhaps because they had sins they had committed, even lightly walking around near the annex seemed to make them self-conscious.
Ezekail swept an indifferent gaze over the couple, then asked bluntly.
“Did something happen with Lizan?”
Lizan’s parents exchanged wide-eyed glances.
“No, nothing happened exactly……”
“Is that so?”
Then had he only imagined the somewhat awkward atmosphere?
It was just as Ezekail was once again scanning the parents’ expressions.
“It’s just that, as her parents, we were a little worried.”
Lizan’s father quietly parted his lips.
“About what?”
“About her disability. In such an imperfect state, it will be hard for her to go anywhere and find proper work. As you can see, we’re too old to take care of Lizan ourselves, and we don’t have much ability to speak of either, so the future bearing down on us frightens us greatly……”
Lizan’s mother added a word as well.
“We wondered whether our Lishi would even be able to marry safely, and even if a match did appear for her, perhaps it might have been different before, but in her current state, we can’t expect anyone decent. On top of that, her face has become known far and wide because of that unfortunate matter……. Unless she goes down to some rural village, she’ll spend her whole life crushed under other people’s eyes, so we said a few things because we were wondering what would become of her.”
Though he had always accompanied Lizan, he had no memory of hearing such a conversation, so it must have been something said that day when he had briefly left his seat. Ezekail recalled Lizan, who had rushed out of the bedroom and waited for him huddled in the drawing room, and coldly narrowed his brow.
When she herself must have been bewildered after acquiring an unidentified disability, if they had openly told her that something was wrong with her body and no one anywhere would accept her, then even if it had been based on worry, Lizan naturally would want to avoid her parents.
He knew well because he, too, had been blind. Although their intent may have been to protect Ezekail’s life from Akenaus’s jealousy and sense of rivalry, had Valdemaera not treated him as a half-wit incapable of even looking after himself and tried to cut ties with him?
Still, in his case, he had regained his sight and returned to argue loudly with his father, but Lizan was not the type to fight with a family who had survived after suffering from illness. Even if she wanted to resolve it through conversation, she had no way to convey her thoughts to a family who could not read, so she must have been trying to reduce the number of times she had to face them until her feelings settled.
“Are you demonstrating this to me? Or is this some trick to test me?”
“Pardon?”
“Otherwise, why would you have such useless worries?”
Ezekail cut them off flatly.
“Lizan will live in the wealthiest household in Astrie, enjoying every splendor in the world.”
At the first words spoken by a man with the authority to actually fulfill that promise, the couple’s eyes widened.
He declared firmly.
“Lizan has no need to worry about finding work under someone else. From now on, she will be in a position to employ others. You said you were afraid because Lizan’s face has become known to the world? Well, I wonder how many people would have the courage to wag their tongues rudely about the lady of House Valdemaera.”
“The lady, the lady of the house?”
“Our Lizan……?”
Color returned to the couple’s faces.
❖ ❖ ❖
She had been told that birds lived in Valdemaera’s garden.
Unlike the ruined garden of the Derosa mansion, Anna had made such a fuss about Valdemaera’s garden being elegant even in winter that Lizan had come down to the garden for a short while. In this coincidental interval while Anna was away, Lizan heard the presence of a cane approaching, tapping carefully along the stepping stones one by one, and lifted her head.
She was not surprised.
She had even thought that something like this would happen sooner or later.
Because the man who approached with a cane was someone familiar to her.