No matter how many times she read and reread it, the collection notice in her hands contained the same thing.
Amélie’s father had committed a large-scale real estate fraud. The money obtained from the fraud had been squandered on stock investments and lost entirely, and to cover the losses, he had committed yet another fraud.
The creditors had banded together to sue Amélie’s father, and now that he had vanished without a trace, the debt had passed to Amélie Garnier, his only direct descendant. If it was not paid within the allotted time, Amélie would be sent to prison…….
Prison.
Amélie stared down at the letter with vacant eyes. It was a whopping 1,700 francs. Amélie’s daily wage was a mere 5 francs. It was a staggering sum that even a decent city laborer might not be able to save in an entire lifetime.
How in the world was she to deal with this huge sum of money…….
Suppressing the surging nausea, Amélie slowly checked the court documents, verdict contents, and judge’s signature attached beneath it.
No matter how many times she checked, the contents did not change. Her father had committed fraud, and his daughter bore the responsibility.
Furthermore, there were those whose families had been ruined because of her father. There were even those who said they had left their children at an orphanage…….
Thus, the gist was that a severe punishment was necessary.
Amélie gazed blankly at the letter, then hung her head low. She was Amélie, who had believed herself hardened after enduring countless trials until now. She wanted to tell herself that everything would be fine, but this time, truly, there was nothing she could do.
As if her mind had been completely emptied, as if all the blood had drained from her body…….
A father who was worse than useless, a mother she could not even remember when she had last seen. Amélie Garnier, who possessed nothing at all, had no way whatsoever to escape these fetters of life.
She had thought things had finally calmed down a little. That she had been able to get by with some degree of contentment. She had not even harbored any grand ambitions, so why in the world was it only ever so hard…….
The nausea surged up again. Tears dripping down, Amélie made her way to the bathroom as if crawling. Clutching the filthy, worn toilet and vomiting over and over, she sobbed for a long while under the excuse of an upset stomach.
* * *
“I’m getting hungry, why isn’t the food…….”
Montceau, who had been about to pass by the entrance carrying a wine bottle, froze stiff.
“M-Madame…….”
Forgetting even to greet her, he quickly hid the wine bottle first and retreated hesitantly, looking thoroughly flustered, quite unlike the easygoing Montceau.
“What, who’s here again?”
Olivier, who had been leaning back loosely and smoking a cigar, narrowed his eyes. The moment he was about to rise, a stout old woman entered his sight as well.
Hair starkly white, an unyielding gaze. A black dress primly buttoned to the end of her slender neck.
Above all, that gaze glaring at her own grandson as though he were the most worthless wretch in the world, her face thoroughly displeased, laden with utmost agitation…….
The head butler, who had his head bowed deeply, belatedly announced the visitor’s name a step too late this time as well.
“H-Her Grace, Duchess Éléonore Dampierre, has arrived…….”
* * *
Olivier, having moved to the study, sat facing Éléonore in silence. Éléonore, who had kept her mouth firmly shut until the maid who brought in the coffee withdrew, began to berate Olivier the moment the study door closed.
“So, is this how you spend your days every day with your debauched friends? With those trash-like fellows who are utterly depraved?”
“Grandmother, that’s too much…… they just happened to be passing by…… I don’t see them often.”
No matter what he said, she was not someone who would listen anyway. Rather than that, it would be better to empty his mind in preparation for the nagging that would continue for the next several tens of minutes.
Olivier dropped his head, his chest feeling suffocated. At that very moment, the thunderous shout of a worker who had just arrived echoed loudly all the way to the study.
“Hello, this is Restaurant Dubois! We heard you’ve been drinking all night, so we’ve cleaned out the liquor warehouse and brought it all!”
……Damn it. Why now of all times! Olivier rubbed his face, flushed crimson with embarrassment.
“Grandmother, that’s…….”
However, Éléonore’s hand, clutching her handbag tightly, was already trembling.
“My boy, what in heaven’s name is that noise?”
“Pardon?”
“This sound, I mean.”
Éléonore sprang up from her seat and approached the study wall. Her rage-filled eyes bulged as though they might pop out.
“What sound do you hear…….”
Olivier turned his head toward the wall, following his grandmother, and his face suddenly went deathly pale. So, the Restaurant Dubois worker or whatever was not the problem right now.
The mortifying sounds traveling through the wall…….
Olivier was aghast and dropped his head. The shameful moans had grown so clear that one no longer needed to press an ear to the wall.
“Oh, Lord. One man and two women.”
Éléonore made the sign of the cross in revulsion.
“So, your friends are having a grand time, the three of them, as we speak.”
Olivier was beyond embarrassed and ashamed.
“Grandmother…….”
“This old woman has interrupted your good time, hasn’t she? If I hadn’t come, you too would have been rolling around with those lascivious fellows, spending a heated night!”
“Grandmother, I think there’s been some misunderstanding; I wasn’t…….”
He had wanted to postpone marriage, not look like some promiscuous bastard. Damned Ejon’s decadence (depravity, décadence)…….
“I told you so many times to stay away from worthless trash. That’s why you can’t settle down with one woman.”
Éléonore, her hands trembling, pulled out something like a bundle of papers from her bag and threw them down with a flick. They were documents densely filled with writing.
“Choose. I’ve gathered only the most demure young ladies. They are on a completely different level from those girls you tumble around with so casually in your house. Indeed.”
Ha……. Olivier’s face contorted. To think it was the start of the same tedious refrain again!
“I’m not getting married like this, Grandmother. Times have changed.”
“Then, is it your business to gorge yourselves on drugs like beastly whelps and roll around three or four at a time, drinking all night long!”
Éléonore’s voice gradually rose.
“How many times must I tell you? It wasn’t me.”
Unable to bear it any longer, Olivier too flared up in anger, but Éléonore stubbornly shook her head.
“There is a limit to shamelessness. All of Ejon buzzes every day with talk of you being a cheap man who rolls around in bed with cheap women.”
Olivier squeezed his eyes shut. It felt as though his throat was being throttled.
“Do you think this old woman doesn’t know of such talk? I scour tabloids too embarrassing to even leaf through every single morning. All because of my damned grandson!”
He had nothing else to say. Just as Olivier was furrowing his brows in irritation, his gaze suddenly fell upon a half-crumpled letter from Mademoiselle R.
Olivier picked up the letter and flung it down before his grandmother.
“Before you call me cheap, Grandmother, you’d best stop tarnishing the family name yourself. Why else would something like this come to me?”
“What is this?”
Éléonore picked up the letter with a stiff face. The more she read line by line, the more her wrinkled face contorted and cracked.
“Who in the world…….”