176 - Pieces of the Broken Glass Slipper
Shattered Glass Slipper Shards 176
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“Sis, my dear……”
Mother reaches out to me like a lost child. I approached Mother's side. Everyone was holding their breath with anxious expressions. The main point hasn't been revealed yet, but they seemed to intuitively realize that something was wrong.
I met the eyes of the butler. His expression was quite bad. The wrinkled corners of his eyes were red.
Ah, he must have heard in advance.
I thought I would be able to accept his death calmly because I knew my stepfather wouldn't live long. Just like I had been before, I thought I would be fine this time too. But when I actually experienced his death, it came as more of a shock than expected. My throbbing heart ached heavily.
Even I, who was prepared, am like this, so how must Mother be enduring this heavy time? I couldn't even dare to guess. I just thought that I should get her out of here before she gets hurt more.
So, I swallowed a bitter smile and quietly called out to Mother. The voice that came out was quite subdued, as if painting a tragedy.
“Mother, it would be best if you went up to rest for a while.”
However, Mother insisted that she would not get up. She added that she should do so for the sake of the child in her womb, but she raised her voice, saying that as the mistress of the Count Bishvarts Family, she had a responsibility to hear about such a major event.
If it weren't for her pale face, it could be said to be a fairly composed attitude. The problem was that her expression couldn't keep up with her voice. Unfortunately.
I thought something big would happen if this continued, so I gestured to the butler. And I carefully helped Mother up.
“Go up.”
“No. I'll sit here and listen to everything. Shouldn't I? Shouldn't I be here……”
The last voice contained sobs. Mother isn't completely clueless either, so she seems to have guessed to some extent how things are going.
I lightly patted her shoulder and said again.
“No. Go up. Please.”
Her soft cheeks are wet and shine white. Her lips, twisted in distress, trembled finely as if about to release a cry. Her shaking eyes were swirling wildly as if asking to be held.
I kissed Mother's wet cheek and entrusted her to the maid the butler had called.
“Go to your room, have a warm cup of tea, and get some rest.”
Mother hesitated, then soon nodded weakly and said she would. Everyone in the drawing room silently watched Mother and me.
“Come on, hurry.”
“Okay. I will.”
Her face, which had fallen to the floor, contained resignation. Mother looked at me once more, then slowly moved her steps towards her room.
The others didn't utter a word until she had left the drawing room. They just remained silent. Silence was pressing down on us. It was as painful as if our throats were being strangled, but no one breathed. Death was here with us.
It was quite a while after Mother left that the butler opened his mouth. He sighed once, as if he couldn't bear it, and then told the unfamiliar man, "You can speak now."
The butler's face was terribly distorted as he said that.
The man cleared his throat for a moment and then greeted us politely. Roena instinctively grabbed Margo's hand, who was standing next to her, and blinked her trembling eyes with difficulty, looking around. It seemed that Margo alone wasn't enough to reassure her, as her terrified eyes were directed at me.
“I regret to have to tell you this.”
The man takes something out of his bulging pocket. It was a wallet and gloves that seemed to belong to my stepfather, and a ring symbolizing the Bishvarts Family.
“The Count has passed away.”
The words announcing the obituary were very calm, but they shocked everyone. The air, which had instantly sunk, was starkly revealing the emotions we were feeling.
Roena let out a sharp scream and immediately fainted. Margo frantically called Roena's name and shook her shoulders, but she was limp like a corpse and showed no sign of waking up.
The butler rang the bell and called out a few maids. And he had them support Roena and take her outside.
Margo kept rubbing Roena's arms and palms, sobbing. The old voice calling her 'Miss' was somehow miserable.
With Roena gone from the drawing room, only the butler, me, Mlang, and the man remained here. I asked him in a calm voice.
“I need to hear how he died. And how you were able to bring my father's belongings.”
The man confessed that he was the only surviving sailor from my stepfather's ship. Before the ship sank due to a reef, my stepfather had urgently entrusted him with the items, and he was only able to salvage a few of them.
The man's expression, as he said that he had been floating on the sea for two days before being rescued by a passing ship, was terrified as if recalling the memories of that time.
He added that most of the items he had salvaged had fallen into the sea, so he could only salvage this much.
How could this man be the only one to survive among so many people? As if knowing my doubtful mind, the butler suddenly opened his mouth and said.
“He says he survived because of the ship the Madam hired.”
The man nodded vigorously as if that was right. Then, as soon as he regained the energy he had spent floating on the sea, he rushed to the Bishvarts Family, so he had no choice but to stuff my stepfather's belongings haphazardly into his pocket, he explained.
In fact, he could have been praised for doing his part just by bringing the ring symbolizing the family. He hadn't lost the most important item.
Anyway, my stepfather really died. It was absurd that he died by hitting a reef, just like in my previous life. I wondered if it would end up like this after all.
Then what about the story of me being attacked, or hiring a strange person as a sailor? My head felt like it was about to explode with complexity. The feeling of emptiness was also one of the factors that made me feel drained.
“Is he really dead?”
“……I'm sorry.”
I sighed and put my hand on my forehead. The area between my eyebrows and the crown of my head throbbed as if I was about to get a headache.
“But why did Father entrust you with his belongings?”
“Because I was by the Count's side when the accident happened. So he handed them over to me in a hurry.”
The butler added that the man was a veteran who had worked on my stepfather's merchant ship for over ten years. So he must have trusted him enough to hand over these items in a hurry.
“Did you notice anything strange before the ship sank?”
“Yes.”
“Really nothing?”
“That day, it rained heavily and the waves gradually became stronger, so everyone was uneasy. I've been wandering the sea for ten years, but it was the first time I'd seen such rain and waves. We were almost at our destination, but the ship kept going astray and not following the oars.”
For a moment, I thought about whether someone had touched the oars, but since the ship had already sunk, there was no way to check. So I helplessly pressed my temples with my fingers and let out another sigh that felt like it would burst.
“Thank you for bringing them. I'll give you a guest room, so go and get some rest.”
“Thank you, Madam.”
As soon as I finished speaking, Mlang stepped forward and told the man to follow her. Despite the shocking news, the head maid's face was chillingly calm.
Rather, it was the old butler, who seemed like a cold-blooded person, who was unusually disheveled. Only a few minutes had passed, but his face looked like it had aged even more and had collapsed. His voice calling me was also a groaning sound like a sick person.
“Madam……”
I gritted my teeth and spoke to the butler. My lips were dry and parched, but I didn't even think about drinking water.
Rather than being sad, I felt empty, and rather than feeling empty, I felt a little lost about how to move forward.
The Bishvarts Family in an unprepared state…… Knowing what I know, I feel fear instead. That's exactly how I feel right now.
“We need to inform the imperial family and relatives of the obituary and hurry with the funeral preparations. And we have to struggle somehow to maintain our current state. To Mother.”
A dry voice fills the drawing room. It was a tone without any sense of pitch. It was so rough that it was hard to believe it was coming from my mouth.
“I'll talk to her. So please, Butler, control the people around you so that the atmosphere doesn't become disorganized.”
There were still a few months left before winter, but I already felt a chill in my body.
I unconsciously ran my palms down my arms and stared at the butler. He let out a heavy sigh and then answered in a low voice.
“As you wish, Madam.”
\*
The obituary of my stepfather shook the social circles of the empire. Less than an hour after informing the imperial family, all sorts of letters flew into the mansion, and two hours later, Madame de Lavalier's carriage was entering the front door.
Roena, who had fainted from the shock and barely woken up, soon began to suffer and couldn't get out of bed.
According to the maid, she kept calling for my stepfather and crying so much that her pillow and bed sheets were soaking wet as if they had fallen into water.
Mother was also bedridden from the shock - fortunately, there were no signs of a miscarriage - so in the end, I was the only one who could greet Lavalliere.
“What happened?”
Lavalliere asked me as soon as she entered the mansion. Even though she had heard the news of her brother's death, her attire was as perfect as usual. Her voice was also unwavering.
“Try to explain it.”
She wanted to hear from me, not the butler, about what had happened. She must know that I am doing most of the work of the Bishvarts Family since she has eyes and ears. So I calmly explained everything that had happened without hiding anything.
“You were swayed by the words of that mere man? Even the body hasn't been found, so what are you believing in to circulate the obituary to the imperial family?”
“I had him rescued from the ship I hired, so I have no choice but to believe him. Is a ring symbolizing the family something that can be easily stolen? Besides, I've sent someone to the merchant group that my stepfather was supposed to trade with to confirm.”
What Roena had been so secretive about and trying to obtain was a sword from the East Continent.
It was said that a craftsman had melted a meteorite that fell from the sky after a frenzy of throwing his young child into the furnace, and hammered it for nearly ten years without eating or drinking properly, and finally completed it.
In the end, he fed it his own blood to check the sharpness of the blade, making it a sinister sword. According to rumors, each owner who possessed it met an unfortunate end, so it was treated as a 'demon sword'. But there was no other famous sword like it in the world, so the Crown Prince even said in passing, 'I'd like to have it someday.'
It had been wandering around secretly, unable to find an owner, and was accidentally obtained by a merchant group, and the Empress, who learned of the news, had subtly informed Roena.
The reason why my stepfather moved quietly without saying what he was buying was because there were many people who were after the sword.
'Is it because of me? Right? Is it because of me?'
While I was struggling to hold my stepfather's funeral, Roena, who had fainted, woke up, cried, and fainted again, suddenly ran to me, wailing and asking.
Margo, who had hurriedly run after her, reached out to calm Roena, but Roena didn't care and clung to me. Very desperately.
She wanted comfort. She didn't want to admit that my stepfather had died because of her, so she was struggling like this.
So, she verbally abused herself as if she was self-harming, inducing me to say something completely different from what she had said.
Roena, who was standing on thin ice that had begun to crack, was staring at me so desperately, as if begging for salvation. With a glimmer of hope.
But what flowed from my mouth was a sound that brutally crushed her wishes.
'Your stepfather loved you so much. Don't forget that.'
Roena's face contorts. Her trembling knees hit the cold floor, creating a loud noise.
What she doesn't let go of until the end is her long fingers gripping my arm. Her hand, gripping so tightly as if digging into my flesh, and her fingertips, colder than ice, were creating round marks on my skin.
'Is that all? Is that all you have to say!'
'Get up. And go to your room.'
'……I asked if that's all you have to say to me.'
'Margo, what are you doing? Why aren't you taking Roena to her room?'
At my words, Roena jumped up and glared at me with a fiercely wet face. Whether she had quickly skipped the stage of verbally abusing herself in this short period of time, she now revealed her emotions without filtering, as if she hated me.
'That's why I told you to inform my aunt or other people! If we had, we might have saved him. He wouldn't have gone back! But why didn't you listen to me at all?'
Roena punches her chest with her fist and bursts into tears.
'Sis, I'm in pain. My chest hurts so much. I feel like I'm going to die because I can't breathe. Huh? Sis, please say something!'
If you were to go into the details, the reason why she begged to buy the sword was bigger, wasn't it? But she completely left that out and mentioned the events that followed. It was so absurd that it was almost contemptuous. So I gestured to Margo and the other maids to drag her away, even if it meant forcing her. Roena struggled for a few minutes before being dragged to her room, crying. Her eyes were fixed on me until the end.
All of this happened just now.
Completely exhausted by Roena, I expected that Madame de Lavalier would accurately grasp what I was intending to do. Considering her character that I had seen so far, I thought that she would at least not blame me.
But at the news of her brother's obituary, she had lost her usual composure.
