The Mansion Awaits Spring
Chapter 27
Bauman spoke to April, who was lost in thought.
「I will keep that in mind while repairing the mansion.」
「Thank you.」
April replied, then looked down at Fred with an inscrutable gaze.
「Hannah and Mr. Bauman are both fulfilling their roles. I will forgive you if you fulfill yours as well. I happened to be in need of a messenger to go back and forth to the city anyway.」
April spoke calmly, but Fred was so pitifully terrified that he couldn't even manage a response.
In the end, Hannah answered for him.
「He'll do it!」
「Y-yes?」
Only then did Fred snap out of it and look up at April. He replayed what he had just heard in his mind and nodded vigorously.
「Please give me any task you have. I only have to go to the factory six times a week, so…」
To Fred, going to the factory six times a week seemed like a generous arrangement. April struggled to hide her dismay as she spoke.
「…Quit the factory. You'll be busy enough with the work here. I'll pay you a little more than what you get at the factory.」
She didn't know exactly how much the factory paid children, but judging by Hannah and Fred’s appearance, it couldn't possibly be a fair wage.
Fred remained stiff, but he continued to nod his head fervently.
April pulled a letter from a drawer and handed it to him.
「First, deliver this to the bank. Give it to a 'Millet Virta.' You must deliver it to her specifically. No one else.」
「Yes! I'll be right back!」
As Fred answered, Bauman quickly interjected.
「Ah, and buy some groceries on your way back. Here, I'll write down what we need.」
Bauman was even more delighted than April to have a messenger.
It took Bauman a full day to travel to the provincial capital and back. On foot, the round trip took him about eight hours.
Hannah was a child who ran around all day long without feeling a hint of fatigue, even if she didn't go all the way to the capital, but Bauman’s legs would ache for three or four days after such a walk.
April had offered to buy a cart and a horse for him, but Bauman had flatly refused, saying it should wait until after the stables were repaired. He should not have refused then. He had been far too overconfident in his own stamina.
April bit back a smile as she watched Bauman’s face light up with relief.
Realizing his joy was a bit too obvious, Bauman spoke sheepishly.
「Thanks to your generosity, My Lady, I will have much more time. I shall use that extra time to repair the stables.」
「Please do.」
April replied, her voice tinged with amusement despite herself.
*
Fred proved to be a fast and quite persistent messenger.
Even though the bank reportedly tried to turn the boy away several times, he clung on tenaciously until he finally delivered the letter to Millet Virta. He even successfully brought back a reply from Millet, which she had written while he was out buying groceries.
However, he wasn't perfectly meticulous; he returned having missed one of the five grocery items Bauman had requested.
It was understandable, though. Since Fred couldn't read, Bauman had drawn pictures of all the groceries for him, but the boy didn't know what ginger was. Even looking at the near-perfect drawing, he hadn't been able to identify it.
April asked why he hadn't just shown the drawing to the merchant, but Fred only gave an embarrassed smile and couldn't answer.
She realized later that because Bauman had written the word 'Ginger' underneath the sketch, Fred hadn't wanted to show it to the merchant for fear of revealing that he was illiterate. Teaching him to read was becoming an urgent priority.
Regardless, for a first mission, he had performed his role as a messenger quite well.
Fred had lost his parents young but lived with his grandparents, so he headed home after finishing his errands.
Before he left, April wrote down Fred's name and his grandparents' names on a piece of paper. She instructed him to make sure he learned how to draw every single one of those characters before he returned.
When night fell, the world turned silent.
While everyone else slept, April sat in a chair by her bedroom window, sipping a cup of warm tea.
「…It was a noisy day, wasn't it?」
At her question, Sebio, who was trying to sleep at her feet, pricked up his ears.
With two children running around, the house was anything but quiet. She thought that children were creatures that radiated a heat and energy simply by existing.
Thanks to that noise, April realized that she had actually grown fond of the silence.
She figured that if the chaos made her appreciate the tranquility even more, it was a good thing in its own way.
*
Fezin, arriving in front of April's house for the promised trip to the amusement park, looked up at the Lunos mansion and muttered.
「Are architects usually this fast?」
「Whoa…」
Beside him, Logan marveled in pure admiration.
Bauman was replacing the broken windows of the mansion one by one.
Normally, replacing windows would take months, or even a year, but Bauman, having lived his entire life as an architect, had long-standing connections who could manufacture glass to his specifications immediately.
The newly installed windows were so transparent and clean it looked as if there were no glass there at all. Even to an untrained eye, it was high-quality glass.
Fezin had received a report on the man named Bauman.
Contrary to his appearance, he was a man of uncompromising character when it came to his work.
There had been a massive brawl with colleagues who had begun to copy Imperial architecture exactly. The "massive brawl" was literal; several pieces of furniture were smashed, and three people, including Bauman, had to be hospitalized.
At any rate, a man who refused to compromise on his craft had been given the task of designing and repairing a historic, traditional mansion with endless things to manage. He couldn't be anything but happy day after day.
It was April Runos’s good fortune that Bauman had sought out this mansion when he decided to give up on life, but it was also Bauman’s good fortune.
Stepping closer to the mansion, Fezin spotted a fancy chicken coop and a doghouse, his expression turning incredulous.
It felt strange that a man stubborn enough to fight his colleagues and quit would sit there so diligently building houses for animals.
Upon entering the mansion, he found April getting the two children, Hannah and Fred, ready to go out.
Calming the children, who were extremely overstimulated by the news of going to an amusement park, was no easy feat. April was already exhausted before they had even set foot out the door.
April spotted Fezin and said,
「That boy started working here too. His name is…」
「I know. Fred, Hannah, go out and ask that policeman with the mustache over there to play with you.」
Fred flinched at the stranger calling his name, but he followed behind Hannah as she ran toward Paul, the man with the mustache.
April wasn't surprised that the police monitoring the area knew about Fred, but she did feel a bit slighted.
「You could have told me if a kid like that was hanging around.」
「I assumed you knew. Besides, we were keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn't cause trouble.」
Then again, it was a wonder she hadn't noticed him when he was loitering so openly around the mansion. She’d heard he even slept in the ruined stables once.
April realized that because the police were always roaming near the estate, she had felt uncomfortable but also subconsciously at ease. Bauman was the same.
She shifted her target.
「More importantly, can’t you tell Mr. Soer to shave that mustache?」
Fezin replied in a pained voice, as if he’d been waiting for someone to say it.
「My thoughts exactly. He thinks it looks dashing.」
「Dashing to whom?」
「To women.」
「What woman likes a mustache?」
At April's words, Fezin looked as if he’d finally met someone who understood his frustration.
「Tell him that yourself. I think he’ll only listen if a woman says it.」
「I should.」
As soon as she heard that, April, who also found it quite bothersome, went straight out and criticized Paul’s mustache.
Paul froze, his eyes and mouth falling wide open at the shocking information that 'women don't like mustaches.' Meanwhile, the children ran circles around him.
「I like the mustache!」
「Can I try pulling it? I'll be gentle!」
And the children’s displays of affection only served to drive Paul deeper into shock.
Paul turned to Bauman with a forlorn face and asked,
「Mr. Bauman, could I perhaps borrow a razor…?」
「Of course. I’ll go get one for you right away.」
Even Bauman left to fetch the razor with a quickness rarely seen in him.
