The Mansion Awaits Spring
Chapter 47
After April left to light the lamps, having unburdened herself of the problem she’d been agonizing over since the party, Bauman also began to move.
He burst into Fezin’s room without knocking and spoke.
“No matter if you are a police officer, young master, it is not good to eavesdrop on conversations.”
Fezin, who had scrambled back to bed and was pretending to read a book, clicked his tongue.
He set the book down on the bed and looked at Bauman.
“The funeral is going to be turned into a grand affair anyway, isn’t it? I don’t see how knowing about it beforehand is much of a problem.”
“Are you going to interfere?”
“I think I’ve been quite cooperative so far.”
As this was a region where adults were treated with respect regardless of status, Fezin maintained a degree of politeness even while being sarcastic.
At the same time, he made it clear that he didn’t want to be lectured.
After Bauman let out a sigh in place of a scolding, Fezin continued.
“I won’t interfere. If anything, I’ll be a help.”
“Is that so?”
“I will.”
Bauman smiled as if feeling somewhat relieved. Then, he spoke with a hint of playfulness in his voice.
“By the way. I heard you caught a cold while swimming?”
Bauman, who usually moved at a leisurely pace, spoke quickly before Fezin could even respond.
“It’s something I could never have imagined when I was young, so I was quite surprised, young master.”
“It’s because I’ve been in the Empire for too long. Far too long.”
“What, did the old pirates of the Right Island only live here? It was their job to roam the world’s oceans for years at a time.”
Left with nothing to say, Fezin lay back down on the bed and let out an exaggerated groan.
“Ah, I’m in so much pain.”
Bauman chuckled at Fezin’s antics and left the room.
Once he was gone, Fezin stopped groaning and sat up again.
Holding a funeral was quite a good plan, even in Fezin’s eyes. He understood her intention in stepping forward to hold a funeral for those who had died seven years ago.
One by one, the people of the Lunos family had abandoned their surname and integrated into other families to escape the Grand Duke who had brought their house to ruin.
A funeral was a justification—both legal and emotionally acceptable—that could gather those scattered people in one place.
The primary goal of this gathering was to raise funds for the Main Family. Since these were people from a merchant family, April might gain the opportunity to launch a trade ship if she succeeded.
However, the probability of failure was too high, and the blow from such a failure would be severe.
If those who were meant to be mourners refused to show up out of a desire to avoid being associated with the Lunos family, April would be left with nothing but debt.
There was no way April was looking at the current situation with pure optimism. If anything, she likely viewed the probability of success more conservatively than Fezin did.
And yet, her determination to see it through was very much like someone of the Lunos family.
She was the true descendant of those ambitious people who, when everyone else was launching pirate ships, had set their minds on launching trade ships.
Fezin fell back asleep with a crowded mind, only to wake up in the middle of the night.
After a day of sleeping off the fever, he felt like the cold had mostly broken. Just the fact that his appetite had returned was a clear sign he was on the mend.
Not wanting to cause a stir in someone else’s house, Fezin quietly slipped out of his room, only to run into April right in front of the door. She had apparently woken up in the middle of the dawn on a similar schedule to his.
April asked with surprised eyes.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m hungry.”
“Go back to your room. Last night, Mr. Pascal sent over groceries and someone to work in the kitchen.”
“I’m not waking anyone up at this hour. Besides, I need to move around a bit.”
“You still don’t look well.”
He felt he had shaken off the cold well enough, so Fezin’s brow furrowed slightly at her repeated insistence that he looked unwell.
“I’m fine.”
“Not in my eyes. Go lie down.”
“I told you, I’m okay.”
“Well enough to go back in the morning?”
Fezin buckled at April’s question.
He thought for a moment before speaking.
“Well, maybe not that well.”
“I thought you said you were fine.”
“Just enough to barely stand up.”
“I see.”
April replied and gestured for him to follow, turning to lead him to the larder.
A slight smirk played on Fezin’s lips as he watched April walk ahead of him down the hallway.
Leading the way, April said, “Mr. Pascal went to wake you earlier, but he said you insisted on staying asleep.”
“That’s how bad I felt.”
“What a waste of such a sturdy frame.”
April grumbled her disapproval, but strangely, he didn’t mind it; it only made him want to smile. It was likely her way of telling him not to leave early tomorrow.
The moment they entered the larder, he went straight for the meat. Finding a good cut, he pulled out a knife and immediately began slicing it thin.
April looked puzzled.
“Why are you cutting it so thin?”
“To cook it as fast as possible.”
“When you were little, you caused such a fuss because you wouldn’t eat…”
“Try living among growing boys at the Military Academy. The very thought of waiting for meat to be fully cooked is a luxury.”
As he spoke, Fezin finished slicing a mountain of meat, seared it quickly in a pan with a few spice leaves, and dumped it straight onto a plate. Then, using the remaining fat, he whipped up a sweet sauce and poured it over the meat.
He handed April a set of cutlery and asked, “Want some?”
“Yes. It looks delicious.”
Usually, when there was a big party, dinner ended up being served around ten o’clock anyway. Though it was past eleven, it wasn’t an unreasonable time to eat.
April took a mouthful of the sauce-drenched meat and ate with relish. Suddenly, she burst into laughter and covered her mouth with her hand.
Fezin asked, “What?”
“Thinking about it again, how does a man from the Right Island catch a cold from the sea?”
“Oh, right. I’ve given you something to tease me with for the rest of my life, haven’t I?”
“You just seem a bit ridiculous.”
“Please, you’re talking as if you ever thought I wasn’t ridiculous.”
“I’ve just found confirmation for my theory.”
Bickering like that, the two of them polished off the meat.
Madame Eve, who had been watching the scene from outside the larder, spoke to Bauman, who had scrambled out of bed upon hearing April move.
“How can he not even put out a single plate for the lady? I couldn’t even step in.”
“I suppose that’s how young people are these days… though I don’t understand it either. It’s something unimaginable in our time.”
“More than that, someone from the Grand Duchy getting a cold just from jumping in the sea?”
“That is the part I find most fascinating.”
“I can’t believe it, truly. In our day, this level of cold was nothing.”
“You’re right. It was much colder back then.”
The two, who had lived through the same era, began comparing April and Fezin to their own youth, eventually becoming completely absorbed in their own stories.
Due to his natural keenness, Fezin, who had been bothered by the sound of their footsteps in the hallway from the start, spoke to April.
“If they want to nag, they should just come in and do it. Why are they just lingering out there?”
“I don’t want to be nagged.”
“Ah, then I guess they’re doing a good job.”
When Fezin agreed immediately, April let out a small laugh.
The two outside and the two in the kitchen continued chatting about their shared times until the early hours of the morning.
Aware that Fezin’s nerves were on edge because someone was eavesdropping on them—a professional habit—April set her fork down with a deliberate clatter.
“You look pale. You should rest.”
Fezin was about to ask how she could see his complexion in such dim lighting, but luckily, he caught her intention before he opened his mouth.
“I really don’t feel well. Let’s rest.”
With that, he made a series of noisy sounds as if tidying up.
While April suppressed a laugh at Fezin’s cleverness as he stomped his boots loudly to create a racket, the sound of the two outside hurrying back to their own spaces could be heard. It was a reaction to the movement from within that suggested they were about to come out.
Fezin tilted his ear toward the door and said, “They’re gone.”
“You can hear that?”
“The thing I was best at in the Military Academy was… well, almost every subject, actually.”
Fezin spoke nonchalantly with a shrug, and April gave his shoulder a playful swat.
Fezin winced as if his arm had been broken.
“It’s the truth, what do you want me to do?”
“Be humble. It’s a virtue.”
“Anyway. My hearing is good. I’m a good shot, too.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I was talking to myself, ignore it.”
The two spoke without a hint of tenderness, and strangely, as if they were still hungry, they continued to look for more food.
The next thing they brought out was a chocolate cake topped with cherries.
While the Right Island’s food culture was so underdeveloped that neighboring countries mocked it as being ‘potatoes, potatoes, potatoes, and a few other things,’ the Left Island had developed a flamboyant culinary culture.
The chocolate cake was a dessert made in the Imperial style.
It was already cut into eight pieces, so the two of them took just one piece to share. However, Fezin tried to fill his stomach since he hadn’t eaten well while sick, and April liked the chocolate cake so much that she pulled out another piece.
Even so, their pace slowed down starting from the second piece.
As they talked more over the cake, the candle they had brought melted down completely, and the light went out.
Only when the storage room plunged into darkness the moment the flame died did the two realize how much time had passed.
