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Chapter : 6
When Rose asked how a marriage with such a difference in status had even become possible, her father had said it was because he could politically help the Crawfords.
She had not cared enough to ask further, but now she was genuinely curious about what kind of help he had offered for this noble family to agree to accept her.
And after living in Orthuran for a month, it was obvious that her existence was more of a political burden than any kind of help.
When a servant picked up the napkin that had fallen to the floor and brought a new one, Agatha finally seemed to regain her composure and smoothed over the confusion still clear on her face.
“Yes. Your situation was unusual…”
Agatha unfolded the neatly folded napkin and took a deep breath.
“Still, yes, it was admirable. In that situation, I suppose you had no choice. You did something brave and respectable. It could not have been easy.”
Agatha’s desperate attempt to tidy up the situation with the kind of moral lesson a school principal might give was almost pitiful.
Not easy? Teaching children who whined that practice was boring after only trying once or twice had been far easier than understanding or enduring this situation.
“Don’t you understand? The opportunity of a lifetime has come to you, yet you don’t even realize how great an opportunity this is! You actually believe you can refuse it! I raised you that way. This is my fault.”
Suddenly, Rose remembered her dead mother shouting those words long ago.
When Rose tried to refuse this marriage proposal, her mother had looked at her as if she were insane.
She would probably never forget that expression, the way her mother looked at her like she was some unfamiliar monster.
Was there really something wrong with her, just as her mother once said, and as Agatha seemed to believe?
“But from now on, it would be best not to mention that work anymore. Things are different now, aren’t they? Beth, you should also be more careful with your words. And Rose, don’t tell Beth every little thing just because you’re family. As you can see, she’s still young.”
That was exactly the problem.
Rose found it difficult to understand why the fact that she once taught piano to someone belonged in the category of “things that should never be mentioned.” It was not as if she had committed a crime.
The things these people naturally accepted as common sense only felt difficult to Rose.
“I didn’t realize having a job was considered such a problem. Duke Crawford himself works as a minister, after all.”
The moment Rose spoke without thinking, Agatha’s napkin slipped helplessly to the floor once again.
“Rose, what on earth are you talking about? A job?”
No matter how hard she tried to compose herself, Agatha’s face was now completely twisted with shock and horror.
As though Rose had insulted her son.
Startled by that reaction instead, Rose accidentally dropped her cutlery.
“That is service!”
At the same moment the silver utensils hit the floor, Agatha’s sharp voice rang through the dining room.
The servants immediately began moving to clean up. Since Rose came to this mansion, it was the first time they had been forced to move around this often.
“What?”
Now it was Rose who was confused.
Realizing Rose had not spoken out of defiance but because she truly did not understand, Agatha rubbed at her mouth with an exhausted expression and let out a long sigh.
“Do you think Ray spends his precious time obsessing over politics and ministerial duties because he enjoys exhausting work like that? Or because he wants money? Such pocket change?”
Like a patient teacher explaining something to an ignorant child, Agatha continued calmly.
“It is service to this country. And we have a duty to do it.”
By now, clean napkins and shining silverware without a single flaw had already been placed neatly back onto the table.
The servants who handled everything with astonishing silence were now standing motionlessly against the wall, as though nothing had happened.
Their excessive speed and perfect efficiency somehow felt oppressive, and Rose could no longer bring herself to speak.
“Rose, let us not speak of this again.”
With a deep sigh, Agatha firmly ended the conversation.
“No matter what kind of life you lived before, forget it. Live as though it never existed in the first place. You are a Crawford now, and everything from before no longer exists. There is no reason to tell anyone about it.”
Rose had thought the same herself.
She believed she had abandoned everything from her previous life and that from now on she would simply live by doing what others told her to do.
But every time people reacted with shock to something she casually said or did, she realized she had not completely erased her former life after all.
“Remember my words, Rose. Bolton, and everything that happened there, no longer exists.”
Those cold blue eyes, so sharp they felt oppressive, eyes exactly like Ray Crawford’s, stared at her persistently as if demanding an answer.
“…Yes.”
Even in that single forced word, Rose could hear her own foreign accent, the traces of an outsider she could never fully hide.
She worried how she was ever supposed to erase a past that still existed so vividly inside her.
Satisfied by Rose’s obedient answer, Agatha finally accepted the dessert the servant brought her with visible approval.
“Elton. Prepare the piano in the drawing room. Lady Greenwood will surely want to play.”
Agatha’s voice, giving orders to the butler standing sternly nearby, had become much gentler.
Come to think of it, there were two pianos in this enormous mansion. One was beside Beth’s room, and the other was in the drawing room.
The piano in the drawing room was always covered with cloth. As though no one ever played it.
Then why had it been there in the first place?
Only now did Rose become curious about the owner of the piano no one touched or even looked at.
“I should have introduced myself sooner. I’m Sophia Greenwood.”
The woman with rosy cheeks that instantly reminded Rose of summer peaches smiled brightly at her.
Even before meeting Sophia Greenwood, Rose already felt as though she knew everything about her. Agatha and Beth had talked about her far too much.
She was the beloved only daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Harland, had three older brothers, and became Countess Greenwood after marrying the Earl of Greenwood.
She was beautiful, intelligent, kind, cheerful, noble-hearted, and had been close to this family since childhood.
Everyone loved her, and she played the piano beautifully, and so on.
“Honestly, I’m just so relieved to finally meet someone around my age! All my friends married foreigners and moved away. Or they live too far from here.”
Every time Sophia spoke, her thick and beautiful curls bounced charmingly around her forehead. Her glossy black hair suited her rosy cheeks perfectly.
She was only one year younger than Rose, yet she did not feel like someone her age at all.
A woman who married early and already had two children.
“And Beth is far too young to spend time with.”
Sophia whispered it like a secret before giggling softly.
Rose had no idea how to react to someone with such incredible social skills, someone who seemed completely incapable of feeling awkward even after meeting for the first time.
More than anything, Sophia seemed not to care at all whether the other person responded.
Until now, Rose had not said anything except “hello,” yet the conversation continued effortlessly.
“Still, marrying a man like Ray? How did you do it? That’s honestly amazing. I could never.”
Rose was startled once by Sophia casually linking arms with her, and then startled again by the easy familiarity with which she spoke her husband’s first name, a name Rose herself had barely managed to say aloud.
“Agatha would scold me if she heard this, but honestly… Ray is so boring, isn’t he? He’s always been like that.”
Then came Agatha’s name naturally from Sophia’s lips as well.
Rose suddenly remembered the warm expressions on Agatha’s face and the servants’ faces ever since Sophia Greenwood arrived at the Crawford mansion with her sunlight-like smile.
They truly were unfamiliar expressions.
The servants of the Crawford family treated Rose politely, but there was always distance between them. And concern too.
She could feel their fear that the foreign duchess might bring harm to the family.
It was strange how the people working in the mansion seemed to feel pride and attachment toward the Crawford family just as strongly as the family members themselves.
At times, the Crawford family seemed to belong not only to Agatha and Ray, but also to those who worked for them.
When Rose lived in Bolton, she sometimes worked as an accompanist at church, but she had never particularly cared whether the church prospered or not. It was a feeling she could not fully understand.
The servants she still felt awkward around greeted Sophia Greenwood warmly, like relatives meeting again after a long time apart.
Even the usually cold face of Ray Crawford briefly softened with a smile.
Just as Beth said, Sophia was clearly extremely close to the Crawford family and loved by everyone.
“When I was four years old and Ray was… what, maybe eleven? He used to scold me sternly for whining. To a four-year-old child. Can you imagine it?”
No, not even with the imagination of a Boltonian could Rose picture eleven-year-old Ray Crawford
