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Chapter 8
Seventh Street was located on the southeastern outskirts of the capital.
Most of the shops on Seventh Street had been family businesses for generations, so the merchants shared close relationships with one another. Whenever a new shop opened, their biggest concern was whether some strange person would move in and disrupt the peace of the neighborhood. So when furniture began appearing inside the newly renovated watch shop, the merchants of Seventh Street gathered outside the building to inspect the owner.
People had been coming and going there all summer, yet it seemed the preparations to finally open the shop had only just finished after nearly a full year.
The most curious among them was the family running the bakery next door. Their daughter, Liv, was especially interested in the woman around her age who appeared to own the watch shop.
Standing a short distance away with her friends, Liv said,
“I heard that woman’s from the Crimson family?”
“No way, not that woman? The one who divorced the captain?”
It was common knowledge near Seventh Street that the legitimate daughter of the Crimson family had divorced the captain of the Rubid. Salantier had once been thrown into chaos over the scandal involving Captain Dumpelt and his mother being confined to a mental institution.
Scarlett Crimson.
In the capital, she had become rather infamous as the woman who sold information about her own husband before divorcing him. But after about a year, people gradually lost interest once there was no more gossip to fuel the story.
“Could it really be her?”
“How would we know? Newspapers never printed her picture.”
Pirates who considered Victor Dumpelt their mortal enemy still lived in the capital. Since there was always a risk of retaliation, photographs of his family were never published in newspapers.
Because Liv was close to the shop owner in age, her parents and the neighborhood merchants pushed her forward with a basket of bread to go greet the newcomer.
That was the first time Liv saw the owner’s face clearly.
She’s unbelievably pretty…
That was her first thought.
The watch shop owner possessed a truly dreamlike appearance. Her pale blonde hair was braided and draped over one shoulder, her eyes looked sweet enough to melt sugar, and her softly closed lips made even another woman’s heart skip a beat.
She stood with both hands clasped together, wearing an expression that neither irritated others nor made her look foolish. It may have suited high society, but to ordinary townspeople it felt somewhat arrogant.
Liv approached her.
“Excuse me.”
When the owner turned around, Liv held out the bread basket.
“I’m your neighbor. This is a welcome gift, and I’m Liv Allick.”
“Ah… I’m Scarlett Dumpel… Crimson.”
“It’s really you? That captain’s wife?”
Liv asked in shock, and Scarlett nodded.
Then she reached out and accepted the bread basket. Liv worried whether such ordinary bread was appropriate for someone who had lived in the prestigious Dumpelt household, but Scarlett suddenly smiled brightly.
“Thank you.”
Wow, she’s seriously gorgeous…
Liv was stunned all over again by that smile. She had never seen such a beauty in her life. Scarlett always wore wide-brimmed hats with veils like a proper noblewoman, so Liv was practically the first person to truly see her face.
Scarlett gently played with the basket handle, looking delighted. It seemed she had been deeply worried herself about how to greet the local residents.
Liv asked,
“You were here all summer, right? What were you doing the whole time?”
“How did you know?”
“Oh, please. This neighborhood’s tiny. If anything happens, everyone hears about it.”
“I see… Ah, I was making watches. Since I’m from the Crimson family.”
“Really? You can make watches yourself, miss?”
“Just call me by my name.”
Scarlett said that in surprise, and Liv immediately replied,
“Alright, Scarlett.”
Scarlett smiled sheepishly and said apologetically,
“It’d be nice if we could have coffee together, but things are still too hectic right now. Soon though… would you like to come over for coffee sometime?”
“I’d love to. Once you’re done, open the second-floor window and call me. My room’s directly across from yours.”
“Really?”
Scarlett looked even happier hearing that. Liv had thought she seemed cold at first, but she smiled far more easily than expected.
After greeting Scarlett, Liv left the shop.
Outside, the Seventh Street merchants—including her parents—were crowding around waiting.
“Liv, how was she?”
“Is she unpleasant? Did she take the bread?”
Questions poured in, and Liv answered,
“First of all, it really is Scarlett Crimson—the one who divorced the captain.”
“What? Why would someone that famous move into our neighborhood…?”
Everyone looked puzzled, but Liv continued.
“And she’s not really some untouchable noble lady either. She said she made all the watches herself. And she’s seriously, seriously beautiful. The prettiest woman I’ve ever seen in my life.”
The moment Liv finished speaking, the merchants—whose curiosity had finally broken their restraint—flooded into the watch shop all at once.
Before long, they all came back out looking satisfied.
“Oh my goodness, I’ve never seen such a pretty young lady before.”
“She seemed kind, didn’t she?”
“We worried all summer for nothing. If we’d known she was such a gentle girl, we’d have gone to talk to her ages ago.”
The merchants who had feared some strange neighbor moving in all looked relieved now.
Liv glanced nervously toward the shop, worried Scarlett might have been startled by the sudden crowd because of something she had said.
At that moment, Scarlett briefly stepped outside, cautiously raised her hand, and waved at Liv.
Reassured, Liv waved back enthusiastically, and Scarlett smiled brightly.
As Scarlett became completely absorbed in running her watch shop, winter arrived in the blink of an eye.
On a Wednesday morning in December, with the weather turning cold again, Scarlett came downstairs wrapped in a thick wool cape.
A huge smile spread across her face as she looked around the lovely watch shop bathed in warm morning sunlight.
The very first thing she did was light the fireplace for Andrei, who hated the cold more than anything. Once the warm firewood crackled to life, her watches began reflecting mysterious glimmers of light.
Large grandfather clocks hung on the walls, while wristwatches were displayed inside glass showcases.
The purple silk covering the square watch cushions had been personally chosen by Andrei. These small cushions they had made together had become, just as Andrei insisted, the symbol of “Scarlett Crimson’s Watch Shop.”
She swept the floor with a broom, dusted the dirt outside the doorway, and finally laid down the welcome mat that read WELCOME.
That completed her morning tasks.
Precisely at ten o’clock, her only employee, Andrei, appeared.
He handed his bag to Scarlett while he raised the awning that was too high for her to reach herself.
After placing the bag behind the display counter at Andrei’s spot, Scarlett immediately climbed onto her bicycle.
“I’ll be back.”
“Come back early and get to work.”
Knowing that Wednesdays were the days she went to see Isaac Crimson, Andrei repeated the same words he said every Wednesday before entering the shop to brew coffee for customers.
Scarlett pedaled toward the Crimson estate while once again wondering whether it was alright for an employee to have more ambition than the owner.
As she passed through Seventh Street at the same time every Wednesday, the merchants she had grown familiar with waved to her, and Scarlett waved back with one hand.
Once she completely left Seventh Street and followed the tram tracks farther along, the Crimson estate came into view.
After getting off her bicycle, Scarlett picked up her small handbag and entered the estate grounds.
Near the porch she saw her cousins, Marilyn and Arnold, spending a leisurely lunch with their friends.
Marilyn clicked her tongue and said mockingly,
“If I’d been the one to marry into the Dumpelts in the first place, none of this would’ve happened.”
Scarlett pretended not to hear and tried to go inside, but suddenly a piece of bread flew through the air and hit her head.
She paused for a moment, and Arnold stepped in front of the doorway.
Annoyed that Scarlett was not even looking at him, he spoke.
“A divorced woman wandering around so freely… what’s become of this world?”
Scarlett had long grown used to Arnold picking fights for no reason, so she tried to ignore him and enter the house.
Then Arnold suddenly grabbed her hair—headscarf and all—and yanked her backward hard.
“Where do you think you’re going? Ignoring people now?”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what? What’re you gonna do about it?”
Arnold shook her hair roughly with an incredulous laugh.
“Am I wrong? If you abandoned your brother and ran away, you should’ve at least kept your husband happy.”
Terrified Isaac might hear, Scarlett squeezed her eyes shut instead of screaming.
Then she heard slow footsteps.
Isaac was descending the central staircase, leaning heavily on the railing and his cane.
Arnold glanced at Isaac, whose eyes were covered with clean white cloth changed daily by his caretaker.
Then he released Scarlett and sneered,
“I’m letting it slide because I feel bad for that bastard. He can’t even fight back while his little sister gets treated like this.”
Isaac’s face was so pale it almost looked translucent from rarely ever leaving the house.
He quickly smiled.
Then, turning toward the direction of Scarlett’s voice, he said,
“Scarlett, let’s go upstairs.”
At his words, Scarlett picked up her fallen headscarf and hurried toward him.
“Why did you come down? I was going up anyway.”
“I came to meet you.”
Since he could not see what had happened, Isaac simply smiled softly.
Scarlett carefully supported him and led him up to the attic room where he stayed.
“It’s freezing.”
She muttered while setting down her handbag and lighting the brazier.
Back on the bed, Isaac lay quietly, turning his head toward wherever he heard her voice.
Ever since losing his eyesight in the carriage accident that day, Isaac had relied entirely on the care of his younger sister, who was only one year younger than him. Even after her marriage, nothing had changed.
Scarlett locked the door and pulled a potion from her handbag—one she had purchased using more than half the money Gregory had given her.
The day Scarlett regained consciousness after the interrogation, this potion had been in her hotel room. There had even been instructions in her wallet explaining how to obtain it.
Scarlett had risked herself to acquire it from a black market dealing in goods smuggled from pirates.
Isaac lay still without moving while she carefully dropped the potion onto the cloth covering his eyes.
Scarlett said,
“Do you think you’ll really be able to see again?”
Only after she spoke first did Isaac smile faintly, as if released from paralysis.
“I hope so. Otherwise all your money just went to waste.”
“I told you not to worry about that.”
With money equal to the cost of this potion, she could have opened another watch shop or bought another bicycle.
It was unimaginably expensive.
Even though most pirates had already been eliminated, entering those pirate islands to obtain a cursed potion was not something anyone would do without being paid a fortune.
Yet Scarlett did not regret the investment in the slightest.
No matter how much their uncle had seized the family wealth, Isaac was still legally the head of the Crimson family and the Count Crimson. But when he was young, people said he was too young, and now they said he was blind. Their uncle, Evil Crimson, continued acting as guardian and prevented Isaac from touching any of the family assets.
If Isaac regained his eyesight with this potion, their uncle would no longer be able to pretend to be his guardian.
But that was only hope.
There was no guarantee the potion would restore Isaac’s vision.
They had barely managed to obtain the medicine after half a year of effort, and now they had spent another half year administering it—yet there was still no sign of his sight returning.
Sometimes they both suspected they had been deceived.
But thinking of each other’s wounds, neither of them ever said it aloud.
