Chapter 02
Perhaps because of the change in sleeping arrangements, Adel tossed and turned restlessly.
The room was much smaller than her previous one, but recalling the past two months at the charity school, where she had to share a room with a dozen or so others, this place wasn’t so bad.
Thanks to the fire Bailey had lit, a warm atmosphere lingered in the room.
Her room at Heitzlinde still felt unfamiliar, but she was relieved to have a space of her own.
Moreover, the room had shutters that opened to the outside.
Peeking outside, she could see a fantastic rose garden spread out before her, and that was a great temptation for twelve-year-old Adel.
Adel shifted in her bed and looked up at the ceiling.
The events of the past few months all felt like a dream. If it were a dream, it was a series of terrible nightmares she never wanted to have again.
Adel had thought her life was quite happy.
A beautiful and graceful mother, a kind and wonderful father, and pretty Adel, who was showered with their love.
Adel had never seen a mansion as large as her own, and she could have anything she wanted whenever she wished.
It was a childhood of abundance, lacking nothing.
Tragedy struck that life of hers last year, when Adel turned eleven.
Adel’s father, Michael Baden, was not of noble birth but was reputed to have considerable business acumen.
He expanded his business starting with mining rights in the New Continent and became a major force in the investment world, and most of his ventures were successful.
About ten years ago, when the Wirth Constitution was promulgated and the country transformed into a republic, many things began to change.
The boundaries between king, nobility, and citizen crumbled.
The class system was abolished through the constitution, and discrimination based on it was legally prohibited.
This was not limited to the Erwin Empire but was a common shift in the global situation.
In such circumstances, the middle class, who had accumulated wealth through business, came to occupy the center of the Erwin Republic. Adel’s father, Michael Baden, was one of them.
The titles of noble families disappeared, and the government also changed to a republic.
Some nobles, quick to read the changes, rapidly transformed into businessmen, leveraging their advantages.
Although they still valued lineage within their own circles, they too understood. The world was changing, and power was ‘the accumulation of wealth.’
It was a time of chaos, where everything changed rapidly.
Even amidst such changes, Adel was safe and at peace.
She now understood that it was because of her father’s efforts and her mother’s protection.
“Adel, my beloved daughter. It pains me so much to leave you.”
Adel recalled her mother just before she passed away.
Her mother, once called a beautiful noblewoman, was gone, and only a frail, gaunt, sorrowful mother lay in bed.
Her beautiful mother died giving birth to her younger sibling.
Her father was busy traveling between the New Continent and the Southern Kingdom for business, so it was only the many maids of the Baden household and Adel who looked after her mother, Renée.
Her mother gave birth to a baby boy before completing the full ten months.
The child, who cried weakly, soon stopped breathing without even nursing.
Adel could not forget her mother’s sorrowful face and her newborn brother’s pale blue face that day.
Her mother had been weak since the pregnancy, often bedridden and suffering from depression, but Adel never truly thought she would leave her and her father behind like that.
Her father, who loved her mother dearly, was greatly shocked.
He rushed back home and held Adel, his only remaining child, weeping sorrowfully.
Baden had to pull himself together for his only daughter, and he struggled desperately to salvage his faltering business.
Then, three months ago, he lost his life to a tropical disease in the Southern Kingdom.
It had been raining that day as well, just like today.
A considerable amount of rain fell, more than one would expect for spring rain, and from that day on, Adel’s everything was completely overturned.
On the day of the funeral, many people in black clothing flocked to the Baden residence.
Those who had invested in Michael Baden would not stay still once they learned his business had failed.
In order to recover even a fraction of their bonds, they contacted one place and another, swarming like black ants.
The valuable furniture and possessions of the Baden household were smashed to pieces, and Michael Baden’s businesses were torn apart piece by piece.
It was a big enough event to make the front page of numerous newspapers.
Adel wept bitterly as she looked at her wrecked home.
The creditors had no interest in who remained at the Baden residence, or that it was a young child still in need of care.
They even broke into Adel’s room and took the pretty hairpins her mother had given her and the ivory jewel box her father had brought from the Southern Kingdom.
They called Adel the ‘daughter of a thief,’ but to Adel, they were the ‘thieves.’
Not a single small gift from her beloved mother and father remained, and Adel was so heartbroken that she sobbed loudly.
Her nanny, who had dark skin from the Southern Kingdom, held Adel tightly in her arms.
“It’s alright, young lady. Surely the master and mistress are now together and happy. They will no longer be in pain, so isn’t that wonderful? So don’t cry. Those bad people are wicked ones who will receive the divine punishment of God Bashuni. Don’t look them in the eye. If you see those possessed by evil spirits, you will become unhappy.”
The nanny held her young lady, who seemed to have regressed to childhood, tightly in her arms and whispered to her in broken Erwin.
Listening to the kind nanny’s voice constantly soothing her, Adel briefly lost consciousness.
How much time had passed? When she opened her eyes later, even her nanny had disappeared.
And Adel was led by someone’s hand to a charity school.
At that thought, Adel quickly squeezed her eyes shut.
Those two or three months at the charity school were the most terrible memory of her life.
She could never sleep peacefully even once, and her hair, which she had been proud of, was forcibly cut short.
The wavy blonde hair that her mother had gently brushed with a soft comb was beautiful even to Adel’s eyes, but her long hair, which had reached her waist, was chopped off for reasons of hygiene and education.
Even that had been clumsily cut with dull scissors, so the shoulder-length hair was all uneven.
As the memories came one after another, tears flowed from Adel’s eyes involuntarily.
Her pillowcase grew damp with the incessant tears, but they did not easily stop.
Adel stopped thinking any further and buried her face in her pillow.
Tomorrow, her eyes would be terribly swollen.
At the bustling sound of movement around her, Adel opened her eyes with difficulty.
“Are you awake? Hurry and wash up, and change your clothes too.”
Bailey pretended not to notice Adel’s pretty green eyes, which were half-swollen, and woke the child.
After finishing work yesterday and lying quietly in her own room, she had thought of the poor little mouse-like girl and felt uneasy for no reason.
What sin had that young child committed to end up here? Would she be able to withstand the humiliating looks she’d have to endure while eating at Heitzlinde? What was the master thinking, bringing that child here?
Though her body was tired, once she started thinking, there was no end to it.
As soon as she woke up, she had looked for a few pieces of clothing that Adel could wear.
There were some old clothes left from her married daughters’ childhood.
Years had passed, so the seams were worn and the designs were different from today’s styles, but they were still several times better than the ratty cotton dress the child had worn yesterday.
After roughly mending the frayed parts and adding ribbons and lace from scrap fabric, they looked much better.
She hadn’t noticed properly yesterday in the chaos, but Adel had clearly arrived at the manor empty-handed.
Meaning she hadn’t had anything worth bringing.
With a bitter taste in her mouth, Bailey gathered the prepared clothes and came to Adel’s room.
“Good morning.”
Adel smiled faintly, trying to hide her swollen eyes with her hair.
Her answer was much more cautious, as if she had understood Bailey’s words from yesterday.
“The sun is already high. You must take care of your own affairs.”
Adel nodded vigorously and quickly poured the wash water she had brought into the basin. After washing cleanly with soap, she also tidied the bed she had slept in.
Bailey thought she had surprisingly capable hands.
Adel busily straightened the bedspread and folded the blanket with her small hands.
“Very good. I’ll go get your breakfast, so wait a moment. Take off that dress and put this on. That dress should be saved for chimney cleaning or something.”
When Adel asked with a worried face, cautiously, if she really had to clean chimneys, Bailey answered with a laugh.
“I was joking. No one will ask you to do such a thing, Miss Adel. I’m just saying you should throw away the dress you came in yesterday.”
“I couldn’t help it. Everyone was wearing such clothes at the charity school.”
Adel stammered, her face flushed.
Even she thought that dress had been truly unsightly.
That place, which was called a school but was no different from an orphanage, was lacking in all supplies. The dress Adel had been wearing had also passed through several hands before reaching her.
When Bailey went out to get breakfast, Adel quickly changed into the clothes she had brought.
They couldn’t compare to the fine dresses she used to wear, but they were much better than that dress from the charity school.
The edge of the red dress had cute ribbons attached, and the green string at the waist looked much nicer when pulled tight and tied.
Looking in the mirror above the washstand, it suited her quite well.
Adel smiled, beaming at her reflection.
Today would be a much better day than yesterday.
Norman paced anxiously back and forth in the hallway of the first-floor reception room.
From early morning, loud arguments between the Duke and Duchess had resounded throughout Heitzlinde Manor.
Since many of the servants commuted to work, not many had heard the dawn quarrel.
Moreover, petty squabbles between the Duke and Duchess were nothing new, so in a way, it was hardly a major issue.
However, Norman, who had worked at Heitzlinde for many years and risen to the position of head butler, noticed that this fight was different from usual.
Norman knew well why the Duchess was so furious.
In their nearly twenty years of marriage, there was only one reason they fought.
Renée von Eduard.
She was once the lovely young lady of the Earl of Eduard, a family that had been prominent in the Erwin Empire.
When the previous earl’s investments failed, everything except the Eduard estate disappeared from the earldom. Moreover, the nominal title of earl also vanished after the Wirth Constitution.
It was only natural that the previous Duke of Clausen adamantly opposed the marriage between his son and Renée von Eduard.
The only problem was that the current Duke of Clausen had turned out to be more devoted and longing for his old love than anyone had expected.
That was the tragedy of this beautiful Heitzlinde Manor.
