Rumble-.
Dark clouds filled the sky without a gap, threatening to pour down rain at any moment. Even the mighty Evergale couldn’t escape the sky.
However, unlike the gloomy exterior, the mansion was as bright as daylight. Inside, servants were busy moving about with their respective duties. Eugene was also deeply immersed in his work, secluded in his office.
A maid came in quietly to place tea and leave, but his eyes never left the documents.
Yet the hot steam rising from the teacup momentarily disrupted his concentration.
“Why should I be anxious…… Ha.”
Eventually, Eugene put down the pen he had been holding and picked up the teacup instead. The handle, intricately crafted in pure gold, was engraved with the initials of his name.
It was a gift he had received about six months after meeting Helena.
The initials of his name that she had said she had carefully engraved, one character at a time, suppressing her feelings that were about to burst.
The memory of her face, smiling brightly as she handed this to him, was now blurry.
[Let’s divorce.]
Only her calm voice kept echoing in his mind.
Eugene leaned back in his chair and put down the cup. He couldn’t even begin to grasp when or where things had gone wrong.
It had been a week since Helena left, and a week since he had buried himself in work as if nothing had happened.
It had been a week since Helena had slowly eroded his trust.
Just then, he heard small voices from outside, as if the door hadn’t been completely closed. It was the conversation of the maids who had just delivered the tea.
“Are we not making desserts for a while?”
“I guess not, since Madam isn’t here. The Grand Duke doesn’t particularly like sweet things anyway.”
“That’s too bad. It was nice that she always let us eat the leftovers.”
“Oh, how thoughtless of you. I don’t care if I can’t eat them; I just wish Madam would return quickly.”
“Who said I didn’t?”
A slightly offended maid poked her colleague in the side. While her colleague pretended to be hurt, rubbing her side, she looked around cautiously and continued.
“But where did she suddenly go traveling? And alone too. Did she need some kind of change of mood?”
“How would I know? Stop with the idle chatter and go receive the ingredients at the back door.”
With that somewhat grumbling reprimand, the voices gradually faded until they could no longer be heard.
Eugene gazed at the cooling teacup, lost in thought.
‘Helena……liked desserts?’
When they were alone, she would barely drink tea with a light aroma and never asked for snacks.
He had thought it was because she disliked sweet things. Was she just accommodating him? To make sure the sound of chewing sweets or strong aromas wouldn’t disturb his senses.
[When I was young, I never imagined this position would be one where I couldn’t freely eat even one thing I liked.]
At the time, Helena had spoken as if joking, but her face seemed vacant.
He recalled how she had occasionally revealed such expressions from some point. These were scenes he now wished not to remember.
He needed to calm his troubled mind. Eugene rose from his seat, intending to take a walk.
As he stepped out and headed toward the staircase landing, he heard more voices from the stairs below. It was maids carrying laundry.
One maid carefully unfolded an olive-brown satin dress.
“Don’t you think this would suit Madam well? She liked this style, didn’t she? Though she didn’t wear it often, saying it wouldn’t uphold the dignity of Evergale. So I was wondering, how would it look if I wore it?”
“Wake up from your dream. It suits her because she’s the Madam. If we wore it, we’d just look like fallen leaves.”
“Well, Madam would look beautiful even if she wore sackcloth.”
Eugene’s eyes followed the dress as the maid put it back in the basket.
A plain dress with minimal decoration, just some puff pleats gathered at the waist and sleeves.
Eugene had always given her lavish gifts, as most noble women had, and as was fitting for Helena to maintain her dignity as the Grand Duchess.
Helena had always accepted them gladly and filled her closet with them. So he had assumed her taste was no different from other women’s. Before marriage, she would have worn modest dresses due to financial constraints.
‘It can’t be my misjudgment.’
His mind grew even more confused. Eugene quickened his pace toward the garden.
Fortunately, the greenery basking in the midday sun was not a bad choice. Walking among it seemed to calm his confusion somewhat.
Then he stopped before a yellow flower bed situated in a corner of the garden. It wasn’t a particularly large bed, nor were the flowers rare or extraordinary.
Normally, he would have avoided even going near it because he disliked pollen, but strangely, his gaze kept being drawn to it.
“Hey there.”
“Ah, you came.”
Just then, the voices of two men drifted from a few steps away. It was the gardener trimming branches and a passing stable keeper. Eugene pressed himself behind a bush.
After finishing their trivial personal conversation, the stable keeper sniffed and pointed to the flower bed.
“Hmm, how is it that the flowers on this side are larger than the ones you’re trimming? The fragrance seems better too.”
“Oh, my friend. Compare things that can be compared. That’s the flower bed that Madam cultivated. She put so much care into growing them. Even plants that cannot speak know it.”
“Ah, so this was grown by Madam? Well, no wonder it’s so beautiful. Even a single blade of grass receives such love; how happy must the Grand Duke be.”
After the two men finished talking and left, Eugene approached the flower bed as if entranced.
‘Helena… she tended to this.’
The woman he knew was one who extremely avoided flowers.
She had reluctantly accepted the bouquet he had given as a gift before marriage, but even that she repeatedly told him not to bring.
After coming to the mansion, she never kept flowers in vases. She removed all vases not only from places where they had tea together but even from her room.
After cutting away and cutting away herself, what remained of Helena’s traces was this flower bed.
A small space, barely the size of the table in his office.
Eugene, finding it somehow unpleasant, hastily left the garden. Perhaps burying himself in mountains of documents would be better than indulging in such leisure.
But traces of Helena were everywhere. She was in every place his feet touched.
Even in the training grounds, which he briefly visited on his way back to the office, she wouldn’t let him go.
A few knights, taking a break while tending to their swords, made regretful remarks.
“When will Madam return? Sparring with her was my only joy.”
“That’s what I’m saying. It feels so empty these days.”
“Right, even practice doesn’t feel like practice anymore.”
Eugene’s pupils dilated.
Even if her tastes or the flower bed were his misconception, this, this…….
The feeling of facing so many facts in just half a day seemed impossible to get used to.
No, was there even any truth among them to begin with?
He immediately stepped in among the knights.
“What are you talking about? Helena spars?”
“Your, Your Grace!”
The knights started in shock and all rose at once. Eugene urged them with an angry look. Finally, one knight came forward and stammered a confession.
“Th-that is…… she has been our sparring partner for quite some time. We couldn’t believe it at first, but she had the skill to easily subdue a rookie knight.”
“So what you’re saying is that Helena held a sword.”
“Yes. Madam is-.”
“Enough.”
Eugene’s brows noticeably narrowed.
The one who is Helena’s husband is Eugene Evergale. And the person she loves is also himself.
Why did others know her better than he did, why were there so many aspects of her that only he didn’t know?
‘Who exactly is the person I know?’
He felt irritated. His mood unconsciously turned foul.
‘Why did you hide everything from me all this time?’
The time he had arrogantly thought would be fine now seemed spiteful. Her absence was more than just disturbing. Only after she disappeared did he notice the void.
‘If you weren’t going to teach me anything, at least tell me how to forget you.’
****
By the time she got off the last carriage she had changed to, she had only a few coins left.
Helena spent most of that money in the marketplace too. She exchanged it for flowers that would neither quench her thirst nor fill her stomach.
She walked toward the cemetery, holding the bouquet to her chest. It was a much larger bunch than what she had paid for. The rich fragrance of layered marigolds tickled her nose.
“Do you know what those flowers mean? Happiness that will certainly come. Only good things will happen to you from now on, miss.”
Perhaps concerned about her constantly looking like death, the flower shop owner smiled generously and wished her good fortune.
People here were always kind. Despite being one of the poorest villages in the north, they always were. It was a place that had helped her endure her childhood.
Praeterita, her hometown where she had spent her now distant childhood.
The Owen family had left the barren Praeterita for the larger village of Hyer as soon as Helena showed signs of becoming a proper lady.
‘It was to sell me at the highest price possible. Fortunately, I caught Eugene’s eye.’
Helena married the year after settling in Hyer. She left for Evergale shortly after, and while she lived in luxury there, Basil died.
She couldn’t leave her brother alone even in death. Helena reburied him in Praeterita. In this land where all those she loved now rested with closed eyes.
Mary Owen and Basil Owen.
Helena slowly knelt before the two neatly placed tombstones. Gentle sunlight poured over the white marble.
“Mom, Basil. I’m here.”
Naturally, there was no answer in return. However, seeing that an awkwardly woven bunch of wild flowers, as if made by a child, had already been placed there, Helena set her bouquet next to it.
“Mom, you liked these flowers, didn’t you? You said that just looking at them, even just their fragrance made you feel like you were buried in a flower garden. I like them too. They have your name in them. Basil would have liked them too. He always said he liked everything I liked.”
It was the same on the day she told him she was marrying Eugene because she loved him. Basil sincerely congratulated her, saying he was happy for her.
Helena quietly stroked the tombstone engraved with Basil’s name, as if caressing a memory.
Though all she felt was the cold touch of stone, she hoped that somehow he, in his sleep, could feel her touch.
‘At that time, I thought that guarding Evergale was the way to save you.’
On the day she left the Owen household for the last time in her first life. Basil’s wheezing breath still echoed in her ears.
