Episode 66
Lillian sensed that now was the moment that required a paradigm shift.
‘Let’s think in reverse.’
If causality doesn’t yield results, it’s about flipping what you know and piecing it together.
The temple was targeting the deceased Lady Agnes Maynard.
Perhaps it had been since Agnes was young, and Agnes herself knew it.
‘Initially Agnes. Then her daughter.’
But Swan was dead. And Lillian, Swan’s understudy, appeared at Maynard, and after 7 years, Odile with Swan’s face appeared.
Why would the temple come for Odile now, after 7 years?
‘There’s only one conceivable answer.’
While Agnes’s death is public knowledge, not many know about the death of the orphanage child Swan.
The temple is still targeting “Agnes’s daughter.”
‘The temple…believes I’m the daughter of the deceased Lady Maynard.’
As the thought struck him, Lillian felt many questions unravel like a falling domino.
‘It’s just like what I did to Lord Napier.’
Just like what he did to him, Cedric also aims to discard his daughter.
By pushing the clearly genuine daughter Odile, they aim to abandon Lillian!
‘And if I’m discarded from Maynard, the temple will try to take me away.’
That was the purpose.
‘Now that I’ve grasped the purpose, if I use this well…’
As the thought struck him, Lillian’s steps also reached the garden.
And, there, by the familiar carriage, she found an unexpected person.
A young man with neatly combed white hair and an angelic face.
“Damian?”
* * *
The perspective after the extinguishment of the Maynard Duke.
Despite the lateness of the hour, he still hadn’t even changed his clothes. Sitting in his study, all he did was stare endlessly at the objects in his hands.
In Cedric’s hands was a small silver pendant. On the surface, there was an engraved lily emblem, and inside, a delicate portrait of Cedric and Agnes was intricately carved into the pendant.
It was the pendant Lillian brought when she first came to Maynard Duke.
“Agnes. What would you have done at a time like this?”
Calling out his wife’s name after so long felt strangely unfamiliar. Raising Lillian allowed Cedric to forget Agnes’s death a lot. He no longer had to conjure her face every day, nor did he have days of groaning over Agnes and the vanished child. Cedric felt that alone was a wise choice in deciding to be with Lillian.
So Cedric hadn’t visited the annex for quite some time. However, at some point, he had encountered a child in the annex. Strictly speaking, he had “witnessed” the child.
The child was sitting in front of Agnes’s portrait, endlessly gazing at her face. His throat might have hurt, yet he looked as if he would go blind if he took his eyes off her. He stared at Agnes without blinking.
In that scene, Cedric felt an inexplicable longing and loneliness.
It was also akin to the loss Cedric himself had experienced.
Through that, Cedric could understand why he was so drawn to the child he had just met. They shared the same wound. With loss and loneliness, they resembled each other. If there was a decalcomania made from wounds, could it also be considered blood relations? Cedric couldn’t understand what Lillian was drawing from Agnes’s portrait. It might have been longing for the mother she hadn’t met. Or maybe she was just curious about the person who had been the mistress here.
Cedric now wanted to ask the question he couldn’t ask back then.
‘Lillian, what on earth… are you thinking?’
Would Agnes have known what to do in a situation like this?
The reason he randomly took out the pendant was probably akin to an ordinary person seeking God in moments of crisis. Cedric knew he had touched the child’s wounds. But he didn’t know what to do. What Lillian did was clearly beyond common sense. When something is wrong, it should be called out as wrong, shouldn’t it?
As the thought struck him, Agnes’s laughter echoed in his ears.
-You’re so stubborn! You’ll surely suffer if you live so inflexibly!
When was that conversation?
-I don’t understand, Agnes. Is it considered stubborn not to believe in superstitions?
-You don’t believe in anything, so yes, you’re stubborn.
Ah, it was a conversation about the pendant.
Since having the child, Agnes always wore this pendant around her neck, and she used to say this habitually.
-This will protect our child.
Of course, Cedric didn’t believe it. However, since the pendant was a gift from Cedric, he didn’t feel too bad about his wife cherishing the gift he had given her, so he pretended not to notice.
But why did those words linger so persistently?
“In the end, the pendant disappeared along with the child.”
Whether the pendant actually protected the child, Agnes’s words, Cedric couldn’t tell.
But if Odile was indeed the real child, why was the pendant with Lillian from Merryfield Orphanage, which was quite far from Hereford Orphanage?
Although Merryfield and Hereford weren’t that distant, they were far enough to require a carriage ride. It seemed odd to attribute it to some kind of mistake.
Lillian’s words resurfaced in his mind.
=Odile isn’t your daughter.
Cedric fell silent. A heavy silence fell in the room for a moment. He concluded that he needed to reinvestigate Odile by calling Cosmo. And in that moment of intending to call Cosmo, there was a brief moment of wanting to ring the bell.
Soon after the sound of knocking on the door, it creaked open.
It was Theo who appeared. Cedric frowned reflexively since he knew that Theo was close to Lillian.
“What’s the matter?”
“Forgive me, Your Grace. Is it true that Lady Lillian…has left the estate?”
“It is. If that’s why you’re here, you may as well turn back.”
But instead of leaving, Theo asked another question.
“Did you know that Lady Lillian hurt her hand?”
“…What?”
Cedric’s eyes widened. He hadn’t heard anything about Lillian injuring her hand. Of course not. Nobody dared to bring up Lillian’s matters in front of an angry Cedric.
“Yesterday, Lady Lillian injured her hand, and I treated her. I assumed you were aware, but did you truly not know?”
“….!”
Only then did Cedric recall Lillian, who had been hiding her hand behind her back in front of him. He hadn’t paid such close attention, probably because she was trying to conceal the bandages.
As Cedric’s face stiffened, Theo seemed to understand the meaning even without a response. A reprimand seemed to loom over his face.
At that moment, another figure entered behind Theo. It was Maynard Duke’s butler, Stephan.
“Forgive me, Your Grace. I have something important to discuss…”
“What is it?”
“It’s about what happened in the greenhouse today.”
Cedric’s brow furrowed again as Lillian’s matter was brought up once more.
Stephan also treated Lillian as if she were his own granddaughter. If Stephan were to be pressed about Lillian’s affairs, Cedric’s patience might run thin.
However, the color drained from Cedric’s face at Stephan’s following words.
“There’s someone who witnessed what happened outside the greenhouse.”
“…What?”
“The gardener claims to have seen Miss Odile splashing tea water on herself. He said the young lady didn’t do anything.”
In Cedric’s stunned mind, Lillian’s voice echoed again.
-I didn’t do it.
-Odile isn’t your daughter.
If he could turn back time, Cedric wanted to apologize to Lillian then.
