The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 21

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 21
As the fog dissipated, the constables began filing out of the mansion one by one.
April’s eyes met those of the constable who had wielded the wooden club—the one glaring at her as he left.
It astonished her that she’d made an enemy in those four days when she’d barely moved at all. She supposed it was simply her nature.
After the fog cleared and the constables departed, April stepped outside and gazed up at the mansion.
Hanna came rushing out, practically dragging the breathless architect Bauman, and spoke excitedly.
“Miss! Grandfather is going to build a chicken coop for us! A big, beautiful one!”
“Is that so?”
“And a house for Sebio too.”
“Sebio?”
“Sebio!”
At Hanna’s call, a hunting dog came bounding out, tail wagging. April narrowed her eyes and spoke.
“What kind of hunting dog wags his tail at strangers like that? He’d be utterly useless as a hunter.”
“Is that why he was abandoned?”
“Most likely. He doesn’t seem to have any talent for hunting.”
April bent down as she spoke.
Sebio came bounding over and nuzzled his head into her outstretched hand of his own accord. This was clearly a dog that had known human affection.
There had been an attempt to starve him to death—his ribs were visible through his skin—so April had Hanna feed him generously, yet he remained skeletal enough to stumble with each step.
Hanna asked with bright eyes.
“Can we keep him?”
“Even if I said no, you wouldn’t listen. You never do what I tell you to, anyway.”
“That’s true.”
Bauman, who had been listening intently to the two of them, spoke hesitantly.
“Then might I also venture to make a request of you……?”
At his words, April’s eyes narrowed as she fixed him with a stare.
Bauman’s feet went numb with urgency, and he spoke hastily.
“It is true that I came here under a grave misunderstanding, and I beg your pardon for it. Yet I implore you to take pity on this humble skill of mine. I ask only that you grant this feeble old man the fortune of being of service to this beautiful mansion.”
In Bauman’s words were phrases that Hanna found difficult to understand, and the girl’s attention snagged on certain words, preventing her from grasping the full meaning of his speech.
Still, she sensed that she ought not interrupt, and so merely looked back and forth between the two adults.
April looked up at the mansion. There was far too much that needed her attention.
At just this moment, this architect guest was searching for a place where he might prove his worth.
A beautiful structure in need of much repair.
To turn him away on the pretext of a misunderstanding would be to waste how perfectly their needs aligned.
If Bauman was right that young architects these days had nothing to do but copy imperial buildings, then among the younger generation there would be none capable of restoring the grandeur of this historic edifice, the Lunos Grand Mansion.
April reached this conclusion immediately, yet she did not answer at once, just as her grandmother had taught her.
Her grandmother, the Grand Lady of Lunos, had always shown careful deliberation whenever the choice lay in her own hands.
For instance, when April had discovered a certain pleasure in running and asked the Grand Lady whether it was acceptable to run in riding habit, she had fallen into thought for a long while.
And then the Grand Lady had told April:
“You may run. Only, run with proper form.”
It was a simple answer. Yet because it came after such prolonged thought, each word the Grand Lady spoke had lodged itself in April’s heart with greater weight and care than she might otherwise have felt.
She had not chosen her thoughts, but her words.
Only now, long after the Grand Lady had passed away, did April understand her intention.
Following her grandmother’s example in choosing her words, April spoke.
“Very well. There is much to repair.”
“Truly, Miss?”
“And one day, design us a bridge.”
“The bridge across the southern river, you mean?”
“It’s good when we understand each other.”
In a merchant family’s domain, people must dwell. Yet in the Lunos Domain, people no longer lived, and the markets no longer opened.
Though April had only glanced at it before leaving seven years ago, the world had transformed entirely in that time. The Permanent Market that had arisen in the heart of the Capital was crowded with people.
April understood that the concept of a domain she carried in her mind had already become obsolete in that brief span.
Yet she intended to build a bridge leading southward, to make the domain easier to reach.
If the bridge were built, those traveling north from the southern regions would pass through the Lunos Domain.
Where people traveled, shops sprang up, and money changed hands. April’s plan was to make people move through this domain first.
“I’d like it to be a sturdy bridge, and a handsome one.”
“Yes, before this old man’s days are done, I shall design it—I swear it.”
Bauman spoke with absolute conviction.
April nodded.
“Then you’re hired.”
At her words, not only Bauman but Hanna too jumped up and down with joy. April herself felt an inward relief at having found someone to work so easily.
April Lunos was resolving to make her domain one where more people gathered and more money flowed.
* * *
Yet April discovered by the very next morning just how beautiful a thing it had been to live alone.
Bauman woke her at dawn, already sawing away to construct the chicken coop.
Shortly after, Hanna’s voice echoed through the hallway.
“I told you not to wake Miss!”
Hanna was scolding the hunting dog Sebio.
The dog had already discovered who the master of this house was. That’s why he had pushed open her bedroom door and come in to work his charms on her.
The moment Sebio entered, he jumped onto the bed and tried to settle down beside her, and so April found herself unable to sleep any longer and had to get up.
“What on earth are you doing?”
April asked Sebio, though of course he could not answer.
Hanna spoke from beside her.
“Sebio is cold, so he wants to sleep here……. I told him he couldn’t!”
April thought children did have remarkably rich imaginations. Hanna constantly held conversations with the chickens, chicks, and dog.
Of course, there were times when she found it oddly plausible that these animals seemed to understand Hanna’s words, or when the things Hanna reported the animals had said struck April as sensible.
April dismissed such peculiar thoughts.
April wanted to drive Sebio out, but there was a problem: the dog was excessively warm. With Sebio on the bed, it felt positively cozy.
And Hanna even relayed what April wished to say through the window.
“Grandfather! The sound of sawing reaches all the way here!”
“What’s that? Oh dear, my hearing’s not what it was……. I’ll work elsewhere, and please tell Miss I’m terribly sorry!”
“Yes!”
After that exchange, April was fortunately able to recover complete peace.
She let Sebio stay and sent Hanna out, then lay back down in bed.
“……You’re quite warm, aren’t you?”
April spoke as she stroked Sebio.
Sebio, still far too affectionate for a hunting dog, licked her hand relentlessly until it was wet.
April simply left him be and drifted back to sleep.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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