The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 64

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

Episode 64
Yet his gaze scattered elsewhere, and his moving hand stilled.
Eleonor descended the stairs at once to show him the niece he had been waiting for, and she came to an abrupt halt in the entrance hall upon discovering April in conversation with Kayani.
Seven years.
In those seven years, April had blossomed into a fully mature woman.
At the party she had worn proper attire, but that dress was her only one—what she wore today on the journey here was the very dress her mother had worn long ago.
“It’s been a long time, Aunt.”
As April greeted her, Kayani hid the Funeral Notice she had given him behind his back, as if fearing it might tear at any moment.
Eleonor gathered herself and spoke to her.
“Yes, it has been quite a while.”
“And how is Uncle faring?”
Eleonor found herself thinking for a long time about how to answer such a question.
Who could know what lay in that child’s heart.
Her brother lay dead before her, and the younger sister had lost her words, her hair turned white with grief.
That girl who had lost her parents before her very eyes, and now came to a funeral seven years later—who could fathom what lived within her.
Eleonor, who had meant to drive April away at once, suddenly turned her head as tears gathered unbidden in her eyes.
April smiled silently and spoke.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what? Why should you apologize?”
“Because it’s my fault, after all.”
At April’s words, Eleonor was seized with emotion and strode down heavily, seizing her by the arm.
“Come here with me.”
She pulled April toward the Study Room.
April followed Eleonor, saying:
“I’ll manage on my own.”
“You still have no manners to speak of.”
Eleonor spoke carelessly and placed April before Jeff.
April’s eyes widened at the sight of Jeff, aged so much more than her memory held.
Now Jeff had reached the very age her father had been at the moment of his death. And yet her father had not a single white hair on his head then.
Eleonor spoke:
“So the fault is with her—that the Lunos Family has fallen to this state. Can you not speak? You must tell her it isn’t so!”
At her raised voice, April seemed dimly to grasp the situation.
For a moment, the sound of Eleonor holding back her tears echoed through the Study Room.
Eleonor, having barely composed herself, spoke to April:
“That’s enough. Don’t mind such a person—let’s go downstairs.”
Just as she finished speaking, a sound like wind issued from Jeff’s throat.
Both women turned at once.
His vocal cords, unused for seven years, produced no proper sound, yet Jeff continued to strain, managing only that whistling breath, as if desperate to convey something.
Eleonor rushed toward him.
“I’ll understand. Try to say anything. I can hear you. I’ll hear everything you wish to say.”
The wind-like sound gradually became something resembling an animal’s cry.
Eleonor’s face, streaked with tears, broke into a smile as she spoke:
“You’re saying it’s not that girl’s fault, aren’t you? That’s it, isn’t it? I understood correctly, didn’t I?”
“Ah……. Ah…….”
Then Jeff began to cough.
April hurried away and returned with water.
Eleonor received the cup.
“Thank you, April. Here, drink this.”
Jeff coughed hoarsely for some time before finally managing to swallow the water.
After drinking, he was so utterly exhausted that he leaned back in the chair, his eyes closed, breathing only in shallow gasps.
When Eleonor rose to call a servant to carry her husband to bed, Jeff grasped her hand.
Eleonor looked at her husband’s firm grip on her hand, then spoke to April:
“Could you not stay the night? He seems to have much he wishes to tell you…….”
“Eli…….”
“…….”
“Eli…….”
For the first time in seven years, Jeff Merrow produced sound.
“Eli, my love…….”
Eleonor turned slowly to face Jeff.
Only now did she understand that the first thing her husband had wished to call after seven years of silence was her name.
* * *
Eleonor remained convinced that the reason Jeff had opened his mouth after seven years was because of her niece.
Of course, she did not deny that when he first thought he might be able to make sound, the first name he wished to call was hers, and the first words he wished to speak were those of love.
Through Eleonor’s forceful insistence that whatever Jeff wished to say must be heard, April found herself unable to leave the Merrow Residence.
Eleonor spoke, incredulous:
“What time is it now? You mean to climb the hill to the Lunos Residence on a night like this?”
With snow falling so heavily, the carriage could not ascend the slope. April, who had meant to walk from the base of the hill, found her point driven home and fell silent.
It was strange to be the object of someone’s concern.
Especially someone as temperamental as Eleonor, who expressed her feelings so openly—such people were rare in the Lunos Clan, making her care feel doubly unfamiliar.
The next day, Sunday, was Pejin’s day off, and there had been a suggestion to share a meal together. She thought it convenient timing.
While a bedroom was being prepared, April played Chess with Kayani.
Kayani said:
“Inspector Pejin has caught a cold, you know.”
“Yes, from throwing himself into the sea like that.”
Kayani nodded and continued:
“Sea Swimming is something you must complete once you enter the sea. You can’t keep going in and out……. But he kept going in and out, checking on where you were.”
“Watching me, you mean.”
“Is that what it was?”
Kayani tilted his head, looking at April with curiosity.
In the boy’s face, she began to see the features of a Lunos man—bearing a stronger resemblance to April’s father and the previous patriarch of the Lunos Family than to Jeff.
April said:
“You look like my father.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that often. That I resemble my uncle.”
Seeming pleased that he resembled his uncle, who was famous as a handsome man, Kayani broke into a grin.
The Chess match was not even close. April won easily.
Unlike Kayani, who regarded the game as a social device accompanying conversation, April focused intently on the board.
Only one who concentrates on the game considers the next move. Kayani’s defeat in such a short time was inevitable.
After finishing Chess, Kayani checked the Funeral Notice April had written once more.
“It’s May.”
“Yes. The month when the finest season begins.”
“Indeed, no season is as beautiful as our May.”
The funeral had been set for May.
After seven years had passed, the ceremony served only as a formality, so she had chosen the most beautiful season in the Grand Duchy.
Amid the quiet Mountain Range’s Eternal Snow and the Verdure that bloomed beautifully year after year, she had finally resolved to bid her parents farewell. She did not dislike April, the month of her birth, but still she wished to hold her parents’ funeral in beauty.
April often reflected on April.
The beauty of May did not suit her; she was glad to have been born in April.
Neither winter nor spring.
The snow accumulated through the cold months began to melt in patches, and the sky was so clouded and rain-heavy that clear blue days were nearly impossible to find.
A season when not a single flower blooms.
Yet the reason she did not hate April was that it was the season when the greetings of fishermen who had endured the harsh winter sea grew long and generous.
After parting with Kayani, April entered the bedroom and hesitated at its excessively lovely atmosphere. It was the result of Eleonor, who had only a son, manifesting her excessive desire for a “daughter.”
In truth, it was not entirely Eleonor’s fault. The happy April of her childhood was a girl who insisted that everything be resplendent.
Remembering that fourteen-year-old girl, Eleonor must have chosen to drape the Canopy so lavishly, to wind ribbons relentlessly around the wooden pillars.
A basket on the table overflowed with Roses.
In this bedroom, furnished with all her beautiful things arranged with care, April could not speak for a long time. At first from embarrassment, then from an overwhelming sense of longing.
All that she had possessed had been her parents’ love.
What had disappeared must have been that very thing.
April clenched her teeth and, closing her eyes very slowly, held back the tears that threatened to fall.
Lying in the bed, she thought again and again that it had been right to come seek out her relatives.
No matter how many times she considered it, it had been the right choice.

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