❦❦❦
THE cabinet sat on a table in the parlor. One by one, each drawer was removed and they peered inside. They all watched with rapt attention as Simon worked.
“The interior of this funadansu makes me think it was built for shipping.”
“What’s different about one built for shipping?” Joel asked.
“It’s built much more practically. To open it, one would need to insert the right keys in the right order, for example. The antitheft design is complex, which means…”
Simon measured the width of the boards and knocked on the funadansu, listening for differences in the depth of sound. Wherever there were differences must be where the triggering mechanism was.
“Here it is.” Simon had found his target on the side of the cabinet. The wood grain blended in perfectly, but sliding it up with enough force revealed it was a movable panel. The hidden compartment Joel had searched so long for proved an easy find for Simon.
“There we are,” Simon said, feeling around inside the hidden space. The letter was indeed there. Joel took it and opened the envelope.
The envelope was unsealed and there were no stamps, meaning the former baron had never mailed it.
Ah, my dear Isabella,
Is there anything that could compare to thy beauty? The flowers of spring in full bloom? The glistening surface of the ocean in summer? Fall’s harvest moon? But what of winter, our current season?
I can find nothing in the drab, colorless misery of winter that is worthy of your beauty. That is why I want nothing more than for your beauty to illuminate my frozen heart, every day.
Please forgive this flawed man, though his sins run deep.
“Is this a…love letter? The handwriting is absolutely Father’s.”
The envelope bulged with paper. There were at least ten pages. And every page was filled with romantic writings extolling his love for his not-yet wife in their younger days. Both Joel and Simon blushed while reading the flowery prose.
“Th-That’s what the previous baron was hiding? Pfft! Hahaha!” Unable to contain himself, Ernest roared with laughter.
“Lord Ernest, please! You’re being very rude!”
“I can’t help it! Who wouldn’t throw those out…! Haha!”
Despite Yuuri chastising him, Ernest grabbed his sides and chuckled. Joel could no longer hold his laughter in either. Simon lowered his head, but his shoulders were trembling.
“Mother?” Everyone looked to Isabella. She was trying to keep a straight face, but laughter was beginning to slip out.
“…I’m terribly sorry, everyone. I did not expect such a pleasant surprise. His letters were always so matter-of-fact and strictly business. I certainly never expected this!”
Though they had been together for decades, she was only just now seeing this side of her late husband. Though tears played at the corners of her eyes, it was Isabella’s laughter that continued for several minutes.
“He truly loved me, didn’t he?”
“Indeed. From long before you married right up until his death…always.”
“And yet I doubted him and exposed the secret he desperately wanted kept.”
“I’m sure he would forgive your laughter. He seemed like just that sort of man.”
In the end, they learned nothing of Joel’s real lineage. But discovering the secret depths of her husband’s undying love surely bolstered Isabella’s grieving heart.
Joel smiled, having seen his mother’s reaction and his adopted father’s secret. And yet, for just a second, Yuuri noticed a darkness pass over his face. He was staring at the portrait of his adopted parents.
✦ ✦ ✦
❦❦❦
YUURI left the barony. Just as before, Ernest insisted on seeing her home. And instead of going on to his own home once she was inside, here he was again in his usual seat, drinking tea. She had hoped for some time to ponder the day’s events on her own and hoped he would leave before long.
“Why the long face, my lady witch?”
“I was just wondering when you intended to leave?”
Ernest merely blinked and tilted his head at her curtness. Then he slammed his hands down as if he had just thought of something. “Let me see if I can guess what you’re thinking.”
“What’s the point? I just told you!”
The only thing Yuuri was thinking about was how badly she wanted Ernest to go home. There was nothing else to guess. Sometimes words didn’t seem to get through to him, so Yuuri strengthened her tone.
“I bet you’re wondering what Joel burned up at that gravesite…aren’t you?” Ernest guessed with a smug grin, as if he had it all figured out. He pretended not to have heard her when she clearly told him to go home.
“I-I’m not,” Yuuri replied, shaking her head, insisting she was not speculating about the baron’s personal affairs.
“It’s all right. He can’t expect us not to wonder. And he trusts us not to spread whatever we come up with.”
“Could it have been the real letter revealing the circumstances of his birth?”
“Most likely. The baron had been married over thirty years, so Joel was likely a son born out of an affair. Apparently Joel was taken in shortly after his mother’s passing.”
Their conjecture was that, as Isabella had suspected, there was indeed a letter detailing the circumstances of Joel’s birth. And that Joel had known how to access that hidden compartment all along. The bedridden baron, not realizing his wife was nearby, begged Joel to destroy that letter.
At first, Isabella remained unaware of the hidden compartment, and so Joel could go on pretending these were the ramblings of an old man in the throes of dementia. But then she looked into funadansu and learned of the hidden compartment and the triggering mechanism. So Joel burned the real letter before his adopted mother could read it and replaced it with a love letter from among his father’s effects that seemed a good fit.
If Joel himself opened the hidden compartment for Isabella, she would suspect him of replacing the items within. That’s why he needed an expert like Yuuri or Simon to find it for him, at least in front of her.
This was, of course, all Yuuri’s speculation. But Ernest was Joel’s good friend, and he had come to the same conclusion.
“Is it really all right to leave things this way?”
“Yes. What Joel wants is all that matters.”
The deceased baron had loved his wife long before he married her and he loved her up until the end. That was all that anyone needed to know. It was the baron’s wish, and Joel’s.
“I don’t really understand why he did what he did. I didn’t say anything because it’s not my place, but doesn’t she have a right to know? What’s the right thing to do?”
“What’s most important is whatever gives the living their peace.”
“Even if it means hiding the truth?”
Isabella had wanted to know the truth. With that in mind, it was hard to say Joel was right to lie.
“Good point.”
“I…”
Yuuri had things she was hiding from Ernest, too. Something terribly important that she couldn’t bring herself to say. Something she wanted hidden until after she died.
She decided if the lie was to protect someone, then it was all right.
She realized she was being impudent, but she hoped Ernest could forgive her.