Theodore hesitated for a moment.
Did he need to break the seal and read it? Everything that had to be done was already written in the will. What lay inside would be merely private words.
A belated message from a father to his son. He could just as well cast it into the fire without reading. At this point, Theodore could not guess what Pavel wished to say to him.
In the ten years he spent at House Nox, Pavel had never once come to fetch him back. They had hardly even exchanged letters.
At best it would be an apology. The kind one wants to make when one’s heart softens at the end of life.
Even so, Theodore broke the seal. The letter was not long, and the handwriting shook badly; clearly it had been written in the depths of illness.
To my son, Theodore.
I do not know how long it has been since I last wrote to you. I hardly know with what words to begin… Still, you have chosen to read your father’s last letter. Thank you.
It seemed the father had known there was a chance the son would not even break the seal and would burn it instead. With a bitter feeling, Theodore went on reading.
I know there is no helping it if you resent me. I did not do my duty to you as a father. I am sorry.
When you left home, you cannot know how my heart ached. I am sorry. It would have been right to come and bring you back, to confess my wrongs and explain myself. You are a wise and diligent child; you surely would have understood.
My beloved son.
I never once said such words to you. Yet even while you were at House Nox, I always kept watch over how you fared. Despite all my many wrongs, you grew into a fine man, a knight worthy of the name. You cannot know how glad that made me.
And I am sorry. To you, and to your mother as well, I did nothing but wrong, and I bore it as torment all my life.
Ah, I am still bound by an oath. If only I could have confided all of this to you!
Even so, please believe me.
I never betrayed your mother. As a knight, I merely swore to protect Lady Peril, and Olivia, too, was a child I had no choice but to protect.
Please, look after Olivia. I hope you will inherit the duty that I, your father, could not wholly keep.
Did you not love that child? I believe that if you speak your hearts, the two of you can live happily. That child will surely soothe your heart.
And so…
In the end, it concluded with an entreaty concerning Olivia.
Theodore let out a sigh, folded the letter again, slipped it back into the envelope, and tossed it into a drawer. Had there been a fire laid in the grate, he would have thrown it there.
Even when he was little, Pavel would often say,
“Please think of Olivia as your own little sister and look after her well.”
Now that he thought of it, perhaps he had said it fearing that word would reach his son’s ears that the Countess had died because of Peril and Olivia.
When he was very young, Theodore had nodded as if it were only natural. He had been too young when his mother died to understand most of what the adults whispered. So he had thought of Olivia as a child who had come into being in place of the sibling who had been in his mother’s belly.
Pavel raised Olivia without discrimination alongside Theodore. Lady Peril lived somewhat apart in the western tower and seldom came to the main house, but at Pavel’s order the wet nurse would often bring Olivia over.
Then Theodore would take Olivia by the hand and roam all over the castle playing. Olivia was a good and gentle child. Whatever he said, she would open her big eyes—green shot with blue—and nod with wonder.
Then, delighted, Theodore would show off and teach her all sorts of things: flying kites on windy days, sledding in winter, showing her the room that made ghostly noises when it rained, and boating in summer. Once, promising to teach Olivia how to spell, he overturned the inkwell and made a complete mess of the study furniture and carpet.
Whatever they did, if Olivia was with him, Pavel did not scold Theodore. The one time Theodore had been truly scolded was when, having just begun to learn riding, he took Olivia to the ring and nearly caused an accident.
Even his memories of Lady Peril were not so bad. When he occasionally went to the western tower to see Olivia, Peril would stroke his head with a gentle face and set out treats.
But such a childhood never lasts long. Theodore learned who the woman called Lady Peril was, and learned that Olivia might not be a “girl like a little sister,” but his real half-sister.
He no longer knew whether he should rejoice or be angry. It was not because of his mother, whose memory was already faint.
At the time, he thought it was because of his father. He had long known that his father worried for and loved Olivia more than him, but when he freshly considered that this was because Olivia was his father’s own daughter, he found it impossible to accept, and anger surged in him.
Thinking of it now, it is laughable. One might be angry that a younger sibling is loved more. But to find it unacceptable that a man loves his own daughter, not another’s child—that made no sense.
He drew away from Olivia.
“Theo, have you come to hate me?”
Still a child, Olivia looked up at him with those pretty eyes brimming with tears and asked him so.
“I don’t hate you. I only resent you.”
It was the truth. He had not come to hate Olivia. He did not want to see her because he hated that fact. He resented her all the more for remaining in that kind and simple childhood, unable to understand his tangled heart.
Hearing his words, Olivia began to sob. Theodore felt a desire to comfort her, but he also felt he must not, and left.
Olivia’s crying still pricks at his memory, surfacing now and then.
Feeling stifled, he leapt to his feet. The liquor had set heat in his body; a breath of night air might make him feel better.
The hour had crept close to midnight. Without a waistcoat over his shirt, he threw on only a coat and left the room.
The guests had all returned to their chambers, but the servants seemed to be passing back and forth through the castle late into the night, cleaning and putting things in order. Using a childhood shortcut, Theodore slipped out without meeting anyone.
The night wind touched his cheek with a chill. A round full moon rode high—an ideal night for a walk.
At last he felt he could breathe, and he let out a long breath. His mind was still full of tangled thoughts, seized by a self-contradictory feeling toward his father.
Treat her like a sister, and now, marry her.
Well. He had no reason to grant that request. Through the will, Pavel had already arranged things so that, without Theodore’s involvement, Olivia could live well. He could simply live on without ever seeing her again.
Just as he had resolved at fifteen.
And yet there was no particular reason he had to do that, either. She was not his sister, nor anything else to him.
Then he suddenly sensed a presence and lifted his head. Olivia was standing in the garden where the small chrysanthemums bloomed. Whether she had gone to bed and then come out for a night walk, she wore only a coat over a negligee, her hair let down.
White moonlight struck her golden hair and made it gleam. The small chrysanthemums that reached her waist were all white, and in that tide of moonlight she seemed to stand swaying, a slender body wavering.
For a moment he could not speak, simply stood there.
It had been the same long ago. On the day he decided to leave.
Olivia had been standing in this chrysanthemum garden. It had been a sunlit day then, and the flowers were mostly yellow and orange. Sunlight broke on her hair in waves of gold, and she was smiling like a sunflower.