Meanwhile, left alone, Ranelli began playing with the pieces of cloth. Remembering what her mother had done for her before, the child’s hands were quite skillful as she made a doll.
She stuffed scraps of cloth into a piece of white fabric and shaped it into a round form. Then she inserted the end of a suitably sized twig and tied the opening shut with a string, completing the doll’s head and body support. Next, she placed a shorter twig across the first one in a cross shape and tied them tightly together, creating a body frame to which the arms could be attached.
Ranelli used as much imagination and dexterity as she could, attaching, tying, and cutting the fabric here and there. She did not know how to sew, so she could not make doll clothes like her mother did.
Still, with a head, limbs, and body, it had at least taken on the shape of a doll, albeit a rather strange-looking one.
‘I need eyes, a nose, and a mouth.’
If she had ink and a pen, she could draw a face on the doll. But the child knew well that such expensive things were not something she was allowed to have.
‘Oh, I’m hungry.’
The sun had already passed its highest point and begun to tilt slightly. A sound kept coming from her stomach, almost as if a dragon were burping inside it.
Unable to bear her hunger any longer, Ranelli carefully climbed down the ladder and hid herself at the entrance of the shed. She wanted to know how far away her mother was.
The child was obedient. So at first, she only lingered around the entrance of the shed, playing by gently stepping on the straw scattered everywhere.
“Mom… I’m hungry…”
But no matter how long she waited, her mother did not come. Ranelli clutched her rumbling stomach and stamped her feet.
“Why is Mom so late…….”
No matter how obedient a child was, there was a limit to her patience.
Eventually, Ranelli quietly slipped outside the shed and walked a little farther. She still could not see her mother anywhere.
Suddenly, Ranelli became frightened. This was an unfamiliar place, and her mother still had not come no matter how long she waited.
“Mom… Mommy…”
The panicked child could no longer endure her hunger and fear and began to sob softly. Even the way she hid and cried quietly was remarkably similar to Ivnia.
Ranelli wondered if she should go look for her mother. But then she remembered her mother telling her to stay put, leaving her torn between the two choices.
Unable to do either, the child hid behind a tree near the shed, tears quietly falling from her eyes.
Then someone spotted Ranelli between the wooden boards leaning against the shed wall and shouted.
“Hey, who are you?”
Ranelli was startled and turned around.
An old man was standing there, looking at her, with a pair of enormous shears as tall as Ranelli slung over his shoulder. He was also carrying a heavy-looking ladder in his other arm.
“Uh…… mm…….”
Ranelli tightly shut her mouth to keep herself from making a sound and looked at the gardener with pitiful eyes.
“Why is a child all alone in a place like this? Did you wander around like a foal and get lost?”
The gardener’s voice was far too loud, sharp, and gruff. Frightened, Ranelli backed away and fell hard onto her bottom.
The gardener clicked his tongue and grumbled.
“Geez, I really can’t stand children. They cry at the drop of a hat and fall over at the drop of a hat.”
The gardener strode over to Ranelli, helped her to her feet, and brushed off the grass and dirt stuck to her after she fell.
All the while, Ranelli merely watched the gardener cautiously, silently shedding tears. Seeing this, the gardener scolded her.
“What good is it for a child to hold back her tears like that? Open that tiny mouth of yours and cry your heart out! You look like you haven’t even had a bowl of gruel to eat…… Tsk. Hey, where did you come from?”
Ranelli looked around before pointing toward the detached house. The gardener stared at the detached house for a long while with a strange look in his eyes, then nodded as if he understood.
“You’re Ivnia’s daughter.”
At the sound of her mother’s name from the gardener’s mouth, Ranelli’s eyes widened. She wiped her face with her sleeve, relaxed her guard a little, and asked the gardener,
“You know my mom?”
“Your mother hasn’t come yet? It’s well past lunchtime. Have you eaten?”
Ranelli sadly shook her head. Just then, a frightening rumble came from her stomach.
The gardener’s face twisted angrily.
“What? Why is the child’s mother letting her go hungry? How could she leave a child wandering around alone without even feeding her?”
Then, as if he had thought of something, he became even more furious.
“They should at least let the child’s mother feed her! How can they keep her mother busy until this late? What has the child done wrong? What a bunch of rotten people. They ought to be beaten to death.”
The gardener spent a while hurling curses before putting down the things he was carrying beneath a tree and beckoning Ranelli over.
“Come here! You need to eat!”
Ranelli stood there for a moment, watching him cautiously.
‘Mom told me not to follow strangers.’
But her mother, who had said she would be back soon, still had not come. Ranelli wanted to make sure that her mother was okay. Normally, she would never follow a stranger, but she was afraid that her mother had gone far away and left her behind, and she was hungry, too.
‘Mom was the one who broke her promise first.’
Ranelli steeled herself, ran over, and grabbed the old man’s hand.
The old man looked down sharply at the small, soft hand that had slipped into his own and said, “Huh?” His eyes wavered from side to side.
In the end, he did not shake off the child’s hand and instead began walking alongside her, matching his steps to hers.
“Ahem. You shouldn’t go running off just because someone tells you to come! What if, huh? What if some bad people hurt you? Huh?”
“I don’t follow bad people……”
“You fool, how would you know? Whether someone is bad or good?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you don’t know, how can you know not to follow them?”
“Mom said that if someone says bad things, they’re a bad person.”
“What if a bad person tricks you with nice words?”
“If they trick me, they’re a bad person.”
“You little rascal. Anyway, I’m saying you shouldn’t follow just anyone. Understand? From now on, even if someone says they know your mother, don’t follow them.”
“Yes.”
“Good grief. What’s with that answer?”
There was unmistakable concern in Hartland’s eyes as he sighed.
He wondered what Ivnia must have felt like, leaving such a young daughter behind to go to work.
Unaware of the worries of adults like him, Ranelli smiled innocently and spoke to Hartland in a friendly manner.
“I used to live in a log cabin on a hill where lots of flowers bloom. I’m closest with Sophie and Anna. I don’t really like Charles because he keeps saying bad words.”
“I absolutely hate noisy children. Such a tiny thing, yet you sure talk a lot.”
“I’m good at talking! The adults said I’m the best talker among the children in the village.”
Unused to conversing with such an affectionate child, Hartland did not know what to say, so he merely grumbled.
Ranelli was not discouraged in the slightest and continued chattering. The fact that he answered her meant he was interested in her, after all.
“Oh, Grandpa, do you want to see the doll I made? I made it all by myself!”
“But why doesn’t the doll have a face? It needs a face. Where did you leave its eyes, nose, and mouth?”
“I couldn’t draw them because I don’t have ink and a pen. I’ll ask Mommy later. Oh, Grandpa, do you happen to have ink and a pen? Could you lend them to me?”
“I don’t have any.”
“Eek! Oh well, I guess it can’t be helped.”
“Where did such a little thing learn to sigh like that?”
Ranelli thought Hartland was a good person. His voice was loud and scary, but he was definitely smiling.
Ranelli remembered her mother once telling her that “a real smile reaches the eyes.”
Hartland’s face was scrunched up with countless wrinkles, making his expression look deeply frowning, but his eyes were smiling.
Arad was standing near the window, lighting a cigar, when he suddenly saw Hartland with a little child.
“Why is that child with the gardener?”
He muttered as he frowned displeasedly.
Had she said the child was six? Since a child’s age was counted as one from the year of birth, that meant Ivnia had gotten pregnant the year after she ran away.
“So she abandoned me, ran away, and immediately settled down with another man.”
Arad had thought that Ivnia must have been living a new life somewhere. But he had never once imagined that she might meet another man and have a married life with him.
“While I wandered around foreign lands like a madman looking for you for seven years, you erased me from your life and met another man?”
Had she said he had died? Arad felt sorry for the dead man, but it was actually a good thing that he was dead. If he had still been alive, he would eventually have suffered a terrible fate.
Arad muttered all kinds of curses as he imagined Ranelli’s father, whom he had never even seen.
“If you were going to make a child, you should’ve raised her properly. Instead, you irresponsibly died. Pathetic men only make women suffer.”
He was almost frustrated that he had never even gotten to see the face of the man who must have been so remarkable that Ivnia had chosen him over Arad.
Hartland took Ranelli straight to the dining hall.
Since lunchtime was already over, only a few people having a late meal and the kitchen staff remained in the dining hall.
Ranelli looked around with wide eyes, astonished by the enormous dining hall. For a child, the only place she had ever seen with such a high ceiling and such a vast space was the central hall of the main building of this great mansion when she had passed through it before.
“Wow, Grandpa! It’s as big as two churches in our village put together!”
When Ranelli exclaimed in amazement, the kitchen assistants sitting around a table on one side, peeling what seemed like hundreds of potatoes and preparing vegetables, looked over at them with interest.
“Where did that child come from, Mr. Hartland?”
Without answering, Hartland immediately asked the kitchen maid for some food.
“Hey, is there any food left? The child’s hungry!”
“I’ll bring some soup and bread. Hey, do you eat plum jam?”
“I eat everything! I’m not picky!”
Ranelli answered cheerfully, making the kitchen staff burst into laughter. They began asking Ranelli questions one after another.
“What brings you here?”
“Who brought you?”
“Are you Mr. Hartland’s relative?”
“What are you holding?”
But Hartland did not seem to appreciate all the attention. He took Ranelli over to a chair at a table a little farther away and grumbled.
“Why are you making such a fuss when the child’s hungry?”
But the kitchen staff did not back down. They kept asking Ranelli who her parents were, how she knew Hartland, and so on.
Ranelli answered brightly and intelligently.
“My mom is Ivnia. Grandpa Hartland brought me here because he said he would take me to my mom.”
The moment the word “Ivnia” came from the child’s mouth, the expressions of the kitchen staff, who had been bustling around her with interest, became awkward.
Hartland glanced at them mischievously and scoffed.
“Just like flipping over the palm of your hand, tsk.”
The people who did not hear his mutter whispered among themselves.
“She had a daughter?”
“Come to think of it, I think Selby mentioned something like that.”
“She couldn’t stand being a maid and ran away in the middle of the night. I guess she quickly found a man and settled down with him.”
Their whispers gradually became harsher. Unable to bear listening any longer, Hartland glared at them and pointed his finger.
“Hey! There are things you shouldn’t say in front of a child! Just because your mouths have no holes in them, you think you can blab whatever you want? Shut up, will you?”
Then an older kitchen assistant, who usually called Hartland “brother,” shouted back at him.
“Did we say anything wrong? That’s just how it is! We’re curious, so let’s ask. Hey, child, how old are you? Do you even know who your father is?”
“What you’re doing right now is exactly what a bastard would do, you bastard!”
Hartland’s face turned bright red, as if it were about to burst. He rolled up his sleeves and puffed himself up as though he were about to charge at the older kitchen assistant.
“What? You got something more to say?”
“A human being should know how to consider the situation before saying whether something is right or wrong! Do you think she won’t remember what happened today when she grows up?”
Ranelli, who had been frozen like a statue while spreading jam on her bread, rolled her eyes around before suddenly bursting into loud sobs.
“My daddy is dead!”