For a moment, the noisy dining hall became as quiet as a mouse.
Ranelli looked at the kitchen assistant and sobbed enough to seem convincing.
It was deliberate. The child knew very well how to react when people asked about her father. Back in her hometown, Ranelli had often seen the villagers asking about her father, which would sometimes cause her already-ill grandmother to raise her voice and argue with them.
“Waaah! Waaah!”
Taking a deep breath before letting it out sorrowfully, Ranelli continued looking at the kitchen assistant.
The kitchen assistant stared blankly, his mouth hanging open with an expression of deep guilt as he looked around nervously. His face had turned bright red, as though someone had painted it with red dye.
“I-I’m sorry, child. I-I didn’t know you had such circumstances……”
The people who had been gossiping with the kitchen assistant firmly shut their mouths and gave him sidelong glances, as though they had done nothing wrong. They subtly shifted the shame onto the man toward whom Ranelli’s gaze was directed.
The kitchen assistant licked his parched lips, took a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped away his sweat. He kept mumbling apologies to Ranelli.
Watching him, Hartland chuckled deep in his throat, like someone watching a ridiculous clown perform. After staring at the kitchen assistant with a look of contempt and thoroughly mocking him, Hartland dropped back into his chair.
“That’s enough. Stop crying and eat your food.”
Like the obedient child she was, Ranelli quickly wiped away her tears with her sleeve and spread a generous amount of jam over her bread again.
The child took huge bites of it several times, filling her hungry stomach.
Meanwhile, the kitchen assistant seemed to find his seat as uncomfortable as a bed of thorns, because he quietly got up and fled as though he suddenly had something urgent to do.
The remaining people, trying to cover up their own guilt for having badmouthed Ivnia in front of Ranelli, began treating the child kindly for no particular reason.
“Is the food to your liking?”
“Yes, it’s very delicious! I’ve never had food this tasty in my life! My mom is a good cook too, but we don’t have any money, so unless it’s a special occasion, we eat nothing but oatmeal porridge every day!”
“Ah……”
The kitchen maid, at a loss for words after hearing such a sad story, awkwardly changed the subject.
“Would you like some more ham? You seem to like it.”
“Um, if you give me a little more ham, could I wrap it up and take it to my mom? She probably hasn’t ever had something like this… Mom always works without even eating properly because she wants to give Ranelli good things to eat……”
No matter how poor Ivnia’s reputation was among the people there, few could be cold toward a young child who cared for her mother with such a kind heart.
Ranelli’s innocence and kindness, which clearly showed how much love she had received, became a mirror reflecting the consciences of the adults.
The kitchen maid had no choice but to get up, wrap some ham, cheese, and thickly sliced bread in a napkin, and hand it to Ranelli.
“Here, take this with you.”
“Thank you, ma’am! You’ll be blessed!”
“What a sweet-talking child.”
Ranelli carefully put away the meal wrapped in the napkin, then finished every last bit of the food that had been given to her.
The people watching the child eat so heartily smiled fondly, though every now and then, their expressions turned sorrowful.
It might have been a painful time for some of them, but for Ranelli, the wonderful meal soon came to an end.
Ranelli picked up the packed meal and the doll she had made and hugged them to her chest. Meanwhile, the doll’s head and arms, made by wrapping and tying fabric around twigs, kept falling off, forcing Ranelli to pick them up and put them back several times.
“Thank you for the meal!”
After cheerfully greeting the kitchen staff, Ranelli struggled to hold the doll and packed meal in one arm while grabbing Hartland’s hand again with the other.
“Now let’s go to Mom!”
“Don’t be so impatient, you little rascal.”
Hartland grumbled as he led the child out of the dining hall. But even he had no idea where in this enormous mansion he should go to find Ivnia.
He stopped a passing servant and asked in his blunt voice where the head maid was.
“Have you seen Selby? Where is she?”
“She was scolding the apprentice maids beneath the central staircase a little while ago.”
Hartland entered the main building of the mansion with the child through the back door.
“If we find Selby, she’ll know where Ivnia is.”
He spent quite some time brushing the dirt off his boots at the door. Then, just as he was about to take Ranelli’s hand again and go find Head Maid Selby, his eyes met Arad’s.
Arad had been standing diagonally against the hallway of the back entrance, waiting for the two of them.
Hartland gave Arad a slight bow and tried to quietly pass by. But Arad stopped him.
“Why are you taking that child around with you, old man?”
Hartland had worked at Gelendzik for many years, but he found it extremely difficult to deal with the members of the Gelendzik family. The old man simply answered briefly, as though he wanted to get past Arad as quickly as possible.
“The child was wandering around alone.”
Ranelli knew that if the owner of the house where her mother worked discovered her, it would cause trouble for her mother. So she hid behind Hartland, holding her breath and simply watching the adults cautiously.
But at that exact moment, the head of the doll that had fallen off countless times on the way there fell off once again with a little thud.
Ranelli quickly picked up the fallen doll head and shoved it firmly back onto the twig.
Arad stared at it strangely and tilted his head.
“What is that? A weapon?”
Ranelli opened her eyes wide and glanced at Hartland. Hartland nodded, as if telling her it was okay to answer.
Ranelli was secretly proud that someone had shown interest in her doll first. So as soon as she was given permission, she proudly held the doll out in front of Arad.
“This is a doll I made myself! I haven’t drawn its face yet because I don’t have ink and a pen, but this is its head, and these are its arms and legs. I wanted to borrow a pen from Grandpa Hartland, but he said he doesn’t have one either. Duke, do you happen to have a pen?”
When it seemed that the conversation was going to last longer than expected, Hartland put a hand to his forehead and belatedly warned her.
“Don’t say unnecessary things. He’s a busy man.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Ranelli flinched and hurriedly pulled the doll back into her arms. In doing so, the packed meal she had been barely holding onto fell to the floor.
Since it had only been wrapped in a napkin, half of the bread and ham spilled out and touched the floor. Ranelli’s face turned pale.
“Oh no! I was going to give it to Mom!”
The child placed the doll on the floor and picked up the fallen bread and ham with her tiny hands. Then she wrapped them up in the napkin again.
Seeing this, Arad frowned as though he had witnessed something disgusting.
“Why are you wrapping that up again?”
“Half of it didn’t touch the ground! We can still eat it!”
“My goodness.”
“It’s okay. You can eat things like this if you just shake them off.”
Arad was rendered speechless by the sight of the pitiful child and suddenly snapped angrily.
“If you can’t even afford to buy bread, then what exactly have you been living on?”
Ranelli did not understand why he was angry and simply blinked before answering honestly.
“We ate oatmeal porridge every day. Mommy sometimes sprinkles sugar on it, too. It’s the food Mommy makes best.”
“……”
Arad irritably asked Hartland,
“Has Ivnia not been able to eat properly all this time? Why are you sending her something like this?”
Hartland shrugged.
“Judging by the fact that the child has been starving herself and wandering around outside alone until this late, do you really think her mother has eaten?”
“What?”
Hartland looked at the angry Arad strangely. Then, suddenly, he looked at Arad once, then at Ranelli once, back and forth, before firmly closing his mouth.
Arad said to Hartland, who had suddenly begun staring seriously into empty space,
“I’ll take the child.”
Normally, Hartland would never have opposed Arad’s words, but this time he looked extremely troubled and hesitated.
“Well…… you must be busy, sir. Ahem. I only need to show the child her mother’s face and then I’ll take her there. Cough.”
“Don’t you have work to do as well, old man?”
Arad did not back down easily.
The old man was overcome by a strong feeling that he should not hand the child over to this young master. Judging from the situation, Arad still seemed to know nothing.
Perhaps…… perhaps Ivnia was carrying a great secret all by herself.
‘So that’s why my wife always took Ivnia’s side…….’
Hartland remembered his wife, who had been particularly sympathetic toward Ivnia when she had been caught up in the scandal seven years ago.
[What terrible people. Why won’t they leave that poor young girl alone? Oh, the poor thing…… The poor thing…….]
[What are you muttering to yourself about?]
[It’s about Ivnia. She was working again without eating anything. Someone must have dumped all their work on that poor girl.]
[What’s the big deal about skipping one meal? But what are you cooking right now?]
[I boiled a chicken to take to that poor girl.]
[Don’t tell me you slaughtered that hen you cherished so much? Didn’t you buy it because you wanted it to lay eggs? Good grief. Anyone would think the girl was pregnant. You’re boiling a hen just because she skipped a meal.]
[Could you lower your voice? You’re such a loudmouth! Shut up and go bring Ivnia here without letting anyone know.]
At the time, Hartland had simply thought his wife had been overcome by pity and gone crazy. To them, a hen that laid eggs was valuable livestock.
Poor commoners only slaughtered a hen out of necessity when they needed to feed it to a pregnant woman. There was a superstition that eating a hen that laid eggs abundantly would help a woman give birth to a healthy child, so they were willing to endure a significant loss to the household.
His wife had made Ivnia eat every last piece of that hen. Hartland still vividly remembered hovering nearby, hoping he might get at least one chicken leg, only to be scolded by his wife and chased away, left smacking his lips in disappointment.
‘It seems my wife wasn’t crazy after all.’
If his thoughts were correct, Ivnia had been pregnant with Arad’s child at the time.
Even then, Hartland had never believed that Ivnia might secretly have been involved with the former Duke, as the others had been gossiping.
‘They say you can never know what is in another person’s heart, but even so, it was obvious that such an innocent and timid woman wasn’t capable of something like that.’
More importantly, Ivnia had been in love with Arad at the time. Hartland knew that the two of them secretly met behind the garden. It did not look particularly good to him, but it was not his business either.
So if Ranelli had been conceived back then, there was no doubt that Arad was her father. Most importantly, Ranelli looked exactly like Arad.
Children normally look like their mother when compared with her, but when compared with their father, they can look just like him instead. Wasn’t that proof that the blood of both parents had been evenly mixed to create them?
Hartland was certain.
‘So that’s why she ran away.’
Then, had the former master known about it too?
Hartland had once overheard Selby complaining that the inheritance Ivnia had received was absurd.
Then, had the former master intended to leave that inheritance to Ranelli? But if he had intended to leave her an inheritance, why had the former Duke not arranged for Ivnia and Arad to marry, and instead allowed her to run away?
Hartland narrowed his eyes. He could never understand the thoughts of people of such high status, but instinctively, he realized that Arad probably had not wanted Ranelli.
After all, Arad had not protected Ivnia when she was being harassed by the mansion’s employees while she was pregnant.
‘He must have slept with Ivnia, then abandoned her the moment she became pregnant.’
Hartland was not exactly a mild-tempered man. He was always quick to flare up in anger. That was why, before his wife died of illness, she had repeatedly warned him, “Don’t ever go near the high-ranking people of the mansion.”
She knew that whenever Hartland had something to be angry about, he would not hold himself back regardless of the difference in their status.
And today, the thing his late wife had feared would happen to him had finally come to pass.