The Radiant Young Lady of the Dark Family - Chapter 4
As you can see, her aunt opened the door four days later than scheduled due to being preoccupied with art dealer negotiations, which became a lifelong trauma for Hartbisa. So afterward, Hartbisa would have seizures in narrow, dark places and couldn’t even ride in carriages after the sunset.
If she were to see Lady Helena again, she thought she would harm her terribly out of indignation. The previous Hartbisa believed that all her misfortunes started because of her aunt.
But strangely, her mind was incredibly calm.
Hartbisa smiled, her eyes curving into crescents.
“I’m glad. That aunt is still the same incompetent person.”
“What?”
“Nothing has changed, making my worries seem foolish. Stay healthy for a long time like this, aunt. It would be too disappointing if you crumbled all at once.”
“You, are you crazy?”
Helena asked back as if she couldn’t understand what she had just heard. Her wide-open eyes even looked somewhat foolish.
Hartbisa raised her lips slightly.
“No, my mind is clearer than ever. Clear enough to see this unsightly appearance vividly.”
Hartbisa walked towards the window and opened it wide.
Instantly, cold air rushed into the drawing room, and the hazy smoke that filled the room escaped outside.
Outside the mansion where white smoke poured out in clumps, it was dark. Even though it was clearly daytime, the sky was noticeably black and gloomy.
A sky so black and murky that the cherry blossoms seen in the earlier painting were unimaginable. It was the sky of the harsh Chelsea territory, called a land befitting the Cellie duchy in the world.
Hartbisa took a deep breath. She made an expression as if she could finally breathe.
“Even if people in the world point fingers and call you a scoundrel, shouldn’t you avoid looking as cheap as a prostitute, aunt?”
Helena’s expression turned pale, almost stiffening like a corpse. But Hartbisa had no intention of stopping. This was just the beginning.
Hartbisa walked back closer to her aunt.
“Did you know that the maids were bringing meals that one would only give to beasts? Or was that your intention as well?”
She already knew that it wasn’t a separate instruction from her aunt.
Without specific instructions, her aunt’s minions who wanted to please her eyes became her hands and feet, tormenting Hartbisa. Her aunt just had to pretend not to know, cowardly.
“What are you talking about? Did the maids bully you? Is that why you’re so upset with your aunt?”
Just like now. Hartbisa looked down at her aunt’s detestable expression.
She made it seem as if Hartbisa was now viciously treating someone who had raised her like a mother, unable to properly manage even one subordinate.
For a moment, she was excellent at pulling the flow to her side. That’s probably how she managed to monopolize the remaining assets when the Cellie duchy was exterminated.
When she was young, she wondered why her aunt hated her so much, but the reason wasn’t anything grand. It was because her desire to enjoy all the power and wealth of the Cellie duchy had grown.
No grand reason is needed to torment others. It’s just trash-like reasons brought about by boredom and greed.
Hartbisa spoke dryly.
“If you want to pretend to be a guardian in place of my mother, as someone said, you should have acted properly. Of course, with just such crude methods, you won’t be able to take over the duchy in the future, let alone step over even me alone.”
“You……”
“Lady Winblad, where is this place?”
Hartbisa deliberately called her by her surname instead of ‘aunt’.
As if to show off to her, who bore the name of Count Winblad, Hartbisa threw the dusty tapestry onto the easel.
A giant two-headed snake spread out like an old work of art, devouring the canvas placed on the easel.
Helena’s eyes widened at the sight.
The two-headed snake glared at her aunt with its bright red eyes flashing. Even though it was embroidery, its eyes were sticky, craving prey.
Her aunt trembled in fear as if she would be devoured by that old embroidery. Hartbisa didn’t miss that moment and said:
“This is the Cellie duchy, and the only person in this room bearing that name is me.”
“……”
“Don’t forget that fact, madam.”
Helena blankly looked up at Hartbisa standing in front of her.
Her appearance was undoubtedly miserable, with a skinny body wearing an old dress and covered in dust.
Even a bug writhes when stepped on, but this one didn’t make a sound even when ignored by maids much younger than her.
She thought she was just a young lady who grew up pampered and knew nothing, but what was in front of Helena’s eyes now was a viper itself ready to devour her.
Hartbisa picked up the water glass on the table. Then, without hesitation, she poured the water towards her aunt’s face. Helena flinched in surprise and reflexively closed her eyes, but only small droplets of water splashed on her face.
When she slowly opened her eyes to the unexpected situation, the flame of the cigarette she had been holding close to her face had gone out weakly after being touched by the water.
From the beginning, the water glass was aimed at the cigarette, but she had been intimidated by Hartbisa’s action without realizing it. Helena’s face crumpled as if hurt by this fact, but Hartbisa opened her mouth without blinking an eye.
“You asked what I came to talk about? I came to warn you.”
“…A warning?”
“Yes, don’t do anything.”
Hartbisa coldly said as she put the empty water glass back on the table.
“You should quietly wait like a death row inmate for the day I remove you from this house. That’s all you can do now.”
It was an elegant final warning that the returned Hartbisa gave to her aunt.
As soon as Hartbisa returned to her room, she washed off the old dust.
Since it was right after the incident in the drawing room, no one came to assist with her bath.
“Not that anyone was there originally anyway.”
Most of the maids who had worked when her mother was alive had quit or been fired. The few remaining ones were assigned the most menial tasks and rarely encountered.
Among them, she was thinking of finding someone to be her personal maid.
In her previous life, there was someone who stood by her and her mother’s side until the end. The maid Azure, that was her.
In her previous life, she couldn’t take care of her because it was difficult to handle her own misfortune, but now it was different. She intended to keep her by her side and protect her.
Hartbisa shook the water from her hair and strengthened her resolve. Then suddenly, her body visible under the chemise caught her eye.
A body so thin that her ribs were visible and two skinny legs.
When she first woke up, she was so happy that the after-effects of the accident had disappeared that she didn’t notice, but her body condition was a mess.
‘Born with a silver spoon, but lived without enjoying anything.’
At the end of that thought, Hartbisa suddenly recalled her aunt who couldn’t hide her bewildered expression in front of her.
Thinking about that moment, her heart was still pounding.
Hartbisa realized for the first time that she was capable of expressing her thoughts so articulately. Whenever she faced someone who endlessly hurt her, she thought to herself:
It’s not that I can’t say hurtful words. I just don’t want to become the same kind of person.
But when the moment came when she actually had to speak…
Hartbisa recalled her aunt’s face turning pale.
She raised the corners of her mouth with both hands on her pounding chest.
“Haha!”
She laughed. She thought hurting others would hurt her instead, but no! It felt so refreshing.
She hadn’t even driven her aunt away, just barely said what needed to be said. Some might say it was just the first button fastened, but for Hartbisa, it was an enormous feat.
Hartbisa laughed loud enough to shake the room. How long had it been since she laughed out loud like this without worrying about others?
From now on, she would never let anyone else ruin her peaceful daily life.
“For that…”
Hartbisa put on a thin cardigan and sat at the desk.
She took out a fountain pen and wrote down a few things that would happen from the current point in time, which she had learned through her conversation with her aunt.
Among them, the most important was, of course, ‘The extinction of the Cellie family.’
Hartbisa recalled the events of that time. In the end, her husband’s permission never came, and she couldn’t attend the funeral.
If only her aunt had written even one letter.
Her hand holding the fountain pen tightened, but Hartbisa shook her head and wrote down one by one the stories that had circulated at the time.
It was said that there was a big fire that burned down the duke’s residence, and the servants, her father the Duke of Cellie, and her younger brother Diyan were all caught in the flames, with their bodies barely recovered.
People said that ‘that’ Cellie, who couldn’t have failed to avoid the fire and hastened his death, must have finally turned the knife on his own neck, driven mad by blood.
But Hartbisa absolutely did not think so.
