MLRLM 09

Chapter 9 …..
Funeral and Marriage Are Only a Step Apart (1)

Marcel’s body had long since been transferred to the basement. By now, it was probably being examined and carefully cleaned with fine cloths. In the bedroom that had once belonged to him, only his elderly uncle, the family physician, and the younger son of the Voelrevan family remained.

Timeo stared at the wall, which was densely covered with portraits of Phyllis Menez, with a look of sheer disgust. Was this what people called love? Did his older brother truly hold Phyllis in his heart? Noticing Timeo’s gaze, his uncle cleared his throat repeatedly. Only then did Timeo slowly turn his attention to him.

“…Come to think of it, you always coveted whatever belonged to Marcel.”

“I regret if it appeared that way.”

“My boy, my nephew…”

“Please, speak.”

“My daughter is staying in the capital. Though she is your cousin, you’ve never met her before. And with her…”

Timeo’s brows furrowed. He glared at his uncle without bothering to hide his disgust. Was he serious? Timeo felt no need to hear more and stepped closer. His uncle avoided his gaze.

It sickened Timeo that his mother’s brother, despite knowing full well how Marcel had died, still stubbornly insisted on carrying out a marriage within the family. Timeo had long questioned whether this bloodline was even worth preserving—enough to bar Phyllis’s daughter from the marriage by using the pretext of poison.

Was it even necessary to maintain this line of blood?

“To speak to a nephew I’ve seen for the first time in ten years and suggest he clings to a cousin so casually…”

“You should reconsider proposing to the Menez girl.”

“Uncle, allow me to inform you of something.”

“What is it…”

“Immediately take my cousin in the capital and leave Comper for a while. Spend some time abroad as well.”

“How can you expect me to leave this land!”

“I intend to end the Voelrevan line.”

Timeo rubbed his palm across his uncle’s hunched shoulder as he muttered, almost gnashing his teeth:

“This bloodline is utterly disgusting.”

Having silenced his uncle with this threat, Timeo turned to the portrait of Phyllis. He felt as if several pairs of gray eyes were watching him. Each time the portrait had been painted, what had you been thinking…?

Marcel’s funeral was held with great solemnity at a bright noon. A coffin made of intertwined branches and adorned with various flowers from the garden was placed over Marcel’s head. The nobles whispered about the cloth covering the walnut coffin and the ceramic flowers. Even in death, Marcel was beautiful. His youthful face seemed almost preserved in the antique coffin. Young ladies lamented over Marcel’s youth with heartfelt grief. The famous young master of the Voelrevan family had even his corpse subjected to scrutiny.

Gossipers whispered about Phyllis. She had instructed Annie to apply very light makeup so she could appear haggard. She had covered half her face with a black veil and tried to cry heartily, but the tears would not come, causing her distress. She wrinkled her face slightly to coax tears, only to have Timeo, standing ostentatiously nearby, occasionally check her expression, doubling her frustration.

“…Look ahead.”

“I am.”

“What you’re looking at isn’t ahead, it’s to the side.”

“Should I honestly stare at my brother’s body? That’s rather disgusting.”

“It’s been adorned to be slightly less so. Try at least to show some sorrow.”

“You say disgusting, and I make no denial.”

“All corpses are generally disgusting.”

“Is it especially disgusting because it’s Marcel?”

Only then did Phyllis narrow her brows at Timeo and raise a finger to her lips.

“Don’t say his name. There’s a superstition that repeating it three times will awaken him.”

“Are you afraid? That he might wake up?”

“Not really.”

“And if that bastard did wake up, what would you do?”

It was a ridiculous question. Timeo lifted his head fully, as if to point out the absurdity of the assumption. Against the setting sun, his expression was hard to discern. Phyllis averted her gaze again. He was not a man to be treated lightly. Moreover, she was slightly unnerved by the occasional glances directed at them from nearby.

For ten long years, she had grown accustomed to Marcel’s manner of speaking. When he barked out in fits, servants were called to administer sedatives or simply leave him be. But Timeo was troublesome in a completely different way. At the funeral, where she wished to appear as a solemn, grieving woman, Timeo made no attempt to hide his massive presence; he flaunted it, standing proudly by her side.

Naturally, the gaze of the attending nobles fell upon Timeo. Here was a fine man standing beside a woman who had lost her fiancé, and eyes roamed openly. It would have been better if the duke had announced Timeo’s identity, but he had not appeared except during the morning mass. It was truly bothersome. And standing there next to her listening to the prayers…

“Standing next to Lord Timeo like this, it really feels like a wedding.”

Her maid’s careless comment lingered in her ears.

When she tried to blend into the crowd of nobles, Timeo simply followed her. Even the observing nobles took a step back, seemingly unwilling to interfere, although they would enjoy judging the relationship between the two.

“Miss.”

Annie quietly called Phyllis. Relieved, Phyllis smiled, forgetting for a moment that she was at Marcel’s funeral. But behind Annie stood her father, the Marquis Menez. Seeing the marquis’s face for the first time in half a year added another layer of fatigue to Phyllis.

“You must be tired from the long journey.”

“Compared to the grief of losing a son-in-law, a tired body is nothing.”

“We were not married, so I don’t think son-in-law is an appropriate term.”

“Even at a solemn funeral, you try to correct your father. Do you even feel grief?”

“Of course. I plan to collapse later under the weight of sorrow.”

The marquis regarded Annie, who nodded quickly to reinforce the trust in her mistress’s words. She would never realize that her eager nod made her appear awkward. The marquis glanced at the young man standing beside Phyllis with disapproval.

“Ten years of effort were all wasted.”

“It seems so.”

“Your mother is ill.”

Phyllis’s heart raced. She thought of the two women. She wanted to cling to the marquis and ask which ‘mother’ was ill. When she did not answer, he clicked his tongue. Coming to her senses, she finally spoke.

“Please convey my regards.”

The marquis did not recognize her biological mother. He must have meant his wife. Phyllis clenched her fist. She felt the bandage Annie had wrapped. The marquis muttered as he cast a displeased glance at the man standing near Phyllis.

“I understand losing a fiancé is distressing… but I thought you’d have grown up considering how you appear to others.”

“Pardon me, but… I’ve heard. He is the younger son of the Voelrevan family.”

For a moment, it seemed as if the garden had fallen silent. But the trees rustled as usual, and the wild birds of the Voelrevan estate continued to chirp.

“I proposed to Lady Menez yesterday. Henceforth, I shall be your son-in-law.”

Perhaps that was why the whispers among those pretending to recite prayers abruptly ceased. The Marquis Menez, too, looked thoroughly taken aback.

Phyllis turned her back on the mourners and quickly made her way through the garden. She shook her head at Annie, who was about to follow. She felt queasy and needed to stay in her room for a while, but she also demanded, absurdly, that Annie defend her from those nitpicking her for having been proposed to during the funeral… Then, she glanced back at Marcel’s coffin. He looked so alive, as if he could leap up and greet her at any moment. She almost wanted to press her ear against his chest. But she dared not, fearing he might stretch and break the moment’s solemnity. She steadied herself against a pillar in the corridor.

Servants were now setting a white canopy over Marcel’s coffin. Though technically against funeral protocol, no one dared protest.

One must not speak the name of the dead lightly,
and to truly honor them, even the night requires burning fires.

In Comper, coffins were left open under the sun for a time so that souls would not linger on the land. Sunlight was believed to destroy the soul before the body. Those unable to perform the rite laid the body out on clear days, so that birds and rodents could consume the spirit quickly. But Marcel’s noble soul could not be desecrated.

Walking through the pastoral corridors of the Voelrevan estate, Phyllis sometimes felt transported back to the early summer at age twelve. She remembered exchanging cryptic readings with two boys whose hair was the color of wheat fields, still unable to believe she was the precious daughter of the marquis. Those days spent alone in the Menez estate’s annex, with an elderly woman she could not meet, remained vivid.

At twelve, Phyllis’s life required a theater, a lawyer, and a husband—three things she needed desperately. It was a far cry from the days she spent wandering theater streets with Agate, a former troupe actor.