After Those Long Days

Leila left the mansion as the western sky began to slowly blush with rose. Stepping out through the rear entrance that led to the rose garden, she was greeted by a cool, refreshing breeze.

Clutching the gold coin tightly in her right hand, she walked with determined steps. Yet that boldness did not last long. Claudine stood beneath the pergola where the climbing roses bloomed in full glory. She had been laughing and chatting with her cousins, but the moment her eyes met Leila’s she offered that same ambiguous smile from earlier.

“Goodbye, Leila.”

Claudine spoke first. One by one the young men’s gazes turned toward her as well. Fortunately, the Duke of Herhardt was nowhere in sight.

Leila answered with a bow of her head. It must not have been considered poor manners, for Claudine added nothing more.

Once she had hurried out of their view, Leila broke into a run. She ached to escape that strange, alien world as quickly as possible and return to Uncle Bill’s cabin. But the greatest misfortune waited for her at the very last moment.

At the boundary where the garden met the forest path, Leila stumbled and fell hard. The gold coin rolled mockingly across the paving stones and came to rest against the toe of a man’s polished shoe a few paces ahead. She scowled at the spinning coin. The man quieted the clatter with a light press of his shoe tip.

Leila’s gaze traveled up the gleaming leather and the long legs until it stopped on the face looking down at her. It was the Duke of Herhardt.

Startled, she scrambled to her feet at once. Her pure white dress was already stained with blood and dirt from her scraped knee. He merely watched her with that same unreadable calm. One corner of his red lips seemed faintly tilted.

Biting her lip, Leila brushed the dust from her clothes. In that brief interval the Duke of Herhardt took a leisurely step backward. The coin beneath his foot caught the sunset light and glittered.

Though she wanted nothing more than to abandon it and flee, she still approached to retrieve the gold coin. As she bent before the Duke to pick up the gleaming disc, the words Miss Brandt had left behind rose unbidden in her mind—those words that had cut so deeply, that she was no better than a dog.

Clutching the coin tightly, Leila offered the Duke of Herhardt a polite bow. She never lifted her head, not even for an instant. She lowered it as deeply as she could and held her breath. When she had fallen, her entire body had certainly hurt, yet now she felt no pain at all. How strange.

Leaving the Duke behind, Leila began to run again. Her knee ached so that she could not go as fast as before, yet she forced her legs to keep moving. Something rose in her throat, swelling until it seemed ready to spill over.

Only after she had passed through the forest path and seen the warm light spilling from the cabin did she recognize what it was.

Sadness.

“I’m giving this to you, Uncle.”

Leila held out the single gold coin with a solemn air. Bill’s thick eyebrows twitched slowly.

“What’s this supposed to be?”

“A gold coin.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“Miss Claudine gave it to me.”

“Claudine? Ah, that young noble girl.”

Bill nodded as if understanding at last.

Ever since she had returned from being summoned to the mansion, Leila had spent two full days sunk in dejection. She neither chattered about nothing nor wandered the forest and gardens. Oddly enough, those two quiet days made Bill realize how thoroughly he had grown used to the child’s presence in his everyday life.

When she was silent, the whole world fell silent. And Bill did not much care for that silence.

“So why are you handing the money over to me?”

He leaned a little closer across the table. Leila sat upright, meeting his eyes squarely.

“It seems like a large sum.”

“It is a large sum.”

“So if it’s a large sum, even if it hurts you shouldn’t just throw it away. I kept thinking about it, and throwing it away felt like a bad thing. But if I give it to you this way, I can repay a tiny bit of everything I owe you. So please take it, Uncle.”

“Those goddamn bastards.”

The words slipped out of Bill before he could stop them. Leila flinched, but he paid no mind.

From the moment the disheveled child had come fleeing home, he had known she must have been wounded there. Noble lords were all the same. He had pretended ignorance for fear of making her cry by prying, yet now the rising anger was hard to swallow.

“Leila.”

At the sound of her name, the carefully adult expression on her face softened back into a child’s.

“That’s money you earned. You keep it.”

“Money I earned?”

“That’s right. Pay for a job well done—entertaining a noble bored half to death. Filthy work, but you handled it. So take the wage with your head up. That’s only proper.”

Leila’s brow furrowed slightly, as though the idea did not quite settle. Watching the child ponder, Bill tipped back his beer and drained a long swallow.

“Is that so?”

She tapped the coin thoughtfully and tilted her head.

“That’s so.”

Wiping the foam from his beard with his sleeve, Bill answered with hearty certainty.

Money I earned.

As she quietly repeated the words to herself, Leila’s face brightened.

“Congratulations on entering the world of adults, Leila.”

Bill dropped a thick slab of meat onto her plate.

“An adult? Me?”

“When you can earn your own living, you’re an adult. You just did that.”

“It was only once, and only one gold coin.”

“Plenty of grown men stuffed full of years still can’t manage even once. That’s a fine start. A good start means you’ll turn out a decent adult.”

He piled bread and roasted vegetables high on her plate as well.

“Uncle, that’s far too much.”

Leila’s eyes went round at the mountain of food.

“You’ve been pecking like a bird these past days. Eat up.”

“But…”

“You know I like kids who eat like cows.”

Leila drew a sharp breath, then burst into clear laughter.

“Uncle, if I eat well, I’ll grow big too, won’t I?”

“Sure enough. Why? Somebody teasing you for being small?”

“Not exactly. It’s just… I seem to look like such a little child. It bothers me.”

Well, you are a little child.

Bill swallowed the careless reply that almost escaped.

Leila began cutting her meat with careful concentration. Looking closely, she really had grown quite a bit in only a few months. No longer stick-thin, the girl was becoming rather pretty. Her natural frame was bird-small and slender; even fully grown she would never be large. Yet there could be no doubt she would become a beauty.

The thought unsettled him anew.

For a girl with nothing, beauty was as good as poison. With nowhere to belong, she would drift and almost certainly meet a hard fate. He ought to send her somewhere trustworthy—but could an orphanage be trusted? That might be the surest place of all to ruin a child.

Damn this world. Damn these people.

Bill cursed once more the names of those who had left the girl in his care and finished the rest of his beer. He could not understand how such worries had ever taken root in the life of Bill Remmer, a man who had once asked for nothing more than that flowers bloom beautifully and fruit ripen well.

“Uncle, if this is money I earned, then it’s not shameful to spend it, is it?”

Leila asked after chewing and swallowing carefully.

“Of course not. Looks like there’s something you want.”

“I’ve filled my notebook. I’d like a new one.”

“Go ahead and buy it.”

“Could I get colored pencils too?”

“As many as you like.”

“Isn’t there anything you need, Uncle?”

“Why? Planning to buy me something?”

“Yes.”

“What if I ask for something ridiculously expensive?”

“Then I’ll save up a lot of money and buy it for you.”

Her expression grew even more earnest. Whenever she became serious her eyes darkened to a deeper green, and in those moments the child looked especially bright and dear.

Bill laughed loudly and refilled his glass. In front of Leila he set a cup brimming with apple juice.

She lifted it toward him at once. He gladly clinked his beer mug against the cup she offered. Beaming, Leila drained the juice in a single draught.

At this rate I’ll live to see the day she turns into a proper drinker.

The sudden gloomy premonition made Bill shake his head hard.

It’s only for a while.

Emptying his glass, he persuaded himself.

Days like that continued, and through all those long days Bill kept thinking.

About the reasons he could not raise Leila, about a proper place to send her, about Leila herself—that lovely little troublemaker who had appeared so suddenly in his life.

While he thought, the child grew.

The clothes he had newly bought for her grew short and snug; her skin bloomed fair and soft. The temporary storeroom he had given her transformed, before he quite noticed, into a young lady’s chamber filled with gentle air. He could still picture the little girl hopping and running down the path; now, from beyond that same path, a grown young woman approached with steps as light as if she walked on water.

Sitting in the chair under the porch and taking the breeze, Bill stared at Leila with a dazed expression. The young lady carrying a willow basket heaped with raspberries waved to him.

“Uncle! You’re home early today.”

Leila ran toward him as lightly as if dancing. Her thick golden braid swayed beneath the wide brim of her straw hat. Her flushed cheeks looked as fresh as the finest roses he tended.

“Been in the forest again, have you?”

“Yes. Quite a harvest, don’t you think?”

She held the basket up proudly.

“I’ll go pick more tomorrow. I’m going to make aaaaah—lots of raspberry jam.”

“Planning to open a jam business?”

“That doesn’t sound bad either.”

Smiling, Leila sat in the chair beside him. Come to think of it, there were two chairs as a matter of course. And not only the chairs—every single household article in the cabin had long since become things for two. Even though Bill Remmer’s thinking had never quite finished.

She rummaged in the basket she had set down, drew out a wild peach, and offered it to him. Bill split it in half as naturally as breathing and handed one side back to her.

Side by side they sat looking out at the forest, sharing the peach. The soft rustle of leaves in the wind brushed their ears. Birdsong drifting from far away was as clear as Leila’s own voice.

“Summer again already.”

Bill murmured without thinking. Leila, wearing a quiet smile, took off her hat and stretched languidly. When he noticed the old tool bag hanging below her knees, Bill let out a booming laugh. He had given it to her the first year she came.

“You’re set on using that old wreck until it falls apart completely.”

“It’s comfortable. And still perfectly good.”

Leila smiled back, giving the bag a little shake. Bill easily identified the clinking sounds inside: a tin pencil case, a pocketknife, a worn notebook, a few beautiful feathers and flower petals. In certain ways the child had not changed at all.

It was an ordinary evening.

While Leila took down and folded the dry laundry, Bill split firewood. While she prepared supper with practiced hands, he fed the chickens and goats. By the time the two of them sat across the table from each other, the sun had already gone down.

“Kyle is coming tomorrow. We’re going to study together and have dinner. Is that all right?”

Leila asked as she set down a plate fragrant with good cooking.

“Why does that boy keep coming to my house and eating my food instead of staying with his rich doctor father?”

“You say that, but you like Kyle.”

“Like hell I do.”

Even when Bill snorted, Leila only laughed and set a half-filled beer mug in front of him.

“What’s this half-measure supposed to mean?”

“They say you should cut back on drinking now, for your health.”

“That freeloading Etman boy said so?”

“Uncle!”

“Useless in every single way.”

He grumbled, yet he did not insist.

After their quiet supper the night grew deep. Once the cleaning was finished, Leila took a leisurely bath and returned to her room. Sleep pressed at her, but she lit the lamp and sat at her desk all the same. Examinations were nearly upon her. It was no exaggeration to say that the happiness of this summer hung on the results.

Night birds called on the wind. Mixed among them was the soft scratch of pencil on paper.

After long concentration Leila finally set the pencil down, unable to fight the eye-strain and the faint headache any longer. Her eyesight, never strong to begin with, seemed to have grown much worse. Even as a child she had needed to squint and focus hard to see details; these days the effort was greater still.

She extinguished the lamp and lay down on the bed. If she saved only a little more money, she would be able to have spectacles made.

Twenty jars of raspberry jam. Or perhaps it would take thirty.

Either way, it was not so far off.

She knew she could simply tell Uncle Bill and the matter would be settled—yet that very knowledge made it harder to speak. She had already received so much from him and repaid nothing at all.

When he had announced he would send Leila to school, people had mostly sneered. What was the use of teaching an orphan girl? She would freeload until she came of age and then become a maid of the house—wasn’t that enough? But Bill’s will had been unshakable. He had said it like a habit: Leila, you’ll turn out a pretty decent adult.

With her eyes closed the headache eased a little. She tried hard to sleep, yet the more she tried the clearer her mind became. As always on such nights, thoughts began to drift through that clear space.

The returning birds. Plans for this summer. The culprit in the entertaining detective serial running in the daily paper. And the Duke of Herhardt.

The moment the name surfaced, Leila’s eyes opened of their own accord. Beyond the familiar darkness she could make out the view outside the window—lightly swaying branches, the night sky beyond them, the moon and stars.

Gazing at the soft white light that looked a little blurred, she unconsciously held her breath.

After graduating from university the Duke had, according to family tradition, passed through the Royal Military Academy and been commissioned as an army officer. He had been posted at once to overseas fronts and had not returned to the estate for the whole of the past year. It had been a peaceful stretch for the birds of the forest and for Leila alike.

But this summer he would come back.

The master of Arvis, the Duke of Herhardt.