An Unstamped Letter
That she had opened it before asking made little difference to her. Dolores closed the book and gave a small wave of her hand, and Anaïs came trotting over at once.
The letter Anaïs had brought was, more precisely, less a letter than a card folded in half. There were already traces of it having been opened.
"Ana, you—"
"I didn't open it first! This is exactly how Pablo pulled it out of the mailbox and handed it to me!"
Anaïs, looking scandalized, wasted no time pinning the blame on Pablo. Dolores gave her head a light push and walked toward the bed as she spoke.
"What's Pablo doing right now?"
"He's in the yard."
"The yard?"
"I don't know. He seemed all worked up about something, on his own."
Dolores unfolded the mail.
The sender was Claudia. The party being held at Pierre's Azaria Villa was, as good as, a farewell party for her—if Dolores loved her, she was to attend no matter what. At the bottom, it said an invitation was enclosed.
"You've been invited to Pierre Thomas's party?"
"Yes."
"Wow, I read that interview in L'Esquisse a while back. They said Pierre Thomas's grandfather was enormously famous for his copper and metalworking in Limoges. Apparently the jewelers of Narponne send that family their finest pieces every single year?"
Her younger sister, who had only just begun to enter society and was at that age when the world's gaze suddenly mattered, devoured flimsy, pointless magazines like L'Esquisse—publications with all the nourishment of sawdust.
L'Esquisse was a daily founded with the stated ambition of capturing the everyday lives of the people of Lange.
"Yours overflow the drawer already. They're rolling around all over the place."
"My drawer is only this big."
Anaïs pressed her hands together and offered her own rationale, but apparently even she found it flimsy, because she changed the subject.
"Are you going, unni? Claudia has such far-reaching connections. I'm jealous. But did you know? About that fiancé of hers in Hennessy. They say he's terribly particular."
"And where did you hear that?"
"I have my own little grapevine, running every which way."
Dolores snorted at Anaïs as she puffed up what little pride she had, and her eyes fell naturally on the thing that ought to have been there.
"So—unni, unni, are you going or not?"
"No."
"Why not? Papa's going to come home drunk to the gills today, and before that we could pop out and have a look together, couldn't we?"
Like a fox, Anaïs slipped in the premise of we together as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Dolores hadn't kept company with the friends she'd made in Lange for some time now. More precisely, not since she had injured her leg.
She had no great desire to attend Pierre's party either, but the thought that it might double as Claudia's farewell gave her pause.
Turning the letter front to back and back again, Dolores spoke flatly.
"Confess. You brought it over exactly as you found it, didn't you?"
"What are you talking about?"
Claudia had clearly written that she would enclose the invitation, yet the only thing inside the envelope was the card.
As Dolores examined the envelope a second time, a sudden chill prickled at her.
Nowhere on the envelope was there a postmark from the Lange postal office. No official stamp. No marking of the fee.
"I'm asking whether you really found it in the mailbox and carried it straight up."
"I'm just the messenger. Pablo suddenly ran outside and came back with it. Told me to bring it to you."
Come to think of it, it was a strange thing. Their house sat a little way out from the city, and the postmen only made their rounds early in the week. A letter arriving at noon on a weekend was nearly unheard of.
Throwing a thin cardigan over her shoulders, Dolores took up her cane and went downstairs. It was on the off chance that Pablo had left an invitation behind at the mailbox. Anaïs trailed lazily after her.
But who would have imagined it? In the front yard of the Artois house—a house too small to be an estate, a touch too large to be a mere cottage—something entirely unforeseen was unfolding.
Creak, creak.
The old swing set up in the shade of the tree out front sang its welcoming refrain.
Pablo sat on the swing, kicking his legs out briskly and letting them fall, at play. The clothes he'd worn so neatly that very morning were already smeared with dirt.
"When am I ever going to be big like you, hyung?"
Beside him stood a tall young man, lazily pushing the swing with one hand. Squeak, squeak.
"Pab, you've grown so much since I last saw you. Is that something to be so impatient about?"
For the briefest of moments, her heart slowed its pace.
It was Xavier, impeccably turned out in a fine beige shirt neatly matched with a deep grey waistcoat, his tie tied with evident care.
The sight of sunlight sliding down through his soft brown hair—there, of all places, in their shabby little front yard—it was, truly, like a dream.
"I want to grow up fast. Studying is such a bore."
"Once it's behind you, you'll find that studying and everything else amount to much the same thing."
"Really? Then what did you go study, hyung? I've only heard tales of Ludigeden Academy, but it's supposed to be an incredible place. They say just anyone can't get in. Did you know? Sis wanted to see it awfully badly too—"
"Pablo!"
Dolores cut in with a sharp cry. Startled, Pablo hopped down from the swing and clapped both hands over his mouth.
"Sis!"
"Inside. Now."
As Dolores began to scold him, her face flushing scarlet, a flustered Pablo looked back and forth between Anaïs and her.
"It's been a while."
Anaïs gave Xavier a sullen wave of the hand by way of greeting.
Until only a few years ago, Dolores had been close with Xavier, so Anaïs knew him well enough. She had simply never liked him quite as much as Pablo did.
"And you've grown past all recognition, Ana."
"I'm that age, aren't I. You, oppa, are the same as ever—except taller."
"Well, I'm that age too."
At the reply—so gentle and yet slyly crooked—Anaïs twisted her mouth into a lopsided smile. Then she took Pablo by the wrist and said,
"We're going inside to clean the house."
"Wh—no, uh—?"
Caught in Anaïs's perceptive grip, Pablo was hauled away without mercy.
The cry of the swing ringing overhead enfolded them all in its easy music.
The air was exceptionally clear today. A few flecks of white cloud were scattered across the blue sky like flung paint.
Xavier settled onto the swing, gazed up at the empty air, and spoke.
"Last autumn break I went to Diniro on holiday—to clear my head, and to be introduced to some acquaintances of my father's. But even there, it wasn't what it once was. Being close to the heart of the iron-mining industry, I suppose, but the sky was grey all the time. I missed a sky like this one so much it nearly drove me mad."
His lips, curled softly upward, held a gentle warmth in them, and that warmth blended with the peaceful air of the little yard—a yard too poor to be called a garden.
It didn't seem that Xavier had smiled that way from the very beginning, but at some point—she couldn't say when—the smile she remembered had become this one.
"...Where you went on holiday last year is none of my concern. What is it you want?"
"You got the letter, after all."
"You mean Claudia's letter?"
"Claudia asked me to deliver it, since she knew she'd be sending you one."
Xavier explained it plainly.
Because her father might have been home, he had first given Pablo some pocket money and had him pass the letter along instead.
Her father generally disliked Dolores's friends with perfect impartiality, so the explanation raised no objections.
Dolores let out an irritated sigh.
"Father went out a while ago. Didn't Pablo tell you?"
"He said nothing at all. Pab's no innocent, I see. When will he be back?"
"He said he had business in the city, so he'll be home before evening. I'll tell Pablo to return the money you gave him. How much did you give him?"
Xavier waved his hand lazily in the air. She noticed that the index finger of his left hand bore a faint pressure mark, as if from gripping something tightly.
"It wasn't that long ago. Never mind that—this works out nicely, actually. Get ready. We're going to the party. Everyone will be waiting to see you."
"You're the one who just came back after all this time. Why would anyone be waiting for me?"
"There were plenty of people who were rather fond of that wicked tongue of yours."
As Xavier joked, Dolores moved to twirl her cane—and his hand closed over hers. At the warmth that so abruptly enveloped her fingers, Dolores looked down at him as if by reflex.
"Your leg. Does it hurt badly?"
he asked.
"...Enough to notice, but not enough to go to a party with you. Sorry about that."
"There's no need to apologize. At that much, I can simply carry you around."
"You're the one friend my father hates most of all. I'm sure he'd be delighted to read an article about his daughter riding on your back. Just yesterday the papers ran the news that you'd returned, you know."