About Your Pride and My Prejudice

Chapter 36: Alan Leopold’s Perfume

Even after returning to the room, I couldn’t hide my strange feeling.

How did Alan Leopold know my address?

It is certain that Alan at that time must have known my name. I’ve been a socialite for a while just because I danced with him.

Even the academy, which had nothing to do with me, was noisy under the name of Melissa Collins, so it is hard to say that my name would not have entered the ears of the person who danced with me.

However, to assume that Alan Leopold carried me in the carriage and inquired about Collins’ location here and there, this is also somewhat dubious.

I heard that my body was still cold when he arrived home with me, which would mean that the time I spent in the carriage was not long. At that time, I collapsed on the way home, so it would be natural to interpret that the carriage headed straight for my house on that road.

Also, at that time it was snowing so heavily that it would have been difficult to even find the passers-by. It makes no sense to go looking for someone who knew Collins on that empty street.

Then, how did Alan come to my house at once? Does it mean he already knew where I was?

“…No, there’s no reason for that.”

I sat down in front of the desk and muttered. It was an absurd guess, but my fingertips were numb just by imagining it.

“Does it not fit with what Prince Bentley told me…….”

If I think about it in common sense, wouldn’t it be like this? Alan repeatedly asked me for the address, and I blurted out the location of my house, in my dreamy state. Like talking in my sleep.

“……That’s why I don’t remember.”

Thinking like that, I felt like I had found the hypothesis that was closest to the answer. This is probably close to the answer.

“Phew…”

When it comes to Alan Leopold, my habit of being constantly preoccupied with even trivial things rarely shows signs of being fixed. The days I ran into him are already long ago.

The word unrequited love is infinitely fresh and fragile. It’s beautiful like a grass flower with sunlight, and it’s also precious at first glance. However, because of that fresh feeling, even now as an adult, I am still frantically going back and forth between winter and spring.

What kind of irony is this? Will the day come when I’ll be free from this one-sided love?

Someday I will become someone’s wife, become a mother, and even though I am living the quiet days of nothing, for some reason, I feel like he will continue to live in me.

Unbending, cold, lonely, beautiful. Just like my love right now.

However, no matter how Alan Leopold is the source of my literary sensibility, it is terribly harmful to me now.  For me now, who is desperately in a hurry to cling to only writing.

I let out a small sigh and neatly tied my voluminous hair.

“…..let’s write, Melissa.”

I opened my old notebook. Reciting as if I am promising,

“I will definitely go to Lunoa.”

In a place where it is neither futile nor wrong for a woman to become a writer. I want to become whole through writing. This is a hundred percent pure aspiration.

“I can go.”

I managed to grab my pen. For some time, I was able to write down sentences that I liked quite easily.

Although it was close to coercion, my mindset has changed, perhaps because I was allowed by my mother. I felt free as if I had taken off the reins.

The burden of not knowing Troy’s heart, which had been painfully unresolved all this time, was also released when I came to the conclusion that it was okay for me as a writer to not necessarily know everything.

I decided to portray him as an ambiguous figure until the very end. By not showing everything, the character of Troy may become more mysterious and affectionate.

The moon hides a dark side, but there is no one who does not love the subtle moonlight of the night sky.  Alan, who became the motif of Troy, is also the same.

After thinking this far, everything went smoothly after a long time. The pen tip began to run smoothly on the rough paper.

And in my imagination, I already became a writer. With a very happy face, I was running innocently through the capital of Principality where the sunset was setting. One hand holds a book with my name on it, and the other hand holds a bunch of flowers for my loved one.

The fresh bouquet will be placed on the quiet dinner table for two people.

In the midst of contemplating and writing for such a long time, as a habit, I remembered Alan Leopold. Because he did not know that in the near future I would go to the Principality.

I couldn’t get rid of my thoughts about him and just kept it in my arms. If I hadn’t thought of Alan, I could have written more stories a little faster.

When it comes to him, I become helpless like a butterfly that always wanders in the fog. This is purely my problem.

“Yawn…”

Stretching very slowly, I yawned long. It was immediately after that I closed the notebook.

It was a dark dawn before I knew it.

* * *

It was a rainy afternoon when there was a sudden gust of wind in Collins’ daily life, which seemed to be calm and boring without anything else.

“I……”

While holding a late lunch, Julia approached with an anxious face.

“I’m sorry, ma’am…….”

It was not common for Julia to come near the table at mealtime because she had a habit of taking her share of her meal to the room and eating it alone.

However, Julia’s words brought more shock.

“The one who took the money from the cupboard…… It’s me.”

Neither I nor the two ladies spoke for a while.

“…….”

I was surprised that my mother and Mrs. Kerney had not scolded her yet.  They couldn’t have not known the person who took the money from both of them was Julia.

“Why did you take the money, Julia?”

My mother, who put down the knife she was cutting potatoes, sighed coldly. In the same voice as when she opposed my study abroad a few days ago. The knife placed on the table flashed brightly in the light of the candle.

“That…”

Julia was trembling with a pitiful face. The tension flowing on the table was so vivid that I grabbed my skirt tightly.

“……The dress that Mr. Longhorn sent…….”

My dress?

“After trying it on…… That kind of world…….”

That kind of… world?

“Hik, I’ve been longing for it…….”

Julia soon burst into tears of sorrow.

“I’m sorry…..I know it’s not the world I can reach. I’ve disappointed those who believe in me.….”

“…….”

I noticed at once what she was saying. I also feel the pain from admiring the world that cannot be achieved. Every moment, desperately.

My mother paused, putting the tableware down, and Mrs. Kearney, who hurriedly raised her body, patted and comforted Julia’s round shoulders helplessly. However, no one was still talking.

Julia, who had been crying for a long time, barely continued to talk. One day when she went out to buy fish, she began to confess about seeing a group of high-class women in glamorous clothes on the street.

Even if she is an immature eighteen year old, she is not young enough to not know her place. The circumstances of the noble young girls were as distant as the affairs of another world to Julia, so it must have been overlooked. But it was inevitable.

However, the winter dress, which is so delicate and soft that it is close to perfection, so the red dress that Longhorn sent as an apology, was a surprising product to me, who was sick of society.

So, how was it in Julia’s eyes? It may have been a natural course for her to secretly covet the lives of the precious and expensive upper-class girls.

“So… I just happened to be there…….”

“Where is that place?”

My mother asked in a quiet, but rather sensitive voice.

“It was a perfume shop…….”

“Perfume?”

I and Mrs. Kerney asked back at the same time. Perfume? It was a product that was known as an expensive product among high-end items.

Jewels can be kept forever. The fragrant liquid that captivates people in a brilliant bottle just scatters like a sigh.

“The noble women in beautiful clothes…… Seeing them go crazy for the little perfume bottle…….”

It’s like an illusion, it’s the epitome of luxury.

“I really wanted that……. I couldn’t eat or sleep at night.….”

“That kind of…..”

At Mrs. Kearney’s sigh, Julia finally dropped her head. Dark wheat hair fell into a miserable light.

“So… I took money from the cupboard and went back there…….”

“Ha.”

My mother sighed. Soon after, transparent drops of tears began to drop at Julia’s feet. She added, gently sticking out the small bottle she was hiding behind her back.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Collins…….I bought this that day.”

“Oh my god! With all that money……!”

It was only natural that Mrs Kerney would sound surprised. The transparent glass bottle was delicately embossed with flowers, leaves, and fruits, making it beautiful as if it were carved from ice, but it was small enough to be held tightly in Julia’s hand.

My mother had a pretty calm face.

“What’s this?”

Maybe she’s holding back her anger. Because my mother’s blood pressure is not good.

“It’s Sir Alan’s perfume, ma’am.”

“What?”

This time, I asked back blankly.

“Sir Alan Leopold……. He’s the lover of everyone.”

“…….”

“That’s why so many women were so enthusiastic about this perfume.….”

I had to suppress my desire to open the stopper and inhale the scent right away. Ironically, Alan in my dream has no scent yet.

It was because of my mother that I suddenly became ashamed of my desire.

My mother did not scold Julia. She didn’t even speak in a finite voice, but she told her to tell her if she needed anything in the future. She added that Collins’ income is not as small as she thinks, even though she is saving a little too much.

And she also didn’t forget to tell her how absurd luxury perfume is. My mother said that the only perfume she had in her life was what she received as a wedding gift.

Throughout the story, Julia shed tears and nodded her head. She seemed to already know the meaning of what mother said.

Maybe it was an accident. But the perfume’s value didn’t decrease in my eyes at all.

“We won’t be able to get it returned……. What should I do, ma’am?”

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Mrs. Kerney scratched her temple and asked awkwardly. None of us had a hobby of using such expensive perfumes.

“Let’s put it on the living room shelf.”

My mother said to put it in a visible place. Although it was a little small, it was a very beautiful object, so it would be perfect for decoration.

Of course, I could see straight through that it was intended to warn Julia in the future. The untimely gust of wind blowing on a rainy afternoon seemed to subside like that.

It was exactly three days later that I couldn’t stand it and opened its cap.