Chapter 4

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*At the beginning I forgot to mention the author’s note :

*T/N: Songs, artists, authors, books, quotes….  mentioned in this novel are from real authors. This novel took place before and after WW I. 

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___ Madeline, age 24. (The past)

From waking up to going to sleep again, life was lonely for Madeline Loenfield. 

There were no servants around her, except for the caretaker of the garden. Still, she was provided with good food, hot tea, and a comfortable place to sleep. It was a convenience calculated with precision to avoid even the slightest inconvenience. 

Madeline thought she was like the mythical Psyche. Psyche was served by formless ghosts in a temple dedicated as a monstrous offering. Madeline was also in a similar situation because she was cared for by silent shadows in the mansion.

Mythological metaphors came to her mind many times. She thought of Crete’s labyrinth as she wandered around the mansion. There were numerous rooms in the viciously large space, and each room had a different story.

Secrets she must not know. These were memories that would disappear under the dust.

And just as there was a minotaur at the center of the labyrinth, there was a Count at the heart of the mansion. 

The floor where the Count lived was a forbidden place. It was a place where only a fixed fraction of servants could enter and leave. Madeline, despite being his wife, did not visit that floor. 

Although the Count did not forbid Madeline to come and go, she felt the unspoken pressure that said “This is not the place for you.”

It was also an unspoken rule at Nottingham Mansion that she was not to engage with the Count, just as he was not to engage with her. 

There were many portraits in the mansion. Ian Nottingham was the 10th Count, so it had to go back hundreds of years. Portraits of men and women in Tudor-style clothing were visible. 

But it was the photographs that caught her eye the most. They were small black-and-white photographs placed beside the glamorous portraits of the successive heads of the family. 

Among them was a photo of a boy in a sailor suit, smiling brightly. His thick black hair grew randomly, and his expression was happy. Among the solemn portraits, this photo stood out as a very different one. 

The bright, mischievous face had a mean smile on it.

The boy was Eric Nottingham, the younger brother of the Count, a fact Madeline learned three years after staying at the mansion. 

He had died in Belgium in the war when he was 20 years old. Ian Nottingham must have heard the news in the trench.

Alongside the picture of the boy was a picture of a beautiful girl. She was a cold beauty with dark hair. She was the Count’s sister as well. 

Her arrogant, noble nose and tight lips seemed to prove her pride.

She was the same age as Madeleine when she was killed in an automobile accident. It was said that just before the war broke out, the car she was in with her lover flipped over.

Of course, there was more backstory there. It was a story that was passed down like gossip in secret in social circles. It was a story that had now become legendary. 

According to the gossip, Isabel Nottingham deliberately swerved and drove her car under a bridge. The successive misfortunes of the three Nottingham siblings seemed to be the subject of a rather famous conversation in social circles. 

Rumors were circulating that it was due to a curse at the mansion or the graves of the Catholics that their ancestors had uncovered. Of course, no one was shameless enough to ask Madeline about it publicly, but since she was not involved in any social activities, rumors gave birth to rumors, which grew in magnitude. 

From what Madeline saw, their unhappiness was nothing special. But just because they were not special misfortunes did not mean they were trivial. 

Every time she looked at the picture, she found herself involuntarily feeling sorry for the Count. 

This was a labyrinth. It was an old banquet table where wealth, fame, and history live on. Ian Nottingham was a ghost wandering endlessly in that labyrinth.

And the conclusions reached were always the same. Madeline was not Theseus. No one was free. So there was no need for cheap sympathy.

***

Madeline was not curious from the beginning. She wanted to make it work. She wanted to help the man. She eventually realized that it was only a matter of hope, but before that she was full of motivation. 

She wandered around the mansion, rummaging through portraits and photographs, lost in her imagination. This was when she had not yet realized the shadow of death that hung over Nottingham mansion.

Madeline even sneaked around the third floor where the Count lived. She felt she had to know him as well as possible in order to help her husband. 

She asked the butler and the old servants, but received no satisfactory replies. They just said, “Yes, I suppose so. I am sorry.” They only repeated these three things. She had to find out for herself. 

The rooms, with the exception of the study where the Count used, contained stories she did not know. It had long been empty, but the signs of use revealed that someone had lived there at one time. 

She walked around the room, trying to analogize the owner of the room. This room was definitely Eric Nottingham’s room. She could see several model airplanes and globes…

Madeline’s favorite room in the mansion was the room with the piano. It was a very lovely place, it might have been Isabel’s room. The cream-colored wallpaper, the fine piano, and the beautiful rococo paintings hanging here and there were indicative of Isabel’s taste. 

“She was a lover of all things pretty.” 

Perhaps she and Isabel could have made good friends. Leaving her unfulfilled dreams behind, Madeline sat down at the piano. 

She had played the piano quite avidly since childhood. The reason was simple. She loved the beauty of it. Madeline Loenfield adored the Romantic artists. She enjoyed discussing art and romance with her father. 

Madeline cheekily wanted to be a pianist. 

When she was seven years old? That was when a player in the Royal Orchestra told her that Madeline had “absolute pitch” and praised her with a glib “genius.” If it weren’t for her father’s cynicism, I might have walked the path of a musician.

She remembered clearly what her father said. 

He said that Madeline’s talent was half-hearted and that she would never be a fine musician. It was twisted cynicism; it was jealousy. He also said that artistic activities that confuse the spirit of noble women could not be encouraged.

Madeline Loenfield was in great shock for a while when she heard her father say those words. It got better in time, but it was enough to dampen her passion for the piano. 

‘He’s probably right,’ Now that she thought about it, her father said the right thing.

She quit because she wasn’t that talented anyway. If she had really been a genius, she wouldn’t have let go until the end. 

Leaving the bitter thought behind, Madeline sat down at the piano. Her fingers naturally found their places and she sank into her own little bubble. 

“Mysterious Barricade” by Francois Couperin. Madeline began to play her favorite piece. The piano, long untouched and untuned, began to produce a melody,

The bubble became more and more solid. She began to immerse herself in the performance to the point of forgetting that she was in the mansion. And it was then.

Boom!

The door opened with a bang. Madeline hurriedly removed her hands from the keyboard. When she turned around, she saw the vampire-shaped Count standing at the door.

“Get out.”

“……”

Madeline’s face paled. The Count’s cold frosty order came down again. 

“Get out, didn’t you hear?”

His thick brow furrowed. A man with a limp approached Madeline. The man was huge, even as he hunched. With each step he took, Madeline’s heart tightened. 

“Do I have to bring you out myself?”

“What did I do wrong?”

Madeline protested in a crawling voice. ‘I am the Countess of this house and the things here are mine too.’

“It is not your fault…..” 

The man gave a low, cavernous sigh. For a brief moment, his eyes hesitantly wavered. It was the first moment she found human anguish in the man. But it was short-lived, for he ordered Madeline again.

“Don’t come here again.”

The next day, the door to the piano room was locked. Madeline was so frustrated and ashamed that she almost cried. It was as if she had been deprived of the pleasures of life that she had finally found.

Her desire to help the Count clashed with her desire to never see him again. Her face burned with anger when she thought of the complicated expression on his face as he looked at her.

The anger was soon given up. Her mouth was bitter. 

* * *

A week later, a small commotion broke out in the front yard of the mansion. Madeline moved forward wondering about the sounds of people she hadn’t heard in a long time.

Workers were carrying a huge grand piano into the mansion. A curious Madeline questioned Charles, the footman. 

“What is that?”

“It’s a piano. Madam.”

“I know it’s a piano. I’m asking why it’s here.”

Madeline’s voice became sharp. She had to know if the Count allowed it. Charles tilted his head as if he was in a difficult situation.

“…The Count……”

“…….”

He whispered to Madeline, as if telling her a secret story. 

“It is a gift from the Count to madam.”

The Count was an unknown person. After getting angry, he always gave her a gift. Madeline’s heart sank. 

Did it mean he was sorry? No. Apologies are made in person. This would be treating her like a pet dog. 

Grrrr.

Cory growled at her feet. It seemed nervous because of the strangers. 

Madeline lifted the puppy and held it in her arms.

***

*Ian Nottingham- the Count- had a younger brother Eric Nottingham, and a younger sister Isabel Nottingham.