Volume 12 - CH 3.1

~Father’s secret~

The pure white veil seemed to have been directly woven using snowflake petals.

Along the unfolded edges of the lace, the words “pure of heart” were embedded in a lovely floral pattern.

This lace veil was cut out from cloth filled with kind feelings, carefully sewed one stitch at a time using embroidery thread, with many hours spent to create it. Whether it was the warm white color or texture, it did not have the slightest feeling of it being old. 

Lydia stroked the unfolded lace while sighing in admiration.

Just by slightly touching the delicate lace made it sway like waves.  If she wore it and let the veil gracefully cover her hair, would even the slightest gestures seem both elegant and dignified? 

“It’s very beautiful, Father. Was this Mother’s bridal veil?”

“Yes, this was from your mother...... she also received this veil handcrafted by your grandmother.” 

Lydia’s father, Frederick Carlton, narrowed his eyes and gazed at the lace which seemed as thin as snow, reminiscing the past.

“But grandmother was still willing to bless the marriage, despite Father and Mother eloping?”

With a simple and short veil, no matter what kind of dress was paired with, it would be suitable.

Even though this veil was fairly short, weaving such a lace presumably cost a lot of time, so grandmother must have begun weaving it bit by bit ever since Mother was young. 

This was the first time Lydia imagined her compassionate grandmother.

She barely knew her mother's relatives, partly because her mother had died young, so she had no opportunity to ask about matters relating to her home or family.

Besides, even if she asked, she probably wouldn’t hear anything remarkable. Lydia felt that ever since her childhood, whether it was her mother or father, it seemed that they have severed their relationship with her mother's relatives.

Despite that, she knew that her parents didn’t hold any grudges against her mother’s relatives, also including the old friends recalled in their hearts that no longer existed.

Because of this, Father remembered the veil during the time Lydia was going to get married, and had arranged for the veil to be sent to London, which was kept in their hometown in Scotland.

“Well...... yes, your grandmother was the only person to truly pray for your mother's happiness.”

As long as she wore the veil, Lydia could then step onto the red carpet with her mother and her grandmother’s blessings, the latter whom she had never met. Although Lydia had always been unable to bring about the sense of reality of getting married, as long as she thought this, then she would feel a slight delight in her heart.

Lydia, who just accepted a marriage proposal, held the bridal veil and thought of her mother.

Lydia followed her father to live in London, who left Scotland due to work. Lydia heard that the Northern lands that was her mother’s hometown was actually very far.

When she pressed the veil close to her cheek, Lydia seemed to sense the odor of the cold sea breeze from the Northern country.

“Father, how did you propose to Mother?”

Up until now, Lydia had asked him several times, but he had always evaded the question. Now that his daughter is engaged, he may be willing to answer. Lydia asked, full of expectations.

But her father still had a bewildered expression and took off his glasses, flustered.

“Oh dear, that is a thing of the past.” 

Then, as if requesting help, he called out to the housekeeper, who just happened to pass by the room.

“Ah, Mrs. Cooper, how are dinner preparations coming along?”

“Master, it’s no problem, the hotel’s cuisine just arrived, and the decorations of the dining room have also been finished.” 

Tonight, the Carlton family was going to host a dinner party for Lydia’s fiancé, who was invited to come and eat. Having said that, only a total of three people, her father, Lydia and her fiancé will be dining together. 

Although he often visited Lydia’s house prior to the engagement, and Lydia and her father accepted his invitations to have dinner at his mansion, now, as the two have been formally engaged, this was his first time formally coming to the Carlton house to have a meal.

Thus, this dinner will not be regarded as an ordinary meal, because Lydia’s fiancé was an aristocrat.

Although this fiancé wasn’t a picky person regarding the dishes on an ordinary family’s dining table, the Carlton family frequently dealt with the upper class, thus they believed that attention to forms of etiquette couldn’t be tossed aside.

Now that he was invited to dinner, they had to entertain him using the formal mannerisms of dining.

“I don’t know whether the Handel’s hotel dishes will suit the Earl’s tastes.” 

Father anxiously stared at Lydia.

“He is normally used to eating high-class French cuisine so I suppose it’s okay to occasionally eat something uncommon, right?” 

The Carlton family wasn’t of the upper class, but was still regarded as well-off and had a certain social status; with regards to the middle class people, this house’s dining hall was quite popular. It was only natural that the Carlton family hired a chef, but all in all, she was a chef who wasn’t an expert in formal dinners or in banquet dishes.

And because of this, although they had only invited one person to dinner, Father unconsciously began to panic.

“Is that so…… Ah, perhaps it is, in any case, the Earl probably isn’t interested in the cuisine.”

He looked at Lydia, and said this rather forlornly. 

With regards to Father, the time to invite his only daughter’s fiancé to come and dine simply wasn’t a time to enjoy the cuisine.

“So, the young lady should more or less go and prepare, you must dress more luxuriously than the main meal.”

I’m not a delicacy. Lydia thought, while her father nodded, urging her to get up.

“If you are more eye-catching than the cuisine, you might as well be devoured because the Earl is like a wolf.”

Not knowing when, Nico came to their side and stood on his hind feet.

This fairy cat that gracefully swung its furry tail was Lydia’s friend who remained by her side from birth.

He was a cat-type fairy who originally came from the distant Northern lands with her mother, yet he considered himself as a gentleman; apart from always fastening his bowtie, he was also quite particular about food and wine and always put on an act.

“Oh Nico, you also don’t know how Father proposed to Mother, do you?”

Lydia asked Nico as they walked up the stairs side by side and returned to her room on the second floor.

“Well... I've never heard of it.”

Ultimately, Lydia was still unable to inquire about how her father proposed.

“Why does he need to hide it like this? It’s already a matter from twenty years ago, would he still feel embarrassed?”

“Generally, I think it isn’t the problem of being embarrassed, as even the talkative Aurora had never let it slip.”

This seemed to be a secret between the two.

“Anyways Lydia, why did you want to ask this?”

“Because I wanted to know what Father said that made Mother decide to part forever from her parents and hometown.”

Although Lydia already decided to get married, her sense of reality in being married into a noble family was getting stronger, thus confusing her more.

Moreover, Lydia’s fiancé was rumored to be a constant scandalous philanderer in society. Though she believed Edgar when he said he needed her, she really wasn’t completely without unease.

So she wanted to know how her father’s words supported her mother’s spirits, and how having that made her determined in marrying him.

However, this wish seemed incapable of being achieved.

Because her father intended to bring this to his grave.

(1) The encounter

Fairies only existed in fairy tales. Frederick Carlton used to think that.

But people can dream. Everything, including all the wonderful, beautiful, or scary things, people couldn’t stop dreaming of those in their imaginations who did not belong to this world.

Therefore, Frederick was deeply interested in all kinds of incredible legends passed down for generations and was not the kind of person who would laugh at people when they claimed to see fairies. 

But he also did not anticipate in his dreams that he would go as far as to step into the realm of the unimaginable.

Nevertheless, whether or not it was the fairy’s doing, it wasn’t clear to him. Because he was left with rather vague memories, he was only able to see it as an illusion.

He remembered losing his way. Not knowing whether or not it was coming close to nightfall as he was roaming about the gloomy wilderness, it was not easy to find the historic ruins. Before long, he managed to find it. The historic ruins were a group of rock formations towering on the ground, and those standing stones were made of smoky quartz.

The hazel crystals were like a glass of Scotch whisky, and was the finest smoky quartz through its high transparency. Such huge crystals stood tall, side by side on the ground. 

When looking at the crystal, he always felt that the light radiated from within, making the lights and shadows of the stone gently sway, transforming into a prismatic light.

The ray of light was reflected upon the sky. 

He looked up in wonder and could not help but think that this was fairy magic.

Frederick did not understand why he had such an intuition.

More than anything else, the vivid sight of the prismatic colored light was seared into his memory, but when suddenly looking back, his mind was distracted.

He seemed to have forgotten something important there.

But the more he thought about it, the more he thought that it was a dream.

It was probably a dream.

As he noticed that, it was when he was already sitting by the roadside at the outskirts of the village. 

He remembered that no matter how much he walked, the village was unseen. Since he wanted to take a little rest, he sat down on the grass.

Despite him only wanting to rest his feet, he accidentally began to nap. He thought that only an hour had passed, but when he returned to the inn in the village, he realized that six hours had actually passed. 

The inn owner said he got caught up in fairy illusions.

The local residents inevitably believed that fairies existed, and that losing one’s way on familiar pathways was reportedly a frequent matter.

He encountered fairies. In that case, that felt very nice.

Even if it meant that he was dreaming, it was very romantic. 

However, there was only one thing Frederick could not understand. At that time, he seemed to have picked up a small fragment of smoky quartz, and after a long period of time had passed, he accidentally discovered this fragment at the bottom of his coat pocket.

It wasn’t completely a dream?

It happened when he was still a student. One day, Frederick went with his Professor to a remote island to assist in the geological survey. As Frederick had not returned after having been sent to work, he wandered outside for several hours, so he was questioned by his seniors on where he ran off to enjoy himself, and they considered his wonderful experience as a clumsy excuse. 

During his brief stay there were endless things to do, so there was no free time for a mere student.

His friends said that the smoky quartz standing stones were too conspicuous; if they truly existed, a thief would have certainly stolen it by now. He thought his friends were right, and did not confirm if the island existed and left. Despite having this stuck at the back of his mind, he was swamped with work later on as a university student later on; he banished the matter of the smoky quartz to the corner of his memories.

Five years later, Frederick obtained a degree in Cambridge and became a mineralogist. Now at the age of twenty eight, he still studied at Cambridge and used the status as a research fellow to be a lecturer. 

The reason why he suddenly remembered those past events was because he just had a chat with his colleagues about England producing smoky quartz crystals.

The smoky quartz was only produced in the Scottish Highlands, but his colleague said that he saw the same huge smoky quartz on small islands far away from those Scottish Highlands. 

The crystal on the island that was placed in some clan head's mansion was an item carefully safeguarded by their ancestors for generations. According to legends, it was a gift from the fairies, and the clan head also claimed that there still ought to be similar things on the island.

In the Highland area of the islands, were there people that existed who still weren’t aware of the smoky quartz veins?

If that were truly the case, then the standing smoky quartz stones that Frederick saw were real.

Because the conversation reminded him of his past experience, regardless of whether he was standing from a personal or academic position, he still had a great interest in it. 

He was going back to that island once again. Although he had decided this, he could never spare the time. 

This time, the university's summer vacation was coming up soon.

The island was located at the far end of Scotland. In all likelihood, the English had difficulties having other impressions of this island. The sea breeze that blew from the Atlantic Ocean directly swept across the islands, making it a barren land difficult for vegetation to grow on.

Even Frederick, as a Scottish person, found it hard to believe that this area was part of Scotland. Speaking of which, for someone who lived in the Southern Lowlands, it was said that the Northern Highlands was like a different country. In addition, regardless of whether it was the language or culture, it was all distinctive. Located in a distant point of the Highlands, there was an archipelago made up of numerous islands in the sea; no one probably believed that people lived on them.

However, Frederick once again arrived at an island within the Hebrides archipelago. 

Despite the largest town on the island being a port city due to the rising of the fishing industry, if you advanced from the local land to this island, there will be a feeling of being suddenly separated from the human world.

The carriage continued to travel along the wilderness where there were no human figures, no livestock, no decent roads, and nothing similar to a forest with any plants growing. The standing stones suddenly appeared on the empty horizon, making Frederick feel strangely curious as if he were entering a different world.

The scattered megaliths of the United Kingdom were similar to these randomly arranged landscape-like giant stones, which Frederick’s hometown also had. He once heard in his childhood that it was the fairy's lair and afterwards it was known to be a historic relic of ancient mankind.

In any case, the standing stones were filled with mystery, as no one knew what they were.

Frederick thought about this on the carriage. After reaching the small village a couple of hours later, he found that it appeared to have not changed since five years ago.

It was probably always like this for hundreds of years.

The white walled inn and the pub owner with his smoking pipe on the first floor were also the same as it was five years ago. He was completely unable to determine whether or not this red-faced wrinkled old man had aged in five years.

“Excuse me, are there any rooms available?” 

The boss glanced at Frederick, who was only carrying a bag and dressed fairly light for a traveler, then quickly spoke something. It was Gaelic. 

Just then, Frederick remembered that only the boss’s eldest son was able to speak English fluently in this inn. He couldn’t understand Gaelic.

Just when he was worried about what he ought to do……

“He said to please wait a little more if you wanted to stay, as they prepare the room first.”

This was spoken in beautiful English with no Highlander accent. A woman sitting towards the side of the inner pub smiled and looked at him.

She had a Scottish tartan scarf covering her hair, and was wearing a gray skirt without any decorations. Because her clothes were honestly too simple, he couldn’t help but feel she was an older lady. But upon turning around, her features were quite young, approximately twenty years old.

Frederick usually never paid any particular attention to other people's appearances, but even he knew that this person was a considerably outstanding beauty, and the girl’s smile didn’t have the least bit of displeasure.

The inn owner handed him a beer and went up the second floor. Then the girl approached and sat next to him. 

“You are English, right?” 

Full of interest, she appraised Frederick, probably thinking that he was a dull man rather than a strange one.

Frederick hadn’t had a haircut recently, so his hair was unkempt, and was wearing round eyeglasses, which weren’t pleasing to the eye.  Although his fingers had formed calluses from writing so much for a long time, there was no muscle in his arms. His unironed shirt had faded from washing and his coat was wrinkled, so he didn’t look to be a man with a decent occupation. 

Since Frederick was twenty eight years old, his mentors, colleagues, his parents and relatives were concerned over marriage, and so at parties and other occasions women had been introduced to him. But the women who were introduced to Frederick at parties and other occasions would assess him in a split second for the most part, assuming an attitude of wanting to leave as soon as possible. 

Many people approved of his great success in research, but he also knew that this was not something that could attract women.

Therefore, Frederick couldn’t help but be confused at her intense gaze.

“No, umm... I'm Scottish.” 

“Someone from the lowlands? The people in this region think that as long as you’re not a Highlander, then you’re English.”

From the edge of the scarf you could catch a glimpse of her pale hair that was almost fair as her skin. Her eyes were light blue. 

The more one advanced towards the Northern islands, the more one would frequently see tall, blonde haired, fair skinned people who bore conspicuous characteristics of the Nordics.

They are descendants of the Celtics who speak Gaelic, and who also possess the thickly mixed blood with the Nordic Vikings.

“I am Aurora McKeel. Pleased to meet you.” 

She cheerfully extended her right hand to him. 

“Ah...... hello, I am Frederick Carlton.” 

Her hand was extremely delicate; she should be a girl who came from a wealthy family.  The pendant that shone on her bosom was an aquamarine, which wasn’t some cheaply-priced ore. 

“McKeel” is one of the family names among the major clans on this island. In the Scottish Highlands, clan heads act as landlords; therefore, due to the clan hiring tenant farmers, they would also have the same family name. But from her speaking English, it seems that she isn’t a tenant farmer, but rather a relative of the clan head.

“Why have you come to this remote island?”

“Umm… to see the standing stones.” 

“You like historic ruins?”