Please Forget Me - Chapter 375

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

I don’t even know why that war had to be fought in the first place. Differences in honor or ideology mean very little to people who struggle just to earn their daily bread. They have no stake in the values the war claims to protect, yet they are the ones who die in the greatest numbers.

I have never once thought that the people of Highland deserved to be killed as enemies. Call me a collaborator if you like, but I still think of them as my neighbors. I pray, whenever I can, that peace and happiness will return to them.

But when, then, will peace and happiness come to us?

I’ve been hearing the details of the annulment lawsuit through my mother’s relatives in the legal world. From what I’m told, Rupert insists that he consummated the marriage on the first night, and you’ve been suffering because it’s impossible to disprove that claim.

Dr. Loveridge did testify on your behalf, but since he never heard it directly from the Marquis himself—only through your grandmother—his testimony was dismissed.

I am the one who knows the truth better than anyone, yet I cannot step forward. And even if I did, I would be the least credible witness in the judge’s eyes.

So the case reached a stalemate, and I could do nothing but simmer in frustration. Until one spring day, an article appeared in a daily paper.

[A Forbidden Affair: Marquis Mansfield, an Enemy Nation’s Courtesan, and Their Illegitimate Child.]

Frida Schmidt. You found Rupert’s Highland mistress, the one I told you about.

A poor foreign woman could never have published such an exposé in our country’s major press on her own. Either you or Dr. Loveridge must have been behind it.

Only after reading the article did I realize that it was she who had carried the unconscious Rupert out of the collapsed cellar in Leningen. It seems she truly loved him.

But Rupert must have treated her with the same pettiness and cruelty before running away. Otherwise, why would a mistress ever testify on the wife’s behalf?

I heard that in her testimony, Rupert had complained to her about never even sharing a wedding night with his wife, so it was accepted by the court.

As spring drew to a close, the tide of the lawsuit finally turned, and a verdict was handed down with surprising speed.

The marriage between the plaintiff and the defendant is hereby annulled.

At last, you were free from Rupert’s chains.

I thought you would come running straight into my arms, but you didn’t.

Not even when the seasons turned again and late summer returned, the very season when we had parted.

Why?

You still send me nothing but parcels filled with socks each week. You don’t come to me, and you don’t say when you will.

If I think rationally, I know the answer. The lawsuit ended only recently, and all eyes are still on us. If you were to rush into my arms now, you’d be dragged into scandal again. And who knows what Rupert—blinded by jealousy—might do.

Waiting until the world forgets us is the sensible choice.

If that’s the case, then I shouldn’t write letters either.

So, as I have since spring, I send only flowers every single day. And once the forget-me-nots began to bloom, I sent nothing but forget-me-nots, endlessly.

‘Dana, please don’t forget me.’

Even though I know you aren’t refusing to return, you simply can’t, I still found myself growing anxious, unable to stop myself from pleading.

Today as well, I tied a bouquet of carefully dried forget-me-nots with a ribbon I knew you’d like and sent it off as a parcel.

I’m the head of the household now, but in this vast machine that has long been running smoothly exactly as planned, there isn’t much left for me to do.

So every day, I walk to the post office carrying a parcel in my hands, and I walk back empty-handed. On the way, I always stop by the woods to pick flowers for the next bundle I’ll send you.

“The forget-me-nots are starting to fade now.”

The forest where I met you is a place where forget-me-nots grow thick along the stream, as plentiful as dandelions or clover. Even so, by the end of summer, it’s hard to find any still in bloom.

As I walked the forest path beside the stream, searching for the last remaining flowers, I spotted some blooming on a steep slope.

And in that instant, the memory came rushing back.

Of you clinging to forget-me-nots growing on a slope, startling, and tumbling down into the stream.