15. My Mother and My Mother
I returned home late, so no maids were waiting to greet me. I headed to my room alone.
On the way, I noticed a sliver of light escaping from under my stepmother’s door. I approached, intending to let her know I was back, but stopped when I heard her speaking to someone inside.
“Sheryl has grown up to be so beautiful, just like you… She didn’t end up making the same mistakes I did in high society. Someone who will truly protect her has appeared.”
My feet froze in place.
Eavesdropping was wrong, but… was that Okaasama calling me ‘beautiful’?
I couldn’t understand it. After all this time, after raising me by telling me I was unattractive.
My mind was reeling, on the verge of shattering. Believing I might understand if I heard more, I slipped quietly into the shadows near the door.
I peeked inside.
There, I saw the portrait of my real mother, and sitting before it, her back ramrod straight, was my stepmother.
“The first time I saw that child, I thought she was an angel. I was only nineteen, still so young… and I resolved to harden my heart, to do whatever it took to keep her from following the same path I did. In return, I believe I showered her with affection.”
The smiling portrait of my real mother offered no reply. Of course it wouldn’t. And yet, my stepmother spoke as if it did.
“I know. I know what I did was cruel… I, who pushed her down, have no right. Saving that child’s heart… that is a task I must entrust to the man who will protect her, the man who is hers alone.”
My stepmother was crying. Her face was buried in her hands, her back hunched over. It was as if she were confessing her sins.
“I’m so sorry, Charlotte. I didn’t know… I didn’t know any other way to show my love except to stick to the methods I used back then. Sheryl, please, don’t ever forgive me… In the happiness of loving and being loved, you can hate me. You don’t have to forgive me. I was never able to obtain that, and I never will… My husband’s love for you, Charlotte, and for Sheryl, was too deep. And he, who could not bear to be by Sheryl’s side, was not enough to protect her… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Sheryl… I love you…”
Her monologue, choked and trembling with tears, shook my heart more than the play I had seen tonight.
I knew my stepmother loved me. But what cruel thing had she done? She said I looked like an angel…
Was it… a lie? The fact that I was unattractive?
“That child received a marriage proposal after the party when she was ten. Fearing the suitor might change his mind once he came of age, I continued to correspond with his family by letter. ‘My son desires no one but Sheryl’—do you know how relieved I was each time I read those words? And then, at the ball, he magnificently confessed his feelings to Sheryl himself… If he had been a shy man, or if Sheryl had desired another, I planned to hold a formal, arranged meeting and then marry her off to Lord Hugues, or to whomever she chose. …Charlotte, Sheryl is truly a wonderful girl. …Perhaps I… perhaps I was wrong after all…”
That was all I could hear. I couldn’t listen to any more. I fled from the spot.
If I hadn’t successfully met Hugues at the ball, if I hadn’t found anyone, I was to have an arranged marriage meeting.
And the partner… was Hugues.
The memory of his embrace made my body burn. I had been wanted all this time. And I had just stumbled upon my stepmother’s secret.
Joy, anxiety, confusion, and distrust—my heart was a tangled mess.
I carelessly stripped off my dinner dress, let down my hair, and removed my makeup. Then I looked at my face in the moonlight.
The unattractive Sheryl.
But what was reflected there… was a face that was the spitting image of my real mother, the one who had always smiled and called me her “sweet Sherrie.”