I Want To Be By Your Side

It struck like a thunderbolt out of a clear blue sky.

“Go back to the castle? Then what about you…”
“I mean to remain in the capital until the railway enterprise has found its footing. Of course, I’ll stop by the castle whenever I can spare the time, so don’t fret too much.”

That part didn’t worry me in the least. A man who’d come home alive from shell-torn battlefields and a barren, deserted island was hardly going to forget the way back to a castle in an Empire as safe as this one.

“But now that we’ve come all the way up to the capital — and what’s more, you have to stay here yourself…”
“What is it you’re trying to say? That you’d like to stay on in the capital, following after me?”
“Why, of course I would.”

I had to be in the capital if I was to do anything at all.

I can’t go back to the ducal castle. Not for anything.

No matter what happened, I had to stay anchored in the capital, and to manage that I had no choice but to keep my marriage to him intact and watch, bit by bit, for my opening.

“I don’t want to go to the ducal castle.”
“And I don’t want to keep you in the capital.”
“I told you, I don’t want to go back.”
“Well, and I said I don’t want to either, didn’t I?”

Herman didn’t know the meaning of compromise. One hand planted squarely on his hip, he stood looking down at me, his whole bearing seeming to say, Go on then, try me if you like.

What on earth were we even doing.

The whole thing was absurd. We were hardly children squabbling over a single toy, and yet here we both were, each of us digging our heels in against the other.

“You said that when the time came, you’d invite my parents to the townhouse. And yet does it stand to reason that I — their own daughter — shouldn’t be there for it?”

I knew it was a low sort of thing, catching at his words this way. Knew, too, that arguing like this was neither elegant nor refined. But whenever I was with Herman, sides of myself I hadn’t known were there had a way of popping out.

“That could well be arranged. You saw it for yourself today — how enormously the two of them dote on me.”

There was no arguing with that. As of today, Father and Mother seemed to have gone over to Herman’s side entirely.

“Then why is it, Herman, that you’re so set on driving me out of the capital?”
“Because you need to be kept well away from society, that’s why.”
“Is this because of what I did at the triumphal banquet, by any chance?”

If that was it, his reaction made sense. All this while Herman had feigned composure over the uproar at the banquet, but in truth he might well have been more shaken than he let on. He loved the Ernst name to the very depths of him, and a man like that could hardly wish to turn the woman who had blackened it loose upon society.

“I know it’s a bit like mending the barn after the cow’s already been lost, but from now on I’ll take every care, whatever it costs me. I promise. Nothing like it will ever happen again.”

I stepped a pace closer to him, still in his bathrobe, and made my pledge.

“I will never do anything to bring harm to House Ernst.”
“You know well enough that isn’t the trouble. I said it plainly yesterday, didn’t I. The name Ernst exists for one thing only — for the sake of the people I’m bound to protect.”
“I remember. A fence is only ever a fence; what matters is what it keeps safe within — so you said.”

My fists clenched tight as I said it.

“But if that’s the case, then I understand it even less. Why in the world are you so bent on keeping me apart from society?”

Herman, who till now had been volleying back every point crisply, like a man returning serve, turned his back on my dogged questioning and moved to end the conversation.

“Let’s turn in. I’m tired.”
“Herman.”
“What.”
“Tell me. I’m asking you why, that’s all.”

Growing frantic, I reached out and caught the sleeve of Herman’s robe. At the limp weight dragging on it, he turned slowly back and gazed at me a long moment.

“I don’t want to.”
“So why, then…”
“I don’t want you flung out before spiteful eyes. That’s what I mean.”
“…What?”
“The capital’s swarming with people who can’t rest for wanting to tear you down. What need is there to go out of your way and end up on all their wagging tongues — that’s my meaning.”

So he had seen it. The tabloid, with all its countless lies and speculation aimed at me and the Ernsts, its string of articles slyly belittling us.

Is he hoping I haven’t seen any of it?

Herman hadn’t raised the subject of the tabloid with me directly. He was only talking round and round it.

“If that’s all it is, then it’s quite all right. I’d had no intention of moving in society in any case.”

Thanks to the tabloid Father had tossed at me, I already knew perfectly well what was being said about us. But for some reason it seemed no bad thing to let myself be taken in by Herman’s flimsy little performance; by pretending I hadn’t seen a word of it, I could lighten his worry, if only a little.

“You’ve no intention of going about in society?”
“That’s right.”
“Then I understand it less than ever. Why in the world are you so bent on staying in the capital?”

At the pointed question I faltered, unable to answer for a moment.

What could I possibly say to make this man let me stay in the capital?

I had no excuse prepared that reached so far. My mind had gone blank as a page rubbed clean with an eraser, and I couldn’t draw a single sentence out of it.

“You see. Not one sound reason, and yet you hold out to the bitter end.”

“…”

“Let it go. You’re merely being stubborn now, nothing more.”

And with that, Herman turned away without the slightest reluctance. A restlessness took hold of me. He was not the sort to overturn a thing once decided, so I had to win him round now, in this very moment.

What was more, I hadn’t much time to spare. The instant this weekend arrived, I would have to pack my things and go down to the ducal lands.

I have to stop him, somehow.

On instinct, I seized the sleeve of Herman’s robe and held it fast. He walked on toward the wardrobe, none the wiser, and the loosely tied robe fell open and slipped down off his shoulders.

“…”
“…”

I stared at the muscles of Herman’s back, laid utterly bare, then snatched my hand from the robe in a fluster.

“I— I’m sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose…”

Without a word, Herman gathered the slipped robe back up. He gave little sign of it, but he too seemed more than a little flustered.

Marienne, what in the world have you just done?

To think I’d gone and stripped the clothes off Herman. I could have smacked the back of my own hand.

But that isn’t what matters just now.

Excusing myself inwardly, I called out at Herman’s back.

“I want to be by your side.”

Once the words were out, somehow they rang like a sweet serenade. Hastily I scrambled for the excuse I’d prepared and rattled it off.

“I’ll do whatever I can, right beside you. Help with your enterprise, manage the household, and — and…”
“…What?”
“I mean it in earnest, Herman. I can set the account ledgers in order, and I know the ins and outs of the business as thoroughly as anyone.”

Yes. Why had this not occurred to me sooner? With the pretext of helping Herman’s railway enterprise, I might be able to stay on in the capital.

And that way, I could pay back at least a little of the debt weighing on my heart.

As it was, the constant, unintended sense of deceiving Herman had left me uneasy, and if I could be of use to him in his business, it seemed I might repay a little of that debt.

“Say it again.”
“Sorry?”
“What you said just now. Say it again.”

Herman turned to face me and bore down on me, as though he might swallow me whole that very instant.

“As I was saying, I can set the account ledgers in order, and I know the business as well as any—”
“Before that.”
“…That I’d do whatever I could at your side?”
“Not that.”

It seemed I must have committed some blunder after all; there was no other reason for him to turn so fearsome. But I hadn’t the faintest idea what Herman was talking about. Harried so suddenly, I couldn’t even recall what we’d said a few minutes before.

Edging back a hesitant step at a time, I drew away from him and at last managed to part my lips.

“I— I think I said… that I wanted to be by your side.”

At that, Herman scrubbed a hand heavily down his face. I lifted my head a little and searched his expression.

His ash-grey eyes quivered faintly. Whether it was anger or reproach, I couldn’t tell. After a strained moment of held gazes, it was I who broke away first.

“What is it you want from me, Gloria? Yesterday you were pleading with me to divorce you on the spot — and now, in the space of one night, have you turned into someone else altogether?”

Herman reached out with great care. And then, unhurried, he set my disheveled hair to rights.

“Tell me. What reason there could be that your fancy should swing between heaven and hell in the space of a single night.”

His touch was so gentle that I turned my face aside before I knew it. Left hanging in midair, Herman’s hand faltered, at a loss, then dropped away to nothing.

“I don’t understand you. Not the smallest part of you, truly.”

Herman said it while pulling the front of his robe firmly shut.

“Very well. Do as you please.”

This was the permission I had wanted so desperately. And yet the answer I’d only just managed to win brought me not the smallest scrap of joy. Why, I could not begin to fathom.