RS 14

Chapter 14

With Xavier’s hand pushing half her face away, Luca could only mumble his greeting with his lips. Honestly, it was ridiculous.

Dolores burst out laughing without realizing it.

“Young masters.”

There wasn’t much opportunity for her to talk with Luca or properly get acquainted with him.

Two adults who had approached from the opposite side politely urged Xavier and Luca, saying,

“Now that the performance is over, shouldn’t you be leaving? You promised, didn’t you?”

Judging by their accents, they weren’t Lady Anne Rou’s people. They were outsiders.

Dolores had enough sense to guess that they were probably members of the Bransen family.

“All right, all right. Enough nagging.”

Luca and Xavier prepared to leave without putting up a fight.

Dolores couldn’t hide her disappointment.

She was so reluctant to let them go that even her toes curled inward.

Before leaving, Xavier suddenly looked up at her while straightening the jacket Luca had wrinkled.

“See you next time.”

Those three words were like magic.

They meant Let’s meet again.

It felt as though her empty basket had suddenly been filled with little balls, leaving her heart full.

Dolores shouted after his retreating figure.

“I take private lessons from Miss Marguerite on Mondays and Wednesdays!”

Once they had almost disappeared from sight, Dolores suddenly wanted to brag.

How wonderful would it be if she could tell Miss Marguerite this happy news!

Anais was a child who didn’t understand much, but even she would probably be jealous.

But something felt strange.

Miss Marguerite and Anais, who had definitely been there only moments ago, were nowhere to be seen.

Where did they go?

As Dolores looked around, she suddenly sensed someone’s presence and turned around.

What was going on?

Her father was standing there.

“Dolores Artois.”

Her father’s eyes, blazing with anger, glared at her.

Dolores collapsed right where she stood.

Her meeting with the boy ended that day.

She was placed under house arrest for three weeks.

It was an obvious consequence after her father discovered that she had been secretly learning ballet.

He also found out that her mother had helped her do it.

On top of deceiving him, he shouted that she had humiliated the Artois name by dancing like a performer in front of the people of Aquine.

She had never seen him that furious before.

Dolores almost had to give up her lessons with Miss Marguerite as well.

That was the one thing her mother prevented.

And so, after spending three weeks locked away in complete silence, the day finally came when Dolores was allowed to return to her lessons.

The news she heard from Miss Marguerite was that the Bransen family had left Aquine.

That night, Dolores cried her eyes out.

But before her tears had even dried, her life reached another small turning point.

“…It may just be a coincidence, but Lady Anne Rou came to visit yesterday. When I told her about you, she said she would write you a letter of recommendation. So that you can enroll in the Quinir Municipal Secondary Dance Academy. She even said that if you achieve a high score on the entrance examination, she would cover your entire tuition. If your father wants to keep you at the parish school because of money, wouldn’t he allow you to go if you received a scholarship?”

Lady Rou had offered to become her patron.

Dolores wasn’t a prodigy who had won some competition, nor had she ever participated in a famous contest.

Her first performance had been that night at the Singing Spring Festival.

It had also been her first and last performance.

“She said you left quite an impression on her that night. I really think you’re very lucky.”

Dolores had never dreamed of becoming a ballerina.

She simply loved ballet.

But when a real opportunity presented itself, an uncontrollable desire began to rise within her.

“…I want to try. I really want to try.”

And so, the following spring, the Artois family mansion was noisy once again.

Her father raged that he should never have turned a blind eye to her ballet.

The fact that she wanted to major in ballet and eventually become a ballerina must have been a shock to him.

He immediately ordered her to quit, but Dolores had been prepared for that kind of fury.

She was beaten mercilessly.

Her father yelled at her mother, demanding to know why she had taught the girl such a useless thing as ballet and created this problem.

A girl only needed to make a good marriage, he insisted.

But what Dolores feared most wasn’t when he grabbed her by the hair.

It wasn’t when his furious shouting seemed as though it would swallow her whole.

It wasn’t even when he slapped her hard enough to knock her down.

It was when her father shouted that he would break her legs.

That alone terrified her beyond words.

Dolores begged for nearly a month.

“Just this once. Then I’ll do everything else exactly as Father tells me.”

By then, Dolores already had a new goal.

To enter the Le Havre Higher Conservatory of Music and Dance.

There wasn’t any particular reason she could name.

It was simply an vague desire.

“I love ballet, Father. Even if Mother had tried to stop me, I would still have loved it. Please give me just one chance. I’ll work really hard.”

Her attempts didn’t always lead to success.

In the end, it wasn’t her mother or Dolores herself who changed her father’s mind.

One day, her father was invited to a drinking gathering.

It was a gathering attended by Aquine officials whom he considered important.

There, he happened to hear some fairly favorable opinions about ballet and changed his mind.

“I don’t particularly like it, but apparently Belovians mistake ballet for an educated form of dance. That should be enough of an advantage.”

Perhaps he had heard that ballet could have a positive influence on a girl’s prospects for marriage, or something along those lines.

At the time, her father was obsessed with the idea that the successful marriages of his daughters were necessary to restore the prestige he had lost as a count.

So that was almost certainly the reason.

“But don’t do anything foolish. I can’t pay your entrance fees. We can barely afford Pablo’s tutoring.”

In the end, neither her father’s irresponsible statement nor Lady Anne Rou’s kindness mattered much.

Dolores’s entrance examination results were outstanding enough that she didn’t need Lady Anne Rou’s financial support.

When Lady Anne Rou heard the news, she was delighted and gently offered to cover Dolores’s living expenses as well.

She offered to become her official patron.

Dolores gratefully accepted.

“You’re beyond my expectations. I like children with artistic talent, and I like lucky children even more. You rarely find someone who has both. You’re a lucky child.”

Lucky or unlucky—which one was she?

“How far do you want to go? The New Year’s performance at La Brillen? A solo performance at the Beurgeuid Hall? The lead role in Come, Swan*? I’ll help you in any way I can.”*

One by one, brilliant, flower-like and honey-sweet visions flashed through Dolores’s mind.

Her goal was both small and enormous.

“I want to be taught the fundamentals again from the beginning.”

Lady Rou stared at her before muttering,

“What a letdown.”

Dolores entered the Quinir Secondary Dance Academy.

Her feet burst open, she sprained them, abscesses formed, and blisters burst.

Even on days when she suffered from a high fever, she didn’t rest.

She continued to rise onto her toes until even the tips of her little toes forgot the sensation of the ground.

All while hoping, and hoping again, that Le Havre would draw closer.

Throughout her time at the secondary dance academy, Dolores consistently ranked among the top five students at worst.

After two years, Le Havre was close enough to feel within reach.

Lady Anne Rou smiled.

“Le Havre?”

“Yes. A career there is recognized everywhere.”

“Why Le Havre? Why not Beurge?”

“That’s… just how it is.”

“There are better places too. Going toward the capital is another option. That’s why so many dancers crowd into Laurent until the threshold practically wears away, isn’t it? The capital’s Verdohina and the Goden Royal Dance Academy are the true dreams of dancers…”

“Thank you for the kind advice, Lady Rou.”

The capital…

Well, Dolores lived among countless people who believed that true success meant succeeding in Lenoir, but she had never felt that way.

Her roots were in another country, but her life was here.

Because she had internalized the life of an in-between immigrant, the capital of Belov had always seemed like an unattainable utopia to her.

For Dolores, a greater success would instead be to gain recognition somewhere outside the capital and eventually reach a future where even the people there welcomed them.

“But Le Havre is enough for me.”

Lady Anne Rou seemed a little puzzled, but she supported Dolores nonetheless.

Miss Marguerite smiled as though she knew everything.

“It’s because of Bransen’s son, isn’t it?”