According to the letter Bernard received from his mother while at the battlefield, it seems he got married.
Not to his mother, who had lost her husband five years ago, nor to his ten-years-younger sister left behind at home, but Bernard himself.
"…Why?"
It had been two years since he responded to the draft and began standing on the battlefield. During that time, he hadn't returned home even once.
He had never met the woman named Cherry Wilder, who was supposedly now his wife.
In fact, he had never even heard her name before.
(Who on earth is this Cherry woman? Why did we get married? If I don't know her, she probably doesn't know me either, right? What could be the meaning of this marriage? No, there’s probably some kind of benefit or gain involved, something that made this marriage necessary, and that something...)
With a thud, Bernard slammed the letter down on the table.
"What's up? Did you get a debt collection notice or something?"
Conrad, his colleague sitting beside him and sipping on a thin soup, glanced over at him. With chestnut hair, pale blue eyes, and a ruggedly handsome face adorned with a stubble stretching from his cheeks to his chin, Conrad Arnold looked the part of a man of noble birth. Back home, he was reportedly the third son of an earl, but after the prolonged battlefield life, his appearance showed no trace of aristocracy, as he had grown accustomed to the hardships and sleeping on rough surfaces.
As for Bernard, he had unruly, curly blond hair, vague green eyes, and a baby face. Bernard Aston. The heir of a fallen viscount family, he had lived a life barely different from that of a commoner even before the war began. Raised by a mother who could not let go of her aristocratic lifestyle, he was endlessly lectured on "what it means to be a noble" in a dining room covered in cobwebs. But as soon as he stepped outside, he would forget all of that and spend his days playing with the town children. Thanks to this, he had somewhat adapted to the battlefield, but had no idea what he would do after the war.
"I don't live the kind of life where I'd accumulate debt. I haven't missed sending money home either. So why...why did my family sell me out like this?"
"You're talking about the books and collectibles you left back home?"
"…Ugh, you always say the most annoying things. No, I mean, I’ve been sold off—to a woman I’ve never even met."
"What kind of woman would buy someone like you, Bernard?"
"That's what I want to know."
As Conrad continued to tease him, Bernard started to feel like "the issue of an unknown woman somehow being added to his family registry without his knowledge" wasn't such a big deal after all.
But of course, it was.
"In any case, the war is far from over, and I have no plans to return home. There's no guarantee that I'll even survive. I'm going to write back and request that this marriage be annulled."
With that, Bernard began drafting a reply. To a wife he only knew by name. Her age, appearance, and reasons for marrying him were all unknown. But what good would it do to inquire into her circumstances in detail? This long-distance marriage should be dissolved as soon as possible. Dissolved...meaning, a divorce.
【I find it odd to go from being a married man to a widower without ever having met her.】
A month later, a reply arrived.
【Isn't it simple? You just have to not die.】
* * *
There wasn't any particular reason why Cherry wrote the line "You just have to not die" to Bernard.
Having never met him and knowing nothing about him, she couldn't even write something typical like "Please come back alive. I'll be waiting for you with your favorite raspberry pie."
Lying was simply out of the question.
“…Maybe I should have asked what his favorite food was.”
After pondering for more than three days, she had managed to come up with just that one line and sent it off. It wasn’t until she was washing her undergarments on a washboard under the blue sky that she suddenly thought of it.
Maybe it would have been better to keep the conversation going.
Because they were married.
However, Cherry didn’t consider herself to be an interesting person, nor did she think that her husband would expect her to be.
After all, Bernard Aston, the man who became her husband, knew nothing about Cherry.
He likely didn’t even know why they had gotten married.
And surely, he would die without ever finding out.
"It seems that Bernard, the heir to the Aston family, has been sent to the front lines. It’s unlikely he will return home. Therefore, I have a proposition for you. It would be sufficient if you were to marry Bernard on paper."
One day, the lady of the Aston family, who had heard about Cherry through someone, came to visit her at the entrance of her poor tenement and suddenly made this offer.
"Even if you suddenly say something like that... I’ve never even met the man."
"It would be unwise to refuse. This is an offer that benefits you as well."
The lady glanced at three-year-old Noel, who was clinging to Cherry’s leg, and continued in a stern tone.
"As a widow, you will receive a widow’s pension. If your husband dies in battle, it will become a survivor’s pension, which will be even more substantial. I’ve heard that the child there is your late sister’s, and that her father is my nephew, Ryan. If Noel is Ryan’s child, there will be no issue with him being the heir to our family."
Cherry could only understand about half of what the lady was saying.
(So, Bernard is someone who will likely die soon, and if I marry him before he does, I’ll receive a higher pension? And the lady wants to use that higher pension to support Noel, who is related to her by blood?)
After carefully considering the lady’s words, Cherry tried to confirm her understanding by asking a question.
"Are you saying you want to take in Noel?"
At this, the lady furrowed her silver eyebrows tightly, and with narrowed, steel-blue eyes, looked back at Cherry.
"No, you will continue to raise the child at our estate. We have no one to care for children. Besides, it would be odd if you, Bernard’s wife, were not living at our estate. Move in immediately."
Her tone was harsh.
It was clear that the lady was irritated by Cherry’s perceived lack of understanding. But, what she didn’t understand, she didn’t understand.
(Noblewomen’s words are so difficult to comprehend.)
Cherry was feeling discouraged, but she did manage to understand that she was being asked to come live at the estate and continue caring for the child since there was no one else to do so.
Indeed, in a household that hadn’t had children for a long time, the servants were likely all elderly and would find it difficult to manage such an active child.
Noel was not Cherry’s biological child. He was the child of her sister and brother-in-law, who had both died in an accident before Noel turned one. Since then, Cherry had raised him as her own. However, just a month ago, her mother, whom she had relied on, also passed away from illness. Her father had died on the battlefield long before that, and Cherry had begun to feel it was becoming impossible to raise Noel on her own.
With the promise of a place to live and financial support for raising Noel, and the assurance that they wouldn’t be separated, Cherry had no real reason to refuse.
"I understand. I would be grateful to be employed as a servant at your estate."
"Of course, that is the intention."
After giving a prompt reply, the lady, still with a stern expression, added, "Not in the sense that we are relying on you as a servant, but rather because we simply lack the manpower."
 — Part 1){kind=link}
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