074. The Child of an Unwed Mother, Deborah Coleman
The child born and abandoned by an unwed mother, Deborah Coleman.
That phrase, like a brand, always followed her and summed up everything about her.
It was true that Deborah’s mother had been an unwed mother, but the part about giving birth to her and then abandoning her wasn’t accurate.
She had simply been too young to remember the details clearly, but fragments of memories about her birth mother lingered here and there in Deborah’s mind.
Her hair was the exact same chocolate color as mine.
Her eyes were a sparkling emerald green, and she was beautiful and kind.
-Deborah, my poor baby.
-Your eyes look just like his. That’s why every time Mom sees you, she feels sad… and happy too.
-My baby, I’m sorry. Mom is so sorry…
In Deborah’s memories, her mother now seemed like someone who had been profoundly mentally unstable.
One day she would sit staring blankly at the distant sky all day long, another day she would hum an unknown song endlessly, and then on yet another, she would sob with heart-wrenching cries for hours on end.
In the end, when Deborah was around six years old, her mother passed away.
Deborah vividly remembered her mother’s appearance in those final moments.
Lying on her sickbed with a gaunt, dying face, vomiting blood, she would occasionally mutter the name of some unknown person.
She couldn’t recall whose name it was, but even as her life ebbed away, she called out that name desperately, over and over.
Later, when she was a bit older, she had vaguely wondered if perhaps that had been her biological father’s name.
She didn’t know who her biological father was.
Even though it was someone her mother couldn’t forget and longed for until her very last breath, she had stubbornly kept her lips sealed about him.
The fact that no memories of her father remained in her mind confirmed as much.
She wasn’t particularly curious about it.
Just… she had occasionally pondered who the person her mother had loved so deeply could have been, but realizing it was meaningless, she had pushed it from her memory and gone on living.
If he was already dead, it was truly pointless, and if he was still alive, she wanted to know even less.
She had no desire to call someone her father who had ignored the woman carrying his child and never once come looking for her, even as she lay dying.
After her mother died, Deborah was led by someone’s hand into an orphanage.
She didn’t remember that part well either, but it had probably been someone from the village.
And so, Deborah became “the orphan born and abandoned by an unwed mother.”
Life in the orphanage was harsher than she could have imagined.
Ironically, good and evil always coexist, and it was no different in an orphanage filled with children.
Deborah, who was unusually small and frail compared to her peers, was an easy target for kids with nasty dispositions, and for the first year or so, getting beaten by them was an everyday occurrence.
The orphanage director knew about it but turned a blind eye.
It wasn’t that he favored one side over the other, he simply had no interest in such matters.
The orphanage director was an extraordinarily greedy man.
Under the guise of rescuing impoverished children and providing them with “vocational training” so they could find jobs in society.
It sounded legitimate, but in reality, he had merely exploited the children’s labor from dawn until late at night for his own gain.
-There’s no such thing as a free lunch in this world. If I feed you, clothe you, and give you a place to sleep, you ought to repay me in kind. Don’t you think?
That cold and cynical person would transform into something like a saint at certain times.
Namely, on the days when patron ladies came to visit the orphanage.
On those days alone, the director became the most benevolent soul one could imagine.
Expecting any child to grow properly in such an environment was, in a way, utterly ridiculous.
Even so, Deborah, who had once smiled easily, gradually turned into a gloomy child who neither laughed nor cried.
If it hadn’t been for Helena, who arrived at the orphanage around the time Deborah turned ten, who knows what might have become of her.
Helena said she had been drawn to the unusually small and unsmiling Deborah from the very beginning.
She would secretly slip her an extra bit of food away from the other children, pat her on the head when she did well, or stay by her side, holding her hand when she was gravely ill.
After a year of that, Deborah fully opened her heart to Helena.
But no matter how much attention Helena paid her, one thing remained unchanged.
Perhaps because she hadn’t gotten proper nutrition during her prime growing years, Deborah stayed small compared to her peers even until quite a late age.
As a result, she was passed over by the ladies and senior servants who came regularly to hire help, and she remained at the orphanage until she was quite old, becoming a thorn in the director’s side.
But as her growth spurt came late, by the time she neared adulthood, she had caught up to about the same level as her peers.
However, Deborah at that time had no idea that this would sow the seeds of misfortune.
-Now that you’re all grown up, it’s time for you to pull your own weight. How long do you plan to cling to others like a parasite?
-I wondered who would ever want an orphan like you with nothing to your name, but luckily, Mr. Godric says he’ll take you as his wife. How fortunate for you.
That face, with eyes cast down and a sly smile, remained unforgettable even now.
Godric.
He was the merchant who supplied groceries to the orphanage.
The reason Deborah turned deathly pale at those words was that he was a man approaching sixty.
No, it wasn’t just his age—more than that, he was infamous for having already gone through three wives.
He was notorious in the village for frequently getting drunk, assaulting his wives, and causing all manner of havoc.
To marry such a man.
Deborah refused, saying she didn’t want to, but of course, her words fell on deaf ears.
One day, without anyone knowing, she was dragged off somewhere and forced into what could only be called a sham wedding ceremony.
She begged the priest who appeared there for help, but whether he was in league with them or not, he shut his ears and refused to listen to a word she said.
After the wedding concluded that way, Deborah was hauled straight to the merchant’s house.
In the brief moment when the man stepped out, Deborah managed to escape and went to find Helena.
She worried that someone might be watching her, but at that time, there was no one else who could help her besides Helena.
Fortunately, Helena helped her wholeheartedly, and through her connections and clever ideas, Deborah secured the chance to become a low-level housemaid at Elfengrin, the main residence of the Chaster Dukedom.
Of course, there were numerous ups and downs, big and small, along the way, but that was how Deborah managed to hide herself in Elfengrin, evading the surveillance of the director and the merchant who was searching for her.
* * *
“Oh my, what a coincidence that was.”
Having heard the entire story, Helena laughed heartily, marveling at how such strange things could happen.
“Um, so when are you going to make the introductions?”
The man, who had somehow taken a seat at the table, looked back and forth between Helena and Deborah, his eyes sparkling.
“Oh, right, of course. I forgot because you two already know each other.”
With her characteristic gentle smile, Helena extended her palm toward Jade.
“This is Jade Wilkins. The owner of this bookstore and a friend of mine.”
Helena, smiling brightly, then shifted her hand in the opposite direction.
“And this is Deborah Coleman. My student and a child I cherish very dearly.”
Once the formal introduction was over, a brief awkward silence settled in.
Or perhaps it was only Deborah who felt it, because the man soon tilted his head slightly and offered a greeting.
“Nice to meet you, Deborah. I’d like us to become good friends from now on—do you think that’s possible?”
She had sensed it when she first saw him, but he was the kind of person whose inherent goodness shone through in his face and expressions.
Looking at that sunny smile, who could possibly turn down such an offer?
Moreover, if Helena called him a friend, his character was evident even without seeing it for herself.
And setting all that aside, Deborah found herself liking the man named Jade before her.
It was different from the romantic feelings she held for the duke.
How to put it—ah, just like what the man had said moments ago, the desire to become good friends.
Deborah nodded with a bright smile of her own.
“Nice to meet you, Jade. I’ll be counting on you from now on.”
And so, the bond between the two began.
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎☆▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
