My Dear Aster

How will you live if you live again?

’What difference would that make?’

Applying yellow paint to the water, Lihen thought.

There were many minor things that could be changed. For example, the color of the dress she wore to the graduation party or the design of the moon ornament on her head. Or, thinking about it later and not saying what she regretted at that time.

She’s already changed a few small but significant things. By this time, when she fought again with Polenna, whom she had cut off because of a quarrel, she did not get angry. She was able to reconcile by saying, “I consider you a friend” in a gentle tone, rather than shouting angrily, “Did you think about me as a friend?” She now has one more friend in her future.

The second was also a dress for the graduation party. Instead of creating a gorgeous pearlescent silk dress imitating the beautiful Count Wayne’s daughter, with blonde hair that looks red in the sun, she decided to opt for purple satin with less embellishment.

It wasn’t until she was over thirty-five that she admitted that a square neckline and brightly colored silk didn’t suit her. Looking back at her childhood, it didn’t suit her either.

Penny, her maid, and Mariella, a friend of hers, grumbled about why she would wear clothes that looked so dull and old fashioned, but both had probably admitted that the finished clothes suited Lihen.

The third thing was to tell her parents and her younger brother that she loved them every morning. Her younger brother, Macaulay, was looking at her with a strange look.

But those three things weren’t going to change her life.

Living again did not make her a new outstanding person. Her normal face remained the same, and so did her family. Her intelligence and talent remained the same. She has become proficient in the art of speaking and governing the house, but she has only gained experience of governing a small baron, so she can’t do anything else well.

Sooner or later, her father will find a suitable marriage for her, and when she gets married she will become an ordinary mistress of a baron.

But she added a touch of joy to her life and thought she could do even better in the future.

She would get along well with Harold. Even though Harold wasn’t an interesting person, and he wasn’t the ideal husband for her, there were still many things she had come to understand during her more than 20 years of living with him. That’s about it. Although they didn’t enjoy going out together, she often felt compassion for her husband. It was also a form of affection.

In fact, Baroness Hadley’s words were not necessarily wrong. There were far more men in the world who were worse than Harold. She can change her marriage on a high level. But in Lihen’s opinion, of the men she could marry, she could not find a man who would be better than Harold.

In retrospect, there are some good men who envy their wives, but marrying Lihen does not necessarily make them good husbands. Even that boring man, Harold, had fallen in love before Lihen and almost had a love escape with a commoner. The story was told by Harold’s sister, Shoney.

Anyway, Lihen decided to marry Harold again in this life. She can do better this time. There will be no more little girl crying alone because she was hurt by her mother-in-law, Baroness Hadley. She’ll get along well with Harold and her in-laws.

And her daughter will be born again.

Actually, that was the most important. This time, she can really make her happy.

She could see why her daughter said she didn’t need the chance to live again. Her life is not going to change much if she lives again, not until Lihen Copland is a completely different person.

But her daughter was different.

She was a mother. She was her only remembrance of her childhood and the person she loved and valued most in the world.

She can do it well.

Lihen lifted the brush and applied pink ribbon to the little girl’s hair painted on the canvas.

She loved painting. Since a lady’s artistic literacy was limited to appreciating rather than making art, painting was considered a man’s job. But Viscount Copland didn’t dislike her daughter’s work.

And she had quite a bit of skill. When a painting of hers was exhibited at a painting club exhibition held to coincide with the Academy’s festival day, there were people who earnestly asked to buy the painting. It wasn’t for sale, so the broker refused to do so.

Previously, however, she quit when she graduated from the academy. When she left the painting club’s studio, she didn’t have a place to paint. If she wanted to, she could have prepared to paint at home, but she would not be able to paint well and could not learn it in earnest, because it was difficult to set up a studio.

It was more so because she would be getting married soon. With a small hobby, she could have continued. Harold, however, was not one to understand her devotion to this hobby, and at an age when she was no longer noticed by her husband, she had long since let go of the brush and did not have the courage to start anew. She drew butterflies and flowers with colored pencils on a small piece of paper and showed it only to her daughter. That child loved it very much.

This time, she decided to continue painting, if for nothing else. It’s not to the point where she can say that she has no regrets, but it was one of the things she regretted. Didn’t her daughter also ask her to meet a man who would understand her paintings?

She doesn’t know about the other men, but Harold will understand to some extent, provided that if she said that she wanted to and that she won’t neglect household affairs.

In fact, he was passive, so if Lihen went strong, he would yield to many things. Lihen gave up a lot of things in the early years of their marriage, not because Harold was adamant about taking control of the household, but because she was trying too hard to fit in with her husband by getting him to notice her first.

She’s going to change things little by little. Just a little bit. Don’t be anxious, don’t be too scared. One way or another, life went on similarly, and she knew how to manage familiar things well.

“What are you painting?”

Deborah, who came into the studio and leaned her head to look at her canvas, asked. Lihen replied, painting the ribbon’s lace carefully with red.

“Just a pretty girl.”

“Hmm.”

“Why? Do you have anything to say?”

“No, not really. I’m just here to ask you if you’ve decided on a graduation partner.”

“I don’t have a fiancé yet. I’ll just go with my father.”

“Don’t do it without fun. You know, I decided to go with senior Lawrence.”

“Lawrence? Lawrence Estillia?”

“Yes!”

Deborah blushed and nodded enthusiastically. Lawrence Estillia was the eldest son of a count family. He graduated from the Academy last year and has won the hearts of countless girls with his handsome appearance and friendly and polite demeanor.

Lihen from the past would have been envious. But not now. Even though she was a junior, it was not normal for a man to memorize the names of all the hundreds of women who attended the academy. Instead, he would smile at everyone. The future Count of Estillia never gave up on his liking for girls in their late teens. Until he was fifty.

But saying that to the present Deborah doesn’t mean she will humbly take her advice. Lihen had no choice but to say:

“That would be great. But don’t get too far away from the chaperone.”

“Why are you saying what my aunts would say? Besides, don’t you have a good man?”

“Good man?”

“Someone who could be a partner! You have to meet a lot of men before you get engaged to be able to distinguish good people!”

“I don’t know. Won’t my father decide in the end?”

“But there’s no harm in meeting! The viscount won’t pick just one person and say it’s this person, would he? If you’re lucky, you might find someone better than the Viscount decides. Like fateful love!”

“Yes. That’s good.”

Lihen replied nonchalantly. When she was really nineteen, she believed in such things as fateful love, but now she was old enough to laugh at her daughter telling such stories.

“If the opportunity comes, I’ll think about it.”

That’s all she answered. But she didn’t think the opportunity would come.

There was no such thing as a pink lighted chance[1] before. Because she wasn’t marginalized that much in this direction.

At the time, she thought it would be too silly to partner with her father just like Deborah thinks, so after much effort, she was escorted by the esteemed son of Viscount Dound, who was introduced by her cousin Natalie, to the graduation party, but she didn’t get along with him very well.

It was strange that fate came when she made up her mind to ‘Well, I’ll just go with my father’.

TL Notes:

          [1] Pink lighted chance means naïve, innocent or pure chance. A chance that seemed innocent and pure.