The Abandoned Duchess Seems to Want a Peaceful Life - Chapter 174

 Chapter 174: A Family Reunion and the Pumpkins’ Whereabouts

“Lady Melfina! The carriage has arrived!”

Marie, who would normally scold Anna for rushing in and tell her to be more ladylike, was in no state for that either; she hurriedly took off her apron.

“Lady Melfina, please get ready.”

“Wait—I just need to finish the cut.”

“I’ll do that! Lady Melfina, please go greet them.”

At Ed’s words, Melfina reluctantly washed her hands and removed her apron, and Marie immediately draped a stole over her shoulders. When she went outside, August—who had been staying at the lord’s residence ahead of them for several days—was leading the way, and the carriage had just come to a stop.

“We made it in time.”

“I wanted to fix your hair, but there wasn’t time.”

Melfina gave a wry smile at Marie’s slightly sulky words, and the moment the carriage door opened, a small figure leapt out and ran toward them.

“Aunt Melfina, Aunt Marie, it’s been so long!”

William, who hugged Marie’s skirt with a soft thump, was dressed formally this time like the heir to a ducal house, and his hair was neatly arranged. He must have been truly happy to see Marie; his blue-gray eyes sparkled.

“It’s been a long time, William. You look well.”

“Ah, forgive me! That was rude.”

He pulled away at once, blushed shyly, and then properly performed a gentleman’s bow.

“I’m happy to see you both.”

“Welcome. It has been a long time, Lord William. I’m glad to see you looking well.”

“Thank you for inviting me this time, Aunt Melfina.”

“William. I told you not to run out recklessly, or you’ll fall.”

“Uncle! I saw the two of you from the window, so I couldn’t help it.”

“I’m not telling you not to run. At least check your surroundings first.”

“Yes!”

It seemed their distance had shrunk considerably during the time they had not seen each other; Alexis smiled gently and lightly patted William’s head.

—He’s smiling. That Alexis.

She had lost count of how many times she had thought she could not tell what Alexis was thinking when his expression never changed, but over these past few months, his facial muscles seemed to have softened considerably.

Since his features were originally as finely formed as a sculpture, even the slightest expression gave him a remarkably brilliant air. So this was what they called a gap, she supposed.

“Melfina, Marie, you both look well.”

“It’s been a long time, Alexis.”

“Brother, you look well too. I’m glad.”

They exchanged greetings, and when Marie and Alexis embraced a little awkwardly, Melfina could not help but smile.

“Aunt Melfina.”

William, still only tall enough to reach around Melfina’s chest, spread his arms, and she laughed and bent down to give him a light hug.

She had known as a matter of knowledge that the north especially had a custom of hugging in greeting when people met again, but she had only ever exchanged formal greetings even with family, so hugging like this was, incidentally, her first time.

“I’m happy to see you, Aunt Melfina.”

“Yes, and I’m happy too. Please enjoy the autumn Enkar region while you’re here.”

“Yes! Somehow, it smells really good.”

“I was in the middle of cooking. If you like, would you take a look at the kitchen?”

There had been that occasion last time, when she had pushed him into the kitchen together with Alexis, so William again answered loudly, “Yes!”

Last time, she had been concerned about the oppressive atmosphere, but after returning to the ducal house, Alexis seemed to have made a proper effort to close the distance with his nephew; William was cheerful, and perhaps for that reason, he gave a slightly more childlike impression than before.

“Alexis, you should come too, if you like. Right now you can sample Ed’s freshly made food.”

“Uncle! Let’s go!”

When she naturally took William’s hand and urged him on, Alexis and Marie exchanged glances and smiled wryly at each other.

Somehow, it was a very lovely sight.

“It smells very sweet. Are you making sweets again?”

“No, today there are no dishes using sugar. But there are sweet treats.”

“Fruit?”

“Fufu, it’s a surprise for when you eat it.”

When they entered the kitchen, the work Melfina had left unfinished had been completely tidied away, and a good smell drifted from a pot simmering on the stove.

“This is the food the lord will serve at tomorrow’s festival. We received a great many pumpkins again this year.”

Last year, as a pretext for reducing the potato acreage, she had said she loved pumpkins and wanted lots grown, and more pumpkins than expected had piled up at the lord’s residence.

This year, using the excuse that she now had a garden of her own, she had announced that a moderate amount would be enough, but the field owners had brought her one, then two, then a whole box as gifts, and in the end the amount had exceeded last year’s.

“Since there are more people than last year, I decided to make more soup, but the preparations have been quite difficult.”

“The villagers rarely have a chance to eat food from the lord’s residence, so everyone looks forward to it.”

Marie explained last year’s circumstances in a gentle tone to William, who looked puzzled. Ed quickly brewed tea for four, so they settled themselves in the dining room adjoining the kitchen.

“That said, Ed did most of the cooking this year. I only cut the pumpkins and made a few sample sweets to hand out to the children.”

Last year, the children had said they would sing again this year the song they had performed, so she had decided to make simple sweets for them.

She hoped that a special sweet on a special day would remain in their memories as something good.

“If you like, Lord William, would you taste some?”

“Please!”

While William’s expression lit up and Melfina watched with a warm feeling, she took one item out of the refrigerator, and Marie carried several kinds on a plate.

“The colors are so vivid.”

“They’re all made from pumpkin. I’ll hand out the same cookies to the children, but I ended up getting carried away.”

William picked up a cookie, put it in his mouth, and immediately said, meltingly, that it was delicious.

“It’s softer than I expected.”

“Alexis, would you try this one?”

She cut the item she had taken from the refrigerator, placed it on a plate, and handed it to him. Alexis received the plate, looked at it curiously, then cut off a bite with his fork and put it in his mouth.

“It’s sweet… Not intense like caramel, but a gentle sweetness.”

“None of today’s sweets use sugar, so it’s only the sweetness of the pumpkin.”

“Can pumpkin alone become this sweet…? Is it a special variety grown in the Enkar region?”

“No. The cooking method can make it this sweet.”

Just as stone-roasted sweet potatoes are sweet, pumpkin becomes very sweet when slowly heated overnight in the residual heat of an oven after the fire has been put out, because the starch saccharifies. When she explained that it was the same as ale wort becoming sweet, Alexis seemed convinced.

“It looks simple, but precisely because of that, the sweetness is surprising when it enters your mouth. And the texture is good too. It is firm enough to cut with a fork alone, yet it seems to melt in the mouth.”

Since gelatin—nikawa—had become available, she had added a little, and Alexis seemed to like it very much; he polished off the pumpkin yokan.

“Would you like some pumpkin pie as well? The guildmaster of the Great Lion Trading Company will be coming for a meeting soon, and I think it should be baked by then.”

“I’ll gladly have some. —If you still have a large surplus of pumpkins this year, I can buy them here.”

“Ah, no. Actually, the Great Lion Trading Company has agreed to buy all the surplus after the festival, except for what the lord’s residence will consume.”

“The guild will buy pumpkins?”

A caravan traveling long distances mainly carried processed goods with added value, so buying up crops was unusual. Alexis also looked puzzled, as if wondering what they would do with so many pumpkins.

“Just to be clear, I did not force them to buy.”

“You wouldn’t do such a thing.”

At Alexis’s casual words as he nibbled a cookie William had shared with him, her lips naturally relaxed into a smile.

“Yes. But the village also has a bumper crop of pumpkins, so I think it would be good for them to buy some.”

“Uncle! Let’s buy some!”

Alexis looked unconvinced, but urged on by his nephew, he answered gently, “I suppose so.”

＊　＊　＊

“I am grateful to have been granted an audience with you, Duke, and with the Duchess.”

Melfina invited Raymond, who had bowed politely, to take a seat. Shou, his bodyguard, still dressed all in black as always, stood like a shadow directly behind Raymond after he sat down.

“Thank you for your work. Raymond, how are the patients?”

“Some symptoms remain, but most of them have shown signs of recovery over the past day or two. Everyone is already able to get up.”

“With care, they should recover in about a week, but anemia and other effects can remain, so it would be best to let them rest for a while. But I’m truly glad.”

“I cannot thank you enough, Lady Melfina. Once the highway’s curse is resolved, merchants throughout Romana will feel indebted to you.”

“The old northern records I borrowed from the Duke proved very useful.”

When she explained to Alexis that there was a rumor that the eastern highway used by Romana’s caravans when visiting the north was cursed, he seemed to have already known and nodded lightly.

“Ah, I have heard that talk. But it should be something like a ghost story from long ago. Does it have something to do with those records?”

“Among Romana’s merchants, the highway’s curse had remained only as an old rumor, but since last year, caravans using that highway have suffered unexplained poor health, and people feared the curse had revived. Then the Duchess told us it might be because they no longer carried potatoes as food.”

“I was continuing to copy those records, and in them it was written that potatoes, which at the time were grown as ornamental plants, were found to be edible. Potatoes keep well and can be eaten just by cooking them, so caravans on long journeys may have loaded them as food for their people.”

“In other words, by eating potatoes, they can ward off that curse… the illness.”

As expected, his mind worked quickly.

Alexis seemed to understand immediately that it was not a curse but an illness with some cause.

“Yes. It seems that around the era of the Duke of Oldrand who wrote that journal, potatoes spread at once as food for commoners.”

She thought that, just as Melfina had spread corn—previously treated as fodder—as food, perhaps it had been Maria of that time who provided that knowledge, but in the journal, now old and unreadable in places, there was no way to confirm it.

In her previous life, there was a disease greatly feared among sailors on long voyages. It was a nutritional disorder caused by a lack of vitamin C.

The reason that disease had not become a major problem in this world was probably that people ate potatoes, which contained abundant vitamins and were resistant to being destroyed by heat, and that had resulted in prevention.

The tuber part of the potato has no poison, and it is an excellent famine crop that can be eaten as it is once cooked, but the sprouts and the skin that turns green when exposed to sunlight contain poison.

Even in her previous life, immediately after potatoes were brought from the New World, livestock fed potatoes died in large numbers, and it took about two hundred years before potatoes were “discovered” to be edible for humans.

—It is ironic, isn’t it? Corn brought from the New World caused the nutritional disorder pellagra when eaten as a staple with insufficient processing, while potatoes, which prevented scurvy, were loaded aboard ships but not regarded as food.

And pumpkins contain more vitamin C than potatoes, and the lord’s residence had more pumpkins piled up than could be consumed, just as last year.

It was good timing—two birds with one stone.

“Pumpkins keep well, and like potatoes, they can be eaten just by cooking them. As a test, we served pumpkin dishes to the unwell members of Raymond’s caravan, and a recovery trend was observed.”

“Before winter, every village is reluctant to sell crops in preparation for famine. We are truly grateful that you sold us pumpkins—enough to keep us fed until we return to Romana.”

Melfina, who had been able to sell pumpkins where they were needed, and Raymond, who had been troubled by the obstacle to future trade with the north, were talking with pleased faces when Ed brought in the freshly baked pie.

“Let us eat while giving thanks for autumn’s bounty. This pie crust was made with Romana flour.”

She took a crisp bite of the fragrant pie, made with plenty of butter.

It was hot, gentle, and sweet.