Julietta’s Dressup

Chapter 84. Francis, Part X

Translator: Khan

Editor: Aelryin

It was probably a dress worn when someone played the role of a noblewoman.

Although there was a twisted leg fixed by splints beneath the fine and beautiful dress, and a wooden cane in her right hand, it looked quite nice. Phoebe was a little flustered lifting her ruffled sleeves, and thanked the two for helping her dress up.

Wearing the stage dress, she was guided by Amelie and Sophie and entered a small box seat set up for wealthy merchants. When the lights of the box-seat went out and the curtain rose, the play started.

——

Phoebe watched the hour-long performance of the actors crying, laughing, and singing. After the scene where the tragic heroine died with her lover, the waiting servant approached and lowered the curtain on the box seat.

Moved to the heart by the sound of the first-ever singing and actors’ performances she had seen, and the praise and hot cheers of the audience, Phoebe sat still, enjoying the lingering image until all the lights went out and the inside of the theater grew quiet.

It was so depressing and sad that she had to leave this overwhelming emotion behind and go back to her room and wait for death. Phoebe rose from her seat, rejecting the idea that she would like to sit here forever and delay the coming future.

Maribel, wearing a dark red dress, was waiting for her as she opened the door and came out into the hallway where the lights were off. Thinking she was like a witch rising out of a fire pit, Phoebe turned and followed Maribel as she walked away.

“The person he sent is waiting now. I thought you’d have a little more time, but he sent the person earlier than I expected.”

Phoebe trembled at Maribel’s words. When she returned to the residence she had stayed at for the last month, her life would end.

Phoebe strode on as she walked one step and another towards death, limping on her broken leg. For twenty-six years, the only thing she could remember was living in a brothel, but she got on a boat at the end and experienced the Magic Square, and was able to watch opera today.

Phoebe hummed a passage from the opera she had seen earlier. The first song she had heard was playing in her head.

Their movements were very slow because of the pace of the lame Phoebe. Maribel was walking down the stairs leading down the long corridor to the basement and said calmly, ”

“You sound so sweet. If you were fine, and if you had a chance, you’d be good on stage.”

Phoebe laughed with delight at the unexpected compliment. “It’s a good thing that I’m going to die knowing that I am good at something.”

Phoebe hummed a little louder, as if she were confident. Phoebe and Maribel listened to the humming without a word, and came to their room.

Phoebe whispered to Maribel as she opened the door and was about to enter, “Thank you for taking me out of that terrible place and letting me watch the opera. I hope the girl who looks like me is twice as happy as I am.”

The door opened inside, perhaps feeling their presence when she spoke.

Seeing that the servant who had always followed the Duke had been the one to come, Maribel thought that the Duke seemed to want very few people involved in this matter. Maribel entered her residence as his servant looked on impatiently.

“This is the medicine His Excellency gave me.”

The most suitable reason for the death of a healthy young woman was sudden death.

“What poison is it?” Maribel asked, taking the brown potion in a forefinger-sized glass bottle.

“I don’t know. I just have what His Excellency gave me. She’ll die quietly without pain, so please feed her quickly.”

Maribel glanced at Phoebe standing still, and pulled out the lid of the bottle she was holding. Phoebe took the brown potion and gulped it down with no hesitation.

Phoebe blinked with embarrassment after drinking the potion. The Duke’s servant said to her calmly, “If you wait a moment, there will be a reaction.”

The doctor gave her a separate painkiller, but her legs began to ache because she had been up and down the stairs and was standing longer than usual. Phoebe waited for her imminent death. She couldn’t stand it and asked in a small voice, “I’m sorry. Can I sit down for a while? My legs are so weak…”

When Phoebe asked if she could sit down, saying that she was sorry even in the face of death, Maribel was speechless.

‘What kind of life have you lived? You give up everything and remain calm about anything that comes along?’ Her own dark past seemed to twist in her mind.

“Sit down. You won’t have to stand and wait until you’re out of breath.”

With her permission, Phoebe limped along to a waiting chair lying on one side and sat down carefully.

Ten minutes, twenty minutes, time passed by. While Phoebe waited for her death in a gentle manner, Maribel said, “I’d rather have her in bed if it was going to take so long.”

Thomas, the Duke of Kiellini’s servant, was inwardly embarrassed by her reaction, which was different than what he had heard from the Duke. Contrary to what he had been told, that she would die within ten minutes of drinking, the woman who had taken the potion became slightly stifled, but was still alive even though it was almost thirty minutes away. He would have thought something was wrong if he hadn’t seen her drink the potion himself.

As he started to think that he had given her the wrong medicine, Phoebe suddenly seized her heart.

“Ah…”

Phoebe thought her death had finally come, as her chest became stuffy and her eyes became blurred. She finally put the frowning Maribel in her eyes, and then closed her heavy eyelids.

Her darkened vision brought to mind the splendid opera she had seen earlier. She sang softly and prayed for a better life in her next life…

—

“She’s not breathing.”

Maribel stared at the servant without realizing it, and laid Phoebe on the floor herself. “I will send a letter to Mrs. Anais. If you stay, you’ll be seen by people. Are you okay?”

“Will the Marquise come this night?”

“She’s been waiting for this death more than anyone else, so she’ll come running right away. I can’t wait to finish this work before morning comes, and I want to rest.”

At Maribel’s words, Thomas checked the prone woman once more and left the theater. Maribel saw him off to the rear gate of the first floor, crossed the hall on the first floor, and extended a letter she had brought to Liam, who was waiting at his room by the main gate.

“Give it to Marquise Anais. You can deliver this letter, saying that the item which was left behind by the Marquise was damaged.”

—

When Liam set out, Maribel returned to her dwelling place.

When she saw the dead body in a stage costume, Maribel unexpectedly clicked her tongue. Because the Duke’s servant had arrived earlier than expected, she didn’t care about removing the dress. Feeling a little irritated by her mistake, she went to the room where Phoebe had stayed and come out with the clothes she had worn and bedsheets.

Only

Suddenly, she heard a cough as she turned to Phoebe’s body to change her clothes.

Cough, cough, cough, retch!

Phoebe was thought to be dead, but she coughed breathlessly and suddenly vomited brown fluid. Maribel watched the pale ivory rug turn brown blankly, and turned Phoebe to her side.

After coughing for a time, Phoebe vomited a lump of dark red blood and opened her eyes after breathing hard. Maribel stared down at Phoebe, stood up, and picked up the water pipe lying on the desk.

Maribel only calmed down after sucking on the water pipe several times with trembling hands, sitting against a desk facing Phoebe. She thought she might have to kill Phoebe again before the Marquise came, but couldn’t put it into practice.

While she was floundering and her thoughts were splitting into ten thousand branches, Phoebe finally raised herself up. She was shaking her head and saw Maribel looking at her.

“Ah…” With blood all around her mouth and chin, Phoebe was embarrassed and apologized, “I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t die at once. Do you have any more of that poison?”

Maribel’s thoughts were complicated when she saw Phoebe saying she was sorry for not dying at once, and giving up so neatly. “This must be your destiny. What will it do for you and me to survive without dying? I was thinking about tossing a coin, but my heart is whispering that I have to save you.”