When I entered the Pendleton house holding my father’s hand, I didn’t feel lonely at first. Grandmother, Mrs. Abigail Pendleton, welcomed me with open arms.

To Mrs. Pendleton, who had been in mourning and seclusion for years due to the loss of her daughter, Laura was like her daughter’s reincarnation.

The love that grandmother poured onto Laura was warm and devoted. Through her grandmother, Laura felt a mother’s love she had never experienced before.

But it wasn’t so with her uncle. To him, his sister’s love escapade was a disgraceful scandal that brought shame to the Pendleton family, and his niece Laura was nothing more than a byproduct of that scandal.

He was angry at his mother’s unilateral decision to take in his niece while he was away, and fought with his mother every day.

The uncle often chased Laura away from the dining table and would yell with contempt as if he had seen a rat whenever she appeared in the house.

Miss Pendleton had to quickly hide herself from her uncle’s sight at those shouts. She would have fits just hearing her uncle’s footsteps, and it became routine for her to hide in the nursery to avoid being seen by him. Every day was like treading on thin ice for the young girl.

Miss Pendleton still remembered. The terrifying image of her uncle throwing an ashtray at her for dragging her feet. The beatings she had to endure for being falsely accused of stealing pudding from the pantry, which she didn’t even know where it was. The three years she spent at the Pendleton house in her childhood were days that left unhealing wounds on her every day.

Grandmother tried to appease, persuade, and even beg her son to protect her granddaughter. But the uncle was adamant.

Grandmother eventually started fighting with her son like an enemy. As her existence had caused a big fight in this household, young Laura’s shoulders grew heavy with guilt as if carrying a weight.

After fighting endlessly with her son for three years to not give up on her granddaughter, Mrs. Pendleton finally gave up on raising her granddaughter in the main house. On the day Laura’s boarding school attendance was decided, Laura wet her pillow with tears all night, offering prayers of gratitude.

Lord, thank you for allowing me to leave this hellish house.

But the boarding school she entered after leaving the main house was not entirely heaven.

As the Pendleton family was one of the most prestigious in England, the facts surrounding Laura’s birth quickly spread throughout the school. There was no overt bullying, but Miss Pendleton spent much of her first few years alone without friends.

But during the time she spent alone, she was able to immerse herself in her studies, and with her innate intelligence and diligence, she consistently ranked top in school.

Moreover, with her innate nature and added effort, she always behaved kindly and properly in front of others. Gradually her reputation improved, and the label of illegitimate child that had followed her gradually changed to something else.

Kind Laura. Diligent Laura. Laura who never gets angry.

Her classmates and teachers always called her that. It was much better than being called illegitimate Laura. Laura spent her entire teens trying not to be called illegitimate Laura. To be diligent, kind, and not get angry. Suppressing, suppressing, and suppressing again.

It wasn’t an easy life, but it was better than being at the Pendleton house. At least here, her efforts paid off.

But school was a place one had to leave eventually. When she turned seventeen, her grandmother came to pick her up.

She was afraid she might have to return to the Pendleton house as she followed her grandmother into the carriage decorated with the Pendleton family crest. But the place her grandmother headed was a townhouse in London. After that, the two settled in the townhouse and have lived there ever since.

Miss Pendleton only found out later. The fight between her uncle and grandmother didn’t end when she left. Rather, it was the beginning of a full-fledged fight. While her granddaughter was at school, grandmother was even going through lawsuits to formally register her granddaughter as a Pendleton.

Grandmother wanted to give her precious granddaughter Laura her mother’s prestigious family name instead of her poor American father’s. Naturally, the head of the family, Gerald, opposed, and the two fought in court for years.

Grandmother fought equally with her uncle using her maternal family’s large estate, the townhouse transferred to her name by her husband, and a considerable amount of pension from the country. But she couldn’t overcome the laws of England that favored the head of the family.

Moreover, the uncle had come to truly hate his mother after years of fighting. He put all his efforts into bringing his mother to her knees, accompanied by expensive lawyers, filled with resentment.

Finally, sensing her impending defeat, grandmother barely managed to register her granddaughter into the Pendleton family on the condition that she would bequeath all her property to Gerald Pendleton’s second son, Charles, upon her death.

Grandmother completely fell out with her uncle because of this incident, saying she didn’t even want to see the shadow of her son. Grandmother settled completely in London with Laura, who had officially become Miss Pendleton.

Grandmother’s widow’s pension alone was more than enough for the two to maintain face living in London. Grandmother formally introduced Miss Pendleton to society the year she graduated from school.

Grandmother had high expectations when debuting Miss Pendleton. She expected Miss Pendleton to enjoy the social life that her daughter couldn’t properly experience due to her elopement right after her society debut.

Wearing beautiful dresses, receiving numerous invitations, hosting tea parties, formal dinners, and concerts.

Miss Pendleton didn’t object to her grandmother’s expectations, but she had no expectations for her own social life. She couldn’t think that the label that had followed her since childhood would easily fall off.

And indeed, the aristocratic society of London had not forgotten the woman who had created a big scandal. And they did not fully accept Laura Pendleton, her child who bore her surname, as a member of that society. The ostracism and alienation she received when she first debuted in society was unimaginable.

For the twelve years she stayed in society, she lived with a lowered heart, reminding herself that she was not a proper aristocrat. It was the only way she could not collapse under the cold treatment and humiliation.

Her eyes sank deeply as she looked into the pendant, standing in front of the window.

Now she was a spinster nearing thirty, and the mother in the pendant was a much younger lady than herself. Laura Pendleton, who had developed her reason through experience and observation, could make the right judgment.

How wrong a choice Dolores Pendleton had made when she ran away with a penniless painter at seventeen. She died by her foolish passion.

And the price of that foolishness did not end with her death. It came back to her child.

To her now, the pearl pendant was like a solid armor to keep herself from losing herself. As long as she wore this necklace, she would never make a choice that reason did not allow. She was determined not to make an irreversible mistake like her parents. No matter how much her emotions might rage.

She put Dalton’s letter back in the drawer. And she looked at the mirror positioned in front of the dressing table. Laura Pendleton, an illegitimate child with American parents and a fake aristocrat.

She could not be with Ian Dalton. Age and dowry were actually secondary issues. No matter how much he loved her, if he met her with commoner blood mixed in, he too would become the subject of scandal. And an even bigger problem would be when they married and had children.

Her parents’ issue would become a stigma not just for the couple, but for their children as well. When they marry or enter high society, the issue of her birth as their mother would inevitably be brought up.

Children born into an old family like the Daltons would become the subject of gossip because of their mother’s birth.

It’s making children experience exactly what she had lived through. Miss Pendleton couldn’t let her children go through the same thing she had. To be precise, she couldn’t let Dalton’s children go through such things either.

‘I like him. That’s why, the more I do, the more I should give up.’

As her rational judgment continued, her heart calmed down. She closed the lid of the open pendant.

Click. With it, her heart closed as well.

* * *

Reverend Jenfield’s funeral was held quietly at the small church in Whitefield where he had devoted his entire life. Under the officiation of young assistant pastor Oliver Star, who had assisted him for the past three years, his relatives and parishioners in black mourning clothes commemorated him who had been stubborn yet dignified.

Soon the coffin was carried on the shoulders of six strong men and moved towards the cemetery where he would rest eternally. People in mourning clothes lined up like a long tail and followed the coffin to the cemetery.

The coffin placed in the prepared pit was soon sealed forever by piles of earth. People cried, murmured prayers, and dispersed. Only one person, Ian Dalton, remained in front of the new grave.

He quietly looked at Reverend Jenfield’s tombstone. The old pastor Jenfield who had given him his first baptism. The fact that he couldn’t be by his side at his last moments pained his heart.

He stood there, closed his eyes, and prayed for about ten minutes. Then, after briefly kissing the tombstone with respect and mourning, he quietly left the place.

In front of the church, mourners were scattered about talking or gathering around the deceased’s family to offer condolences. Among them, a well-built middle-aged man in black mourning clothes approached Ian Dalton with his hands in his pockets. It was Robert Fairfax, Ian Dalton’s brother-in-law.

Ian took off his hat and gave a slight bow when he saw him.

“You came in a hurry last night?”

“Yes.”

“Did you finish your business in London well?”

“There’s still some left. I’ll go back as soon as I settle the affairs in the estate.”

Robert nodded.

“Why don’t you visit your sister sometime when you’re done? She’s been waiting desperately for you to return from London.”

“Please tell her I’ll visit after I finish my work first. Is my sister’s health alright?”

“Her chills have reduced a lot. But it’s hard for her to travel long distances. However, she still has plenty of energy to meddle in your love affairs. So, how was it? Did you find any suitable young ladies in London?”