Guidelines for the Perfect Goodbye - Chapter 261

After sending Bernarda away, Adam leaned his weary body against the back of his chair and stared at the ceiling.

It had a lattice pattern that could be found anywhere.

Originally, there had been a ceiling fresco of cherubs welcoming the advent of God.

‘Evelyn liked the ceiling fresco here.’

She used to say that it was rare for a private residence to have such a beautiful fresco.

There had been a sense of pride in her voice when she spoke.

Her house, her manor. Yes, this place had belonged to Evelyn Lasphilla.

“…The problem was that she deluded herself into thinking it was hers alone until the very end.”

Even after marriage, she did not act as the Countess of Lasphilla, but as the only daughter of Coffret Manor, the young noble lady of the Lasphilla County.

To Adam, he had been nothing more than a guest in her home, a mere accessory—no more, no less.

Every investment required her approval, and unwilling to lose even a single grain of her father’s inheritance, she remained skeptical of nearly every investment proposal.

How much money had been lost because of such hesitation.

In the end, you made me miss a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Whenever Adam shouted, Evelyn never backed down.

“How is that my fault? It’s your own poverty to blame if you couldn’t even raise that much capital without my help!”

She had scraped at his pride with a chisel and then proudly declared—

“At the very least, this Coffret Manor remains standing. That’s all I ever wanted.”

“Foolish woman. Did you think laying money on the ground would make the land sprout interest?”

The cost of maintaining Coffret Manor was no small matter.

If disaster struck the estate, that year’s harvest would be ruined, and clinging to the outdated tradition of relying solely on grain would eventually lead to the manor’s slow collapse.

No matter how many times he tried to convince her, Evelyn stubbornly adhered to the management style of her father’s era.

“Evelyn, the world has changed.”

They could no longer bind the tenants to their land through tenancy alone, nor could wheat and bread keep them satisfied anymore.

They would leave for the city.

They would become one with the machines and join the new workforce.

Their masters would no longer be landlords but factory owners.

We must stand above those factory owners. That means we must become investors. This is the inevitable course of the world.

But Evelyn refused to listen.

Well, what could be expected?

A woman who had spent her entire life in the Lasphilla estate, wrapped in fine linens and silks within her manor—what would she understand?

The petticoat beneath her dress was no longer made by a maid but by a machine.

The silk handkerchief she carried had been brought in by a trade ship that had traversed across the sea.

Evelyn never understood.

And that was why she died.

She had wanted to preserve Coffret Manor forever, and so had he.

Their goals were the same, yet their minds were irreconcilable.

We were destined to remain at odds.

We were husband and wife, but also competitors.

Who would win.

Who would become the true master of this place.

You must have believed, without a doubt, that you were the rightful master here…

“The world has changed.”

Adam rested his elbows on the desk and buried his face in his hands. A low groan escaped him.

For the first time in a long while, her lingering presence clung to him.

Evelyn Lasphilla.

A girl with a beautiful smile and chestnut-brown hair.

She was so pure it felt suffocating to be around her.

Though she had an unexpected mischievous streak, she had always struggled to maintain that air of dignity, not wanting to tarnish her father’s reputation.

Yet up close, her eyes had always shimmered with life.

Those vibrant eyes, brimming with dreams and ideals, had once unsettled him.

They reflected a world she could never reach.

A fairy-tale realm, where angels blew trumpets and cherubs sang in chorus.

To her, the world beyond Coffret Manor must have been such a place.

Adam, however, had long known what lay beyond—nothing but filth and mud.

Her curious gaze had always unsettled him.

Whenever he returned from a trip abroad, she would pester him with the same tiresome question.

“Did you see an elephant?”

A woman as different from him as heaven was from earth.

She had insisted on wearing a queenly wedding dress at their ceremony.

And so, clad in a pristine white gown, she had stood with Adam on the virgin road.

He had to take her hand.

He had to place the ring on her finger and vow eternal love.

But eternity did not exist in this world.

She should have known that, too.

Back then, she didn’t.

He had seen it in her eyes—her sheer, unshakable belief in that illusion.

And so, in his youth, he had struggled through that oath.

The vow shattered in mere months.

Adam abandoned Evelyn’s bedroom in favor of others’.

She had found out too late and raged.

She had stormed about, grabbed his clothes, pleaded in tears,

“Just for tonight, please don’t go.”

“So if I stay with you tonight, does that mean I can do as I please with that investment proposal?”

At the mere mention of touching her father’s inheritance, her hands had slackened.

And so Adam left, and she remained alone.

She raged again, and he made another proposal.

She rejected it.

He left, she fumed, they floundered in a ceaseless mire—

Until, at last, she did nothing at all.

Whenever their eyes met as he prepared to leave, she would look at him, her gaze rough and cracked, like glaze peeling from old porcelain.