Please Don’t Remember Me - Chapter 11. Love Letter

“You’re a good writer, aren’t you, Lara?”

“Huh?”

“Diethardt told me that you have beautiful handwriting.”

At Mia’s house.

Ever since the harvest festival, Clara has been called to Mia’s house every time she has a day off to drink tea with her as a way of teaching Mia manners. The truth was, Clara didn’t want to get close to aristocrats if she could help it, but Mia’s family, the barons, just became aristocrats and didn’t have much to do with the other aristocrats, so she was fine with it.

“Yes, I think I’m pretty good at writing.”

In fact, Clara and her mother used to write letters for the Queen. The Queen was always busy writing letters, from invitations to thank you notes. Since her mother was a maidservant, she copied the queen’s handwriting and wrote letters for her. She also taught her daughter, Clara, the queen’s handwriting and raised her as a writer.

That’s why her handwriting was very good, or rather, it was the queen’s handwriting.

She was very humble about that.

“I have a favor to ask of you, Lara.”

“A favor?”

Somehow, Clara had a bad feeling about this, and she braced herself.

“I want to write a letter. But I’m embarrassed because my handwriting is terrible. So I want you to write it for me.”

“Oh, you want me to write you a love letter?”

“Oh, my God. I never said it was a love letter!”

“It says “love letter” on your face.”

“Well, I mean, there’s someone I really like, someone I really admire, and he has high status! So, it’s a fan letter!

“Hmm, fan letter, huh.”

“Yes!”

Mia grinned and rubbed Clara’s cheeks.

This was the first time she had ever heard someone talk about their love life, and she was thrilled to hear a girl of her age talk about her love life. She had been longing for this kind of chatting, not the gossiping of the aristocracy.

The man was older than her, and it seemed that Mia fell in love with him at first sight. He was someone who had a high status that Mia would rather admire him from afar than like him. Moreover, it was said that recently, it has become popular among young women in Bajona to send fan letters to the person of their dreams.

She hoped it was not Duke Kiega, a nobleman who has high status and whom Mia would fall in love with at first sight,……That didn’t seem like the case.

If so, Clara decided that Mia would write the text herself, using Clara’s draft as a model. She felt as if she was accompanying Mia to a child’s play.

When Clara went to buy cheese today, she was able to get some milk for free, so she made potato gratin from the leftover potato stew she made earlier. So tonight’s dinner was very inexpensive, and her wallet and stomach were very happy.

“Now, I’d better get to work on the love letter.”

After taking a bath, she rubbed her hair with a towel and  felt a little motivated. Actually, she was full and wanted to go to bed with a warm body, but the day of her appointment with Mia was approaching. The rather serious Clara was going to write a few and hand over a carefully selected one.

“Uh, what?”

*Mia’s letter – LOL*

[Nice to meet you. My name is Mia, and I’m the daughter of  Baron The first time I saw you was last year. I saw you disembarking from a carriage. The first time I saw you, you were so sparkling, smelled so good, had long legs and hands, and were so elegant. It was the first time I saw a prince. I was very impressed and thought it was amazing. I’m so happy to have met you today, Koei. I will never forget it. I will continue to support you. Please take care of your health and do your best.]

A lot of things need to be tweaked, Clara thought. She remembered that her brother Ernesto had said that he wanted to raise the literacy rate of the people. Maybe it’s the same in Bajona. Still, she could feel the feelings of a girl who fell in love at first sight with a wonderful man who looked like a prince, and yearned for him. She tried to keep that in mind and rework the text in a ladylike manner.

Clara grabbed a pen. She tried to write in a different handwriting from the queen’s, but was careful to make it look beautiful. Even so, her usual habits made it look like the Queen’s nonetheless. After a few pages, she was finally able to write something she was satisfied with.

“Hmmm… I think I wrote it quite elegantly, concisely and passionately.”

The next thing she knew, it was late. Tomorrow, she has to work again in the morning. Clara went to bed feeling satisfied with what she had accomplished.

She woke up the next morning to find several passionate love letters on her desk, which she had written in the middle of the night, were completely different from what Mia wrote. It was also in red and blue ink.

“Did I write these? So this is what they mean when they say you shouldn’t write letters in the middle of the night.”

When she read the love letter Mia wrote again, she found it to be very honest, girlish and lovely. She wondered why she corrected it into such a passionate letter. Clara rushed to rewrite the letter, only correcting the typos and the odd sentence, but not changing much of the content this time.

“I’m glad I realized it before I gave it to her.”

She tore up those letters and threw them away so that no one would see this embarrassing mistake.

She didn’t have time to make breakfast, so today she nibbled on a biscuit and headed to work. Not so long ago, she felt guilty for doing something so ill-mannered, but now she thinks nothing of it.

“Good morning.”

When she cheerfully opened the door of the store, dhe found Greta sitting at the counter, laughing and tapping Mauro on the shoulder as he sat beside her.

“Good morning, Lara. You look a little pale.”

“I’m fine. I’m fine, I just stayed up a little too late.”

Greta looked at Clara.

“You’re in your youth. Still, lack of sleep is the worst enemy of beauty. After I finished with the shop and took a bath, I would pass out right away.”

Clara laughed a little when she heard the word beauty from Greta, who always wore her hair pulled back in a bun and wore large clothes to hide her fat body.

But she thought she really liked Greta’s big smile, which showed all the wrinkles around her eyes and face. Anyone who saw this smile would laugh along with her.

Mauro also had a dumbfounded look on his face, but the way he looked at Greta was always very kind.

“You two always get along so well. Please tell me the secret of your marital bliss.”

“That’s a good point. Come here and sit down!”

Greta patted the chair next to her and Mauro poured a cup of coffee for Clara. This kind of pre-opening chat made the lonely Clara feel as if they were her friends, her family.