Salvation Equation - Chapter 32. Arlington’s Suggestion

He was usually a man with a cold atmosphere, but he looked particularly annoyed today. He murmured indifferently.

“This is where I smoke.”

“Really?”

She was already so upset, so she didn’t feel good about the man’s words that seemed to be provoking her. Arlington looked sideways at Madeline.

“You seem upset, Miss Loenfield. You’re not that positive and full of will like usual.”

He took out a cigarette and lit it with a Zippo lighter. Madeline sighed as she watched him.

“There’s nothing for me to feel upset about.”

It wasn’t very convincing because of her tearful voice. Arlington created a small cloud of smoke with his cigarette.

“Is it because of the picture?”

“……!”

She looked at him in surprise, but Arlington’s gaze was only facing forward. His disillusioned eyes were distorted.

“No one cares about that kind of gossip, so don’t worry. Everyone usually wants to tie young men and women together.”

“Who said I care about that?”

Madeline shook her head.

“Of course, it must have troubled Count Nottingham.”

“… Though you’re free to think, I tend to rather think the opposite.”

Arlington smoked his cigarette, and Madeline, who became uncomfortable, stepped forward to enter the hospital. Then, he spat out a word indifferently as if throwing a stone.

“Did you know?”

“Pardon?”

“It looks like all the patients will soon be moved to another place.”

“…….”

“The hospital will become a mansion again. Well. It can’t be helped. I, too, will need to find a place to work.”

He rubbed his cigarette in a portable ashtray.

Should she have been surprised? No. It didn’t feel surprising, shocking nor did she feel betrayed. Because she knew it would come one day. She just didn’t want to know like this.

Madeline, who froze for a long time, nodded slowly as if she understood. Arlington looked at Madeline’s face, which was white as snow and frozen.

“What are you going to do?”

“…. What do you mean?”

“Do you have a place to go?”

“I can go anywhere. As long as I have two arms and two legs.”

“Are you going to keep on working as a nurse?”

Somehow, It felt like the conversation with the man was going in circles. It was difficult to grasp his true intentions.

“It would be nice to work in a hospital.”

It wasn’t up to talent. Madeline Loenfield didn’t think of herself as a nightingale. But she liked taking care of patients. Patients generally liked her, too. It was a good job if it wasn’t for the intense labor. So it wasn’t a wrong answer.

One of the man’s eyebrows rose slightly when he heard her answer. His expression shook subtly like a researcher who found an interesting specimen.

“Would you like to work with me?”

Arlington suggested.

The sunset reddened the back of Madeline’s head. The woman’s blonde hair blazed like gold thread. Madeline’s clear eyes absorbed the light of the silent dusk.

She froze at the series of shocks. As if having been caught talking to her father by Ian wasn’t enough, Arlington has now thrown a bombshell.

The true motive of his suggestion may now be pure. It was unfair to judge a man based on his past life.

However, she still couldn’t fully trust him. To Madeline, he was a snake-like person.

At the same time, the more she knew him, the more he showed an unfamiliar face. Like right now. He gave her an unexpected offer with an unfamiliar face.

Madeline, submerged in the sunset, shook her head. Arlington, dazzled by the sunset, squinted his eyes.

“Thank you for your words. However, you’re….”

“I work in mental hospitals. Madeline. I know why you’re hesitating. Because mental hospitals don’t have that much of a good image.”

The man seemed to think Madeline refused for other reasons. He defended his words in his own way.

“Even if the treatment is successful, sometimes the situation gets worse. But even those are worthwhile. Don’t you want to join us in this field to make things better? You won’t regret working with me.”

While Madeline paused as she pondered her refusal, Arlington pulled out a second cigarette from a pack. It was a hasty move.

Madeline closed her eyes.

Ian was definitely getting frail. But was it Madeline’s fault?

[Don’t you want to know what kind of expression he would make then?]

Now they were blurry and hazy images. They were memories that she would never look back on, just like old photo albums covered in dust.

She was confused. She didn’t want to think. It was hard to tell right from wrong in the painful past.

However…what’s sure was, it was no use blaming the man in front of her for all the wrongdoings.

Arlington swayed like a heat haze when she opened her eyes again.

* * *

Arlington looked at Madeline’s sunset-stained face. Various colors could be seen in the woman’s face.

​​

A color that’s a little sad right now. It’s not Arlington’s favorite hue, but it wasn’t bad either.

Madeline’s growth as a nurse in the last year has been remarkable. But what was more surprising, was that his proposal was purely impulsive.

To be honest, Madeline wasn’t fit to be a nurse. She was too soft-hearted.

Too much compassion was not good. One should always keep a certain distance from the patient, but Madeline Loenfield lacked that kind of sense of distance.

To cut off dozens of legs and arms in the front lines. While performing such operations, he realized that too much compassion for the patient would only mess up things. The same goes for psychiatric care. It was just cutting out one’s wrong way of thinking, like cutting out an affected part.

He sighed.

“Do you really sympathize with the Count? If so, then you’re really an innocent person as you appear.”

“As expected…. you want to tease me with that article, right? I’m telling you, we don’t have any relationship.”

Madeline’s seemingly soft exterior changed like a hedgehog full of needles. In an instant.

Arlington raised his hand with a cigarette between his fingers. It was a surrender.

“Don’t get me wrong. I just wanted to say that you have the right to live your own life. I’m serious about my offer, so please reconsider it.”

“…….”

Madeline carefully scanned Arlington’s face. She saw not even a small trickery on his face, and replied reluctantly.

“….Thank you for your kindness.”

Now, the red sunset was turning purple. Arlington’s cold reptile-like blue eyes darkened.

She couldn’t talk to this man here any longer. Madeline forced the corners of her mouth to smile.

“But, it’s really okay.”

She gave a small bow and hurried away. The man who was looking at Madeline walking toward the hospital breathed out a cigarette smoke like a sigh.

“That woman can’t hide her dislike towards me until the end.”

He felt a bit wronged.

* * *

‘Anyway, the hospital is closing.’

Madeline couldn’t entirely concentrate on work. In the end, her colleagues noticed Madeline’s condition. It came to the point that Mrs. Oates, the head nurse, called her separately.

“What’s the matter? Miss Loenfield.”

“I’m sorry. Making so many mistakes….”

She was flustered as she folded the gauze.

“I don’t care about the mistakes. It’s just that you look so tired.”

When she saw Oates’ face, which seemed genuinely worried, she felt even more depressed. She felt a sense of shame as she thought that she was even making the people around her worry.

“Thank you for your concern, but I…I’m really okay. I can do my best.”

“Madeline. I’ve always thought this..”

It was really rare for Mrs. Oates, who had always been strict, to call her “Madeline” in a friendly manner. There was warmth on her wrinkled stern face.

However, her consolation only made Madeline sadder. Her heart burned at the thought of splitting up soon with the teacher in front of her and her colleagues.

“I think you’re overdoing it. You don’t have to put your everything into it. It’s all over now.”

She probably meant that the war was now over. Madeline nodded gently.

“By force…I mean, you don’t have to be more active than you can.”

Mrs. Oates was right. Madeline’s frequent mistakes were all due to that. The harder she tried, the more mistakes she made.

She lived like she was being chased. From the misery of her past life, from her own faults. That’s why, she didn’t even know that she was gradually getting exhausted.

‘Is it okay to not do that anymore? Since the war is over and the hospital will be gone.’

Madeline couldn’t help crying. Oates took a clean, soft handkerchief out of her chest pocket and wiped her eyes.

“Our kind Madeline. Don’t just keep it in without saying anything.”

“Mrs Oates…”

“Everything will be okay. Madeline. Because you’re a strong person.”

*****