Thanks to Mr. Nelly's help, Jenkins managed to arrive at Maidenhaven Road right on ti. Even though it was a Saturday, Robert Williams was still at work, and John was busy cramming for his exams. According to Mary, he had organized a study group with his classmates.
Funnily enough, the original Jenkins had used the very sa excuse to shirk his studies. Consequently, even though John's credibility at ho was far greater than Jenkins's had been six months prior, Mary remained skeptical about the whole affair.
However, John's recent exam results proved that his extracurricular study group was indeed quite effective, so Mary had relented, allowing him to leave with his satchel on weekends.
As for the Williams family's eldest son, Newman Williams, he was once again away on a study tour with his professor. Newman was a genuine scholar, the most highly educated mber of the family.
In stark contrast, a certain well-known author and mathematics enthusiast possessed nothing more than a humble graduation certificate from a secondary college.
In any case, when Jenkins arrived ho, the only people present were Mary and the cook. He had grown accustod to living with his new family over ti, but conversations still occasionally felt a little awkward.
There was no major news in the Williams household. The family had no relatives, and the five of them each led their own relatively settled lives. Mary's conversation, however, inevitably drifted toward Jenkins's personal life. He had co prepared for this and managed to answer her questions passably well.
The house wasn't heated by the fireplace but by the steam company's heating pipes, making the indoor temperature much warr than at Jenkins's own place. He kept a tight grip on Chocolate, as the mistress of this house was quite displeased by the presence of pets.
Above the sealed-off fireplace, a collection of family photographs was displayed. Photography was expensive, so most of them had been taken in recent years. Near the center, a photo from two years ago showed Jenkins wearing an ugly hat and smiling goofily.
He was suddenly struck by a sense of unfamiliarity, even though he saw that sa face in the washroom mirror every morning.
His gaze subconsciously drifted to the side, to another picture fra. In it, a healthy-looking old man had his arm around a young man. The background was a three-story mud-brick house in the countryside, a clothesline stretching over their heads. An old hen and a yellow dog photobombed the edge of the fra.
The old man bore a striking resemblance to the Robert of today, while the young man looked a great deal like Jenkins. Yet, he had no mory of this photograph whatsoever.
"That's your grandfather and your father."
Seeing the curiosity in Jenkins's gaze, Mary explained softly:
"Last week, while the workers were cleaning out the basent, they ca across a pile of old clothes Robert had brought with him when he first ca to Nolan. We found this photograph in the pocket of an overcoat. Robert thought he had lost it on the ship he'd used to sneak into the country."
"Grandfather?"
The old man had passed away twenty years ago, before the plague outbreak. He'd been repairing a warehouse one day when he was struck on the head by falling debris. Robert Williams was only a teenager when it happened, so none of the three children of this generation had ever known him.
"Grandfather looks so much like... Father."
He stood, picked up the picture fra, and carried it back to the sofa before sitting down again.
"Yes."
Mary naturally wrapped an arm around Jenkins's neck:
"You look a lot like your father, too. That's why Robert always doted on you, indulged you the most. Thank the Sage that you were able to find your way back to the right path."
Jenkins was still a little uncomfortable with such affectionate gestures, but he knew it was an appropriate interaction, so he simply nodded to show he understood.
"Father doesn't favor especially. His love for John and Newman is the sa."
"You're absolutely right."
Mary said, shaking her head. She looked at her sweet, silly boy, a wave of nostalgia washing over her as she recalled the days when the three brothers were young.
She herself had been a young girl from the slums of Nolan, her background much like that of Fini Faithford, the forr flower seller Jenkins knew. But Mary had received help from the Legacy Sage Church not through the intervention of a noble benefactor, but through sheer luck.
Mary Williams's maiden na was Mary Hunt, and the Hunt family had no respectable relatives to speak of. John, Jenkins, and Newman's maternal grandparents had died during a particularly harsh winter, but Mary rarely spoke of it at ho. Her only acknowledgnt was taking the entire family to lay a bouquet of flowers on their grave during the year-end festival each December.
"Actually, I've always been curious... why is my middle na Redemptor? In the common tongue, it seems to an 'savior.' John's middle na cos from Grandfather, and Newman's is from a writer Father admires. So, what about Redemptor?"
he asked, a question that had puzzled him for a long ti.
The cat, pinned in his arms and feigning sleep, also showed interest. It cracked open one eye and twitched an ear, eavesdropping on their conversation.
"There's no special reason, Jenkins. It was a request left by your grandfather. He insisted that your father's second son must have the middle na Redemptor."
"Then why would Grandfather make such a request?"
Jenkins pressed, having previously speculated that it might have been because Robert had a strange dream or encountered an unusual fortune-teller.
"I don't know. That was a very long ti ago. Robert had actually forgotten all about it, but on the day you were born, he miraculously rembered. Heh, he's always believed it was his late father's spirit urging him on,"
Mary chuckled as she spoke, lost in distant mories.
Jenkins was still puzzled. He felt a growing need to investigate the history of the Williams family.
Robert and John returned ho soon after. John was carrying a rather deflated-looking black leather satchel. Jenkins had his doubts about how many books could possibly fit inside, but since Mary trusted him, he held his tongue.
It was a perfect family dinner, with smiles all around the table. Robert repeatedly asked Jenkins to describe his eting with the queen in detail, comparing the banquet he'd attended at the Coldspring Palace to the al before them.
Jenkins suspected, however, that his father was rely trying to distract Mary long enough to sneak another drink into his glass. The distribution of alcohol in this household was entirely under the matriarch's control, and she strongly opposed the n under her roof overindulging in such 'dangerous liquids.'
That autumn, Robert had closed a major deal for his employer, the Smiths United Mining Company, and had been promoted just last week. He was now a senior executive at the company's Nolan branch. Upon hearing that Jenkins had so cash on hand, he suggested that his son try investing in the mining business.
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