Something Beautiful
Chapter - 35

"I think.." said Lisa.

Realizing Lisa would reject her offer again, the grandmother cut out her sentence, "Lisa, you are now Kim, and your place is with us. Moreover, it is your duty to respect your husband's wishes, and he specifically asks you to bear his great name.'

Lisa's indecision soon dissipated when the grandmother's last sentence entered her mind. Now my name is Kim, not Bruschweiler, he realizes with pride and pleasure. He had lost nothing when the man left him, Mingyu had given his name. In return, Lisa recalls witfully, she had sworn wholeheartedly to Mingyu to cherish the man and live out his request. It seemed Mingyu wanted her to be a graceful woman who deserved her name and could earn a place among the nobility. Whatever it means, Lisa's heart breaks as she lifts her eyes to look at the grandmother and gently promises, "I'll do whatever she wants."

"Good," said the granny. When Lisa had already gone to pack her things, Yugyeom leaned back on the chair and looked at her grandmother straight up, the woman immediately reacted by straightening up on the chair and stared back at that gaze calmly. Attempt failed.

"Try to tell me," said his grandson in a lazy and amused tone, "when have you been so eager to hire an old servant?"

"Since I realized it was the only way Lisa wouldn't leave" she replied bluntly. "I will not allow the child to seclude himself in a remote hamlet and wear mourning clothes for the rest of his life. He's only eighteen."

***

The main house, a heritage estate of twelve generations of the Kim family consists of 50,000 acres, gardens, rolling hills and lush fields. A black high-iron gate decorated with the Kim family emblem blocked the entrance. A uniformed gatekeeper came out of the stone substation to open the heavy gate so that the graceful traveling carriage could pass by.

Lisa, who was sitting next to her grandmother, stared out the window as the train rolled down the smooth and winding road through acres of green grassy grounds. Huge trees lined up on both sides of the road, stretching out their large branches like leaf umbrellas overshadowing a carriage. Although this main house now belonged to Yugyeom, in Lisa's heart she thought it still belonged to Mingyu. This is the man's home, where he was born, and grew up. Here she will learn everything about her husband and know him because she did not have time to do it while he was alive.

Just being in this place alone had already made him feel closer to Mingyu. "This house is more beautiful than I ever imagined" he said.

Yugyeom grinned at Lisa's admiration, "Wait until you see her house" said the man, and from her tone Lisa knew the house was magnificent. Despite being warned in advance, he was stunned when the train veered into the driveway. Eight hundred meters ahead there, with all its splendor, lay a three-story mansion made of stone and glass. The mansion has more than twenty rooms against a backdrop of green hills, clear rivers, and terraced gardens. On the front, across the driveway of the house, the geese swim in a vast, very calm lake, and to the right of it, the swans swim in a very quiet lake, a beautiful white gazebo with graceful Greek-style columns overlooking the lake and garden.

"It's so pretty" Lisa whispered, "it's so pretty."

Six servants stood upright on the wide steps leading to the entrance to the front door. While suppressing the feeling that she was being disrespectful, Lisa followed the example shown by the grandmother when she got out of the carriage and walked past the servants as if they were not there.

The front door was opened wide by the maid whose haughty attitude made one immediately know that she was the butler and leader of all the servants present in the house. The grandmother introduced the man as Ramsey, then walked into the hall with Lisa by her side.

A wide marble staircase curves upward in a semicircle from the passageway to the second floor, then past the balcony and up to the third floor. Lisa and her grandmother climbed the stairs together, and Lisa was ushered into a large bedroom decorated with pink nuana.

After the maid left them, the grandmother turned to Lisa, "Do you want to rest? We had a rough day yesterday."

Lisa's memory of Mingyu's funeral service yesterday was so faint and painful. The sad atmosphere was attended by hundreds of grim faces who glanced at him suspiciously while he stood silently next to Mrs Kim inside the enormous church. Yugyeom's widowed mother as well as her frail little brother, stood next to her mother, their faces pale and tense. Half an hour ago, their carriage had entered his residence Yugyeom before. Lisa loves them and is glad they will be living near here.

"From resting, may I see Mingyu's room, Ma'am? You see, I married Mingyu, but I was not given the chance to really know her. He was a boy in this house, and he lived here until a week before I met him." The familiar blob of tears stuck Lisa's throat and she finished her sentence in a quivering voice, "I want to get to know her, learn everything about her, and that I can do here. That's one of the reasons why I agreed to come with you."

His grandmother's heart was covered in affection, she raised her hand and stroked Lisa's pale cheek, but then she controlled herself and hurriedly said, "I'll call the waiter to meet you."

A nimble middle-aged maid, appears moments later and takes Lisa to a room she calls "Master room", a very large room on the second floor, which is, the entire wall is made of stained glass from the floor to the ceiling and facing the garden.

As soon as Lisa stepped into this room, she faintly smelled a familiar fragrance, the spice-scented Mingyu perfume, she said, the same scent as the man's jaw and chin when Lisa fell asleep in his arms at night.

He turned his head and let his eyes enjoy every inch of the room, from the intricately carved gypsum in the sky to the beautiful Persian tapestry of dark blue and golden yellow under his feet. Two enormous, ivory-white marble fireplaces were across the room, the sinkhole so large that it could easily stand inside. A wide bed with a dark blue satin fabric bed cover looks luxurious on the low stage on the left of Lisa, under a blue canopy hung on a high ceiling. To the right of Lisa, a pair of golden-colored silk sofas were placed face to face in front of the fireplace.

"I want to look around" he explained to the servant, his voice was nothing more than a whisper, as if he were in a sacred and sacred room, and he did feel that way. He walked to the rosewood dressing table, then longingly touched the marble-backed Mingyu hairbrush, the comb still lying as if waiting for Mingyu's hand to hold it, then Lisa stood on her tiptoes, trying to see her reflection in the mirror on the table. Mirror Mingyu. The mirror was hung to the height of its owner, and even though it had tiptoes Lisa could only see half of his head. How tall the man was, he thought with a knotty smile.

There are three more rooms that blend into the bedroom, a dress room and a workroom that contains a soft leather sofa and walls full of rows of books, as well as another room that makes Lisa gasp. In front of him was a semicircular room, the walls and floors were made of black marble with golden veins, and in the middle of the room was a hole from marble.

"What's this?" ask Lisa

"Bathroom, Your Grace," replied the waiter, bowing.

"Bathroom?" repeat Lisa, staring in astonishment at the golden taps and the graceful columns of marble that rise from the middle of the giant bathtub to the glass-roofed round ceiling.

"Master Mingyu loved modernization, Your Grace," the waiter explained and Lisa turned her head when she heard the proud and affectionate tone in the old servant's voice.

"I'd rather be called Miss Lisa alone" she said with a friendly smile. The man looked so surprised that Lisa used to say, "Lady Lisa then. Do you know my husband well?"

"Better than any servant, Except Mr. Yoon, he's the head steward." Feeling she had the attention of Lady Lisa, the maid immediately offered to give a tour of the house and courtyard, which lasted for three hours, including a visit to Mingyu's favorite cottage as a child, as well as being acquainted with Yoon, the head steward of the horse, who offered to tell him everything about Master Mingyu, whenever Lisa came to the stables.

As the afternoon approaches, the friendly waiter's tour ends with Lisa taking her to two places, one of which soon becomes her favorite spot. It was a long gallery with two rows of portraits of the former eleven Kim family heads in golden frames that resembled each other, hung along its long walls, and, with portraits of their wives and children.

"My husband is the most handsome of them all" Lisa said after watching each portrait.

"Me and Mr. Ramsey said the same thing."

"But his portrait is not among the other heads of the family."

"I've heard him tell Master Yugyeom that he has something better to do than stand still and look dignified and important." The man nodded towards the two portraits that were in the top row. "That was him, there, as a child, and that was when he was sixteen. In his last picture, his father insisted that he stand up, and Master Mingyu was infuriated by it."

A smile fell on Lisa's pale face as she looked at the flap-haired boy who stood solemnly beside the beautiful, gray-eyed blonde woman. On the woman's side, in front of the throne-like red velvet chair was a handsome yet smiling man, his shoulders fielded and his expression was the most sublime expression Lisa had ever seen.

The last place the maid showed was a rather small room on the third floor whose air was like a room that had not been opened for a long time. Three small tables facing a larger table were at the front of the room, and an old globe stood on a support made of brass.

"This is a classroom" said the old servant. "Little Master Mingyu spent more time getting out of here than being inside. Then Master Mingyu was struck with a stick by his teacher more than once for forgetting to study. Nevertheless, he learned everything he needed to know. His brain is very thin."

Lisa's eyes swept through the small, quiet room, then suddenly stopped her steps on the table to her right. On the surface of the table was engraved the letter M-K. Abbreviation of Mingyu. He touched the letters lovingly while looking around the room with a mixture of pleasure and anxiety. This room was completely different from Lisa's cheerful and disheveled grandfather's classroom where he studied with gusto. It was truly inconceivable how to be struck by a teacher, instead of admiring him.

When she finally parted ways with the waiter, Lisa once again stopped at the gallery to see her husband's resemblance to the sixteen-year-old. Staring at the photo he whispered softly, "I'll make you proud of me, honey, I promise."