Ariadne saw that familiar expression and thought something was wrong.
"Hey, Arabella."
Isabella hugged her little sister very intimately. She then gestured her chin at Ariadne to get out. When Ariadne muttered reluctantly, Isabella whispered softly to Arabella.
"The sisters have something to talk about."
In front of Cardinal de Mare, Isabella used to tremble with hatred, such as 'call me sister now', but she changed her face so easily. Arabella looked at Ariadne with a little guilt. Isabella urged Arabella.
"Hurry."
Arabella reluctantly spoke to Ariadne at Isabella's urging.
"Hey, Can you get out?"
Arabella looked at Ariadne for some reason and the sound of 'sister' rose to her throat, but it was difficult to call Ariadne 'sister' while Isabella was looking at her. Ariadne had no reason to sit still, as she had even received Arabella's banquet order. She stood up, bowed her head, and left her sister's parlor. Confirming that Ariadne had left, Isabella looked at Arabella with her courtesy and a big smile in her little eyes.
"All families are precious because there is one person who is the best, you know?"
Arabella nodded involuntarily. He must have been intimidated by Isabella's beauty, or by the weight of her older sister.
"Are you going to give that place to a stone that rolled in from outside?"
Isabella wrapped her hands around Arabella's cheeks and made her look at her face.
"I am your sister."
Isabella froze like a bird, staring straight at young Arabella with enchanting, amethyst-colored eyes.
"Sooner or later, there will be a congratulatory mass attended by His Majesty the King, Her Majesty the Queen, and His Highness the Crown Prince. There was a story saying that nobles and young ladies could donate their talents, and to apply."
Isabella let go of Arabella's face and said, twisting her fingers through her flaxen hair.
"You are too young anyway, so you don't even qualify to apply. Give this to me, and I'll submit it for you. And since you have to practice, you also need a pipe organ, right? I'll ask mother to help with that too."
Arabella looked slightly confused. She seemed to find it difficult for a ten-year-old to pass judgement on her sister's honey-dappled sweet tone. She had something to say, but she couldn't be certain what part it was.
"By the way, Isabella sister. Are you good at playing the pipe organ?"
"No. Not so much."
"Then, how are you going to dedicate it to Cathedral? I'm going to fix this mainly for the pipe organ. You're not the type to play string instruments as well."
Isabella looked at Arabella with the expression that she was saying something stupid.
"Of course. I'm going to put out a sheet music that you composed. The performance will be done by someone else."
Arabella looked at Isabella with a mysterious expression. At her sister's sullen reaction, Isabella gave her slightly offended expression.
"Hey, Arabella. I'm submitting this song, and to be honest, I don't even need a pipe organ. But, just because of you, I'm even going to ask mother and father to buy a pipe organ. I'm going to do this for you, but are you going to be so embarrassed?"
Isabella thumped her hair and threw it behind her shoulder, rising from her seat next to Arabella.
"I won't do it."
'She's a smart older sister, but would she do anything to harm me?'
"Sister. wait."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute. Decide now. Don't procrastinate, so annoying."
Arabella stopped accepting Isabella's pressure.
"No, sister. I'm sorry. I will give you this song."
Isabella's pretty face lit up with victory. She returned to her sweet voice and stroked her sister's hair.
"Good choice."
***
Although Isabella was a cunning swindler, she was a trustworthy trading partner. She faithfully abided by the terms of her contract of her own share. Isabella went to Lucrezia and Cardinal de Mare and teased them about the need for a pipe organ, so a small pipe organ was actually brought into her house. Of course, a pipe organ could not be brought in immediately because it took 3-4 years to bring it into a house, such a making pipes from an alloy of tin and lead, temporarily assembling it in a workshop, and them assembling it at the installation site.
But when Cardinal de Mare said that Isabella was needed, he gladly paid a few hundred ducatos in gold, and Lucrezia willingly gave up the high-ceilinged prayed room in the eastern annex for the installation of a pipe organ. The grand construction had begun, and by then she had brought in a small organ for Isabella's use. Arabella watched the pipe organ come in without hesitation. It was right that the pipe organ was too expansive to be installed in a home because the Cardinal's daughter, who was not a professional player, wanted to play it at home.
'But why have to Isabella and not me?"
Ariadne quietly approached Arabella, who was looking down at the construction site from the railing on the second floor of the eastern annex.
"You finally got it, a pipe organ."
Arabella looked up at Ariadne and nodded.
"Doe sit make you feel good to have it?"
At Ariadne's question, Arabella shook her head.
"I don't know. Why did Isabella tell me that she had to put out my song under her own name, but she would do me a favor? Isn't that bad?"
"Not all people are good, Arabella."
Ariadne paused for a while and asked Arabella.
"Are you really going to give that Missa Brevis to Isabella?"
Arabella asked with a wrinkled between her brows.
"Can't you come and give it to me now?"
"The pipe organ is already here. If you don't give her sheet music, what will she do now? Are you going to ask me to tear down what was installed?"
Arabella's dark green eyes sparkled with jot. Just imagining eating the pipe organ and taking off the sheet music made her feel excited.
"Hehehehe , you are a genius, Ariadne!"
Arabella was excited and patted Ariadne on the head like a puppy. However, she liked it for a while, and when she thought about taking care of it, it seemed that she couldn't do it.
"But my sister won't leave me alone. If I fight with Isabella's sister, mother will scold me."
"You have to fight against unfair treatment. Nothing changes without shouting."
To some extent, it was a story she told her past self. Ariadne said again as if to promise.
"They are bad people and the are trying to rip you off. Even if you try to be loved, nothing came back. Look, mother only loves Isabella. Isabella ate her roots."
Arabella looked at Ariadne with a confused face.
"But Isabella is my biological sister, right? So is mother. She can be bad with you, but... with me, she can't be with me."
Ariadne asked.
"Why did the pipe organ she said no when you said you needed it suddenly appear then Isabella said she wanted it? Both father and mother know that Isabella is not interested in playing stringed instruments, right? Aren't they are you biological parents?"
Strength entered Arabella's grip.
"The tutors do too. Miss Mancini, the music teacher, actually needs to be replaced with a more reputed teacher to keep up with your pace. But trying to keep up with Isabella's pace, Miss Mancini keep coming! But the court etiquette was changed according to Isabella's progress? Why don't you pace yourself and do everything just for Isabella?"
Ariadne did not stop and drove Arabella.
"As long as you keep your mouth shut and be complaint, no one knows what's wrong. Wouldn't oit be great of the person who benefits had a conscience and held it back? Isabella the kind of person? Isabella has nothing to say about her sheet music, even with her ten mouths. She just stole it!"
"Stop!"
Arabella freed herself from Ariadne and jumped up from her seat.
"The music sheet is.. okay. Even if I had it, I had no use for it anyway, so I did it to make good use of it. There's no way my real sister did it to treat me badly. The pipe organ was also too expensive, so it was burdensome for me to use it alone, so father and mother must have bought it because they wanted to used it together with sister and me. It's absolutely not that I didn't buy it and only sister bought it. The teacher said it's because I'm still young."
Tears welled up in Arabella's eyes.
"It's because I've been to close with you lately. If I give Missa Brevis to Isabella and I don't get along well with you, then Isabella will treat me just as well as before. Then mother will be nice to me too."
Arabella raised a small finger and pointed at Ariadne.
"You! Don't talk weird to me. Don't curse at my sister for doing well. My mother loves me! I'm the real de Mare! Not you!"
Arabella shouted aloud and ran away, wiping away tears. Ariadne stood alone on the railing in the second floor of the eastenr wing, looking with mixed feelings toward the stairway where Arabella had left. She heard harsh words, but it didn't hurt her feelings very much. It was because it was very clear that Arabella had uttered her words in order to comfort herself in some way.
'Did I say something useless?'
***
On the day the lead pipe, which will from the body of the pipe organ, was brought to the construction site of the eastern annex building, Isabella triumphantly took the sheet music form Arabella with the lover of her parents on her back. Arabella, her little back, looked particularly intimidated as she robbed Isabella of her parchment of sheet music, who was wearing a satin summer indoor dress. Arabella flipped through her sheet music, giving Isabella every word of her caution, like mother handing over her own child to the stepmother.
"Because it's Missa Brevis, the harmony is shortened and the length is shorter. It's an ensemble song, so I drew it as a score sheet."
***Score : A piece of music that draws all the parts to be played by multiple instruments on one sheet. It is usually the score that conductors see in orchestras
Isabella took the score roughly and skimmed it casually.
"So, this is sheet music, right? Is this called 'Missa Brevis'?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"Okay. Just go."
Isabella, without examining the contents properly, took the sheet music and put it on the table in the parlor for a while, before telling her maid to put in on the desk in her room. She did so that no one noticed that between the thick sheets of parchment on which she had the score neatly drawn, a sheet of thin parchment, on which she had roughly scribbled notes, had been misplaced.
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