Kaldia’s Budding Spring – Part Ten

Gunther and Nadje finished their talk at about the same time we finished eating and tidying up.
While Nadje was very embarra.s.sed, Gunther unsuccessfully hid his own embarra.s.sment behind a frown. A tall man came together with them and apologetically bowed to me.

“It was not done with bad intentions.” He said.

“It is no worry, rather, did you reach an agreement? What should be done about the marriage registration?” I replied.

“About that… They just sanctioned it.”

“Oh… Ahn… Congratulations on your marriage Gunther.”

It took me a while to reply because it was too much to take at once, I didn’t expect them to accept it.

Gunther curtly replied with a “Hmph.” and then, as if he couldn’t hold back any longer, began to briefly explain the circ.u.mstances. The tall man occasionally opened his mouth to supplement a few parts of the story, apparently he is Nadje’s father.

Apparently,

Gunther planned to marry Nadje from the beginning. The one that was unable to get the consent was Nadje.

Nadje is scared of men, even now she is only able to talk to those she is close to.
With this in mind, Nadje’s father had already given up on finding a man to marry her, and she even pa.s.sed marriageable age already. The men of her age from this or the nearby villages ended up marrying other girls due to being frightened by how Nadje’s father overprotected her.
Without anyone noticing though, Nadje started opening up to Gunther during his frequent visits to the village.

Nadje’s father ended up worried about Nadje because Gunther was the only man close to her, but he was from the military, and constantly moved back and forth from the capital, it wouldn’t be surprising if Gunther had extramarital relationships.

Her father felt that if she got closer

closer to Gunther, Nadje would be completely unable to get over her fear, so he talked to Gunther last winter and gave him an ultimatum that if he wasn’t willing to take her hand in marriage, then he should never get close to Nadje again.

… I felt pretty overwhelmed, he protected his daughter way too much.

Gunther being Gunther decided to propose her, I wonder how much he cared for the surrounding opinions when doing that, however, it seems like he got a good reputation on the village on recent years, as the man that was part of the military and rescued Nadje in the past.
Her father having no expectations of her ever getting married had no dowry prepared, and that only if Gunther was truly sincere about it would he allow her to marry.

“… Do you think you can just marry a girl like that whenever you want? Nadje is

Nadje is poor.” Her father had said.

Gunther got somewhat shocked at that and scratched his head, he completely forgot this kind of ruling existed as he hadn’t really planned on getting married before he met Nadje. As a show of good faith though, he signed a marriage certificate in advance, so as to let them marry once things were ready.

What they didn’t expect however, was that Nadje’s mother, who didn’t know how to read but knew how a marriage registration looked like, found the certificate signed by Gunther, and immediately got delighted as she had already given up hopes on Nadje getting married. She immediately made Nadje sign it, who also didn’t know how to read, so had no idea what she was signing, and brought the signed paper to the mayor.

Which led to the situation of both Nadje and Gunther being completely clueless about the Marriage registration being sent to me.

…sent to me.

… What can I say? It seems like a story straight from a drama, put them on some fancy clothes and they should be able to make comedy opera with this.

Well, if the people involved agreed to it, then the problem is settled.

Gunther is going to discuss when to hold the marriage with the whole family now, so I decided to go back to the Lord’s Mansion.
With this Gunther’s matter is solved, but there is still one troublesome marriage to take care of.

“… Are you alright? You look tired, but happy.” Vanita asked, and I nodded in return.

With how much I have been moving around, and needing to deal with this opera-like marriage, of course I would be tired, but marriages are a happy occasion by nature, especially Gunther’s, which is my direct subordinate and also my former teacher.
It was only natural for me to give him my blessing.