Chapter 38 Cemetery

Sebastian stepped out of the carriage and took the umbrella with one hand while holding Eleanor's cold little hand with the other.
As they entered the cemetery,Eleanor looked into the distance at a sea of tombstones. The heavy atmosphere pressed down on her chest,making it hard to breathe.
John had only been buried for a few days,but his gravestone was already the cleanest in sight. In front of it lay a bouquet of lilies whose petals were wilting from being drenched by rainwater. Eleanor knelt down and carefully tidied up each petal before wiping John's photo on the gravestone sleeve with her sleeve. In that picture,John was young and wore formal attire with a beaming smile full of intelligence shining through his eyes.
It was their wedding photo; just like her mother's wedding photo placed next to it,there was no sense of discordance between them as if she had traveled back twenty-eight years ago in an instant.
John wasn't a good father but he was a good husband. After her mother died twenty-three years ago,he never remarried and even bought land next to her grave early on.
He feared death but perhaps more so wanted to see Eleanor's mother again. This time he finally got his wish fulfilled.
Why did John hate Eleanor so much? Perhaps because her birth caused him to lose his beloved wife. But he couldn't do anything about it except raise "the murderer" himself while watching her face become more and more like that of his wife over time.
The rain drifted onto Eleanor's face along with the wind; she wiped away what seemed like both raindrops and tears from her cheeks.
Eleanor kneeled before two graves as if she were paying respects to them: "Mom,I'm sorry for taking so long to visit you...I haven't done well as your daughter; I couldn't keep our family together or protect Dad..."
Her voice seemed to be carried away by the wind,leaving only her choked sobs.
After tremblingly finishing her words,Eleanor kowtowed six times before turning to John's gravestone and saying: "Dad,I will remember your words."
Sebastian heard what she said. His thin lips pursed slightly as his eyes became dark and unclear. The day before John jumped off the building to commit suicide,Sebastian had indeed visited him in prison and talked about Eleanor.
He did it so that John would treat Eleanor better in the future but he never expected that John would take his own life due to a moment of despair.
Eleanor finished knocking her head on the ground and stood up unsteadily. She looked up at the umbrella covering her head then turned around to look at the man holding it for her.
A sentence came into mind: someone who can shelter you from wind and rain can also make you lose sight of daylight.
"Let's go," Sebastian said.
"Eleanor." As she was about to turn around,she thought she heard someone calling out behind her. Her heart trembled with an indescribable sense of grievance; tears blurred her vision as she tried hard not to cry while looking back over her shoulder.
Finally taking one last glance at their parents' graves,Eleanor felt like a motherless child since birth now left without even a father by her side.
Sebastian called her cheap; perhaps because deep down inside herself,she wanted John to continue scolding at her.
...
John was dead but debts still needed paying off. Eleanor sold everything she owned including selling herself as a maid just so that they could scrape enough money together.
As for The Stone Family Group which had already been acquired by Sebastian - after selling all of its shares except for three percent which remained under Eleanor's name - now this CEO was just a name without any real power. With a flick of Sebastian's hand,she lost everything.
Eleanor tried to get loans or borrow money from her former business partners but in these times,it was easy for things to go from bad to worse and hard for good fortune to come by. On top of that,Sebastian had "specially" informed them about Eleanor so they all avoided her like the plague.
As for banks,forget about it; if you wanted a loan then you needed capital equal to what you were borrowing. Now that Eleanor was like an abandoned dog with nothing left,which bank would dare lend her money?
Eleanor could only watch as The Stone Family Group was slowly emptied out until even their old mansion couldn't be kept.