As mentioned before in Love Triangle (Part 6), Stear had invented a music box for Candy, and he named it “Candy Happy Maker”.
Below is an excerpt (from spoilers) of Candy Candy Final Story (CCFS). Candy was listening to the tune of this music box and recalled:
I hear the music box playing the tune.
Stair said,
… Every time you listen to the tune, you’ll be happier.
Every time I had a hard time I kept on playing this “happy maker”, and finally one day it broke down.Later HE repaired it without any sweat.
The tune gets slowly and finally stopped in the middle of the melody.
Candy Candy manga
“HE” is Anohito in CCFS, and I already explained that it is another clue that Anohito was Albert because he had a knack for fixing things. Otherwise, it’s hard to understand why he would spend his free time repairing the swan boat after it had been abandoned even by its own inventor. Note that Albert seemed to understand the design of the swan boat without Stear’s explanation at all.
Furthermore, Albert had been living like a vagabond for a period of time, so he must have some simple survival skills, and to be able to fix things was particularly crucial.
Yet, Terry had basically grown up in an ivory tower being a son of a duke. I don’t think he had ever cooked in his life, and while in New York he told Candy he had hired somebody to do chores for him.
Those who said “every man can naturally repair things” is like saying “every woman can cook”. We know that this is not true, right? 😉
Anyway, I’m not going to dwell too much on this. What I want to talk about this time was why Candy had kept playing the music box till it broke down.
She said she played it whenever she had been down (had a hard time). But in most places in CCFS she had said to different people that she was happy, even to Terry (in an unsent letter) or Aunt Elroy. So what happened to Candy? Wasn’t she happily married to the man she loved?
I believe it was something to do with Candy missing Pony’s Home. In the beginning of the CCFS prologue Candy said that Miss Pony had just recovered from an illness (passed a crisis). Perhaps Candy had moved to another continent for years, and Miss Pony had been ill, on and off? In my earlier post, When did Candy get married, I guessed that Candy had married young and become homesick after some time or worried about her foster mothers. They were getting old now and likely prone to be sick.
Since Candy was upset, she played Candy Happy Maker a bit too much, and it no longer worked.
Later, her husband fixed the music box with no sweat. Here come my questions. Did Candy tell him that the music box broke? Or did he discover that himself?
If Candy informed her husband that it stopped working, she must have high hopes that he was able to fix Stear’s invention but at the same time, he wouldn’t laugh at her silliness. After all, it was merely a music box. How could it possibly have the magic to make her happy?
But this was Candy, who seemed to be a little superstitious. Remember she had kept her prince’s batch for many years as an amulet?
In the old Candy Candy novel, Albert wrote the following to Candy:
“You don’t have to give me back the badge. No, I’ll once let you give it back to me. Then I’ll present it anew to you. You have kept that badge as an amulet all these years. With the hope that it keeps protecting you also in the future.”
On the other hand, if Candy’s husband discovered himself that the music box broke, then there could be at least two possibilities. First, he might have noticed that Candy hadn’t played the music box for a while, so he asked. Or he noted that even when his wife was feeling down, she didn’t play the music box anymore.
No matter how he had found out, he was willing to fix the music box. He could have easily shrugged it off, but he fixed it… not because he also believed that it had any mysterious power, but because he wanted to please Candy, to cheer her up. Besides, it was a remnant from Stear.
At any rate, Anohito didn’t belittle Candy’s feelings or neglect her needs. Lucky Candy, right? Her husband was so understanding and sensitive.
Interestingly, in CCFS, right when the music box stopped playing, Candy happened to see a part of a portrait inside her jewelry box (see another CCFS excerpt in my previous post about Candy’s drawing). It made her smile automatically (the translator used the word ‘spontaneously’).
Now, isn’t this a bit too coincidental? 😛
That when Candy was thinking of her husband, she happened to spot a portrait of Albert. Not only that, this portrait made her smile right away, which means that Candy Happy Maker worked ‘miraculously’ once again, and this time it was clearly related to Albert. 🙂
Note: the picture was downloaded from https://www.facebook.com/williamalbertandrew.principe