Microscopes and Canvases - Chapter 32

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 32
Annex Room 101 became a space for one person alone.
Beatrice had already been away from the laboratory for four days. Each morning she reported directly to Mr. Sugihara’s studio, and she left from there as well, so Patrick had no occasion to see Beatrice Somerset.
It was what he’d wanted. Perfect silence, undisturbed by anyone. Quiet hours enough to organize a hundred specimens with ease. And yet, sitting alone in that very quiet, his chest felt hollow and vacant.
Why was that?
Patrick kept glancing across at the empty desk opposite. On its bare surface lay only the drawing he’d set there—flawed in fundamentals and proportion alike—but the crimson moss that breathed with life was vivid even from where he sat.
They’d shared this space for only two days. Already Patrick had spent more time alone here than he had with Beatrice.
So why did I feel like this?
Unable to concentrate with his mind in such disorder, he spun his pen through his fingers, repeated the same lines of notes again and again, and wasted the entire morning without producing anything of substance.
Hoping a change of scenery might help, Patrick headed to the Main Building. He thought he should at least do something productive—inspect specimens at the Microscopy Room.
He was peering through the Eyepiece Lens at a cross-section of stem when someone approached and greeted him.
“Excuse me, but… are you Earl Bennett?”
When Patrick looked up, a young researcher who appeared to be about his age was regarding him with curious eyes. The man introduced himself as Forkner, attached to the Plant Department of the Natural History Museum.
“Top graduate of Collins University—that Earl Bennett, isn’t it? I’ve heard quite a lot about you. Say, it’s just lunch time now. Would you care to join me for a meal at the Cafeteria?”
“Oh, yes….”
Unable to think of a suitable excuse, Patrick hesitated briefly, gathered his specimens, and followed along.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you at the Cafeteria before. It would be nice if you came more often.”
“Yes, I’ll drop by now and then.”
“Do come by regularly. Connections matter, after all.”
Patrick was about to agree when the director’s words suddenly returned to him—that female staff could never enter the museum’s Cafeteria—and he fell silent again.
The interior resembled an upper-class gentlemen’s club. There were billiard tables for the leisure of gentlemen, seating for cigar smoking, porcelain decorative pieces imported from the Orient, potted tropical rubber plants and ferns, and expensive-looking bear and tiger skin rugs arranged throughout.
As Patrick surveyed the space, he wondered if this single room consumed more of the entire museum’s budget than all other departments combined.
“This way, sir.”
At the table already sat five or six researchers from the Plant and Zoology Departments.
“This is Earl Bennett, who works in the Annex. Everyone, do say hello.”
Forkner introduced Patrick with a smile. Patrick hadn’t expected to be joining a larger group. He offered an awkward greeting.
“Patrick Bennett.”
“Ah….”
The reaction was oddly mixed. Patrick realized that everyone at this table except Forkner held him in disdain.
As always, here too….
“Such a refined and delicate young gentleman. You must be quite popular at society balls.”
“Now, watch your tongue.”
Low laughter rippled around the table, and several men leaned together, whispering things Patrick couldn’t quite make out.
Forkner, who had introduced him, seemed entirely unprepared for this turn and looked deeply embarrassed, but Patrick ordered his meal with the composure of someone who’d heard nothing at all.
He hadn’t expected to have his status as an outsider in this museum confirmed once again.
He’d grown numb to such things long ago—never fully belonging to either side. Then or now, the family title had always placed him at a slight remove wherever he went.
“Well then, Earl Bennett, what is it that you research?”
A middle-aged man of bearish build at one end of the table craned his neck forward. His hair was strong and wild, like an unkempt lion’s mane that had given up on being combed, his black beard thick and heavy, his voice so loud it seemed to echo to the far end of the corridor. It was Dr. Joseph Huxley, the department head of Zoology.
“…Bryophytes. I’m researching a new species of moss.”
Patrick answered plainly.
“My word.”
Huxley made a small dismissive sound. As if he’d already concluded everything there was to know about Patrick Bennett and his research.
“Should you ever need specimens, do visit the Taxidermy Room anytime. Once we’ve stuffed the specimens into wooden cases, we pack dried moss around them for moisture control. Quite useful, you see.”
Huxley laughed, slapping his belly as if his own joke were hilarious, even adding a sneering quip about making sure no sawdust was clinging to the moss before taking it away.
“Though this ‘new species of moss’ business—surely a new species of moss appears what, once a month?”
As the Plant Department staff joined in with their own caustic remarks, the conversation gained momentum.
“There are quite a few collectors, it seems. Country parsons and their wives, postal workers and the like. It’s their sort of hobby. A wholesome and admirable pastime.”
“Of course, it’s merely a hobby. I don’t mean to fault your research, sir, but still… for a natural history museum to allocate budgets and conduct academic study of such things seems a bit….”
“It’s nothing more than a common, lowly primitive plant found anywhere. Even the great Linnaeus himself called moss ‘the servant of the plant kingdom.'”
Again, a meaningful laugh circled the table and pressed in on Patrick. Unable to bear it any longer, Forkner leaned over and whispered with a deeply apologetic expression.
“Shall we leave if this is uncomfortable?”
“It’s fine.”
Patrick forced the corners of his mouth upward, trying not to commit those faces to memory. With effort, deliberate effort.
Having declined Forkner’s offer, Patrick calmly brought the spoon to his lips. Though he tasted nothing at all.
Naturally, the conversation shifted to the new director, Mr. Greenleaf, who had inexplicably greenlit a monograph project on mere weeds—on moss.
“One would have hoped he’d use that fine mind of his for research that benefits the Empire. The plants cultivated in vast quantities across the colonies command high commercial value. His efforts should be devoted to developing the most efficient cultivation methods.”
“The director seems to have little interest in such matters.”
“He appears far more interested in research for the general public. Take moss, for instance.”
Another researcher across the table interjected with a sneer.
“Is the director not someone with keen interest in what’s popular with the masses? He has an uncanny knack for knowing what his readers will enjoy. Isn’t that so?”
A gasp rippled through the room, and the table descended into chaos. Patrick’s hand tightened around his spoon.
At this table, he was neither a top scholar nor a researcher. A idle nobleman who’d secured his position through the director’s patronage, content with his hobbies. He couldn’t help but feel the weight of such looks directed at him here.
He could endure his research being mocked. He’d grown numb to it long ago.
But now they were rushing to dismiss his idol—the very man who’d recognized the value of his work at a glance—as nothing more than a merchant chasing profit.
Words of protest rose to his throat, but he forced them down once more. Defending the director here would only invite another layer of ridicule.
Mercifully, the conversation drifted toward colonial rubber plantations and their profit margins, then to some newly acquired exotic orchid variety.
No one spoke to him again, and Patrick made no effort to join in.
He let the clamor wash over him, finished his meal in silence, offered his courtesies, and slipped swiftly out of the Cafeteria.
The last image he glimpsed was Forkner scrambling to his feet to follow, only to be firmly seated again by the older researchers.
Exhaustion.
The walk back through the corridor to Annex Room 101 felt unusually long, and Patrick was worn through with fatigue.
Not indignation, not sorrow—only a familiar weariness dragging at his heart.
But when he opened the door to Annex Room 101 and met the empty silence within, Patrick felt anger rise in him for the first time with a force he couldn’t contain.
This hollow room with no one to greet him, no one to acknowledge his return—it kept kindling his fury until heat flooded his body and his stomach churned violently.
“…Damned bastards.”
Standing alone in the center of the laboratory, Patrick’s jaw clenched hard. He drew several deep breaths before he managed to sit back down.
Don’t dwell on it. Don’t lose your composure.
Patrick resolved to continue his work and brought his eye back to the Microscope.
Beyond the Eyepiece Lens, the transparent honeycomb structure glowed clearly before him. Yet today, even the moss he cherished so deeply could not fill the void left by his loneliness and wounded pride.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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