Microscopes and Canvases - Chapter 45

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

Chapter 45
After finishing breakfast, Beatrice made her way to the eastern atelier.
The brightest, most intimate, and most spacious room in the mansion, where brilliant morning light poured through the glass ceiling—a sanctuary rebuilt for Beatrice alone.
She moved slowly through the space, running her fingertips along the edge of a canvas. A fine layer of dust had settled on the stretched canvas atop the easel.
The palette, the brush holder, the half-finished paintings leaning against the wall—everything lay beneath a veil of pale, drifting dust.
Remembering how, just months ago, she had eaten and slept in this very room, painting day after day, the transformation felt nothing short of remarkable.
Of course, the shift in her life’s priorities needed no explanation.
Beatrice’s world had relocated elsewhere—to a room thick with the smell of damp earth and moss, where she now built a quiet new life.
With Patrick.
It was then, as she lingered among the dust-covered easels and canvases, that something caught beneath her foot.
She recognized it instantly.
A salon pamphlet for Etienne Morel’s Atelier in Berkelyon—one she had read dozens of times until its corners had begun to fray and curl—lay carelessly scattered across the floor.
As Beatrice studied it, a thought suddenly struck her: it was time for a reply from Etienne Morel to arrive.
* * *
That same afternoon, Patrick walked through the Downtown Bookstore District.
He had only just left home after spending the entire weekend morning organizing specimens. He had been the one to suggest taking a day off, yet he hardly knew how to rest.
Truth be told, the weekend had never been proposed for his sake. Beatrice, lately, was pushing herself too hard—anyone could see that.
Her wrists had begun to ache more frequently, and every so often she would rub her lower back or flex her neck as if it pained her. Each time her exhaustion showed through in ways she couldn’t quite hide, Patrick felt a flutter of concern, finding himself hovering nearby, wondering if there was something more he could do for her.
He couldn’t very well tell her alone to rest; she would have objected immediately. So he had simply suggested that they both take the weekend off.
Truthfully, he could have gone to Annex Room 101 at any moment. He was only wandering aimlessly, wishing the weekend would pass more quickly.
The bookstore on a weekend afternoon was pleasantly crowded. Patrick wandered in with familiar steps, browsing new botany titles, leafing through newly released field guides, and drifting aimlessly through the paper-scented aisles.
When he opened a new plant guide, his professional instincts inevitably stirred to life. Seeing how the veins in the illustrated leaves had been rendered, he found himself thinking they paled in comparison to Beatrice’s skill.
Patrick caught himself thinking such a thing and let out an involuntary cough. Thinking of her even on the weekend—what was wrong with him?
After spending his usual hour among the natural sciences section, he made his way toward the register when his steps faltered unexpectedly before the literature shelves.
It was a strange yet familiar sight. He had turned away from literature so long ago, absorbed in the world of natural science, and now unfamiliar names and titles filled an entire shelf in ways he had never seen before.
The world had kept turning all the while he had kept his back to it.
Patrick hesitated for a moment before impulsively pulling down a familiar spine.
A Poetry Collection by William Wordsworth. It held a special place in his heart. As he slowly turned the pages, his fingers stilled at a passage he had read so often he had long since memorized it entirely.
“I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high o’er vales and hills, / When all at once I saw a crowd, / A host, of golden daffodils.”
(I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, / A host, of golden daffodils;)
*William Wordsworth, “Daffodils”
Patrick stood before the shelf, letting the verse settle into his eyes for a long moment.
There had been a time, around eighteen, when the world felt as though he alone remained in it. When no one’s words offered comfort, and only passages like these had spoken to him. In those days, he had carried this Poetry Collection in his coat pocket.
He would open it anywhere, read any line, and use those words to endure each day. As if they were medicine he had to take.
During those wandering days, drifting without purpose like a lone cloud, Wordsworth had encountered a crowd of golden daffodils in the vale—just as Patrick, adrift on his own aimless path, had found a cluster of Red Moss.
Things that lived on even when trampled, things that held their place though no one noticed them.
Since the moss had saved him, Patrick had come to love this poem even more dearly.
“Wordsworth is wonderful, isn’t he?”
A staff member organizing new releases nearby had ventured to speak to him. Patrick glanced down at the Poetry Collection in his hands, a little shy about his answer.
“Actually, I was thinking of giving it as a gift.”
He already owned an identical copy, so there was no real need to buy another. But he wanted to bring this one to the register. Just as she had recognized the beauty of moss, perhaps she would see the value in this poem as well.
“That’s an excellent choice. I’m sure whoever receives it will treasure it.”
The clerk’s words sounded almost like a blessing to him.
Patrick moved to the register and asked for the Poetry Collection to be wrapped. The staff member deftly swaddled it in Brown Wrapping Paper and handed it to him.
As he stepped out of the bookstore, the summer evening air swept over him.
Now came the hard part. When and how on earth would he give it to her? It wasn’t something work-related, not a birthday gift, nothing but a present with no real justification at all.
Though he hadn’t yet decided, Patrick’s steps felt surprisingly light as he headed home.
* * *
Monday morning, Beatrice was just stepping out of the mansion’s entrance when she had finished preparing to leave for work.
“Miss. A letter arrived this morning.”
“Just as I thought it would…and here it is.”
Beatrice’s fingertips trembled as she accepted the white envelope from the butler.
The return address printed clearly on the front was from across the sea in Berkelyon, from Master Etienne Morel’s Atelier. It was a response to her Master Class application.
“Arthur, I’m too nervous to open this right now. I’ll look at it later.”
Though she longed to tear open the envelope at once, Beatrice climbed directly into the carriage. Her mind flooded with memories of the days she had spent trying her hardest to catch Etienne Morel’s eye.
What criticism would Etienne Morel have offered in his response?
What if he asked her to come to Berkelyon immediately? Would it be acceptable to say she would decide after finishing her research? Beatrice was entirely unprepared.
Beatrice fingered the envelope, steadying her racing heart. She wanted to wait, if possible, until Patrick arrived at work before opening the letter.
What expression would he wear? What words would he use to congratulate her…?
Her hand, tenderly tracing the envelope, stilled. If I leave for Berkelyon, does that mean farewell with Patrick? Forever?
Beatrice opened the door to Annex Room 101 with a tangle of conflicting emotions in her chest. She’d arrived far too early, and the study was quiet. Patrick hadn’t come in yet.
She decided to open the letter first.
She broke the seal—an elegant impression of red wax—and drew out the letter inside. She’d expected pages and pages, but when she unfolded it, the paper was thick enough, yet the message itself spanned only a handful of lines.
“Dear Miss Beatrice Somerset….”
Her teal eyes halted mid-sentence, fixing on a particular passage.
I have received the applicant’s portfolio in good order. I have also verified the Sketching and Painting work completed at Brionia Royal Art School, as well as your certificate as top graduate. Quite the refined young lady of the upper classes, I see. In your efforts to demonstrate such admirable cultivation and refinement, you have produced an application so thoroughly tedious and predictable that I found myself stifling yawns.

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