Microscopes and Canvases - Chapter 56

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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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Episode 56
Monday morning. The Train Platform filled with billows of pale steam pouring from a massive locomotive.
The platform was crowded from early on with travelers preparing to depart. Porters hauled trunks while white vapor curled lazily through clusters of people exchanging farewells. Beneath their feet, the heavy iron engine rumbled low, its vibration thrumming up through the soles of their shoes.
Beatrice spotted him at once among the throng—tall, shoulders held straight, a man in simple traveling clothes gripping a leather bag.
“Patrick!”
She hurried toward him. It was a face she saw every morning, yet knowing that from today onward they would be traveling together on a long journey made her heart leap with unexpected joy.
“You made it.”
Though dressed casually, Patrick seemed more handsome than usual today. He lifted his hat in gentlemanly fashion, his smile faint but warm as he regarded her, then let his gaze linger briefly on her attire.
“You look lovely.”
“Thank you. So do you.”
Beatrice adjusted the strap of her shoulder bag as she answered, grateful for something to occupy her hands.
The two of them stood together, exchanging idle remarks while they waited for Edward and Rosie.
Patrick spoke more freely than usual, and Beatrice found herself smiling often, delighted by his uncommon talkativeness.
Yet strangely, as the appointed time approached, there was no sign of either Edward or Rosie.
“This is odd. We’re nearly at departure time. They’re late.”
Beatrice tilted her head, scanning the crowd. The platform was full of those waiting to board and saying their goodbyes, but she could spot neither Edward nor Rosie among them.
“Traffic must be holding them up.”
Patrick consulted his pocket watch and replied with apparent unconcern, though in truth he too was growing uneasy.
“My uncle I can understand, but Rosie doesn’t usually arrive late. I wonder if something’s wrong?”
“Hard to say.”
Time continued to slip away. As departure drew closer, the ease drained from both their faces.
At last the train they were meant to board pulled into the platform. Yet even as the porter waved the boarding signal and the first departure bell rang, neither Edward nor Rosie appeared.
“What do we do?”
Anxiety crept into Beatrice’s voice.
“We’ll really miss the train at this rate. And we can’t possibly travel alone without Uncle.”
An unmarried couple traveling without a chaperone was unthinkable. They might manage to slip past people’s notice for brief collecting trips near the museum, but journeys requiring overnight stays were an entirely different matter.
Even if both families tacitly turned a blind eye, they were still strangers to each other, with no formal Marriage Proposal Discussion having taken place.
Should anyone catch wind of an unmarried man and woman traveling alone by rail to a distant province without being properly betrothed, the scandal would be unbearable.
As Beatrice shifted anxiously from foot to foot, concern began to crease Patrick’s brow as well.
“Dispatch! A dispatch from Edward Rockwell for his traveling party! Edward Rockwell’s dispatch!”
Both of them started at the sight of a small uniformed messenger boy running past, shouting at the top of his lungs.
“You there—we’re his party. What is it?”
“Are you the party traveling with Edward Rockwell on the eight o’clock train this morning?”
The boy turned his suspicious gaze between them, standing at attention. From the train in the distance came another boarding signal. Beatrice seized the boy’s shoulders and spoke urgently.
“Yes. I’m his niece. I’m to travel to Nosphen with Patrick Bennett here. We’re all three supposed to board together.”
“Right then.”
The boy nodded with grave dignity and handed Beatrice a Telegram.
“Something urgent came up today, so you two are to go without him. That’s his message.”
“What? The director can’t come?”
Beatrice pressed for more, but the boy—having delivered his charge—simply said he didn’t know and vanished into the crowd.
“This is…”
Beatrice and Patrick huddled close together, reading the Telegram.
I apologize to you both. Something terribly urgent has come up, and neither Rosie nor I can go. I’ll smooth things over with both families however I can, so don’t worry—just the two of you go on. The lodgings are already reserved, so don’t fret too much, and I do hope this becomes a pleasant research journey for you.
“What is this…”
As Beatrice finished reading, she slowly raised her head. For a long moment they simply stood looking at each other in silence. Just the two of them traveling.
Was this truly all right?
Worry flickered across their faces, tinged with a hint of apprehension, uncertainty darting across their expressions—
Yet through that hesitation surged an undeniable thrill that could not be denied. Days with no Windom, no society, no nagging parents…
“Let’s go.”
Patrick spoke first, carefully breaking the silence. His voice was measured.
“The director said he’d explain things to our families, and the lodgings are arranged properly, so there shouldn’t be anything too objectionable about it.”
“…You’re right.”
Beatrice nodded readily, adding her words with an air of quiet resolve.
“Think of it as an adventure, then.”
A sharp whistle cut through the air. Patrick led Beatrice into the First Class compartment.
As he lifted their bags onto the rack above, Beatrice sat watching his broad back, finding it hard to look away. It was a silhouette she saw every day, yet today her eyes would not leave it.
The heavy sliding door closed with a thud, and the noise of the platform was cut off at once, replaced by sudden silence. Two people seated across from each other on plush red velvet sofas. With the curtains drawn, it became a perfect private chamber.
With a jolt and a long whistle, the train began to move. Familiar Windom gradually receded beyond the window.
Beatrice leaned her head against the glass, ostensibly watching the landscape, though her gaze kept drifting to Patrick’s face. The morning light streaming through the window scattered brilliantly across the golden-brown ends of his hair.
Suddenly Patrick turned his head, and their eyes met in the air between them.
For a brief moment, the air in the narrow cabin grew taut, swept up in a strange current. Beatrice hastily turned her gaze back to the window.
North, northward. The train carried the two of them diligently into unfamiliar landscape.
* * *
At that same moment, the Natural History Museum was in complete disarray.
Edward, who had been about to depart for the train station, fidgeted nervously with a now-useless Train Ticket.
The problem was a dispatch that had arrived this very morning—one he could not refuse.
The State Guest who had set Windom aflutter these past few days, the Crown Prince of the Osterian Empire, had sent word that of all places, he would visit this museum specifically.
The staff hurried to close the doors on what wasn’t even a scheduled day off, and found themselves fielding protests from bewildered visitors who had come unannounced; at the front entrance, a young employee bowed repeatedly to those turning back on their heels.
Watching the spectacle from the corner of his eye, Edward pressed his temples, which throbbed dully.
All he could manage was to send a messenger racing to the station, pressing a single Telegram into his hands instructing the two of them to depart first.
They would surely be greatly dismayed by notice to leave alone together without a chaperone, and that distressed him as well.
And yet, if by some chance the two of them grew closer through this and a Marriage Proposal Discussion were to pass between them, wouldn’t that be precisely what both families hoped for, regardless of any procedural impropriety?
Reasoning thus, Edward decided to put his mind at ease on the matter.
“Director! The automobile has just passed through Central Square!”
A staff member came running up breathlessly and threw open the office door with his cry.
“It will arrive soon. Should I wait at the entrance?”
Rosie’s voice trembled slightly. Edward gave a light nod and, straightening his clothes, rose from the armchair.
“Yes.”
That was when something he had completely forgotten suddenly struck him like lightning. All the blood drained from his body as Edward slowly turned. Rosie, seeing his ashen face, stopped short in surprise.
“What’s wrong?”
“Rosie, that… the lodgings for those two in Nosphen. Did I ask you to book somewhere else?”
“A rebooking? You said nothing of the sort. You didn’t have them booked at the Grand Hotel?”
As Rosie asked back in bewilderment, she caught the shadows in Edward’s face and intuited that something had gone considerably awry.
“That’s the thing… a letter came some month ago saying the Grand Hotel had caught fire and the rooms were unusable. I should have made a new reservation, but… blast it.”
“Oh heavens!”
Rosie’s face too went pale.
“With the conference overlapping a regional festival, finding a room at this late hour will be nearly impossible. What are we to do about those two?”
Edward dragged his hands across his face and heaved a heavy sigh, as if the earth itself were collapsing beneath him. To send an unmarried couple all that distance alone together, and then to have no suitable lodgings prepared for them.
“We can only hope they conduct themselves with discretion.”

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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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