Microscopes and Canvases - Chapter 60

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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 60
Patrick and Beatrice settled themselves on their respective beds, the fireplace between them.
As the logs burned and flames flickered, red and golden shadows danced across their faces with each shift of light.
“Tomorrow, at last, I’ll set foot in that Wetlands.”
Beatrice raised the wine glass in her hand and took a sip.
The narrow room, the crackling fire, the cheap wine—as alcohol gradually dulled the nerves that had been taut all day, the awkwardness binding them both began to unwind, layer by layer.
“Yes, we’ll be venturing deeper into the northern section. It’s a remote area where the locals rarely go, so I’m planning for us to move carefully.”
Patrick answered slowly, moistening his throat. Having drained his own glass, he lowered his gaze and spoke with some hesitation.
“I’m sorry for putting you through so much inconvenience today.”
He added quietly, looking down at his half-empty glass.
“I should have conducted myself more like a gentleman, but I’m afraid I fell short.”
“What are you saying? There’s no need to apologize.”
Beatrice stiffened her expression and cut him off.
“By now you know well enough that I’m hardly just a demure lady, don’t you? I’ve actually found the whole adventure rather thrilling.”
“I’m glad to hear you feel that way.”
Her words didn’t entirely reassure him, but at least they offered some comfort.
“Truly, I’m fine. I was such a troublemaker at the Boarding School that I never adjusted well there either.”
From across the room, Beatrice fidgeted with the stem of her glass. Her gaze, finding nowhere natural to settle, drifted toward the floor before sliding back to the fireplace when she caught sight of her bare feet peeking out from beneath her skirts.
“I was even called dissolute.”
“That’s absurd.”
“The girls’ school has a very clear educational purpose. The headmistress made that plain on the first day—to cultivate modest wives who would care for their husbands and children, and strong mistresses of the household capable of managing estates and directing servants.”
“I’ve heard it’s nearly as strict as the boys’ boarding school.”
Patrick smiled bitterly.
“If your laughter is even slightly too loud, they reproach you for lack of dignity. If you ask too many questions, they call you forward. Everyone else seemed to thrive in that place, but I always felt like an outsider, always stifled. I used to wonder constantly—was something wrong with me? Was I the only one who couldn’t bear it?”
Patrick said nothing, holding his glass.
He understood Beatrice’s struggle. The doubts she’d voiced countless times at the Boarding School were the very same questions he’d wrestled with himself.
Am I the only one who’s wrong? Am I the only one who can’t endure this place? Does that make me weak?
Beatrice’s voice continued softly.
“Then I found an escape through the Literary Club—reading the Banned Books we passed around. Have you heard of Anne Veronica, who rejected the life her father had chosen for her and ran away?”
“I have.”
It was a book Patrick had loved.
Those books wrapped in yellowed brown paper, circulated in secret—the so-called “scandalous” volumes—he too had hidden in his wardrobe and read eagerly, and Anne Veronica had given him a secret vicarious satisfaction.
“What did you read, Patrick?”
Patrick took a sip of wine instead of answering immediately. After a long pause, he fixed his eyes on the burning logs and smiled slightly.
“I read other books as well, but the Memoirs of Fanny Hill is what stands out in my memory.”
“Isn’t that an extraordinarily scandalous book?”
Beatrice burst into laughter, clutching her stomach, and he found himself laughing as well.
“You seem to know the contents rather well yourself.”
“Do you think the Girls’ School Confiscation List is somehow more modest than the boys’ school? Not at all.”
She drained her glass with easy composure. Patrick searched for something to say, then laughed aloud again. Their laughter intertwined softly before gradually fading into the crackle of the fire.
Beatrice regarded Patrick across from her steadily.
She’d thought this man, whatever passionate fires burned within him, must have been a model student during his school days. It seemed she’d been wrong.
As the thought took shape, Beatrice found herself at a crossroads—that defining moment in her life, the event she could never omit. Should she tell him what happened then?
It wasn’t the first time she’d wrestled with this question.
That summer evening when she’d returned from Carroway, walking side by side with him on that street, she’d stood at this same threshold.
The night she’d watched Patrick’s expression cool as she’d mentioned the Boarding School, her heart in her throat.
Then, she couldn’t be sure of his reaction, but hearing his story today, she’d come to understand that they were kindred spirits in a way she hadn’t fully realized.
Should she tell him?
As her heart wavered, Patrick refilled his glass. The night was growing late, and this might be their only chance to speak with such unguarded honesty.
‘That business about you being ill and missing school—that wasn’t true, was it? You were courting someone. You exchanged those shameless letters with him, brazenly and openly. I know all about it.’
Still… it wouldn’t work, would it?
In the Costume Room she’d confronted Eugenia Norton’s blackmail directly, yet Beatrice remained somewhat uneasy.
A romance….
Yes, it had been a true romance. Though she’d never seen the boy’s name or face, only exchanged her heart through letters, Beatrice had loved him sincerely, a truth she couldn’t deny.
But asking him to understand that much—that was surely too much to hope for.
There was no reason to dredge up something long past.
One might wonder why she’d carried this childhood business with her for so long. Even if Patrick understood her, she thought, surely that much was beyond him….
Beatrice changed the subject.
“What should we do first tomorrow? What do I need to prepare?”
The awkward silence was filled, and their conversation turned once more to the next day’s Collecting Expedition—retracing their departure time and the supplies they’d need. Only after they’d emptied the wine bottle did the two rise from their seats.
The fire died down, its flames diminishing, and the room filled with the acrid smoke of burning oak mingled with the sweet scent of alcohol.
Beatrice pulled the thin blanket up to her chin and stared into the darkness above. From somewhere distant, the sound of the river flowing past came like a lullaby, steady and unbroken.
On the opposite bed, Patrick too lay awake, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
He found himself turning over their earlier conversation. The Literary Club. Banned Books. And…
The past he still hadn’t brought himself to confess. The presence of Juliet—the woman who had shattered Patrick’s entire world.
He’d thought perhaps tonight might be the moment, but in the end, he’d said nothing. He’d wanted so badly to lay it all bare, to unburden himself completely, and yet…
To his mind, Beatrice Somerset was someone uninhibited, someone who moved forward without hesitation.
To tell her that he’d fallen in love through letters with a girl whose face and name he’d never known, that those letters had nearly destroyed his life, and that even now, ten years later, he still couldn’t bring himself to destroy them…
Wouldn’t she find it unbearably provincial? Wouldn’t it make him seem rigid, or perhaps immature?
Or might she judge him as a weak man still clinging to adolescent sentiment?
Perhaps that was true enough…
But there was something else—something about revealing in front of Beatrice that he’d harbored another woman’s memory for so long simply didn’t sit right with him.
He didn’t press himself to examine why. Patrick’s mind grew too tangled, and he pulled the blanket over his head, forcing sleep to come.
1) *Anne Veronica* (H. G. Wells, 1909)
Set in early twentieth-century London, this pioneering work of feminist literature explores a woman’s economic independence, freedom, and right to self-determination.
2) *Memoirs of Fanny Hill* (John Cleland, 1748)
A landmark erotic novel that captured English society in the eighteenth century and caused considerable scandal upon its publication.

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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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