Microscopes and Canvases - Chapter 65

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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 65
There was a brief rustling from inside, then a soft voice came through the door.
“Yes. Come in. I’m dressed.”
As he eased the door open, the room was filled with the pleasant mingling of delicate lavender soap and warm moisture.
Beatrice sat contentedly in an armchair by the window, pressing her damp honey-colored hair dry with a white towel.
The moment Patrick’s eyes landed on her pale, luminous cheeks glistening with moisture and her clear blue-green eyes, he found himself holding his breath again.
Dangerous. Yes, this was dangerous.
“That didn’t take too long, did it?”
“No. It’s fine.”
Patrick hurried downstairs again, seized by inexplicable urgency. The grumbling worker came up once more to change the water, and now it was Patrick’s turn to bathe.
He stood precariously in the cramped space behind the screen, beginning to unbutton his shirt. The room was deathly quiet, and he found himself acutely aware that his own heartbeat might be audible.
Beatrice sat just a hand’s breadth away, beyond the screen. Whether she was turning pages or sketching, the thought that he stood here in broad daylight with nothing but air on his skin made his mind go blank.
Yesterday had been tense enough to the point of agony. But today it felt different somehow.
His stiffened body made removing his trousers and undergarments take far longer than it should have. He’d initially felt self-conscious about undressing in daylight—but now he was profoundly grateful that the sun still hung in the sky.
If night had fallen, the sinister shadows cast by his own body would have been plainly visible through the screen.
This second bath in Room 204 of the Inn was the most painful and grueling test of restraint he’d ever endured in his life. As he poured water over himself and washed, Patrick felt on the verge of fainting.
The slightest touch against the water bucket sent harsh, clattering tin sounds ringing through the room’s profound silence, and whenever he moved his arms to apply soap, he fought desperately not to let his breath escape.
Flushed crimson, Patrick finished bathing and hurriedly dried himself with a towel. Even after changing into clean clothes, he lingered behind the screen for a moment, steeling himself.
When he finally emerged, nearly staggering with exhaustion, he was met with the sight of Beatrice regarding him with anxious concern.
“Are you hurt somewhere?”
As he shook out his damp hair and took a deep breath, Beatrice posed the innocent question.
“No, I’m fine.”
Patrick quickly dismissed her concern.
“I was thinking about the specimens. We should organize them quickly. If they wilt, all this work will have been for nothing.”
He gestured toward the Brass Vasculum on the table with a slight smile. Despite having just bathed, sweat still beaded on his forehead.
* * *
The two of them set to work at once.
They replaced the damp mosses with dry Absorbent Paper and labeled each with dates and collection zones—simple, methodical work.
Patrick, unusually for him, made several mistakes. He nearly knocked over an ink bottle, and the second time he dropped a specimen jar to the floor. Beatrice’s eyes widened as she caught the falling glass.
“Patrick. You must be very tired.”
“I’m fine. Rather—”
A sense of danger pushed at him: if he stayed any longer in this small, warm room alone with her, he’d lose his grip on sanity.
Finally, Patrick could bear it no longer and bolted to his feet. Fortunately, he had an excellent excuse.
“Shall we step out? We’ve finished organizing the specimens well enough, and we could watch the festival, have lunch, browse a bit, then come back early to rest. We need to visit the Moss Research Society tomorrow morning.”
He’d spoken so rapidly that Beatrice seemed startled, but she nodded eagerly, as if she’d been waiting for this.
“Yes, let’s go!”
The afternoon of Northpen was bustling with preparations for the festival to come.
Along the winding stone streets hung strings of red and yellow Paper Lanterns, and from one corner of the Town Square came the faltering notes of the band tuning their instruments.
The two of them walked into the festival’s energy and soon found themselves seated at a quiet Tea Room tucked away in a corner of town.
The modest wooden cottage-like shop, with its delicate tangle of climbing roses, emanated a particular simplicity and warmth.
The scent of fragrant dried tea leaves and freshly baked scones filled the shop with a settled calm, and through the lace-curtained window table, one could glimpse the townsfolk preparing for the festival.
After wandering outside for a while, the heat that had flushed his body had cooled somewhat. Patrick paused to catch his breath and brought up the matter of tomorrow’s visit to the Moss Research Society.
“The Moss Research Society, as they call it, but none of them know my face.”
Patrick spoke carefully, cradling the warm ceramic teacup in his hands.
“As I mentioned before with Edward, we’ve only exchanged letters all this time. We’ve never met in person.”
Beatrice nodded seriously.
She seemed to be listening intently to his words, yet her mind was entirely elsewhere.
While Patrick passed the day as if nothing were amiss, Beatrice replayed the morning’s incident for the hundredth, thousandth time—that desolate, barren moment.
The bleak landscape of the Peat Bog, the way they’d held each other fiercely in the pouring rain.
‘Because I can be with you… and so now… I’m not lonely anymore!’
It was a confession.
Unable to find the courage to say she’d come to care for him, that she thought she might love him, she’d let her overflowing heart spill out in an awkward, stammering declaration.
Trembling with fear that the bond between them might crack, she’d managed to force out this burning truth.
When she’d pushed through the relentless downpour and entered the Cottage, she’d truly believed something would happen.
When he’d removed his outer coat and wrapped his cold body in warmth, she’d been ready—truly ready—for a first kiss.
Surely overcome by passion, he would have kissed her. But what should she do then? Should she tilt her head? Would he know how to guide her?
…Patrick did nothing.
He merely tended to her with care—a close friend, a laboratory colleague whom he spent his days with. He acted according to his natural, gentle disposition.
So it had all been her misunderstanding.
Since arriving in Northpen, every situation seemed to test her again and again. His attentive, considerate care; his soft, warm smile.
That odd situation—the two of them entering the same room to wash, their bodies drawing close in the humid air—had been nothing more than a misunderstanding, born of Beatrice’s inexperience and naivety.
They had stood so near, their warm bodies pressed together for what felt like an eternity, eyes locked on each other, yet nothing had happened. That said it all.
Though she told herself it was perhaps a relief, Beatrice couldn’t help but feel her pride sting. Was she really so undesirable? So unmoved by him?
“…Beatrice?”
“Yes?”
Beatrice’s thoughts snapped back to the present, and she lifted her head quickly.
“I thought it might be good to bring your sketchbook tomorrow.”
Patrick spoke casually as he refilled her teacup. Watching the hot water rise in the cup, Beatrice found herself disliking him for the first time.
…Did he have no idea how she was burning inside? Was he truly so unmoved by it all?
“In any case, I’m known as P. Bennett, a botany student from Windum. I thought it best to keep my identity hidden—it would only create distance, and I wanted us to be at ease.”
It was then that Beatrice spoke up suddenly.
“Then tomorrow, we’ll have to go on pretending to be newlyweds in front of them?”
“What do you mean?”
Patrick looked up blankly. Beatrice spoke with an edge to her voice.
“A poor botany student named P. Bennett suddenly appears with a woman, doesn’t he? The innkeeper already believes we’re husband and wife, and if those people are members of the Moss Research Society as you say, then we have to keep up the act. We’ll have to be newlyweds the whole time.”
“Ah, blast.”
Patrick’s brow creased slightly. He hadn’t thought that far ahead at all.
Blast?
Watching his furrowed brow, Beatrice felt her frustration rise even higher. It was as though he’d suddenly dropped his gentlemanly mask.
He’d apologized at first for the inconvenience, so why was he now so plainly annoyed? Why was he making it so obvious….
‘So marriage really is… bothersome, isn’t it?’
Now that she thought of it, he’d said something like that the night of that pleasant ball, too. Was even this brief pretense so tiresome to him? And it wasn’t just anyone—it was her—yet he still….
At this moment, Beatrice could not help but wonder again what exactly she was to him.
‘It’s not just anyone—it’s me’… or so he’d said.
But what am I to him? Just a woman he’s more comfortable and intimate with than others?
Yet beneath that lay an unspoken assumption: that the two of them could never harbor romantic feelings for each other, that matrimony was impossible between them.
Beatrice’s expression grew darker, and Patrick, watching her intently from across the table, was weighed down by an ever-mounting guilt.
He was someone who despised the very idea of marriage, and now he had to subject her to this absurd charade once more.
Beyond that guilt, Patrick was mortified by the secret impulse he’d felt toward her just moments before.
There was no trace in Beatrice’s manner of her regarding him as a man. Even after bathing, she showed no particular disturbance, no fluster like his own.
And in Patrick’s mind, the reason she felt so at ease was clear.
Beatrice harbored no private feelings for him whatsoever; she saw him as the safest, most trustworthy man in the world.
She believed, firmly and absolutely, that he would never harbor any improper thoughts toward her.
Patrick rose from his seat with a rigid expression, tidying up as he went.
“Beatrice, it’s getting late, and you look exhausted. Let’s call it a night and get some rest. We have plans tomorrow, after all.”
“Yes, perhaps we should.”
Watching Beatrice rise from her seat without the slightest reluctance, Patrick swallowed a bitter taste.
On the way back to their lodgings, he deliberately steered toward trivial topics, but neither Patrick nor Beatrice could focus on the conversation, and their words circled awkwardly in the space between them.
And that night.
Aware of the quiet breathing from the bed across from hers, Beatrice made a quiet resolve.
Since things had come to this, tomorrow she would drop all pretense and become a perfect newlywed.
If they could never be what they truly were meant to be, then she wanted at least one day to exact a small revenge on this oblivious man.
Once they left Northpen, all of this would become nothing more than a shared memory for them both, so she told herself it would be all right.

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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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