Chapter 24

Though the day was as bright and cheerful as a November morning in central England could be, Saffron was uneasy exiting the railway station in Harpenden. There was a fair amount of traffic on the street and the pavement, but it eddied away as she walked from the town's center. Nick had given her directions to the laboratory, and Milton Road was just across the train tracks, in the same direction as Jeffery Wells's house.

The train ride had given her plenty of time to second-guess herself and to ruminate on the part of the evening she'd willfully forgotten about in the excitement over news of Wells's cause of death and the plan to infiltrate the lab. The way the unexpected visit from her grandfather had ended was awful. He'd told her to choose, and she'd chosen her life in London. She didn't know where that left her with him or the rest of her family.

Her cousin, John, and his little family would always accept her. The brief time she'd spent with them in France, where they lived, had affirmed that. John was a barrister, stubbornly refusing to return to England after the war despite the fact that Lord Easting thought he ought to be at Ellington, learning all he needed to know about being the heir to the viscounty. John disagreed, uninterested in forcing his French wife to abandon life in their charming town. Saffron couldn't relate more, though she doubted their grandfather would go all the way to France to harass John about returning home.

Her mother, too, would never abandon her, though Saffron didn't know what it meant for the future of their relationship if Saffron wasn't permitted to go to Ellington. Her mother did not leave the house, and she wasn't sure the inducement of seeing her daughter would be enough to enable her to overcome her fear of the outside world.

As much as her grandparents frustrated her, she loved them. They were terse and distant but loving in their own overbearing way. They had provided for her and permitted her to go to university, even if they'd preferred she hadn't. She didn't want them to disown her, though she was afraid that might have already happened.

It took Saffron only a few minutes to walk from the train station to Milton Road, but another five to ascertain she was in the right place, lost in thought as she was. The street was residential, and the homes were more or less the same, two- and three-story red brick buildings with white trim and trees and gardens. They were spread out enough to have privacy but not so far apart that the homes might have been considered estates. Everything one might expect in a nice suburban neighborhood—but nothing like one might expect of a government laboratory.

It wasn't until she noticed the small brass plaque on one of the houses that she realized she'd already walked past the building twice. She passed through the gate into the low-walled garden and approached the door, next to which the plaque read, "Harpenden Phytopathological Service, No. 28 Milton Street."

She let out a nervous breath and rang the bell.

A young man with an eyepatch over his left eye opened the door. Scars peppered the left side of his face and over where an ear used to be. "Yes?"

Saffron gave him a perfunctory smile that he did not return. "I'm Saffron Everleigh, and I have an appointment with Dr. Calderbrook."

He stepped back so she could enter.

The entryway was shabbily gentile, with an unpolished wood floor covered in rugs of decent quality and questionable cleanliness. The pattern of the wallpaper was barely decipherable beneath row after row of scientific art: illustrations, paintings, and photographs of plants, birds, insects, and fungi. An empty sitting room with mismatched furniture and an empty hearth despite the chill outside was to her right, and a library packed with books and journals stood to the left.

They went up squeaking stairs lined with more framed prints and paintings. A window provided a view of the bare front garden, contrasting with the flourishing ferns on the sill and ivy dripping from a pedestal in the corner.

At the top of the stairs was a row of closed doors, and the young man tapped on the first.

"Yes," called a male voice.

Saffron straightened and followed the young man as he opened the door and stepped inside.

The room had clearly been made over from a bedroom. The rosy walls and delicate moldings along the ceiling and along the mantle of the fireplace made it clear it had been a feminine space.

The man sitting at a desk in the center of the room matched it, strangely enough. His face was as round as his spectacles, his skin smooth and unwrinkled. His light brown hair was shining with pomade, and his full lips were topped with a mustache a bit more gingery than the rest of his hair. Dr. Jonathon F. Calderbrook was a phytopathologist, just like Thomas Everleigh had been. He was forty-two, unmarried, and lived at Number 28 in a set of private rooms, Nick had explained to her once he'd secured her this interview. This was not his personal bedroom, of course; the large desk and masses of filing cabinets along the walls made that clear, in spite of the pink floral wallpaper and fussy lace curtains.

"Miss Everleigh, sir," said the young man.

"Thank you, Joseph." Dr. Calderbrook got to his feet and smoothed a hand over his green tie. "How do you do, Miss Everleigh?"

Saffron came forward and offered her hand. "How do you do?"

"Have a seat, if you please." They both sat, and Joseph left, closing the door behind him. Dr. Calderbrook looked at her for a long moment before saying in quick, precise tones, "I was … surprised to see your application for the assistant position. You studied botany at UCL, and you work there now. You are aware that the position for which you've applied is in horticulture?"

"I am," Saffron said. "But I'm of a mind to switch fields." It displeased her to say it, and she worried for the moment her words would no doubt trickle down the grapevine to Dr. Aster's ears. She'd written a proposal for Dr. Aster detailing all the reasons why she needed to stay off-campus in order to explore resources for her study for the next several weeks. He had accepted it but without any enthusiasm. It was a weak excuse for her absence, but she had to hope it gave her enough time to find the information Nick needed.

To her surprise, Dr. Calderbrook's lips twitched. She realized she'd made a pun and allowed herself to smile. "I love botany, of course, but I recently attended the International Botanical Conference in Paris—"

Dr. Calderbrook looked taken aback. "Did you?"

"Yes. I attended the conference and saw just how urgent the need for horticulturalists and agriculturalists is, especially following the war, and decided it was time to make a change. I've worked as a research assistant before. I can learn the specifics of horticulture as I go."

The director shifted in his seat, easing forward and then back, his eyes flicking to her, then to the paper on his desk. "I am aware …" He cleared his throat. "Your father was Thomas Everleigh. He was a friend of mine, a colleague, though we never worked together officially."

"I didn't know that, sir," she lied.

"Yes, well, he was a good sort of fellow and I liked him very much. Tried to get him to come to my lab up at Kew, you know." His smile was brief and nervous. "I didn't know he had a daughter in the same field. I see Dr. Aster once a month, you see. We get together with a few colleagues for supper. One would think he'd mention Thomas Everleigh's daughter working for him."

Saffron didn't reply, merely kept her pleasant expression frozen on her face. She was all but certain to be found out by Aster now. But hopefully, this would be cleared up before they next met.

"I do need a horticulture assistant, and if I'm honest, rather desperately. We have several experiments going that will put us ages behind if we do not have the bodies to run them. I feel as if Fate has placed you in my lap!" He let out a laugh, then seemed to choke on it. "Oh, goodness, do excuse me. I simply mean it is a relief to have an Everleigh show up just now."

Saffron mashed down her annoyance. She didn't mind that Dr. Calderbrook had misspoken; she minded that he, like so many others, would reduce her to her surname, rather than the fact she had a degree and was already working as a researcher at a prestigious university. But she smiled brightly regardless. She wasn't there for an actual position, just the appearance of one. "It does rather seem that way."

"Very good." He got to his feet, extending his hand, and Saffron shook it. "Welcome to the Harpenden Phytopathological Service."