Joseph sighed and went to the door. Saffron followed, peering over his shoulder.
A man in a white coat had turned from the microscope sitting on a high counter before a window. He looked to be fifty years old, with thinning brown hair and a hefty, slightly bowed frame that suggested too much time bent over his work. “Tell Mary to get back in here!”
His accent was flat and clipped, indicating origins somewhere to the north.
“Aye, Dr. Sutcliffe,” Joseph said without feeling. Dr. Sutcliffe began to turn away, but Joseph added, “New staff, by the way. Miss Everleigh.”
Saffron edged around him into the lab for an introduction. Sutcliffe whipped around and roared, “Don’t you set one foot into my lab!”
Stunned, Saffron jerked back and ran into Joseph. He steadied her for the merest instant before stepping well away from her.
“For heaven’s sake!” cried a muffled female voice. A moment later, a tall woman also in a white coat threw open the door of the room at the end of the hall and strode toward them. “If you didn’t want anyone coming into your lab, why’d you leave the door open, you daft old bear!”
The woman stomped up to Saffron and Joseph and stuck her head into the lab. “No terrorizing the new staff, you hear me?”
Sutcliffe jabbed a finger at the woman’s foot, which was just inside the door. “Get your feet out of my lab! You’re not wearing your gear!”
“Youaren’t wearing your gear!” she shrieked back before reaching inside the room.
Sutcliffe got to his feet, apparently enraged, but the woman had taken hold of the doorknob. She slammed the door.
The ringing silence of the hall was broken by low grumbling from within Sutcliffe’s room.
The woman turned to Saffron and Joseph. She had an angular, middle-aged face. She topped Saffron by a head or more, even in the flat walking boots she wore with her dress beneath her white coat. “Ignore Sutcliffe. He’s spent too much time with his growths tounderstand the ways ofHomo sapiensany longer.” She stuck out a broad hand and shook Saffron’s enthusiastically. “Edna Quinn—call me Quinn, everyone does. How do you do? You’re here for Horticulture, I hope.”
“Yes, I’m the new assistant,” Saffron said, then gave her name.
“Welcome to the Path Lab. I assure you, we’re not as cracked as we seem. Joseph!” She turned to him, and Saffron saw he was already halfway down the hall. He flushed, displeased he’d been caught in his retreat. “You must come to introduce Miss Everleigh to the rest of us!”
Joseph wordlessly acquiesced, and Quinn didn’t bother to keep her voice low as she leaned over to Saffron and said, “The boy needs interactions with people! He’s always hiding away in the greenhouses when Calderbrook doesn’t have need for him.”
Joseph’s shoulders tensed before them. They passed a door marked Records, and another marked Samples, before they reached the large, bright room at the end of the hall.
Agriculture and horticulture had always been considered far more pragmatic sciences, and to some, not even sciences but practices. The Paris conference had reminded Saffron that this was not the case, and the laboratory she now stood in confirmed it. This was no rustic outpost stocked with a few tins of soil or seeds but a bustling center of science. She ought not to have expected anything less, it being the child of the Jodrell Lab at Kew.
The room might have once been a modest sort of ballroom, for it was a single large, open space. A maze of workbenches topped with shelves laden with chemical containers of amber, blue, and clear glass had been erected within. The windows let in streams of light, ensuring that all the benches were adequately lit, though each one had several articulating lamps at the ready. Dark wood beams crisscrossed a high ceiling that had been stained in several places.
A smile tugged at Saffron’s lips. The lab might be in a strange place, full of odd people, but this was very familiar ground.
“A fresh face to greet, everyone,” called Quinn. She sounded very much like a schoolmarm, a bit overbright and forceful. It matched her appearance: perhaps in her forties and tidy, with streaksof gray in her brown hair. Her nose was rather red, including red marks on the bridge which suggested she’d recently removed a pair of spectacles.
Two people emerged from the maze of shelving. From the far left side stepped a willowy man with hair that was either very pale blond or had gone white. He had large features: a wedge of a nose between light blue eyes that reminded her of a basset hound’s. The other was a polished woman Saffron’s age with a stylishly cropped head of brunette hair. She wore a white coat, like everyone else, and looked at Saffron with friendly curiosity.
“Where is everyone else?” Quinn demanded.
“Crawford and Burnwell will be gone for another two weeks yet, remember?” said the younger woman. Her voice was soft, but she spoke with the same flat vowels as the shouting scientist. She stepped forward and offered a hand. “Mary Fitzsimmons, Mycology. I believe you’ve met my colleague, Dr. Sutcliffe.”
Saffron could feel heat rising in her cheeks. “I did, yes.”
Mary gave her a sympathetic look. “Don’t mind him. We must take our safety protocols more seriously than the rest, else we risk contaminating the whole lab. I’ll explain the rules after you’ve met everyone and gotten settled a bit.”
“This is Dr. Narramore,” announced Quinn, beckoning the blond man. “He runs Entomology, and I am his assistant.”
Saffron was surprised to hear this; with her masterful manner, she’d have guessed she was in charge of her own department or even several. She shook Dr. Narramore’s hand.
“And you know Joseph Rowe, of course,” said Quinn, waving at Joseph.
He was standing unobtrusively behind them. He nodded solemnly as Quinn added, “He is our man of all work. Nothing he can’t do or fix, apart from his determination to be quiet.” Quinn barked out a laugh. “Speaking of which, I would like you to run to the post office, Joseph. We’ve been promised new specimens from Devon and I’m getting a bit impatient for them!”
