A Steampunk Adventure by Eva Deverell

THE FLORAL UNDERWORLD by E.A. Deverell

No growth of moor or coppice, No heather-flower or vine, But bloomless buds of poppies, Green grapes of Proserpine, Pale beds of blowing rushes Where no leaf blooms or blushes, Save this whereout she crushes For dead men deadly wine. - from The Garden of Proserpine by Algernon Charles Swinburne

THE FIRST AND LAST EMOTIONS OF LOVE Lilacs - the flowers she had been dreading. Prunella busied herself by noting down the date in her small notebook, avoiding Mr. Larkinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gaze, and the sight of those small, purple flowers pinned to his lapel. She almost fancied that she could catch their scent amid the usual reeks of the auditorium of the London Pteridological Society. The gentle undulations of the phytoceiling - an inverted garden of giant, sessile blooms and gears - could never sufficiently fan away the smell of unwashed bodies, bad breath and Macassar oil. The Society, like others of its kind, was a refuge for the poor and homeless who sheltered under the auspices of edification, and were sometimes suffered to partake of a cup of weak tea. Several years ago, an orphaned Prunella and her younger brother had subsisted on just such public evening lectures as these, and she owed to them her current position. They had given her a fascination for botany, and an opportunity to pick rich pockets. Not all attendees were destitute, and the theatre even boasted a gallery for the use of wealthier patrons. For a few weeks when a particularly handsome bachelor botanist had taken charitably to lecturing, the sound of feminine laughter and the scents of Parisian parfumiers had drifted down to the pit-

dwellers. Once, a single red rose had landed on the stage beside the young man, and he had picked it up eagerly and dissected it petal by petal to demonstrate floral anatomy, as though it had been meant for that very purpose. Prunella had applauded him, but he had soon lost interest, or charity, or perhaps he had married the rose-thrower, and since then the gallery had been silent except for an occasional gentleman’s cough - when there was a particularly interesting lecture - or else a snore. She mumbled a response to Mr. Larkin’s greeting. “Not a bad turn-out this evening, considering it’s old Little speaking,” he said, stretching out his long legs after glancing around at the audience. “Oh!” Prunella couldn’t keep from glancing up in dismay. Mr. Little was her least favourite speaker; a man of such infinite dullness that she had herself once fallen asleep during his lecture. “Are you quite sure?” she asked. “Miss Grinstead was advertised.” She had counted on Miss Grinstead being present. For the past two weeks she had been screwing up her courage to ask her for a letter of recommendation to apply for a scholarship to the Kew Institute. Every day Prunella had vacillated between a conviction that this was her chance to become something better, and the certainty that she would never amount to anything more than a shop-girl. “Yeah, last minute change,” he said, “apparently she was indisposed.” Mr. Larkin couldn’t begin to suspect the heart-wrenching disappointment she felt at hearing his news. A trembling line issued from her pencil. Irritated, she crossed out her title and amended the speaker’s name. “I wish I had known. How did you find out?” “Oh, I saw Mr. Little as I arrived. He told me. I s’pose everyone came expecting Miss Grinstead. I trust I find you well?” “Tolerably well, thank you,” she responded shortly. She needed an excuse to rebuff Mr. Larkin’s advances, but her mind was preoccupied with thoughts of the reference. She had pictured herself so clearly, approaching Miss Grinstead and speaking the words that she had rehearsed over and over again: Miss Grinstead, might I beg a moment of your

time? I have long admired your lectures, and I read your paper on Dicksonia with keen interest. Since I was a child it has been my dream to study botany, and I recently learnt of a scholarship being offered by the Kew Institute and I was hopeful that you might be willing to help a fellow female student of botany by providing me with a letter of reference. I know you must be reluctant to trust a complete stranger, so I took the liberty of bringing you a recent monograph I wrote on lunartropism in Helianthus nocturnus, following some of my own experiments. Prunella had constructed the speech with great care, in a manner that she had hoped would appeal to the older woman’s vanity and kindliness, and she now clutched to her bosom the portfolio that contained her article, as well as a letter from her old schoolmistress, and Prunella’s curriculum vitae. The latter was a sparse document - most of her accomplishments were likelier to land her a jail sentence than a scholarship. Mr. Larkin broke into her thoughts by casually asking how she was enjoying the book that he had given her. This sounded too much like a prelude to a more intimate exchange. “Oh, ah, I’m almost half-way through it, thank you once again for your thoughtfulness in lending it to me.” Mr. Larkin had proffered her Latin for Botanists on the previous week, and though she had no wish to appear forward or be beholden to him in any way, the temptation had proved too much for her. She had accepted the book, and after some rambling through London, she had found a small sprig of agrimony - meaning “gratitude” - in a hedgerow bordering an abandoned lot, and had pinned it to the curve of her calla collar. Few of its pale yellow flowers remained, and the seeds had stuck to the wool of her jacket, but she was happy not to have been obliged to purchase a specimen from a florist. She and Mr. Larkin had been continuing this well-mannered floriographic flirtation for some weeks now, and she had enjoyed the challenge of choosing plants that neither discouraged him, nor gave him any sound reason for growing too forward. At least until now. He was handsome enough, although his head - on which rested a battered bowler - was entirely bald despite the wealth of black beard that

swathed his face. And there was no denying that he was an amiable sort of man, but secretly she couldn’t help thinking that she could do better than a Cockney clerk whose fingernails were always dirtier than they ought to be. In weekly dread of a declaration, she was yet loath to deny herself the illusion of companionship, and so Sunday after Sunday she scoured The Edited and Expanded Language of Flowers - the twenty-third imprint, which was now rather out-of-date - decided on a plant that fit her purpose and her budget, procured a specimen, and found her way through rain or shine to the London Pteridological Society lecture theatre. Now it seemed that she would have to face the consequences of her overindulgence and she realised that agrimony might not have been the best choice after all. Perhaps he had thought that she was grateful for his attentions? She sniffed with disdain, just as Mr. Larkin, leaning back with with an air of enjoying his largesse, said, “think nothing of it.” To her relief, the auditorium doors closed with a shudder that reverberated down the rows of seats, and the lamp shields around the theatre snapped shut with a clatter, forestalling further conversation and leaving the audience in anonymous darkness. None were allowed in or out during a lecture, and Prunella was often reminded of a story she had read at school about Vlad the Impaler, who had supposedly eradicated poverty in his country by inviting all the indigents to a feast, locking them in the dining hall, and burning them alive. She blinked away her morbid thoughts, as with its customary whirr the stereoscope came to life, throwing a picture of a potted aspidistra onto the projection screen. The plant was evidently the luminescent variety now commonly used for lighting, for there was a pale sepia aureola around its leaves. Mr. Little took his place at the lectern. In keeping with his name, he was a small man, and even with spectacles, he squinted at the page in front of him, and read in a halting monotone. “Gone are the days of the rural poor knitting stockings by rush-light,” he droned, “now even the poorest little urchin can boast an aspidistra lamp,

thanks largely to the green fingers of the ladies of the ‘Aspidistra for Advancement Society’. Our streets are safer at night, our air is clearer, our factories are more productive, and our homes are cheerier. We can enjoy an evening of reading and advance ourselves even further by these efforts. In short, the aspidistra lamp is the greatest invention of our time, and the likeliest to…” Prunella’s thoughts wandered back to the letter. She couldn’t imagine that Mr. Little was well-known or well-respected in botanical circles, and yet, perhaps that would make him less unwilling to trust her with his signature. The application had to be sent by Friday, and Prunella had no other free evenings on which she could come to the Society or seek out Miss Grinstead elsewhere. She would simply have to take her chances with Mr. Little.

✤ “Miss Morrow,” said Mr. Larkin’s voice, and Prunella blinked. Had she been asleep again? How mortifying! She hoped that Mr. Larkin had not noticed, but she had the vague feeling that he had repeated her name more than once. He would think she was too harebell-brained even to concentrate through a botany lecture. She looked down at her notebook, and found nothing written there except the date and the name of the speaker. Mr. Little… there was something she needed to remember about Mr. Little… Of course, the letter of recommendation! She looked up at the stage in sudden panic, but there was no sign of him. “Come on, or they’ll be all out of river,” urged Mr. Larkin. “River,” she had come to understand, was Mr. Larkin's way of saying “tea”. He stood aside on the aisle to let her pass and she was surprised to see that he had shed his greatcoat and looked as though he were perspiring. She, on the other hand, felt slightly chilled, and was eager for the cup of complimentary tea, however much it resembled lukewarm Thames water. Perhaps Mr. Larkin’s epithet made sense after all. As they followed the

crowd out of the lecture theatre, she noticed an elderly man in rags who was still dozing in one of the seats. Ought she to wake him? He would be sorry to miss the free tea. But then, she thought, he probably won’t have another chance for a warm, dry nap either. It was cruel that even that most natural form of escape was denied to the poor, who were kept awake by hunger and cold. She let him rest. Mr. Larkin led her to the giant tea machine which was chugging away dutifully, filling the foyer with warm steam and the faint scent of tea. They each took a cup and found a place to stand near the wall, Prunella brusquely refusing the offer of fresh air for fear that Mr. Larkin would take the opportunity of any intimacy the dark garden might present. She was wondering how she might excuse herself to seek out Mr. Little, when Mr. Larkin astonished her by saying, “I’m sorry to leave you alone, Miss Morrow, but I must just pop out for a moment. Won’t be long.” He strolled away without waiting for her reply. She sipped her tea, weaving through the crowd in search of the speaker. The Society foyer had the same look of faded grandeur as the auditorium; the dark green walls were flecked with white patches of bare plaster and the columns with their fern capitals were chipped and stained with damp. The stairs to the gallery were roped off, and Prunella had never seen any of the other rooms that lay beyond the closed doors. She imagined that they were either the offices of administrators, or private seminar rooms for the lecturers. She returned her teacup to the machine, which accepted it with a delicate clink and a cleansing jet of steam, and she was just about to take another look in the theatre when she caught a glimpse of Mr. Little unlocking one of the mystery doors. He stepped quickly through, shutting it behind him, deaf to Prunella calling his name. She hastened to follow, but by the time she had stepped through the door, Mr. Little was already out of sight. She was standing at the end of a long corridor which, she reasoned, must lead backstage. The walls were papered in a pattern of dense forest ferns, rather better preserved than the public rooms, and at intervals were set brackets that held gas lights or potted plants. She passed several closed doors and was about to try

opening one when she heard voices ahead that she recognised only too easily. “Tomorrow?” asked Mr. Larkin. What was he doing here? Prunella inched forward to the bend in the corridor, but the men were talking quietly now and she only heard snatches of their conversation. “…course not, Mr. Little.” “…His Lordship wants some… continue after the lecture.” “…tomorrow, then.” There was a soft sound, as of a door being shut, and then silence. She walked forward, intent on talking to Mr. Little, but full of curiosity as to what he could have been discussing with Mr. Larkin. And who was ‘his lordship’? Had she heard right? She was about to peek around the corner when someone ran into her with such force that she staggered backwards and dropped her portfolio. “Miss Morrow!” Mr. Larkin exclaimed. “What are you doing here?” “I… I was looking for Mr. Little. I have something to ask him.” They both reached for her leather portfolio but Mr. Larkin picked it up first. He dusted it off and handed it back to her. “He isn’t here.” “But you were just talking to him. Did he leave by another door?” “Ah, I think you must have heard the gardener. I was just asking him how he cares for his beautiful synthesised lady’s crook fern. Did you see it near the entrance? I don’t think we’re really allowed backstage, however, so we’d best return to the foyer before we’re caught.” As he spoke, he shepherded her back the way she had come, and it seemed to Prunella that he purposefully tried to block her view. “But I’m sure I saw him come this way. Let me pass, Mr. Larkin; I must speak to him.” She edged around him and turned the corner. There was no one. The corridor terminated in a door a few paces away, but when she tried the handle, she found it locked. “Does it lead outside?” she asked, annoyed at Mr. Larkin’s presence. If he weren’t there to see her, she could pick the lock and save herself the trouble of going the long way around.

“I don’t know, I’m sure. Why were you looking for Mr. Little?” asked Mr. Larkin. She could hear the suspicion in his voice, but she found that she was too embarrassed to confess her ambitions to him, whatever his feelings were towards her. This last thought reminded her of the importance of not being left alone with him. The lilacs were obscured from view by his overcoat once more, but they were still vivid in her memory. “I had some questions about his lecture,” she lied, “but perhaps he returned to the foyer by some other route. Let us make haste.” The foyer was still busy with attendees, and a burly man at the entrance was ensuring that everyone had returned their teacups. Still very conscious that Mr. Larkin might take the first opportunity to pour out his feelings, she walked with hurried steps towards the door. It was raining. Looking left and right along the street, she saw several black umbrellas hurrying away, but couldn’t recognise the people under them. “Do you see him?” she asked, desperately. “Nah, sorry Miss Morrow.” Her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Haven’t you an umbrella? You’re getting soaked,” said Mr. Larkin, with grave concern. “Here, allow me.” He took out of his pocket something cylindrical, unfolded it much like a spyglass, and then gave it a flourish. The cylinder snapped open with a quick whomp, and to her surprise, Prunella realised that it was an umbrella. It was somewhat flimsy, and painted in a crude fashion to resemble a black flower with green veins. “A mate of mine gave it me to try out. It is a telescopic umbrella. Leaks a bit, but not bad for a first attempt, eh? I reckon he’ll strike it rich with this one. In fact he’s also experimenting with synths to create the framework. Tragopogon giganteus, I think he said. I told him-” He was holding the umbrella above them and talking with such goodnatured enthusiasm that when she burst out, “Mr. Larkin! I must inform you that your attentions are wholly unwelcome,” his lips remained

puckered for some moments in the shape of his next unspoken word. Having started on the subject, she continued wildly: “I beg your forgiveness if I have given you any indication of feeling an especial regard for you. I have been gratified and greatly diverted by our weekly conversations, but I do not expect… That is, I cannot hope… I’m sorry. I will return your book to you next week and then I hope we can remain… friends.” The words had tumbled out without forethought. She had never had to rebuff a man before, and she was afraid that she had managed it very badly. He looked thunderstruck. “Well I, I…” he stammered, then finally collecting himself, “let me at least walk you to your omnibus.” Out of pity for his suffering, she allowed him to do so. “Miss Morrow, if I have done anything to offend you-” “No, no. Nothing of the sort,” she said, eager to interrupt his apology. Mr. Larkin pointed out the synthesised fern near the entrance. “Mr. Beecroft swears it owes its vigour to a mixture of fish guts and rusty nails,” he said, and Prunella thought she must have mistaken Mr. Little’s voice after all, and that Mr. Larkin had indeed been talking to the head gardener. But she had followed Mr. Little backstage, and it was impossible that Mr. Larkin should not have seen him. She nodded, absentmindedly. On top of her failure to procure a reference was the sad realisation that she was to lose the only truly interesting companion she had cultivated since her brother had joined the navy and sailed away from her. The rain was cold and painted everything in the night a deeper black. Mr. Larkin was standing quite close in order to shield her with the umbrella, and glancing down she noticed that the pocket of his overcoat was open. Once or twice she had given in to the impulse and training of her earlier days, but she justified her theft by assuring herself that she only filched invaluable items. Now she longed to have one last memento of her friendship with Mr. Larkin - the first man, after all, who had ever come close to loving her. Lagging slightly behind him, she reached her

hand stealthily into his pocket, grasped its contents and, pretending to draw her jacket tighter around her, slipped her hand into the slit in her skirts and dropped the matchbox into her own pocket.

Care to read more? You can purchase The Floral Underworld at:

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