The Tea Machine (14 page)

“It’s the cellar where we keep the coal, Miss.”

“And what is amiss with this cellar?” Sophia was losing interest already. Coal cellars sounded like disgusting places.

“I think someone’s in it, Miss.” Edna was wide eyed, and her hands trembled.

“Well, it’s obvious that they should not be. Have you asked them to remove themselves from the coal hole?”

“No, Miss. I ran away when I heard the moaning.”

“Moaning? Dear Lord, woman, they’re probably hurt. Maybe they fell in or something.” Sophia was unsure how people presented themselves to a coal hole, but if there was moaning then something was awry.

Edna turned chalk white, and it dawned on Sophia that she would have to go and call into this cellar herself to ensure this moaning ne’er do well got on his way. He had better not be a drunk. She had no sympathy for intoxication or merriment of any kind.

“Take me to the coal hole this instant.” Sophia warmed to the idea of solving a domestic dilemma and giving a scoundrel a good telling off at the same time. It would please her to inform everyone how she had taken charge while Millicent malingered over tea in the sacrosanct laboratory.

Pleased with her contribution to the crisis, she followed Edna to a small door adjacent to the steps that led to the kitchens. It was on the same level as the boot room, and the whole area had a strange, unfamiliar odour that Sophia could only put down to human industry. She pushed open the cellar door to reveal a flight of narrow steps that descended into darkness as black as pitch. She was definitely not going down there. It was filthy!

“How on earth do you get the coal into such a place?” she asked.

“The coal man delivers into the hatch in the street, Miss. This is where I fill the buckets in the morning to set the fires.” Edna fidgeted with her apron, staring down the stairwell.

“How abhorrent. I can only assume someone has trespassed by falling in from the street. I hope the coal has not been damaged.”

“Cook says it’s haunted.”

“Nonsense. You are not allowed to believe in ghosts. Do you understand me, Edna?”

“Yes, Miss.”

From the bowels of the basement, a guttural moan swirled up at them. It was low and forlorn and as desolate as the wind in a winter graveyard. Edna squeaked and took flight, leaving Sophia rooted to the spot in blind panic.

The slither of avalanching coal told her something was moving down there. Then came the drag of footsteps; first one, then another, and another. Slowly they moved from the bottom of the stairs towards where she stood. She felt faint. The steps drew nearer, scraping on the stone stairway. Her knees weakened, horror clawed at her heart, and yet she couldn’t move. Below her a young man’s face surfaced from out of the gloom. He was dark haired and sooty skinned, and his eyes were a fierce angelic blue that pinned her in place in a spasm of Gloriana, rather than fright. He was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. His hair was blacker than the coal-strewn hell from which he ascended. He was tall, and noble, and gorgeous, and Sophia’s heart joined her sagging knees in a betrayal of all that was upright and moral.
Lord Byron is in my coal hole!

And then he spoke in a marvellous, foreign tongue. He spoke as they did in Babel, with words strange and uplifting, and Sophia found that if she concentrated hard, really, really hard on the movement of his wondrous sculpted lips…it made no difference at all. She understood not one word but was happy to stand transfixed in ignorance. In fact, the movement of his lips weakened her knees further.

He mounted the stairs gazing at her with equally rapt attention, bordering on disbelief. His long, silky eyelashes blinked in the bright daylight, and she wanted to count each and every lash that surrounded his cerulean irises. How long had he been down there? The poor, poor, beautiful man. Oh, Edna would pay for this!

Sophia was thrilled that he was her discovery and hers alone. It could so easily have been Millicent who found him. Millicent already had a handsome, mysterious gentleman admirer from the Urals. It was only fair that Sophia advocate for this one. Especially as he was much more handsome and definitely more interesting than Mr. Decanus. Sophia was elated with her find.

Then it dawned on her that the language he was speaking was Latin, and her heart sank. Millicent had been taught Latin, but Sophia hadn’t. Oh, she pretended to have some knowledge of it, but in reality it was gleaned from her father’s gardening journals and not from proper language lessons. She could not bear for Hubert, and especially Millicent, to know how under-educated she was. Still, she so wished to communicate with her beautiful stranger, she just had to try out what little she knew. It would not be long before her precious discovery would be ripped from her grasp by the Aberlys.

“Lonicera alpigena,” she said, using her meagre Latin.

“Alpine honeysuckle?” he repeated, admittedly confused. He reached the top stair and towered over her, a primitive, powerful beast forged in the lusty fires of Lucifer. His eyes held the blazing blue of foreign skies, his hair the inky gloss of a raven’s wing. She looked up at him until her head swam. “Galanthus nivalis,” she said, breathlessly.

“Common snowdrop?” He was frowning now, and she was running out of Latin plant names. She’d have to resort to her brother’s old school motto, if only she could remember it. Fidelity and…books, under…what, a unicorn? Oh, dear. Then she realized he was answering her, or rather repeating her words, but in English. He was translating her Latin into her own tongue. How clever!

“Do you understand me?” she asked. In answer he dropped to one knee and lifted the hem of her dress and kissed it. Now it wouldn’t matter if he spoke double Dutch with an Irish accent and a kilt. He was wonderful.

“Vaccinium oxycoccus.” She sighed, dreamily.

“Cranberry.” He smiled back at her.

CHAPTER 14

“Cranberry?” Millicent was appalled. Who
was this strange man? What had Sophia been thinking not to report this intrusion to her sooner?

“Yes, we share a mutual love of gardening.” Sophia smiled and sighed.

“You wouldn’t know a flower bed from a paddy field,” Millicent snapped.

“You are too cruel,” Sophia objected. “I may well know the difference—if I were to see them side by side. Besides, I have taught him English, after a fashion. The study of linguistics also binds us.”

“It is not English; it is some horticultural gobbledygook that may well have you both arrested if you step foot outside of this house,” Millicent said, and added as an afterthought, “or into any convenient florist. Where is he now? Please don’t tell me he is still in the cellar.”

“No, he is not.” Sophia sniffed haughtily. “He is in the kitchen with Cook. She says he has cleaned up well, is industrious, and would make an excellent replacement footman.”

“And this new…effervescence in your language? Is this the result of your cross-cultural linguistic studies?” Millicent asked, wondering at the ease they all had in understanding each others native tongue. She would have to ask Hubert for this thoughts on the matter.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“The Fs and Bs you are using so freely and frequently, my dear.” Millicent dipped into her reticule to retrieve her pocketbook of curse words. She tapped it with an indignant finger. “I, too, have a study underway.”

“The Fs and Bs?” Sophia looked genuinely puzzled. Then her expression brightened. “Oh, that is Latin, silly Millicent. I teach him English and am learning Latin from him in turn.”

“Then desist from learning more. I fear your Latin is more Anglo-Saxon than you realize.”

“Can he be your new footman?” Sophia blushed. “Please say yes.”

Millicent suspected Sophia had developed an inappropriate fascination with this stranger. “I will pass on Cook’s recom-
mendations to Hubert, and he will decide if the young man is suitable,” she said, manoeuvring Sophia towards the front door.

“Please convey my best wishes to the Misses Partridge,” she said and ushered Sophia onto the doorstep. She was about to close the door when a thought occurred. “Sophia,” she called. “Please, no Latin with the ladies; they are elderly, and it would only,” she grappled for a suitable word, “confuse.”

Sophia gave her a bright smile and went on her way.

“Do we know anything about the coal hole?” Millicent dashed back to the drawing room in a flurry of skirts and high colour. Sangfroid and Hubert looked at her blankly, so she explained further. “Sophia has just this minute told me she found a strange man in our coal cellar.” She threw Sangfroid a look. “Could another organism really have followed us back?”

“I did
not
follow you here. I was minding my own business killing squid and getting killed in return, when the next thing I know, I woke up on your bloody-damned-ugly couch.”

“Hyphenated swear words now,” Millicent scolded and scribbled in her notebook. “I see your vulgarity is evolving semantically. Just what we need. I am keeping a list so we can work on your diction.”

“Who is in the cellar?” Hubert asked.

“My diction works just fine for my timeline, lady, which is where I wish I was right now. You think I followed you?” Sangfroid said. “If anything, I was kidnapped.”

“Who is in the cellar?” Hubert asked, again.

“Kidnapped! Oh, for Goodness sake!” Millicent snorted. “Who would pay a ransom for you?”

“Who is in the cellar?” Hubert shouted. They stopped arguing and looked at him. He took advantage to elaborate on his question. “Who has Sophia unearthed in the coal cellar? Did she say?”

“She gave no name. Apparently he speaks Latin and likes gardening. Oh, and she highly recommends him as a replacement footman.”

“What do you mean, he speaks latin? What’s latin?” Sangfroid asked.

“Latin was the ancient tongue of your culture. Rome was the chief city of the Latium region, so its language is Latin,” Hubert explained. “The Roman Empire has come and gone in this timeline. It was once mighty, but now it is obsolete. All great empires come and go throughout history, and in this age the force to be reckoned with is ours. Rule Britannia, and all that.”

“Britannia? An empire?” Sangfroid broke into loud guffaws. “Britannia. That dump? It’s a prefecture of Gaul.”

“Oh dear,” Hubert said. “Please don’t say that to anyone outside of this room. Relations with France have always been fraught.”

“And I don’t speak Latin. I speak Roman,” Sangfroid said proudly.

“How is it we understand each other?” Millicent asked Hubert. “It’s alarming how easily we seem to fall into a mutual understanding. As if our minds are being somehow manipulated from afar?”

“I honestly don’t know, but I suspect it’s something to do with proximity to the Colossals. The Amoebas was full of them. If they have some sort of organic ability to speak mind to mind, maybe they can act as universal translators? Or perhaps pass the skill on to us?”

“But Sophia and her society ladies can understand Sangfroid, and they haven’t been near a squid.” Millicent pointed out.

“I think we would have heard about it if they had,” Sangfroid said.

Hubert shrugged. “Again, I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s because Weena is in the house? Perhaps it’s a contagion between us? I wish I knew, but really there is so much to understand. I have barely scratched at the surface, nevermind plumbed the depths,” he said. “Where is this man? I don’t like the idea of him in the house. We need to talk to him. He could be dangerous. Should we be armed?” he asked Sangfroid.

Sangfroid pulled a nasty looking dagger from her bootleg.

“I say.” Hubert looked both unnerved and impressed at the same time. “Has that been down there all along?”

Millicent looked alarmed. “What on earth are you going to do with that?” she asked.

“Hubert will summon the man, and I’ll wait behind the door. If he steps out of line, I’ll gut him.”

“There will be no blood spilling on my Seljuk carpet.” Millicent was adamant.

“Perhaps there’s another room you prefer to gut strangers in?” Sangfroid said.

“There is. Follow me.” Millicent led them into Hubert’s laboratory and proceeded to roll up the Persian silks. “Will this suit?”

Ignoring her sarcasm, Sangfroid took up position behind the door. “I want you out of here for safety’s sake,” she said, “but there’s no hope of you going, is there?”

“No.” Millicent yanked on the bell pull by the mantelpiece. Edna appeared at the threshold of the doorway a few minutes later and lurched into her awkward curtsey, careful that not one toe should cross into the forbidden territory of the laboratory.

“Yes, sir?”

“This man Miss Sophia found in the coal cellar, Edna,” Hubert asked, “is he still in the house?”

Edna went beet red, and Millicent suspected this so called footman had woven his seducer’s spell around Edna, too.

“Why, yes he is, sir,” Edna said. “He’s downstairs with Cook polishing the silver.”

Millicent was surprised. Cook guarded the silverware like a dragon its eggs. Had she been enthralled by this cad as well?

“Send him along will you,” Hubert said, and Edna left, her feet skittering along the hall tiles.

He’s a bounder, thought Millicent. She could see it now. He had to be some sort of devious charmer to inveigle his way so cleverly with the women of her household. Heavy, measured footsteps echoed along the hall. She braced herself for an onslaught of artful charm and seductively honeyed words.

The man entered the room and immediately saw Sangfroid. “Fuckamo, if it isn’t our Froidy!”

Gallo?
Millicent was aghast.

“Gallo, hah!” Sangfroid threw herself at her comrade, and they crashed together in a hug that would put battling grizzly bears to shame. “I was wondering if you made it.”

“I didn’t,” Gallo said happily. “I’m dead. And let me tell you, the afterlife is nothing like they said it would be.” She stood back, all seriousness. “I was in the deepest pit of Tartarus, Sangfroid, but the goddess came and cast her light down on me and set me free. Now I’m tasked with shining up her treasure. And not in the usual way.” She winked and slapped Sangfroid on the shoulder. “But hey, you died too. Bloody squid, ’eh?” Then she saw Millicent. “Hey, the frock didn’t make it either! It’s like a friggin’ reunion.”

Millicent glowered.

“The froc—Millicent is not dead, and neither are you and I,” Sangfroid told her.

“Good Lord, another one, and she’s enormous.” Hubert sidled up to Millicent to whisper in awe. “What is it with these women from the future, are they Amazons?”

“No, the Amazon’s are even taller,” Millicent answered, rather peevishly.

“How do you know that?” Hubert asked.

“I’m not sure. I just do.” Millicent turned her attention to the reunion before her.

“Are you sure we’re not dead?” Gallo squinted suspiciously at Sangfroid. “I feel dead. I’m working my butt off downstairs for some Hesperidean maidens, and the big fat one is mean.” Then she grinned. “But she likes me.”

“They all like you. Nothing changes.” Sangfroid laughed. “How the hell did you get here?”

“Dunno.” Gallo shrugged. “Last I remember, I was running down the corridor with the froc—Millicent, and then I woke up in Tartarus.”

“That was our coal ho—cellar,” Millicent said coldly. “I’ll leave Sangfroid to explain how you got here and where you are. The woman who found you was—”

“A Goddess!” Gallo’s eyes shone. “Sangfroid, I was lying in this black pit of despair when suddenly there was a shaft of light, and I followed it and ascended to meet Looselea.”

“Looselea?” Sangfroid looked surprised.

“Looselea?” Millicent tried to keep the mockery from her voice but was too scorched from the frock remarks to have much sympathy for Gallo and her naive beliefs.

“Who’s Looselea?” Hubert asked.

“You mean the goddess on your mother’s medallion?” Millicent said, gesturing at the fine chain glinting from beneath Gallo’s collar. “The Goddess of Engineers?”

Gallo’s fingers strayed to her medallion. She pulled it from her shirt and kissed it. “Yes,” she said. “I have seen the goddess, and she is as beautiful as she is wise.”

“Don’t tell me we’ve imported a goddess as well,” Millicent said. “Just how many stowaways were there?”

“Do you mean the woman who found you in your pit?” Sangfroid asked. “That woman? Skinny and kinda weird, with a big nose?”

“Hey. I don’t poo-poo your Mithras. Leave my Looselea alone.” Gallo scowled.

“Good Lord, you think Sophia is Looselea?” Millicent said.

“Who is Looselea?” Hubert asked. “And tell me now before I have to shout. Why does…Gallo…” He said the name carefully, still intimidated by the size and musculature of the woman soldier. “Why does Gallo seem to think Sophia is a goddess? I mean, it’s the last thing she needs to hear.” His brow was glistening, and he mopped it with a large handkerchief.

Sangfroid peered at the medallion in Gallo’s hand. “It sort of looks like her, except the hair’s all piled up suggestively,” she mused. “And that toga is a little risqué. Nice décolletage, though.”

“Let me see.” Millicent elbowed her out of the way. On closer inspection, this deity looked far too carefree and undone for Millicent’s liking. “I can see similarities in the profile. Sophia does have a distinctive nose.” She was reluctant to admit.

Hubert crowded in to examine the medallion. “The nose fits, but little else matches. So who is this Looselea?” he asked. “You said she was the Goddess of Engineering?”

“Looselea is the patron Goddess of Engineers. In the pantheon, she’s the Goddess of Steam Power,” Sangfroid said. “She’s one of the older gods, been around forever.”

“Steam power? In ancient Rome? Rome, BC? You’re saying that in ancient Rome you had steam power?” Hubert looked incredulous.

“What’s a BC?” Sangfroid asked. “Is that in your book?” she asked Millicent.

“How perfectly awful,” Millicent said, ignoring her and turning to Hubert in dismay. “How on earth did the early Romans discover steam power? Aside, of course, for bathing.”

“This explains the wild trajectory the Roman Empire takes in Sangfroid’s timeline.” Hubert had an excited look. “By discovering steam power out of context with normal industrial and cultural evolution, they were able to make a massive technological leap forward and skewer world history as we know it!” He was obviously having an epiphany, but it was a solitary one. The others merely stared.

“Hey. We did everything right,” Sangfroid said. “It’s
your
culture that’s the museum piece. You’re the primitives.”

“We are not,” Millicent said. “You cheated. You had to have some goddess show you a shortcut; we did our empire building all by ourselves.”

“Weena has already stated that you are out of context as a species,” Hubert told Sangfroid. “You are an anathema to the universal continuum.”

“Universal what?” Gallo looked questioningly at Sangfroid. “What’s he on about? And why’s he dressed funny? Update, please.”

“He’s a professor, the boss of the brainiacs,” Sangfroid told her. “He invented this machine.” She pointed at the contraption in the middle of the laboratory. “It lets you travel through time, so they decided to come visit us and screw us over.” Next she pointed at Millicent. “She’s managed to kill me at least 300 times, and I bet she’s done you in, too.” She concluded with, “And he dresses like that because he likes brown.”

“That’s a hell of a list,” Gallo said. “What did we ever do to them?”

“Oh, you gave us straight roads,” Millicent snapped back, “and space squid from another dimension.” She turned to her brother. “They all have to go back where they came from, Hubert. It’s as if we’ve opened a portal, and now anyone or anything can just wander in. It has to stop.”

Hubert looked bewildered. “I’ve no idea how to stop it. As far as I’m aware, Gallo was running down a corridor with you, and when I brought you back, she must have been caught up in the time flux. Much like Sangfroid was when you were in the escape pod together. But I have no idea why Sophia, or a likeness of her, should be a deity in another timeline.”