The Tea Machine

by Gill McKnight

  “Thank you.” She acknowledged Gallo’s kindness. “He was a great man, so gifted and clever. He was taken from us too soon. He had so many wonderful ideas and theories. So much to give to the world. It’s so unfair he’s not here anymore to…to…” Her tears flowed freely. “And he was always so happy.” She sniffed into her lace handkerchief. “Up until the last he was waving and smiling.” A vague hope glimmered in the back of her mind. He was smiling? And hard on hope’s glimmering heels, came understanding.

  “He was smiling,” she said, brightening.

  “I thought it was more of a grimace,” Sangfroid said.

  “No, it was most definitely a smile.” Millicent moved towards the door. “And he carefully placed his shoes on the landing by his bedroom. It was as if he knew what was about to happen. As if it was part of a plan, and he’d no time to warn us. But he knew what was about to occur, and he was waving and smiling so as not to alarm us.”

  “Well, it didn’t work,” Gallo said. “I was very alarmed.”

  “Where are you going?” Sangfroid followed Millicent to the door.

  “I’m going to the dining room,” she said. “Hubert was preoccupied all evening with his notes. I have to see what he has written down. Hubert would never allow himself to be ingested by a space squid without a good reason. And especially not without his shoes.”

  “Whereas countless others were rude and kept theirs on.” Sangfroid snorted. “Hey,” she said when Millicent opened the door a crack to peep out. “Wait up. What do you think you’re doing? We’re in lockdown.”

  “I told you. I’m going to the dining room.”

  “Oh no, you don’t. That’s clear across the hall, and the hall is enemy territory. You’re staying here. Understood.”

  Millicent peeped out. “The coast is clear,” she said, gathering up her taffeta evening dress. “Run!” And with a swirl of petticoats, she left Sangfroid standing.

  CHAPTER 16

  There was no real need to run. Weena had gone. The stairway was clear of alien tentacles, though the path of destruction was clear to see. Sagging stair treads, snapped banisters, and the newel posts pushed outward at awkward angles. Nevertheless, Millicent lifted her skirts and sprinted for the dining room as fast as she could. Sangfroid easily kept pace beside her.

  The dining table heaved under the weight of the food piled upon it. Edna had duly delivered each and every course at the required time and, finding no guests present and the previous course uneaten, had simply deposited her new platter on the table top. Neither had she cleared away the previous untouched courses. The resulting food mountain was an insult to both eye and stomach. What on earth was the girl thinking? Millicent had no time to ponder the befuddled workings of Edna’s mind. She snatched up Hubert’s notebook and began to pour over its contents.

  “How can you read that? It’s nothing but hen scratches.” Sangfroid loomed over her shoulder. “Hey, look, is that two monkeys fighting over a pineapple?”

  “When we were children, Hubert and I developed a hieroglyphic shorthand based on pictorial representations of mathematical values. It comes in very handy,” she answered curtly and moved the book away from Sangfroid’s ignorant gaze.

  “I just bet it does.” Sangfroid absentmindedly grabbed a breaded quail breast and began munching on it. “So, what does he say?” she asked with her mouth full.

  Millicent squeezed her vert de terre taffeta into Hubert’s carver seat and began to pour over his notes. Sangfroid chewed noisily and poured herself another glass of wine.

  “It will take time to decipher this,” she said. Sangfroid’s presence annoyed her. She always seemed to be hovering around her, taking up too much space.

  “It’ll take centuries. You could read cave daubs easier.”

  “I understand most of what it says, but I’ll have to look up some of the more obtuse scientific references,” she said, defensively. “Now either eat quietly or go away. You’re distracting me.”

  “I’m going back upstairs to see what Weena’s up to,” Sangfroid said and dumped the half-eaten bird on the table. A certain stubbornness had entered her voice that Millicent knew best to ignore. In this type of mood, Sangfroid was resolved to get her own way, so she let her have it. Millicent did, however, give a disapproving sniff and kept her nose buried in her book.

  “Her tentacles are still retracted.” Sangfroid checked the hallway before going out. “It makes me wonder if this whole visit was all about her becoming big enough to eat Hubert.”

  “Why on earth would she do that?” Millicent stared at her. “Why wait at all? Why not arrive when she was big enough to eat the lot of us? Eat all of London, for that matter?”

  “Maybe she will. I’ve a feeling we’ve not seen the half of it,” Sangfroid said. “I mean, no offence, but it’s hard to believe this pokey little era is where time travel technology popped up. I think you and Hubert are being manipulated from afar.”

  “Pokey little era.” Millicent bristled. “I’ll have you know that you are at the very heart of the British Empire. We are the world leader in science, engineering, and industry, with my brother being at the foremost in all those disciplines. It is totally conceivable for time travel to be his invention. He’s a genius. And what do you mean, manipulated from afar. Whom do you suspect? The space squid? Your war mongering senate? Or perhaps another of your ludicrous gods?” She returned to her notebook, dismissing Sangfroid entirely. “Please inform Cook should we need a sacrificial lamb.”

  “Virgins work better,” she said. “More meat on them.”

  Millicent blushed violently at the impertinence and concentrated harder on the pages before her, not letting Sangfroid see how unsettled the remark made her.

  “There’s something going on here,” Sangfroid said. “Something spooky. And I think Hubert knew about it. Try and make some sense of those scribbles. I’ll be back in a moment.” And she turned heel and left.

  Across the hallway, Sophia was beginning to come around.

  “Drink this.” Gallo eased her upright and lifted a glass to her lips.

  “I had the most ghastly dream that I lost my betrothed to a huge squid.” Sophia moaned and held a hand to her temple. She became aware of their proximity and tried to move away. The pain in her head was too much, and she felt incredibly nauseous. She sagged back against Gallo’s shoulder and sipped from the offered glass.

  “Yeah. It ate him, all right,” Gallo said, easily managing the extra weight. “The buggers do that.”

  “Good Lord. Is it true?” She coughed into the glass. “And is this hard liquor?” She was horrified on both counts.

  “It’s Scotch. I reckoned you’d need it for the shock, cos it’s true enough, the prof was eaten by a Colossal squid. Sucked him straight down like spaghetti.”

  “The house is infested with giant squid, and my fiancé has been consumed. Of course I’m in shock.” Sophia struggled on to her feet. Her face was hot, and her legs felt woozy and weak. “I’m shocked that number five Christie Mews has gone to such wrack and ruin and taken my Hubert along with it. And I know exactly who to blame! Where is Millicent?” she demanded. “And Mr. Sangfroid? He’s responsible for this. There were never any squid in this house before he arrived. I’m certain he brought them with him from the Urals.” She was close to tears and fought to hold them back. Hubert would have liked those grieving for him to keep a stiff upper lip.

  “They went that way.” Gallo pointed to the hall.

  “I am going to tell him I am very unhappy and hold him entirely responsible for this mollusc infestation. He has to remove them at once.” Sophia tried to sound resolute, though her stiff lip kept trembling. “I do not like it at all.”

  Without further ado, she strode into the hall and made her way to Hubert’s laboratory. It was high time she spoke up. She had been the quiet, timorous one for far too long, while Millicent and
her beau, Major Sangfroid, ran riot. Christie Mews, Westminster was not the place for giant molluscs.

  “I do not like it.” She cried bursting into the laboratory, only to find she was alone. Millicent and Sangfroid weren’t there, and it was boring to make a scene with no one to witness it. Sophia contented herself with a quick inspection. She’d never been in Hubert’s laboratory, despite her greatest insistence. It had always irked her that Millicent could so casually access this room while she, Hubert’s betrothed and now as good as his widow, had to remain outside.

  Immediately her senses flooded with the vacuum left by his sudden demise. The laboratory carried the queer scent of chemicals and compounds, and the sandalwood soap that impregnated his tweeds. His pocket watch lay on his desk bedside the onyx inkwell she had given him for Christmas. She remembered his ink-stained fingers as he scribbled his lecture notes. Oh, how Her Majesty’s London College of Engineering and Physics would miss him. Oh, how she would miss him. He had not been a very passionate man, but he was clever and kind, and he would have made her a good husband. Her tears flowed freely.

  “I do not like it.” She sniffled into her lace handkerchief. It was unbearable to lose a fiancé in such a cruel and unusual way. Lord only knew how it would be reported in the obituaries.

  In the middle of the floor sat an ugly contraption. His newest experiment, no doubt. A sleigh made from a muddle of copper and bronze. It was coated in sinuous tubing and shone in the lamplight like the sousaphone of Beelzebub himself. It was an unholy, accursed thing, and she was sure all the talk of travel had to do with this and not Italy at all. Everyone had been deceitful towards her, and now Hubert was devoured. That’s what happened when people told fibs.

  Sophia lifted the fire poker from the hearth and ran to the machine, walloping it several times across the plump, velvet seat.

  “I-do-not-like-it!” she cried, her face awash with tears. The machine responded with an errant puff of steam from the water cylinder at the rear. Sophia took this for mechanical back-chat and walloped the contraption further.

  “Hey. Careful.” Gallo prised the poker from her fingers. “I’m not exactly sure how it works, but I’m sure you’re not supposed to hit it like that,” she said gently and lowered Sophia onto the red velvet seat. “Rest here, and I’ll call for tea, okay? Do I tug on this thingy here?” She moved to the bell cord by the mantelpiece.

  Sophia slumped in the machine’s driving seat, totally defeated. Her life had turned a corner, and the corner led back to the Trenchant-Myre front door. Behind that door lay everlasting spinsterhood. She had been inordinately fortunate that Hubert had proposed. Sophia was under no illusions as to the quality of her face and figure. Millicent was by far the better beauty, and yet, up until Major Sangfroid appeared, she’d had the audacity to display no interest in marriage whatsoever. Meanwhile Sophia, like any younger daughter of a large, well-to-do family, hung on grimly in hope of a marriage proposal and a home of her own. It was the only escape. Plain, unwed daughters had no other purpose than to look after their aging parents and the reams of nephews and nieces their more successful siblings dumped on them. She could see her future stretching ahead of her. She’d be the frumpy spinster sister who became the unpaid nurse and governess to the whole family, until she grew so old and worn, she’d finally be useless and left to crumble away in an attic all alone. Like a dried up old fruitcake.

  Even without a husband, Millicent still had it all—independent wealth, fine looks, a home at a genteel address. She had dresses and jewellery galore, even if her taste was too conservative to be fashionable.

  As she wallowed in self-pity, Sophia’s attention was caught by a sparkle in the centre of the machine control panel. A kaleidoscope of light blurred before her teary eyes. She recognized the hilt of Millicent’s good Sunday parasol with its wonderful inlay of gemstones and mother of pearl. Even her parasol is beautiful, and yet she allows it to be debased by this crude, steam-puffing machine.

  It was unbearable. Millicent with her intelligence, her wealth, her handsome beau from the Urals, and no one to look after, save her pretty self. Especially now that poor Hubert had…had…gone. With a sob of despair, Sophia threw herself forward. The parasol handle dislodged with a clunk, and the huge disc whooshed into a slow rotation. The water cylinders bubbled, then boiled. Steam began to belch at the ceiling, gathering in volume and vigour until a huge, wet cloud hung around the chandelier. Gallo edged to the door, not taking her attention off the spectacle.

  “Hey?” she called into the hallway. “Sangfroid? I think you should come see this.”

  Footsteps thundered down the stairs. “Weena’s gone. Not a sign of her,” Sangfroid shouted back. “It’s as if she just went poof.”

  “I think Sophia is about to go poof if you don’t get in here and do something,” Gallo yelled back. “The furniture’s gone weird. Does it do that here?”

  Alarmed by the strangeness going on around her, Sophia twisted around to stare in disbelief at the spinning disc. What on earth was happening? Her fearful gaze locked with Gallo’s.

  “Make it stop,” she called. Even as she spoke, the room faded in and out of focus, and she feared another swoon was upon her. Darkness framed the edge of her vision, and she saw Gallo dive towards her, but slowly as though in a dream. At the same time, Millicent and Sangfroid burst through the doorway, their faces masked in horror. They too flew towards her. She felt Gallo’s hands on her shoulders trying to lift her up, though she couldn’t actually see Gallo anymore. Then Millicent’s cool touch was on her wrist, dragging at her, trying to move her out of the seat. Millicent also faded from view, though Sophia could hear her calling, her words disparate and shrill. She could also hear the sea, birdsong, and the drone of old men’s voices. Heat and dust assaulted her senses. Her sinuses flooded with the itchy scent of cedar and wood smoke. Her skin prickled, and her heart jumped with fear.

  She did not like this.

  She did not like this at all.

  CHAPTER 17

  The smell assaulted her first, followed closely by noise and heat. Millicent was in a market place, and it was chaos. Donkeys brayed. Dogs barked. Children cried, and men and women roared out their wares. Which was fish, of every size and variety.

  Fish stalls surrounded her on all sides. And flies of every size and variety filled the air. They crawled over everything, living or dead. Opened-mouthed tuna and limp-limbed calamari lay atop avalanches of whitebait and mackerel. Huge barrels of salted sardines sat row upon row. Hundreds of milky eyed fish stared blankly up at her, while behind them the stallholders glared at her with slit-eyed suspicion. Their stares were surly rather than questioning, so she assumed her impromptu arrival had gone unnoticed in the bustle of the busy market. She noted the simple clothing and blunt, guarded faces of the people surrounding her. Where on earth was she? And why was there a tangible feeling of ill will pulsing towards her? A quick look told her she was alone. Neither Sangfroid, Sophia, nor Gallo were in sight, which was very worrying. Was this the sort of place a lady should be unchaperoned? Sangfroid should be here. For all her annoying habits, she would never leave Millicent alone in an untested environment.

  Unsure where to go or what to do, but inclined to move away from the hard looks, Millicent took a step forward. Her heel skidded on the glutinous miasma coating the cobblestones. A filth of fish guts, swill water, and Lord only knew what oozed around her feet, and her heart went out for her kidskin slippers, now ruined beyond redemption.

  “Careful, my little urn.” A hand caught her elbow and steadied her. He spoke in Latin, and she was momentarily amazed that she understood him as easily as she could Sangfroid or Gallo. Was she in Rome? It was not that hard to imagine. This was the civilization where their two timelines seemed to separate. Her startled gaze met with the curious but kindly one of her benefactor, and she was grateful for it after the hard-eyed looks surrounding her. A little urn? Had she heard h
im right? She detached from his grip and steadied herself.

  “Thank you,” she said politely with what she hoped was the right amount of respectability.

  “Please, let me escort you to the temple,” he said. “Perhaps it is best to move away from the populous. They are not in a very forgiving mood towards the tea. After all, it is taxes time.” He was perhaps in his late fifties, bedecked in a crisp white tunic that shone like a beacon amid the filthiness of the marketplace. The sun glinted off his carefully coiffed, silver hair, or rather the resinous substance that held it in place. He was scented with cypress oil, which, though sharp on her nostrils, was a balm against the smell of fish. She almost moved closer for that reason alone. He exuded a mannerly and courteous concern, which was reassuring.

  Millicent dithered. Tea and temples? She was certain the Romans did not drink tea. It grew far to the east, well beyond the borders of their Empire. Did they trade for it? Maybe this wasn’t Rome after all but some other ancient city? How intriguing. More to the point, should she trust this strange man? What were her options? She was not in the most salubrious of places and not very welcome at that.

  “Please oblige me.” The man held out his arm to lead her away, and Millicent felt compelled to oblige. She draped her hand through the crook of his elbow, and he led her towards the edge of the square where gullies washed away the worst of the muck around their feet.

  “Thank you for your help. I am Miss Millicent Aberly.” She may as well begin her investigations while she had his attention. “And you are?”

  “Cassian Titus Atticus, at your service.” He grabbed at her fingers, trapping them under his arm.

  She tried not to pull her hand away and look rude. Instead she continued with her questioning. “You mentioned a temple?”

  He laughed. “The High Tea Temple of Rome is just around the corner. I assume you are lost? You have that lost look about you.”