1862, London, St. James, No. 7 Savile Row
At two a.m. Passepartout sat up in his bed, lit a candle and checked his great-grandfather's watch. Rain pattered on the roof over his head. It also fell on his window, both inside and out as he'd left the pane open. A cold breeze shivered the muslin curtain and the smell of rain drifted into his small room. The temperature had dropped a great deal since bedtime. Passepartout cranked the window closed. Stepping to the door he peeked down the stairs. A rim of light still showed around Mr. Fogg's door.
Last evening Master had complained of starch in his nightshirts. He'd tried every one of them on, pulling them on and off with angry jerks. Passepartout hadn't starched them, but before he went to bed he'd washed each one of them fresh, even the clean ones. Passepartout put soda in the rinse in case a residue had irritated Mr. Fogg's skin. It had looked red and feverish for two or three days.
Three nightshirts hung in the kitchen to dry. Master wore the one made of softest butterfly silk.
His Baron's skin had been tender. The laundry maid had rinsed his clothes with soda every washday.
At 2:30 Passepartout fluffed his pillow. He noticed Aunt Louisa's picture hung a trifle askew. He arose and straightened it. His skin raised goose pimples in the chill air of the room.
Last night Mr. Fogg had spent an hour at the dinner table, slashing his chicken into wounded fibers, aligning his peas in regimental rows and stacking his baby carrots into battle towers. He didn't eat a bite, but drank three glasses of wine.
At three a.m. the valet arose to use his chamber pot. Rain continued to pick at the roof and window. He checked his watch then peeked out his door. Mr. Fogg had gone to bed.
Master had spent yesterday afternoon writing letters, some of them two or three times if one judged by the crumpled balls of paper snowed on the floor. When Passepartout stooped to gather them, Mr. Fogg kicked the balls away with a cry of, "No! Leave them be." Passepartout retreated to the hall until Mr. Fogg called him back and apologized.
His Baron had never written letters, except secret ones to spies. For shipyard business he'd employed a secretary, a thin man with a parrot beak nose. The Baron's spy letters had always been short and he'd always known what to write.
Rarely had the Baron apologized to Passepartout. There had seldom been cause.
At 3:30 Passepartout drank a glass of water from his pitcher. Even with the window closed, the room had continued to cool. He added another blanket to his bed.
Yesterday morning Mr. Fogg announced he'd be at his solicitor, Mr. William Edwards, Esquire, until noon and left in a hurry. Two hours later Mr. Edwards's messenger knocked on the door and asked Mr. Fogg's whereabouts. He'd failed to appear for the appointment. As he'd served Mr. Fogg his luncheon, Passepartout mentioned the visitor. With a quick aversion of his eyes Master explained he'd been delayed at the 'Change.
The Baron had lied even more often than Mr. Fogg, but never to Passepartout.
At four a.m. Passepartout yielded to fate. If he couldn't sleep, he'd work. On the window the rain clittered, clattered and fell some more. Passepartout re-lit his candle and dressed.
When he stepped into the hall he saw that the rim of light had returned to Mr. Fogg's door. He stopped there and raised his hand to knock and ask if Master needed anything, anything at all. Changing his mind, he went on to the kitchen. Master knew how to ring the bell.
In November of 1862, Number 7 Savile Row, London, England, rejoiced in one hundred twenty-two years of continuous occupation; a respectable age, even for a house. On rainy nights like this, its arthritic joints creaked and popped. Other sounds could be heard as well, if one but listened. The rain pittered on the window, of course, and at the southwest corner a drain clattered as the downpour gurgled through. And on the third floor, Passepartout's bed creaked and rattled. Three or four steps sounded, each one distinct as if the man attempted to control the creak of the floorboards with slow, deliberate moves. His bed rattled again.
Fogg got out of his own bed and stood for a moment in the chill bedroom, listening for another stir on the third floor. It was really quite remarkable how well he could hear movement in Passepartout's bedroom, and he had always rather enjoyed the reminder that he wasn't alone in the house. But Passepartout might very well have gone back to bed since for the moment silence once again reigned.
Fogg's fingers fumbled at the buttons of his nightshirt. He pulled the garment over his head and carelessly tossed it on the floor. Cool moist air blew in from the half-open window and washed over the bare skin. God, that felt so much better. He'd been suffocatingly hot. Stepping to the window, he threw it fully open and leaned out into a night that glowed from light reflected off the low clouds overhead.
At night this time of year there wasn't much to see out this window. The windows of the other buildings stared at him in demented emptiness. A skeletal tree hunched over a patch of soil that would bloom next spring in modest profusion. Right now it lay fallow, invisible in the shadows. Fogg closed his eyes to block out the distraction of vision and explored the night with his remaining senses.
Hard rain peppered on his skin as sharp as small caliber shot. He raised his face. It struck his eyelids and cheeks. Slightly warmed by running over his face, the water dripped off his chin. The temperature felt just a few degrees above freezing.
The rain had cleared the air of most of the coal smoke. The night smelled of London – richly fetid with living things and beastly harsh with the coal tar so ingrained in the bricks of the surrounding buildings it would never wash clear. The scent of decaying oak leaves drifted up from his garden. The gardener was due by to rake and remove the drift later this week.
A street or two away, probably on Regent or Haymarket, carriage wheels rattled on cobblestones. It was a little too early for traffic from the train station. Might be a drunken gentleman on his way home. A few houses away a baby cried in the night.
All Fogg's senses agreed. This night held no mystery, just cold and rain. And everywhere nearby, sleeping people.
Something shifted inside him. He almost . . . he smelled fear, a funereal bruised flower scent, decaying, sick at its heart. There was always much fear in the City. Everyone had secrets to hide.
And . . . and he felt warm and yielding affection snuggling to his bare skin. And pink! It looked pink inside his eyelids! A mother up with that crying baby?
Another smell, the stench of sulfur, the cold steel of a blade. Evil. Rage. Oh lord, a murder. Fogg pulled back into his room and closed the window. No, no more. He couldn't handle any more. Feelings that weren't his. Emotions that smelled. He'd never decided whether he should believe in them at all. He just let them flow through. They were and then they weren't.
Fogg rubbed his wet arms. The skin was hard and rough. Rain dripped through the hair on his chest, down his body and off his legs. His scrotum contracted to protect his testicles from the cold. So cold. Whatever had possessed him to stand naked before his bedroom window? He lifted his robe from its hook and put it on. His stiff fingers fumbled at the gaslight's igniter key until he finally managed to twirl it. With a tiny scrape, the flint struck the steel. The flame brightened and hissed faintly and shadows fled to wherever shadows go.
Fogg massaged his deadened fingers to coax back sensation and contemplated the remaining hours before dawn. Sleep had refused to oblige him and shorten the night. He would return to his remaining letters. Pulling out his desk drawer, he contemplated the little box that held Rebecca's new ruby bracelet, seeking inspiration for the hardest letter of all those he must write. Harder than the humbling letters to Her Majesty, Prime Minister Gladstone, and Chatsworth, harder than any of the others on his list. One of the hardest letters of his life.
How could he explain von Bresslau's mission to Rebecca? The dilemma he'd wrestled with the past three days? Would she understand Fogg's choice?
She'd loved his father. That was more than he could say, and she deserved the whole truth in this matter. To know what he did and why. He selected a fresh sheet of paper, opened the bottle of ink, and -- dipping his pen -- he began to write.
Often he stopped, chewed a knuckle and struggled with a word. Time went by. Discarded balls of paper piled up on the floor.
Fogg paused when he heard Passepartout's step outside his door. He turned and looked at it expectantly, but his man didn't knock. The footsteps moved on down the stairs. Fogg returned to his writing.
He heard the front door open and close and arose to go to his door and inquire, but paused when he recognized the brush of Rebecca's skirts in the downstairs hall. Home early from Scotland, then, love? Fogg thought. Thank God. Let me just finish these letters. I need to ask you something -- something very important.
Fogg sat down at his desk again. The rest of his letters would go quickly now that Rebecca was home.
A domesticated monster dominated the small kitchen at No. 7 Savile Row. It rested on clawed feet, the sole occupant of the west exterior wall. A long smokestack neck stuck through the wall and out to the garden. It belched black coal smoke into a wet London morning.
Rebecca Fogg sat at the worktable about six feet away from the monster chuckling at Passepartout's new joke. Of course, a well-bred gentleman would never have told a lady such a joke. But at home Rebecca did not play at lady, and Passepartout's gentlemanliness was all instinct, not breeding. He loved to make Rebecca laugh.
"So the Lithuanian shepherds are laughing at the Prussian general because he picked the ugliest sheep?" Rebecca said. "Oh dear, that is so cruel, Passepartout!" She hid her face in her hands and shook her head, then looked again at his snorting face through her fingers. "Hmm, but true. So true. I've known quite a few of those chaps that dim. Especially the ones that never get off the Continent."
Passepartout opened the monster's chrome-grilled mouth and pulled three pieces of toast onto a tray. To the toast he added sliced cheese, butter and conserve and laid the feast before Miss Rebecca. Conversation ceased. The valet returned to the laundry.
Rebecca had arrived from the train station a half hour. She'd been tired, disheveled and faint from hunger. Not an exaggeration. Truly faint, mind you. Practically staggering. And dear sweet Jean had left his laundry tub immediately to fix her a breakfast. He was a genius. Even at six o'clock in the morning and in the midst of his washing he'd provided her a tasty meal.
That only left one to ask why he was up. The hot range and pile of damp laundry testified he'd been up at least two hours -- since four o'clock in the morning, well before the usual hour, even on laundry days. Phileas would be abed for another two. When he wasn't carousing, Rebecca's cousin arose at eight so dependably one set clocks by him.
Perhaps she ought not be here. When she traveled, Phileas often entertained his ladies at home. "So, Passepartout, why are you up?" Rebecca asked. She indicated the ceiling and Phileas's bedroom with her teacup. "Does he have a visitor up there?"
She could go on to a hotel and tell Phileas about her new assignment in the early evening, one hoped in time to recruit his help. Without Phil along it promised to be a total bore. Observing a warehouse, indeed. Sir Jonathan, her superior at the Secret Service, must be losing his touch, to have fetched her back from Scotland for that.
Passepartout's smile turned upside down. "No, Master is alone." A strange reaction.
On the monster's cook top a pair of flatirons heated. Jean went to the range, slipped a wooden handle on one and picked it up. He licked a finger and tested the temperature of its plate. The spittle sizzled. Too hot. He moved both irons to the coolest corner of the cook top. He set up the criss-crossed drying rack behind the range and spread some of Mr. Fogg's undergarments to dry. He tested the flatiron again. Still too hot.
Just when Rebecca had decided Phileas must be out on a bender -- Passepartout seemed more worried than anything else -- the man found his voice. "Do you think Mr. Fogg ever get angry enough to fire Passepartout?" He'd addressed his question to the range, his back to Rebecca. His trim beard peeked over his shoulder; the quirked bow of his soft, full lips expressed his unspoken questions: Did you overhear that, Miss Rebecca? What do you think? Would he? Would Mr. Fogg ever do that to his Passepartout?
She'd heard him. "Has Phileas called you 'idiot' again, Passepartout? I shouldn't worry about it. He's always a trifle out of humor about something or another." Phileas isn't just on a bender, Rebecca thought. Seems more of a rampage.
Passepartout shook his head. He slipped the wooden handle onto the flatiron and took it to his pressing board. "No, Miss Rebecca. No 'idiot'."
"What then?" Passepartout's mood had plummeted to the kitchen's scrubbed floorboards. Something was obviously wrong. She could not believe Phileas would maliciously threaten to fire Passepartout, even in a rage as tall as the Tower of London. "Come now, Jean. You can tell Aunt Rebecca."
The valet's iron ran rapidly back and forth across the nightshirt as he spoke. "Mr. Fogg, he make this secret. You know how he is. It not big important secret, except to Passepartout. It's just he not say my Baron has come back to London." The clean steamy smell of hot cotton drifted to Rebecca's nose.
"Oh, really? Baron von Bresslau?" Passepartout nodded miserably and lifted the iron away. He'd completed the first nightshirt, ruffles and all, in under two minutes, folded it in a handful of seconds. He laid it in the basket for return to Mr. Fogg's room.
The first iron returned to the range. The second iron went to work on the next shirt.
So von Bresslau was back in London, was he? Oh dear, Rebecca thought. Poor Phileas. That explained the ill humor and secretiveness. He feared Passepartout would resign and return to the Baron. Phileas would be devastated if he did. So would she, for that matter.
Passepartout continued, rushing the iron across the shirt. "Yesterday at market I run into Neville Smythe. You don't know him. He's the Baron's butler. He not like Passepartout much, but we know each other long time." He set the iron down and wiped at his eyes. "Neville say Master dine with Baron at the Club three days ago. I stand there with my mouth open and feel like an idiot -- an idiot, just like Mr. Fogg say."
It hurt Rebecca to see Passepartout's expression. Atlas holding up the world could not have looked more burdened.
The iron went back to the range to re-heat. Passepartout picked up the kitchen's brown betty teapot from the range's warming shelf. Bringing it and his worry to Miss Rebecca, he freshened her tea, then sat down and folded his hands over his nose. "Mr. Fogg growl at Passepartout over little things. He not let me bathe him. He not eat yesterday at all and he drinking all the time."
He dropped his hands into his lap. "I so want to see my Baron. He gone four years – so long. But Master, he's . . . I'm afraid to ask him. Maybe I lose job."
Rebecca picked up Passepartout's hand. His work had made his fingers hot and damp. "He's not angry, Passepartout; I promise you that. He's afraid you'll leave us for your Baron." She paused and looked into the soft brown eyes. "You won't, will you?"
"Leave, Miss Rebecca? I just want a visit, not . . ." One of the five signal bells over Rebecca's head, the one marked "Master Bedroom," interrupted Passepartout. "I must go," he said. "Master up early."
Rebecca held him back. "Passepartout, I will talk to Phileas for you. We'll get you a holiday, but you must promise not to leave us. Agreed?"
Passepartout's smile re-flipped back to its normal configuration – curled up at both ends. "Oh, Miss Rebecca. I never leave Master, not for anything in the world."
The valet went to fill a wash basin pitcher from the range's hot water reservoir, and Rebecca stood up. "I'm going to my room. Tell Phileas I'll be in to talk to him, will you?" She glanced at the large pile of Phileas's laundry. "And if you would be so kind, please send a note around to my laundry maid. I'll have a bag for her this evening."
Passepartout nodded as he hurried down the hall. "Certainly, Miss Rebecca. She be here. I tell." Half way to the staircase he turned back to her. "And thank you. Thank you so very much." He clicked his heels and bowed in respect. He whirled about again and hurried away, his smile lighting up the morning.
Rebecca sighed. She'd been up all night on the train and it looked as though she wouldn't be abed anytime soon. But Passepartout deserved his visit. What on earth was possessing Phileas to act such a cad?
"So now Chatty thinks you're an exorcist, does he?" Phileas said as he tried to read the letter Rebecca had given him. Passepartout's tucking, buttoning, poking and pulling forced him to pass the letter from one hand to the other every few seconds.
The valet stepped away and picked up the black jacket chosen for the day, cut in the le dernier cri of fashion, if Rebecca was any judge. At least it was cut in a style she'd never seen before. Phileas handed back Rebecca's letter and slipped the jacket on. Together master and man carefully adjusted its drape from shoulder to thigh.
A faultless fit and ruler straight lines. Perfection.
Rebecca watched Phileas's morning ceremonies from the bedroom's small divan. She lay under a quilt she'd pulled off the bed and wore a cozy flannel dressing gown and ermine slippers. Her plans for the day involved extensive amounts of sleep. "I suppose we've only ourselves to blame," she responded. "All that rubbish you fed Sir Jonathan about Lazarus's evil spirit possessing my body and trying to kill him . . . "
"Not rubbish, my dear, every word of it true, but of course you don't remember. You were, after all, the one who was possessed. Do be careful, Passepartout, that stung." Phileas scowled down at the valet who in tugging at the jacket had fouled it into his master's gold bracelet. The bracelet in turn had cut into Phileas's wrist. "Perhaps you would have preferred to hang for treason?"
"Well, I'm just saying that it's rather turned Sir Jonathan's mind. Lately he's had an obsession with ghosts. Last week Tony Burns told me he's been assigned two haunted house investigations since September. I've been expecting my turn any day." She pulled the quilt up snugly under her chin. Phileas preferred a bedroom cold enough to preserve food. She did too, so the cool didn't usually bother her. Must be a chill from fatigue.
While they talked Passepartout drifted about the bedroom fetching and placing each adornment on his master -- cufflinks, pin, watch and chain. He'd corked his usual patter and worked as silent as a shadow. Rebecca watched him. His every move quivered with hope. Phileas didn't seem to notice.
Passepartout held up two neck cloths for consideration. His master pointed at the black. Both black jacket and neck cloth -- apparently her cousin was to have an all black day. Rebecca couldn't say she much cared for the look he and Passepartout had created -- as drear as the grave.
Or maybe that was Phileas. Elegant clothes aside, he looked just awful this morning. Cadaverous even. He'd disavowed illness, but his eyes glinted feverishly and were sunk into his head. She knew that look: It meant Phil hadn't slept in days.
"So what did Tony find at his haunted houses?" Phileas asked.
"Smugglers both times," Rebecca answered. "Diamonds the first, I believe. Can't remember the second."
"Well, that's something. We'll probably find the same thing in Southwark tonight." He ducked his head to let Passepartout settle the tie around his neck. "Make it simple, Passepartout," he told him and the valet began the windings and wraps for one of his own specialized knots. Phileas stood quietly with his eyes closed, awaiting the final flourishes of his toilette.
Rebecca arose, dropping the quilt on the floor. Brrr, damn it was cold, but the knot tying would immobilize Phileas for a minute or so. Time to plead the valet's case. She stepped behind Passepartout and placed her hands on his shoulders to hold him firm. No good would come if he panicked and ran off now. The valet flinched under her touch but continued his work.
"Dear cousin, I have a favor to ask."
At the moment Phileas could only grunt, "Hmmm?" He did not open his eyes.
"It involves Passepartout."
This response was more of a snort. Passepartout's head rotated as he glanced up at his master's expression, which hadn't changed. Phileas's eyes remained closed.
"I think it's time Passepartout had a holiday. I can't remember his last one, can you?"
Another grunt. Phileas's eyes slitted open.
Rebecca prepared for the crucial final sentences. She took a firmer grip on Passepartout's shoulders. She cleared her throat. "Jean tells me he has an old friend in town."
Finishing the tie, Jean dropped his hands. He stood immobile under Rebecca's grip, eyes down, a petitioner before the lord of the house, seeking the grace of a holiday.
"I see." Phileas's eyes had opened. He looked back and forth from Rebecca to Passepartout.
"I thought tonight while we were Bankside, he could go out on a visit?" Bloody hell, somehow she'd let that slip into a question.
Fatigue smudged Phileas's expression and she couldn't quite make it out. Then his words made expression reading a pointless exercise. "No, no, he can't. I've an errand for him that may take quite some time."
Phileas stepped to his bedroom's small desk and selected three letters from a tall pile. He held them, spread in his fingers like a hand of playing cards, seeming to consider which to discard and which to play. He cast away one, then a second. His selection, the third, he rubbed with his fingers, testing its shape and the texture of the stiff envelope. He reached a decision and turned back to Rebecca and Passepartout. They still stood together, watching him, too stunned to move. Phileas proceeded to make matters worse.
"If you would be so good as to unhand my valet, Rebecca?" Her lips tight in anger, Rebecca squeezed Passepartout's shoulders to let him know this battle wasn't over yet. She stepped away and went to the door.
Phileas's words stopped her. "I would like you to stay a few moments, cousin."
Likely he wanted to scold her for interfering in his business affairs. If he thought she would remain for that! "Phileas, I am very tired. If you don't mind . . ."
"Please stay . . . please." Now this Phileas expression she could read, at least in part. It was need, nothing more, nothing less. She returned and sat down on the divan, and kept her temper under rigid and frozen control. She watched Passepartout, afraid of what might happen next. Something lurked behind the valet's stricken eyes. Has he decided to resign? Rebecca wondered. Would Passepartout leave them despite his promise?
Phileas handed Passepartout the chosen letter. "I want you to take this to Baron Harbin von Bresslau. He's recently set up housekeeping in Islington Gardens on Panton Street. Stay there for his reply. Do you understand? Do not come back to me without his answer, Passepartout. Stay for as long as it shall take."
Despite the rain that continued to bounce off the windows, at the conjunction of the words "take" and "von Bresslau" the room's temperature shot up several degrees. Passepartout was chortling by the time Phileas reached the phrase "Islington Gardens" and when he said "for as long as it shall take" the valet kissed his master, much to that man's demonstrated distress. Rebecca's icy frown dissolved into a giggle. She laughed out loud and, leaning back on the divan, she lifted her legs and tucked them together under her gown. The quilt lay ignored on the floor.
Phileas's smile was reserved, politely decorous. His toilette complete and his dignity re-acquired, he leaned on his chosen stick for the day and awaited an opportunity to finish his instructions.
"Yes, Master. I take message and stay for answer. Yes, sir." Passepartout bounced in the general direction of the door. He paused. "You dine at club today? You eat a good breakfast?"
"Don't worry about the household, Passepartout. Just deliver the message. We'll manage. Go. Go now. It's urgent." The valet rushed out of the bedroom door and up the stairs to his room. They heard his wardrobe door, followed seconds later by his footsteps again on the stairs. A few minutes of pause and distant clangs as Passepartout dealt with damping down the range and hanging the last of the laundry. Finally footsteps tapped in the back hall and the servants' door slammed.
Throwing his stick back on the bed and flipping out his coattails, Phileas sat down heavily next to Rebecca on the divan. She dropped her feet to the floor and scooted over to give him room. He sighed.
"It was awful of you tease us like that, Phil." Rebecca said, poking him in the ribs. He smiled over his shoulder at her but didn't respond. Leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, he rested his forehead on fisted hands. His black jacket pulled tight across the broad span of his bent back. Rebecca reached out and stroked the bunched muscles. "Don't worry. He'll come back, you know. I made him promise, written in blood and all. No, come to think of it, I believe it was actually written in tea." Phileas didn't respond to her silliness.
Something troubled him beyond Passepartout. Rebecca leaned forward and pulled one of his hands out of a tightly clenched knot. "Phil, what's the matter?" It had only been an hour or so since she'd said nearly the same thing to Passepartout. Without her how would this household ever hold together? She'd been gone only three days and here she had two men to sort out before she could get any sleep.
Phileas looked at her hand, squeezed it and brought it to his lips for a kiss. He sighed again and leaned back still holding on to her hand. "It's good to have you home, cousin. What did you find in Scotland?"
For Phileas, avoidance tactics generally meant something serious was afoot. She might have to force the issue. Rebecca removed her hand from his. Leaning on one hand, she tucked her legs up under her and rolled to her other side, so that her knees were to the back of the divan and her bum was at its edge. To put her face squarely before Phileas's so that she could see every change in his look, she leaned across in front of him and braced herself against the arm of divan. Now she had him well and thoroughly trapped. His smile acknowledged the capture. Rebecca answered his question. "Oh, lots of sheep, tons of mud and a Prussian spy."
Ah, fixed his interest with that. "Oh, good show! Catch him?"
Now it was Rebecca's turn to sigh. "No, no, got clean away. Gave him a nasty fright, though. He'll be sporting a new dueling scar in a few weeks, right there." With an evil grin, Rebecca traced a mark above Phileas's eye.
Phileas's answering grin accompanied a shake of his head. Rebecca's bloodthirstiness was legendary in the Service. That particular cut would have blinded her opponent with his own blood in a matter of minutes. No wonder the Prussian had fled.
A yawn snuck up on Rebecca and overtook her mouth and jaws before she realized she was under siege. She apologized. "I'm sorry, love. It's not the company, it's the hour."
"Yes, and I'm keeping you up. I'm sorry, but I would very much value your thoughts on something. If you would be so kind." Phileas chewed his lower lip, raised his eyebrows in a double bow of request. He placed his hand over hers where it rested on the divan and squeezed.
"Of course." She expected a question about some matter at Shillingworth Magna, perhaps even investing in an indoor plumbing system. One could always dream.
Not even close. "What are your thoughts on revenge?" Phileas asked. He glanced at her face, quickly away, then back again. "Just in general?"
This whole morning reminded Rebecca of one of the Service training exercises Phileas had put her through – the one where he'd worn her out hiking in the Highlands all day; then without giving her a chance to rest, he'd set up a series of tactical problems. She'd done pretty well on that. Even Phileas had said so. "Revenge? My thoughts? 'Vengeance is mine saith the Lord' is what comes to mind, but I can't say I fancy that particular take on it. I don't have enough patience to let the Lord arrange my revenge for me."
"Then you favor its pursuit?"
"If the cause were just, I suppose. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and all that. On the other hand, I've always thought people who spent their lives pursuing vengeance to be great fools. Focusing on one's anger seems so antithetical to joy." Rebecca paused, studied her cousin's face, the half-opened green eyes. "You are going to tell me why you're asking, aren't you? Or am I back on the training grounds?"
Shaking his head, Phileas squeezed her hand. "It's nothing of import, sweet. I'm just so very glad you're home."
He moved to stand up. To get out of his way Rebecca pulled back, pivoted around and dropped her feet to the floor. She sat squarely again on the divan. "Come," Phileas said. "You must be tired, and we've got that haunted warehouse in Southwark tonight. I'd best put you to bed." He offered her his hand.
"Bed is it? Can I get you to read me a story, then?" she asked. Taking Phileas's hand, Rebecca began pulling herself to her feet against his weight and muscle.
Phileas braced himself and pulled back until Rebecca stood up. "Cousin, I never read you bedtime stories. And, unh!, perhaps you should go on a weight reduction diet. You seem to have gained a stone on this last trip."
With an outraged cry of "Come back here, you rascal!" and a pillow as her chosen weapon Rebecca chased her cousin from his room and down the hall.
A few minutes later Fogg returned, plucking at a few feathers adhering to the previously immaculate black. He paused a moment at the mirror to capture the last few and used Passepartout's clothes brush to sweep away any on his back. Then with a tug at his lapels, he cowed the jacket's lines back into place.
The stack of letters from Fogg's desk disappeared into a pocket, and he picked up his coat, gloves, hat and stick off the bed. He spared one last glance out the window at the gray and liquid morning. The night was over. The day had begun.