Oh, it definitely looked to Moneypenny like she would be up late tonight! Oh my! Fogg rescued his son and Cynara died! She stood up and walked around a minute to calm down. This all happened way more than a century in the past. She really must not let herself become too involved. There, that's better. Returning to the computer, Moneypenny hit the save button, then sent her latest entry to the printer.
Quillan, sitting on a stool about ten feet away and bent over the artifact, didn't notice her approach until she put a hand on his shoulder. "Here's some more about it," she said and offered him the printout.
He looked up, his eyes shining. "Moneypenny! I can't believe your find! It's amazing! I think it's a time and space gateway, with multiple nexuses in both normal and parallel space . . . Incredible!. . . The emphasic scans show . . ."
Moneypenny interrupted him, "I can't believe you've learned so much so fast, Quillan; but words of one syllable, please. I have no technical background."
Quillan smiled apologetically and reached out to brush Moneypenny's hair from her forehead. She didn't pull away. "Well, it's a kind of Aladdin's lamp. You make a wish and it takes you where and when you want to go."
"Would that be just one wish to a customer?" Moneypenny said, thinking of Jules Verne's words.
"Really? Did you find that in the Fogg account?" he asked and took the printout from her hand.
"It's Jules Verne's and he implies something like that. I think I need to finish up the remaining entries to be sure."
The wall clock stood at eighteen hundred hours, but neither of them suggested stopping for the night. They talked about the practicalities of continuing data entry and investigation. Quillan, when in the midst of an analysis, often stayed in the lab all night. The guard just locked him in. That left food the only problem.
"How about some frozen pizza?" he asked. "You won't believe it's not delivery." They laughed.
While he rigged a Bunsen burner for baking, Moneypenny chose a pizza from the stack in Quillan's bio. sample locker. "Yum, pineapple and Canadian bacon, my favorite," he said. Moneypenny had rather suspected it, as half his boxes contained the same. She stepped into Quillan's water closet to wash up, and a few minutes later they sat down to their second meal of the day together.
"You must let me treat you to a proper dinner sometime soon, Quillan. You've been such a tremendous help."
"Actually, Moneypenny, I have a rather personal interest in this. No thanks necessary, none at all."
When Quillan didn't provide more details, Moneypenny decided to let the matter drop. Not quite comfortable with being worshipped, she assumed that's what he meant.
Miss Moneypenny settled down again at the keyboard, feeling revived. She hoped to be done by midnight, and tomorrow she'd definitely call in ill. Service loyalty only went so far.
Rebecca Fogg's diary had held the next entry, on several large folded sheets that had fallen out when Moneypenny first picked it up. The sheets looked more like drawing paper than stationery and the writing instrument appeared to be a child's large pencil. The woman had seemed to gain some insight into her own heart. Moneypenny sighed in envy.
**********
Sheets found in Rebecca Fogg's private journal.
Christmas day, the holiest day on the Christian calendar, a day of birth, renewal, and contemplation. I contemplate this wonder before me, a new relation. When you have so few, each one means much.
He has Phileas' long limbs, a look about the face that says "Fogg," and something of a Bonander nose. Or perhaps I'm imagining resemblances. He is only the tiniest babe.
The elder Fogg reclines in the nursery's comfortable upholstered chair, his head lolled to one side, his mouth slightly open. He snores. He has endured what no man ought and deserves more sleep than he is like to get. And although the babe seems to prefer Phileas' touch, he quiets for me almost as well. We shall make do while my cousin sleeps. The call to action may come at any moment. I would our strongest warrior be fresh and ready for a fight.
I have all I need to tend the babe. For the party I freshly equipped the nursery with children's things, as entire families enjoyed last night's hospitality. When Phil and I entered, my heart lurched with memory. It looked so freshly occupied! Erasmus' carved blocks lay tumbled on the floor and my hated dolls were off their shelves and sitting about in the child-sized chairs.
I should scold the tweeny assigned here last night, but Phileas gave all the servants a Christmas holiday. They return after our fireworks display. Passepartout has a day of freedom also. He chose to stay with us instead. He knows few here in the county; and with the passing of his Aunt Louisa, I suspect Phileas now comprises much of Jean's kith and kin.
My cousin knows more about babies than I would credit. What he lacks I make up, especially with the feeding and such like, which charitable visits to our tenants' cottages have taught me how to perform. I watched my elegant, beautiful cousin, still dressed in evening jacket, change the babe's napkin and couldn't resist commenting, "I can't believe you actually know how to do that."
He replied, and I avow untruthfully, "I've changed yours many a time, sweet Rebecca."
Passepartout delivered a bottle of warm milk and lit a fire. I fed the babe, and he and Phileas went to gather weapons from the study. Phileas returned to the nursery alone, garbed in rougher clothes.
He handed me a loaded Thompson before subsiding into the same chair where he now sleeps, close by the baby's cradle. "Passepartout says the Aurora can depart on a moment's notice. I have him putting some things together as it might be wise to leave soon," he whispered.
"We're exhausted, Phileas. There's a storm outside. And if the Prometheus should attack us in the air, you know what would happen." By which I meant we would likely all die in a crash.
"Perhaps you're right." Phileas yielding so easily to another's opinion? A rare and wonderful thing. No doubt his new role as father affects him already.
His hand touched his sleeping son's back as if to say, I'm here. "I wish I could provide him with a better life. The boy's childhood shall make mine look simple by comparison." Phileas' mouth and eyes turned down at the corners. His fire burned low. This endless Christmas Eve robs him of his spirit.
"I'm sorry," I said quietly. Phileas glanced a question.
"Sorry Cynara died," I provided as answer.
"Yes, sad he's lost his mother. Now I'm all he has."
"He has me, and I suspect Passepartout and Jules and every inhabitant here about," I replied and breathed a little easier. Phileas bore no deep wound from Cynara's loss. I'd thought . . . he'd seemed so desperate to save her.
Phileas shook his head. "It's no secret where I live. My son's not safe at either Shillingworth Magna or Saville Row. I can't think what else to do but run far and fast." His hand left the babe and took mine. "We'll only draw death to your door. I have to leave you."
Strange how I know Phileas so well that I can almost read his mind. Leave, not to return, he meant. Shaken, I lay my other hand on his. "No, you don't. The League's minions are everywhere. Better he be where the Service can protect."
Phileas snorted gently so as not to wake the babe. "The Service! Do you really think Jonathan would put a priority on my needs?"
"On Sir Boniface's grandson, yes." His brow acknowledged the truth of that. He seemed to think of something else.
"And you, Rebecca, do you still want me about? I thought perhaps you needed me at a distance so as to begin a new romance."
He referred to Everley, of course, and properly shamed me. Last night I paraded Everley past Phileas purposefully to spark an irritation. I had not anticipated the intensity of my cousin's answering flare. It had been a foolish, selfish move. I felt blood warm my face. "Phileas, I do not love Bran, nor am I like to. As it happens, I'm in love with someone else already." And at last knew that for the truth.
"Oh, anyone I know?"
"Yes, I think so, distantly," I answered. Not ready to declare myself on this eventful night, I said no more and ignored the question in his eyes.
"Well, let me know your wishes if he's to come and ask me for your hand."
As Phileas seldom indulges in conversing with himself, such a meeting seemed unlikely, but I said, "Certainly, cousin." Pleased his thoughts had turned from leaving, I gave him a chaste and gentle kiss.
It will take time and education for Phileas to regard me as other than a sister. He believes no female can love him and survive, as has been proven several times, Cynara being only the most recent example. I love him and between us we can break that curse. Sometime soon, when the only question that remains will be whose bed to occupy, I'll tell him so and suggest a marriage.
I am to wake Phileas at five o'clock. We are taking watches, turn and turn about. I think I'll fetch Jean instead and have him guard the sleeping Foggs whilst I go change into more serviceable wear. My beautiful Christmas ball gown would not now make even a decent polishing cloth. And I should conceal this remembrance in my diary as it would not do for Phileas discover it unaware.
It is not yet light, and already miracles fill this Christmas Day. I discover myself in love, and a newborn Fogg lies in our nursery cradle. Who would have thought it? Who would have thought it, indeed?
**********
