Secret Adventures of Jules Verne: The Nature of the Beast (5/7)

[jordannamorgan]

Title: The Nature of the Beast (5/7)
Author: jordannamorgan
Permission to Archive: Please request the author’s consent.
Rating/Warnings: PG.
Characters: Ensemble.
Setting: Following the episode "The Victorian Candidate".
Summary: Self-doubts haunt Phileas in the wake of his ordeal in Scotland.
Disclaimer: Jules and company belong to Talisman Crest. I’m just having fun with them.



It had not been a good day for Sir Jonathan Chatsworth, and the impending prospect of talking to a Fogg did nothing to improve it.

Slouching wearily and irritably behind his desk, Chatsworth paged through the latest report from agents investigating the recent intrigue at Castle Banquo. It had arrived from Scotland seven hours late, giving him barely time to look it over before his appointment with Rebecca Fogg. It was an intolerable situation not to be in possession of all pertinent facts, with all appropriate questions at the ready, when dealing with that… exacting woman.

There was little of note in the report, anyway. Miss Fogg, her cousin’s absurd little valet, and that insufferable young French dreamer had vacated Castle Banquo with all possible speed after overcoming their captors—leaving the enemy agents ample time to escape with any worthwhile evidence. Except for smashed equipment and trace amounts of some exotic drugs, nothing had been left.

Of course, the only concern of Miss Fogg and her companions had been in reaching Balmoral Castle and stopping Phileas Fogg—who had finally gone over the edge in quite spectacular fashion—from blowing Her Majesty to bits. Yet their reckless arrival might have saved only one life, and it was definitely not the Queen’s.

If they hadn’t stopped Fogg, a bullet would have.

Chatsworth was content to keep that knowledge to himself. Really, he was rather glad his reactions had gone unnoticed in the confusion. His life expectancy would probably be shortened by a great deal, if Miss Fogg ever learned he had been a heartbeat away from shooting her cousin in the back of the head.

As it was, she didn’t think him capable of such things.

Fogg had been drugged, they said, and the traces remaining at Castle Banquo at least supported that idea. Rebecca had intimated that certain other methods were used, as well. Chatsworth was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, if not him; all the same, he would just as rather see that Fogg never showed his face in Her Majesty’s presence again. However, knowing both the Foggs and Victoria Regina, he had no expectations of getting that wish.

Then again, Fogg had apparently been quite reticent since his return home, having secluded himself at Shillingworth Magna in a depression. Perhaps this incident had rattled him enough to keep him there, safely out of trouble—and out of the Service’s way.

No… probably not.

The knock on his office door came just as he had turned the last page of the report. Without looking up, he called out perfunctorily, "Come."

He heard the door open, heard the swish of Miss Fogg’s skirts as she strode into the room. What drew his attention, however, was something else—a sudden and intense sensation of foreboding. It was not unlike the tingling one was said to feel before lightning struck.

"Phileas!" Miss Fogg exclaimed, and Chatsworth looked up—straight into the fist of her lunatic cousin.

Oh, not this again.

Reflexively he launched himself away from his desk, recoiling from the worst of the impact, but his jaw still took a solid blow. Furthermore, his chair ignominiously toppled backward, taking him with it.

On his way to the floor, he was halfway aware of some scuffling sounds, and Fogg—correction, Miss Fogg—cursing rather colorfully. By the time he had landed, rolled and bounced to his feet, she appeared to have matters in hand. Her arm across his chest and her sheer force of presence was enough to keep Fogg pinned against the wall, breathing heavily and glaring at Chatsworth with no good intent.

"What in heaven’s name is the meaning of this?" Chatsworth was not capable of roaring, but it was a passable effort.

"Phileas…" Rebecca breathed, reinforcing the question, in a tone that was half plea and half threat.

Her cousin scowled and pushed her arm away, but remained where he stood with his back to the wall. His burning eyes remained locked on Chatsworth’s.

"He sent me to McLean."

Miss Fogg’s jaw dropped as she turned to look at her superior. "What?"

"Fogg, you are out of your mind!" Chatsworth spat, pressing his fingers to his jaw. Though he felt as if he’d been kicked in the head by a horse, he wasn’t bleeding; not only had he dodged it, Fogg himself had pulled the punch. It was merely a tap to get his attention.

"I remember now," Fogg breathed, in a low, icy snarl. "He gave me my instructions. Told me Her Majesty desired my presence at… Balmoral." The catch in his voice was a distinct prelude to a stammer.

The look on Rebecca’s face would no doubt have been quite interesting, but Chatsworth didn’t dare take his gaze from the other man’s. "I did no such thing, Fogg. And if you honestly believe Her Majesty would personally seek your charming company, then you exceed your own standards of arrogance!"

Unhindered by his cousin, if only because he appeared a trifle calmer, Fogg pushed himself away from the wall and took a step forward. "I spoke to you as plainly as we’re speaking now, Chatsworth."

"When?"

The short, sharp question appeared to catch Fogg up slightly. He blinked, unable to disguise a moment of sudden uncertainty in his eyes, as he was forced to confront the instability of his memory. "The… the night I left for Scotland."

"That was the sixteenth, yes?"

"I—" Fogg began. For a split second, his gaze darted toward his cousin.

"Yes, it was," Miss Fogg confirmed, to either or both of them. Chatsworth didn’t hazard a glance at her, but her tone of voice sounded almost weary. What other delusions of Fogg’s had she been putting up with for the last several days?

"On the night of the sixteenth," Chatsworth said calmly, "I was preoccupied with an intelligence briefing until almost midnight. There are at least a dozen people who can confirm my whereabouts."

A look of mistrustful incredulity on his face, Fogg shook his head. Rebecca stepped toward him, and he almost visibly flinched when she put her hand on his arm.

"It was another deception, Phileas. The message that brought Jules, Passepartout and I to Scotland—we thought it was from you. It was a forgery, and the instructions you thought you received from Sir Jonathan were a forgery as well." She paused, squeezing his arm. "Believe me, Phileas."

Chatsworth would have thought that the sight of Phileas Fogg being convinced he was wrong would be a memory to cherish forever. In reality, it was unsettling, even a bit depressing. Fogg looked from Rebecca to the spymaster, his expression changing markedly as he grappled with the fact that his memory harbored yet another lie. Angry disbelief slowly faded to contrite humiliation, and with a second small shake of his head, he at last turned away and threw himself into a chair by the door.

"I… owe you an apology, Sir Jonathan."

Chatsworth felt a sudden curiosity about the temperature in hell. It went unspoken, however, as judging by her expression, Miss Fogg would happily have sent him to find out. Impossible woman. Angry at him instead of at her cousin, who was in the wrong.

Still, he didn’t fail to notice the precision of Fogg’s words. He owed an apology. It was not expressly given, however adroitly it was implied. Even now, his pride only stretched so far.

Considering the action he’d been prepared to take at Balmoral, Chatsworth decided that they both had broken even… this time.

With a small gesture, he drew Miss Fogg to the other side of the room, and spoke in an angry whisper as he rubbed his jaw. "What on earth did you bring him here for?"

"I felt I had to, Sir Jonathan." Her scowl softened. "I’m truly sorry. I had no idea he would do such a thing. I thought he might be concerned with the investigation, and after everything he’s been through, I couldn’t really deny him—"

"Oh, never mind it." Chatsworth sighed and glanced back at Fogg, who was uncharacteristically resting his head on his hand, and appeared to be regathering his thoughts or his nerve. "Perhaps it’s for the best that we found out this little detail of his hallucinations."

"If it was an hallucination," Rebecca replied, a trifle coldly. "McLean’s people were capable of some striking theatrical illusions. It’s possible you may have been impersonated."

It was an entirely distasteful thought. Making a face, Chatsworth shifted the subject. "Well, I’m sure we’ll find out when we apprehend these conspirators. Which brings me to the report." He glanced significantly toward Fogg. Rebecca looked surprised but slowly nodded, so he went back to his desk. After righting his chair, he sat down and resumed in a normal tone, speaking to both Foggs.

"Almost nothing of value was learned at Castle Banquo. The remains of the machine that allegedly pumped the gas or drug were found, but your brash friend Verne had very well smashed it."

Pointedly ignoring the allegedly part, Rebecca produced a folded and rather wrinkled paper from beneath the green-velvet folds of her jacket. "That’s why Verne created this, with Phileas’ encouragement. We felt it might help in reconstructing the… technique." She cast a delicate glance toward Fogg, who sat staring down at his clenched fists in his lap.

Chatsworth studied the drawing for a moment. Monsieur Verne was a skilled draftsman, that much was true. Still, the contraption he had depicted looked too simple to have almost driven a man fatally insane—even if the man was Phileas Fogg, mad enough to begin with.

"Very good," he said at length, tucking the sketch between the pages of the report from Scotland, and went on. "Other than the machine, evidence of a variety of drugs was found. Fully half of them defy identification." He grudgingly glanced at Fogg. "I’d say you’re lucky you weren’t poisoned to death."

Roused from his brooding, Fogg raised shadowed eyes to the spymaster. "No. Not quite."

It was unclear whether he meant he was not quite poisoned to death, or not quite lucky. Giving Miss Fogg a dubious glance, Chatsworth went on. "We’ve been doing our best to track down the culprits, but without any success so far. We have, however, traced the history of Nicol McLean—he was anything but knighted, by the way—and have uncovered some extraordinarily interesting things."

Fogg straightened slightly, a cold light of renewed and not at all cordial interest appearing in his eyes. It was just as well he was there to listen, Chatsworth decided, even though he was virtually guaranteed another violent reaction.

"It would appear," he began slowly, "that McLean did have a certain roundabout connection with your father. And that the little fiction he spun to you, about using chemicals to alter a child’s development, actually had a basis in fact."

He was treated to another novel view of Phileas Fogg: that of the man turning white as a ghost.

"Oh, not you, Fogg," Chatsworth snorted. "Heaven help us all if it were. No, the experiment was made by a Secret Service agent acting on his own, with the guidance of two… well, they certainly weren’t doctors. I suppose you might call them independent researchers, at best. One of them was Nicol McLean."

"And the subject of this… experiment?" Miss Fogg asked faintly.

"The agent’s own son, as McLean’s tale suggested. It was also true that their intent was to heighten his strength and physical abilities, though to my knowledge, there was nothing to do with making him violent." Chatsworth scowled. "You’ll be interested to know, Fogg, that when your father learned of the experiment, he not only did not condone it—he put an immediate end to it. McLean had disappeared, but both the agent and McLean’s partner in research faced severe consequences. Both of them are long since dead, I might add."

If anything, Fogg had become even paler. He sat still, absorbing the information, with a look in his eye that was more than a little disturbing.

Miss Fogg spoke again. "What about the boy?"

"He never knew about the intrigue that had centered on him. He enjoyed a very normal, happy childhood, and has since become an excellent agent in the Service." When Fogg’s face contorted with astonishment and disgust, Chatsworth added, "Don’t think it, Fogg. He’s by no means a violent man. Quite the contrary, he excels in logic and diplomacy."

The words unlike you hung unspoken at the end of the remark. Fogg heard them anyway.

"Who is he?" Fogg asked, in a quiet, tense voice.

"You know I can’t give you a name, Fogg. The case is twenty-five years old, and it really has nothing to do with you. I only told you this much because of your own experience with McLean, and to… put you at ease… about Sir Boniface’s view of such tampering with human life."

"Thank you, Sir Jonathan." There was a faint note of wonder in Rebecca’s voice and expression. From Chatsworth to her cousin, it was an unusually sensitive and magnanimous gesture—especially after Fogg’s right-cross greeting.

Fogg was silent for a moment more, and then, with effortless fluidity of motion, he rose from his chair and crossed to the desk in two strides. Planting his hands on its surface, he leaned across it to face Chatsworth, with storm clouds gathering in his eyes.

"We’re going to have a long discussion about this, Chatsworth… but not today." His tone was fierce, but it was not the sepulchral, imminently lethal one he had used before. It was sheer, typical Fogg temperament, instead of the cold fire burning in that part of his soul which suffered still from his ordeal; even Chatsworth knew the difference.

With a preposterously polite inclination of his head, Fogg then turned and stalked out of the office, the door slamming shut behind him.

So help him, Chatsworth couldn’t find it in his heart to be angry.

He looked at Miss Fogg, rigidly pretending that he didn’t notice the merest trace of a smile on her face. She cleared her throat and sobered. "I am sorry, sir."

There was a message in her tone which Chatsworth read clearly, and he heaved an irritated sigh. Whether he liked it or not—whether, perhaps, Rebecca herself liked it or not—the Foggs came as a matched set. All his efforts to prove otherwise had been futile. And until Fogg was settled…

He stared stonily at the door through which Fogg had just exited. "Rebecca, you may consider yourself on leave of absence until further notice." Glancing at her, he saw her interrogative expression. Did she want an explanation for a perceived punishment? No, not her. She knew his reason. She required his answer just for the sake of hearing him say he was concerned about Phileas Fogg’s well-being.

"Your cousin is a… singular man," he allowed grudgingly. "Even Her Majesty has recently inquired after his welfare. She’ll have my hide if you’re not free to set him to rights—only see that you do it, for heaven’s sakes!"

"I think, sir… that you may have helped in that direction." The faint smile was back; it was hardly a happy expression, but there was something of relief in it. Rebecca primly stood up. "Please tell Her Majesty that Phileas is much improved."

Chatsworth uttered an incredulous grunt.

---

© 2002 Jordanna Morgan


Chapters: 1 :: 2 :: 3 :: 4 :: 5 :: 6 :: 7 ::