The Tea Machine Read Online Free

for about fifteen minutes before they get bored, stop for tea, and gossip away the rest of the evening. Broadens the mind.” She grinned impishly. “It’s very important they sit in rows, you know. Makes them feel intellectual.”
    They entered a darkened room towards the end of the hall and Millicent lit a porcelain gas lamp. The light flared and revealed a room much smaller than the one they had left. This room was sparsely furnished but somehow more intimate and comfortable because of it. Even in the soft glow of the lamp, Sangfroid could see the colour scheme was light and mellow. This room had an airier, more feminine feel after the oppressive formality of the room they’d just left.
    “This is my day room,” Millicent said and fussed about drawing the drapes against the dusk. A few coals smouldered in the fireplace. She rammed them about with a poker until they looked livelier and added a few more with the coal tongs hanging by the hearth. There was a ruthless efficiency in her movements, and though Sangfroid couldn’t take her gaze off Millicent, she managed to take in the rudiments of the room with a military thoroughness. A small bureau was squeezed into the far corner, positioned to take in the view from the window, had the drapes had been open. On either side of the chimney breast, shelves were piled with books and magazines. Before the fireplace sat a small couch and close by a comfortable looking high-backed armchair. Needlepoint rested on its padded arm. From the chair’s position, turned towards the fire, yet close to the table with the gas lamp, Sangfroid guessed this was Millicent’s favoured chair.
    She glanced at the needlepoint. She had darned her own pants often enough to view a threaded needle as a loathsome chore, rather than a pastime. But then she had fought her way through enough solar systems to expect the strange and unnatural wherever she landed. The Empire had conquered worlds much more archaic than this one. Here, it was the constant call back to her own heritage that threw her. This world looked like it had popped up from the pages of a history book, and that made Sangfroid extra suspicious. It had to be a trap. The Colossals had somehow wormed into her mind and pulled out this version of home; except it was so woefully wrong it was laughable.
    “Hubert and I have an arrangement of rooms. I use this one for my reading and relaxation, and he keeps his laboratory in the larger room to the front of the house that used to be Papa’s library. Now, about that leg.” Millicent opened a small cabinet and examined a collection of apothecary bottles.
    While she fussed over her bottles, Sangfroid flicked the drapes and peeked outside. She tried to look casual, but the room and its furnishings were so bizarre she had to see what lay beyond. The view offered little interest. There was a small garden with orderly flowerbeds and high hedges. Beyond these, the yellow glow of gas street lamps shone weakly against an evening sky. She’d have to get out there at some point and explore. It was all so intriguing, like the living history museums back home.
    “Let me see. Pyretic saline. Laudanum, no, that’s no use.” Millicent clinked her way through the medicine cabinet.
    “Where is this place?” Sangfroid asked. “And where’s the pod?”
    “Ah, here it is. Carbolic infusion.” Millicent ignored the question, which didn’t surprise Sangfroid. She recognized this mulish mindset. In fact, a lot of Millicent’s mannerisms seemed familiar. Sangfroid turned away from the window to watch her uncork a bottle and splash the contents on a pad of lint.
    “The pod?” she asked again, ignoring the swab held out to her. She wanted answers, not liniment. Millicent waved the wad at her, and still she refused to take it. “Answer the question,” she said.
    “Will you please apply this?” Millicent sounded stubborn, but Sangfroid refused to give an inch.
    “No. You’ll find I can be just a mulish as