Tue, February 07 2012
| TITLE: | In the Beginning Missing Scene |
|---|---|
| AUTHOR: | Sherry Thornburg |
| CATEGORY/TYPE: | Bracelet Workshop |
| RATING/WARNINGS: | PG, Gen |
| MAIN CHARACTERS: | |
| DESCRIPTION: | Bracelet Workshop Entry |
| STATUS: | Complete |
| SUMMARY: | 'In the Beginning' missing scene |
| AUTHOR'S NOTES: | I thought and thought and thought and decided not to make this bracelet one of the handy gadgets from the secret service. It would be too easy to make it into a Q branch super slooth Swiss army knife/bracelet or the like. Then I thought there was only one reason that a man of that time would wear a trinket of that type all the time and our boy an’t married and he doesn’t have a love that I’m going to acknowledge in his past that would keep him wearing such a thing. So then who would he accept such a thing from besides his mother that would move him to cherish and wear it always? |
FROM THE END OF “IN THE BEGINNING”, MISSING SCENE 1
“It is a good thing you do tonight,” Queen Victoria and the Prime Minister assured the Baron as he watched his Aurora rise up into the night sky.
“Does he still wear a bracelet?” The Queen then asked.
“I saw a bracelet on his person,” the Baron said in question; “an odd unfashionable thing for a man of his set.”
“Not so odd or unfashionable if you knew. But that is for he and I,” the Queen thought warmly. With that Queen Victoria had her driver head back to the palace.
Aboard the Aurora, Passepartout gave his new employer a curious looking over. “This Phileas Fogg seemed an ordinary looking dandy.” He was leaning on the Aurora’s rail looking out at the skies. Not at the ground as others did, but straight into the horizon and beyond. “Our adventures may just be beginning,” the Englishman had said some time ago.
The Baron, his now former employer, had told him this man was special and that it would now be Passepartout’s place to take care of him. Passepartout did not know if he was worthy of being guardian angel to this man, but it was too late to have doubts now. The deed had been done and he was now contracted to this stranger.
The two stood on the observation deck for another hour before Phileas turned and asked Passepartout his first questions.
“Had you served the Baron long?”
“Four years,” Passepartout answered. “I begin when he start building Aurora. I engineered her controls and much of the engine. After launching, I became part time pilot, valet.”
“I have not had a valet for some months,” Phileas admitted. “The last one I sacked rather suddenly over poor preparation of my shaving water.”
“If he not be heating the water properly then was right he be sacked,” Passepartout defended. “Shaving water must be right temperature to be softening the skin properly.”
“Exactly,” Phileas said in agreement. “And if you understand that then perhaps you will continue to be both pilot and valet. For now I intend to rest. Where is the sleeping cabin?”
Passepartout locked the controls in place, and then headed up the circular stair to the cabins. The Aurora had three such rooms. He led the Englishman to the one the Baron had used. It had already been cleared of the Baron’s property. Passepartout had been ordered to clear it four days before.
Phileas Fogg looked the room over for a moment and then began unbuttoning his coat and vest. Passepartout took the valet’s position helping the man out of his things and putting everything away.
The shoes he set to the side to take back downstairs with him to be polished. “For a man without a valet,” the Frenchman noted with some surprise, “the shoes were in very good order. This Phileas Fogg knows how to be keeping his standards himself.” This put the servant on notice as nothing else would have. A man that could keep his own standards did not need to keep a servant that did not meet them.
As Phileas Fogg had not come with any luggage, he would be sleeping in his drawers only. Passepartout thought for a moment to chastise himself for not packing his new master a bag with a night shirt, but then let it go. The man had not dawdled about getting the Aurora into the air after gaining her, and he had been more than happy to show her off. Niceties such as night linens were a minor point in the face of the wonder of flight. His new master didn’t seem the least upset about the lack so neither should he.
Passepartout was just about to walk out after being dismissed when the sound of something metal hit the floor. “D—m!” Fogg swore quietly.
Passepartout quickly went down to retrieve the dropped item. He did it only seconds before Phileas Fogg himself reached for it. It was a bracelet, one on a large gold link chain with a plate for engraving. The clasp had broken or had newly broken again, Passepartout assessed, because the bracelet showed much wear. It was dull and scratched from constant exposure. Passepartout had only a moment to examine it before Phileas Fogg took it back. “The clasp comes open on me often of late,” he complained. “I cannot seem to fix it properly.”
“I could be fixing it for you Master Fogg,” Passepartout offered. “It is nothing. The spring holding it fastly being worn away. Catch not closing with tightness.”
Phileas seemed on the brink of refusing but then relented. “Do you have what you need here for the repair?”
“Yes. Have workshop on Aurora with many bits and pieces to keep ship floating with smoothness. One little spring will not be missing long. I fix it by morning,” the valet assured him.
“As you say then,” Fogg allowed as he handed his cherished treasure over. Passepartout then took it and the shoes out of the room to the workshop after seeing his new master into bed.
“Simple repair,” Passepartout said to himself as he laid the gold ornament on the table. Besides the clasp, he was also determined to do something about the scratches and dullness of the piece. “Why had Englishman of his standards with such shoes not had this professionally polished?” He wondered. “And why he doing repairs instead of a jeweler?”
Passepartout shook his head. “There was never a knowing with some men.”
Taking to the task, he quickly found his tools and examined the clasp. It was as he thought, very old and very broken. The valet then expertly repaired it and then tested its tightness. It was now better than new, he judged with a smile. Passepartout then took a jeweler’s cloth to the links polishing them one by one and together until they shined like a new shilling. Lastly he took a buffer to the plate to remove the scratches before polishing it. The upper side was engraved with a date from twenty years and more in the past. As he worked that side on the buffer he noticed another inscription on the back, very worn but still visible.
“Suc-cre-blu!”
The valet started in surprise at the words as a more reverent attitude came over him toward his task. And then being very careful that the buffer did not make the inscriptions any fainter he went back to his work. And on second thought, he would be very careful of the shoes too. The Baron had been right; this man was special, but why had he not told Passepartout the whole truth?
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