The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts (12 page)

“You like adventures.”

“I do not.”

“What’s all this then?” Charlotte pointed at Earnestine’s open carpet bag complete with the medium kit, knobkerrie and umbrella. She added the flat iron.

“It’s for emergencies.”

“Where’s your flashlight?”

“It’s in the medium adv– I mean, emergen–”

“Ah ha!”

“Well, you’ll just have to go with Georgina to the…” Earnestine gritted her teeth, “…seaside.”

“Oh, Ness, it’ll be a holiday.”

“No, it won’t. I have to… do whatever it is that needs doing and you have to keep out of trouble. My employer, Mister Boothroyd, was arrested, Uncle Jeremiah’s disappeared–”

“An MP has been arrested.”

“As have many others, so Georgina and…” Earnestine was suddenly conscious of another disappearance: “Where’s Georgina?”

Mrs Arthur Merryweather

Georgina wished fervently that she was somewhere else, but she was so ravenous that the dining room was the place she needed to be. Unfortunately, Mrs Falcone was holding court and her tale of Red Indian Medicine in the Americas endlessly delayed the serving of the food. Apparently, the savages caught dreams in large nets. It conjured up an image of red men, dressed as running buffalo, leaping around like so many butterfly–collecting clergymen.

During all this, Georgina could see the hot pots steaming on the side, gradually cooling and then, as the prattle turned to peace pipes, going cold. She could taste the flavours in the still air such was her anticipation. It was torture.

“We shall have a séance on Friday,” Mrs Falcone announced. “For we cannot possibly do so without the Reverend Gabriel Milton. He is such an open minded individual when it comes to the spirit world.”

Mrs Falcone was seated at the head of the table. This place should have been for her Arthur, Georgina was sure, but she wasn’t acquainted with the seating arrangements now. The problem was that this irritating woman, who seemed to receive most of her information from great chieftains disguised as eagles, was acting as if she owned the place. Georgina didn’t want Magdalene Chase herself, but she didn’t want this Mrs Falcone to have it either. What was she doing here? What was her position? What was a polite way to ask?

“Perhaps we could discuss this over dinner?” Georgina suggested.

“We are.”

“Over the actual repast.”

“I say, what a splendid idea,” agreed Colonel Fitzwilliam, leaning odiously towards her. “Capital.”

“My Millicent here! She has an opinion on that, don’t you, dear?”

“Perhaps food, Mama… or not,” said Millicent, her eyes darting about as if she were the rabbit about to be caught and cooked in a pot.

“Mrs Jago, if you would be so kind,” Georgina said.

Mrs Jago glared from the dark corner where she stood in attendance.

“The Colonel,” Georgina said.

“Ladies first, my dear.”

“So kind, Colonel.”

Caught in the pincer movement, Mrs Jago had no choice: “Yes, Miss.”

Georgina bit her tongue. Once, just this once, she’d let that pass – anything to have something on her plate.

Mrs Jago served Mrs Falcone, then at an even more glacial pace, Miss Millicent, before tapping the spoons on the pots and placing them on the sideboard.

Georgina clattered her cutlery.

“Miss Dee… my dear,” the Colonel said.

Mrs Jago found the spoons again and served Georgina and the Colonel. It was stew, or something, apparently lamb, with vegetables.

The wine was next to Mrs Falcone, the jug of water by Georgina. The Colonel had brought in a whiskey.

“The Reverend Gabriel Milton once communed with William Shakespeare’s brother, did you know?”

Georgina swallowed a spoonful; bliss: “No, I did not.”

“Then you have a lot to learn, Miss.”

Georgina could not say ‘Ma’am’ with her mouth full.

“We will conjure up the spirits and learn much from them. I always do. They have much to tell us.”

Georgina could feel her strength returning: “Will we bring forth the ghosts of Christmas past, present and yet to come?” she asked.

She and her sisters had once played the characters from Charles Dickens’ story at a fancy dress party: Earnestine had been the past, Georgina the present and Charlotte had been the ghost of the future. Charlotte had disappeared, she remembered, leaving Earnestine and Georgina as two bereft figures.

“The doubters of youth,” Mrs Falcone said, condescendingly. “You may mock, but the spirits will have their retribution.”

At that moment, the wind – it was the wind – rattled the windows and howled around the building and wailed down the chimney.

Georgina, who relished reading books on the chemical interactions of daguerreotype printing, found the idea of spirits both ludicrous and deeply disturbing. They were all utterly serious and perhaps, in this God forsaken place, the departed really did communicate from the other side, and science and rationality only worked as far as the reach of the railways.

“Seconds, Colonel?” Georgina said. “And, as you insist, Colonel, for myself too.”

“What? Oh, yes dear,” the Colonel spluttered.

Mrs Jago served and then removed the bowl to avoid any possibility of thirds.

As for dessert, cream did not come north of Cornwall according to Mrs Jago.

When dinner was over, Georgina checked the master bedroom and found that Mrs Jago had removed the sheets, so Georgina found fresh and made the bed up herself. She found Fellowes in the scullery polishing the silver: the old man bent over his task, one eye concentrating and the other closed.

“Fellowes.”

“Miss?”

“Ma’am.”

“Ma’am?”

“I would like the key.”

“There are only four keys to the front door, mine, Mrs Jago’s, Mrs Falcone’s and Colonel Fitzwilliam’s.”

“The key to my bedroom.”

“The guest room key is–”

“The master bedroom!”

“Miss, that’s–”

“Ma’am!”

“I don’t wish to cause friction, but Mrs Falcone–”

“Mrs Falcone, Miss Millicent, Colonel Fitzwilliam and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all are not the legal owners of this property according to Messrs Tumble, Judd & Babcock.”

“That, if you pardon me, has to be decided.”

“And when it is decided, I shall remember who showed me due courtesy and
who did not!”

“There is a spare key.”

“All of them.”

She had three keys, and she locked them and herself safely in the master bedroom.

Mrs Falcone and Miss Millicent were not mentioned in Arthur’s journal until the page on which Georgina let fly with her careful handwriting. The Colonel was, however; described in terms that suggested he was a family friend, one who had first interested Arthur in military service. Georgina couldn’t reconcile Arthur’s descriptions of the Colonel with the man himself.

And then there was that other woman in the picture.

Miss Charlotte

“Perhaps she’s been arrested?” Charlotte suggested.

Earnestine’s expression was one of derision, followed by another of disquiet.

“We can solve this in an elemental way,” Charlotte continued. She nodded with her best sage expression on her face.

“What are you talking about?”

“I observe that you have packed for travelling and so have I.”

“I packed yours if you remember.”

“Perhaps there are other clues…” Charlotte said, casting about for just such.

“We don’t have time for this.”

“Ah ha!”

Charlotte pointed at the hall table, atop of which were two parcels wrapped in brown paper.

“So?” said Earnestine. “The post came.”

“There’s no stamp and they are only addressed to…” Charlotte examined the parcel tags. “You and me… oh goody, a present.”

“Charlotte, application.”

“Indubitably.”

“Do you know what these words mean, Charlotte?”

But Charlotte wasn’t listening. The clues she needed were indeed on the hall table, two boxes wrapped up in brown paper. There were parcel tags, one to ‘Earnestine’ and the other to ‘Lottie’. Charlotte examined both parcels: they were different, rattled differently and when she’d carelessly ripped with abandon the wrappings of her own, she revealed a paper bag of macaroons, all fresh and delicious.

As she munched, she picked up Earnestine’s box and pushed her nose up against it. Sure enough, it was that pong that Uncle Jeremiah always bought for Earnestine. Her deduction–

“Uncle! Uncle!”

She ran through the house, but there was no–one in the drawing room or the study.

“What’s all this commotion, Dearie?” It was Cook, rubbing her hands on her apron as she bumbled out of the kitchen. “Miss Deering–Dolittle, you’re back too.”

“Where’s is he?” Charlotte demanded.

“I don’t know who you mean?”

“Uncle Jeremiah.”

“He called earlier with his arms full of parcels.”

“It was Uncle Jeremiah… he’s gone out with Georgina.”

The Cook shook her head: “Mrs Merryweather’s not been in all day. Or yesterday.”

That was strange.

“There are only two parcels,” Charlotte said, pointing at the solitary parcel and the discarded brown paper.

“He left two and took one with him,” said Cook.

Charlotte narrowed her eyes as she contemplated this.

“Did he do anything else?”

“He waited in the drawing room, Miss, and asked for some boiling water and a piece of candy. I gave him a cup and let him help himself to the jar.”

“There’s candy in the jar!”

“Lottie,” Earnestine warned. “Go on Cook.”

“That’s all,” said Cook. “He didn’t drink much. Queer sort of request.”

“Hmm… thank you, Cook,” said Charlotte.

“Don’t you be eating all those biscuits, my dear,” said Cook. “You’ll ruin your appetite.”

“Mmm… mmmm… I know,” Charlotte said, realising that events were moving apace.

“Thank you, Cook,” said Earnestine.

Cook went back to her duties in the kitchen, leaving Earnestine and Charlotte alone in the hall.

“Mister Boothroyd vanished – literally – and Uncle Jeremiah is being hunted, caught for all we know, and perhaps Georgina has gone too,” Earnestine said.

Charlotte raced away, and then rattled about upstairs, causing the hall gas light to swing as she stomped about on the floorboards.

“Charlotte!”

Charlotte shouted down: “When they arrested Boothby–”

“Mister Boothroyd.”

“Be that as it may,” she said, pattering back downstairs, “did they let him pack?”

“Of course not. They threw him into a carriage, took him to Battersea and then they all disappeared into thin air. I saw it, Charlotte, I saw the Temporal Peelers disappear into thin air.”

“Georgina packed for a long trip: clothes from the wardrobe and her travelling trunk have gone.”

Earnestine checked the hall table: “She can’t have done, she hasn’t left a note.”

“Perhaps she had to leave in a hurry.”

“If she had time to pack her travelling trunk, then she had time to leave a note.”

“Uncle Jeremiah knows.”

“How do you know that?”

Charlotte linked her hands together behind her back to stride across the carpet. “He came with three parcels and left only two of them. One of them was for me, another for you, so I deduce that the third was for Georgina–”

“Have you been reading my copy of the Strand?”

“I’ve not even been in your bedroom. So, if he took Georgina’s present with him, then logistically–”

“Logically.”

“Logically, he’s gone to meet Georgina.”

“That’s jolly clever, Charlotte,” Earnestine admitted. “Sensibly reasoned and without any flights of fancy.”

Charlotte felt important.

“But where have they gone?” said Earnestine.

“Well, Uncle Jeremiah’s on the run from the Temporal Peelers. Perhaps… he’s been arrested by now and Georgina too, because Cook hasn’t seen her all day or yesterday, so perhaps these Chronological Rozzers have taken them back to Roman times or to the Stone Age to eat Dillpod… Diplod… that skeleton thing in the British Museum.”

“Unlikely.”

“But possible.”

“Where did you pick up a word like ‘Rozzer’?”

“School. I told you it was a horrid place.”

“Only because you don’t apply yourself, whereas Georgina is responsible,” Earnestine said. “She’d leave a note.”

“Are you saying that I’m not responsible?”

“That is not what I said, but now you mention it: yes, you are decidedly irresponsible.”

“Ness!”

“Don’t whine. So why isn’t there a note on the hall table?”

“Perhaps she didn’t think it important enough to leave a note.”

“It is a matter of a minute or two to write a note and Georgina never forgot.”

“Perhaps it fell down the back.”

“Charlotte, it couldn’t…” but Earnestine must have realised that it could have done, for she peered down the crack between the wall and the table, and then underneath before she heaved the table away from the wall. “The maids don’t clean here properly. There are crumbs down here… your crumbs.”

“Too important for a note,” said Charlotte.

“There’s no such thing. If it’s trivial like going into the garden or if you are in a rush to catch a particular post and are only going to the pillar box at the end of the Row, then you wouldn’t leave a note, but anything else: we have a system, Lottie. You’re the only one who doesn’t follow it.”

“But some things require explanation, so she’d write a letter.”

“Are you suggesting that she’d write us a letter, walk down to the pillar box and post it?”

“Possibly.”

Earnestine gesticulated towards the road: “If she posted it in the morning, it would have arrived by third delivery, fourth at the latest, and even if it was the last post it would arrive by first delivery in the morning, and the maids put the post on the hall table. Georgina is not profligate, she wouldn’t waste a stamp, she’d have simply put it on the table herself.”

Earnestine’s speech ended with her pointing at the empty table.

“She packed her trunk,” said Charlotte, “which is pre–meditated–”

“It’s not a murder mystery.”