The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts (13 page)

“So she left a note… or a message.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“In code!”

“Code or no code, it would be on the hall table!”

“Important letter… write it in the study…” Charlotte continued mumbling, her hands out in front of her with her fingers acting out the commentary. She wrote a tiny squiggle in the air, slipped nothing into the grip of her other hand and then held the imaginary object out to put down.

She looked round.

Earnestine was standing by the hall table pointing obviously. Red and blue patches shimmered on her stern features as the afternoon sun came through the stained glass of the front door. “I can’t see the cab arrive,” Charlotte added.

“What cab? We’ve not ordered a cab. Oh, do think, Charlotte.”

“Gina packed a trunk, so she had to have left by cab, so she ordered a cab in the morning–”

“Or whenever she left.”

“Or whenever, so she’d wait in the drawing room… and Uncle Jeremiah waited in the drawing room with hot water and candy, and he figured it out.”

Charlotte waved her non–existent letter at Earnestine and then opened the door into the drawing room.

“Charlotte! You’ll get dirt in… Charlotte?”

The drawing room was still and quiet. Charlotte scanned around quickly and saw it at once.

“Charlotte,” Earnestine chided behind her. “She would not–”

“Picture’s gone.”

Charlotte pointed at the gap on the wall.

Earnestine took a few seconds to change trains as it were, and then she checked the framed pictures that were still there.

“You’re right… mother… father… expedition…”

“It was the one taken at the theatre, the new one.”

“Why? Oh, Lottie–”

“She wanted one of the three of us together standing shoulder–to–shoulder helping one another.”

“Charlotte, really–”

“So be quiet and let me think.”

“Oh–”

Earnestine was quiet, silenced by Charlotte’s raised finger.

Charlotte closed her eyes, but trying to fathom a deduction was like trying to remember a Latin word when the sun was shining.

The clock ticked and tocked telling her that she was achieving nothing at all.

She conjured up the imaginary letter again trying to feel its texture and weight.

Tick… tock.

Charlotte smiled; she knew and opened her eyes. She gesticulated like a magician and waved towards the mantelpiece clock without looking towards it at all.

Earnestine followed the gesture: saw, jumped forward and snatched down the envelope. The clock tottered on the edge and fell, its glass smashed on the tiled hearth and the delicate mechanism twanged, rattled and ceased.

The silence was as complete as if time had stopped.

Chapter VII

Miss Deering-Dolittle

A quiet shattered by the doorbell.

A tall silhouette complete with top hat stood behind the red and blue stained glass in the porch. It bent down to peer through, a gaunt face bulging in the window with eyes white and covered.

Earnestine and Charlotte simply faced each other in the drawing room, each a mirror of the other’s fear.

“They know my name,” Earnestine whispered.

“Do they?”

“Yes.”

“I saw them arrest someone,” Charlotte hissed back.

“Then they’ve come to arrest one of us.”

“Oh lummy.”

“You or me?”

“Or maybe neither.”

“I doubt they’ve popped round because they heard we have candy in the jar.”

“We have to find Georgina.”

“I agree.”

“Once the Derring–Do Club is back together,” said Charlotte, “it’ll be like old times.”

“I sincerely hope not.”

The doorbell rang again, followed by a loud hammering knock.

“Garden!”

Charlotte hadn’t needed the instruction as she and Earnestine scurried through the kitchen. Earnestine managed to grab the kit bag.

“Careful!” Cook cried as they hastened past. “And be back for dinner.”

They ran across the lawn and circled the rose garden. At the far end, hidden by trees, was a wall. This wall had been the defences of many fortresses and castles in their youth.

“Give me a leg up!” Earnestine ordered.

“Can’t you make it on your own?”

“Just–”

“Getting too old?”

“Don’t be impertinent. I’m carrying the Adventuring Kit.”

“Adventuring?”

“You know what I mean.”

Charlotte linked her hands to take the dig of Earnestine’s Baker Street boots and launch her sister upwards. Earnestine scrambled at the top and then offered a helping hand, but Charlotte had already jumped up further along. Over they went into the alley beyond. Without any discussion, they started making along in the direction of Kensington Station, but two figures appeared at the far end. They were tall, dressed in black frock coats and wearing top hats. Their eyes looked huge and sinister with the glasses.

The sisters came to the same conclusion.

“Perhaps…”

“Yes…”

They scuttled away.

“Don’t look back,” Earnestine said. “Don’t look back.”

Charlotte glanced over her shoulder: “Run!”

They ran.

They came out the other side and into the busy street. Earnestine craned her neck up and looked right and left. There were no hansoms visible in either direction. There was never one when one needed one.

They worked their way along the pavement.

Earnestine was trying to think ahead: “Make for Addison Road or try and find a cab?”

“Split up!?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Derring–Do Club forever.”

They pelted along ignoring the ‘Oi’ of workmen.

At the corner were two men in top hats.

“Shortcut,” said Charlotte, grabbing Earnestine’s arm and yanking her round. She disappeared into a narrow alley between a butcher’s and a tobacconist. They had to go single file, the clatter of their heels echoing off the brick walls. There was a tiny yard with two exits created by the gap between outside privies. Children playing barefoot there scattered when they arrived, and then gathered to point and joke.

The first exit led to a street full of pawnbrokers and across the road two men in top hats turned to look at them.

Back at the yard, the children were bolder and prepared, and plucked at their clothing practising their pick–pocketing skills. Both Earnestine and Charlotte had to swat their thieving hands away and snatch their bag back.

The second exit led to a side road with two banks facing each other on the corner. They turned left and went with the flow of people, ladies out for a stroll and labourers carrying coal from a parked cart.

“Top hats!” said Charlotte and she took off, running towards the banks. Earnestine followed, caught up and tapped Charlotte on her shoulder.

“Stop!”

“We must keep moving.”

Earnestine paused, bent over slightly to ease the line of her corset across her ribs and panted for breath: “Wait… wait!”

“But–”

“We’re running from top hats.”

“Yes–”

“All top hats. That man… he’s talking to another gent in a bowler.”

“We must run.”

“They’re probably bankers or… independent means… and not Temporal Peelers. They don’t have… swords.”

Charlotte turned her attention to the distant top hat. Sure enough, he was talking amiably to another two men, who were both wearing bowler hats. Earnestine wondered just how many upper class gentlemen they’d run from in the course of their desperate flight.

“Where now?”

“We’ll get off the streets,” Earnestine said, and she pointed across the road: “Tea shop! Read letter… come up with… plan.”

Hunkered down to hide their faces, Earnestine and Charlotte waited for a gap in the traffic and then sprinted across to the tea shop. As they went in, a bell jangled to startle a waitress.

“Ladies?”

“Table for two, please,” said Earnestine, trying to avoid panting.

The waitress picked up two menus and directed them towards the window.

“Can we have one at the back?” Charlotte asked.

The waitress looked at them quizzically.

“My friend gets the chills very easily.”

“It is warm.”

“Please. She’s old.”

The waitress frowned, but nonetheless took them to a different table towards the back. They settled and ordered tea with scones.

“I’m younger than the waitress,” Earnestine said.

“It worked.”

Earnestine lips narrowed.

“Letter?”

Earnestine got out the letter and opened–

The tea shop bell rang and a man entered. He took off his top hat and placed it on the coat stand before taking a seat by the window. He gazed out into the street watching the traffic and only looked into the shop when the waitress went over to take his order.

Earnestine relaxed and opened the envelope. She had her finger on the letter when the waitress returned with a steaming pot, cups and saucers.

When the waitress had gone, she took out the letter and began reading. It started thus: ‘
To My Dearest Sis–
’

The waitress brought an elegant jug of milk. Earnestine smiled at her forcefully, returning to the letter when she’d gone.

‘
Sisters, Ness–
’.

Their scones arrived, and looked very tasty and came with butter on a small dish, whipped cream in a bowl and strawberry jam in a jar.

‘
Dearest Sisters, Ness and Lot
–’

“Will that be all, Miss?”

“Yes,” said Earnestine through clenched teeth. “That will be all, thank you.”

Earnestine waited until the waitress has returned to her counter. ‘
Dearest Sisters, Ness and Lottie
.’

“Shall I be Mother?” Charlotte asked.

“Please.”

Earnestine read.

Charlotte had poured both teas, added milk and scoffed half a scone with lashings of jam and cream by the time Earnestine had read and re–read the letter three times.

“Ness?” said Charlotte, entirely failing to keep the impatience out of her voice.

“She’s gone to Magdalene Chase.”

“Where?”

“It’s… near Tenning Halt.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“Neither have I.”

“Let’s see,” Charlotte demanded. She scanned down the letter. “Why is it spelt funny?”

“It’s how you spell ‘Magdalene’.”

“But it would be ‘em’, ‘ay’, ‘you’, ‘dee…’ ‘el’, ‘eye’, ‘en’.”

“Why ever would it be spelt like that?”

“It’s more logical.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because… if you’d pay more attention to your lessons, you’d know.”

“But why has she gone to
Magdalene
Chase?”

“It’s her ancestral home.”

“Her ancestral home is 12b Zebediah Row.”

“Her ancestral home on the Merryweather side.”

“Merry… oh!”

“I think we should visit our sister,” Earnestine announced. “Apparently it’s in the middle of nowhere, so it would be a perfect place to hide.”

“Uncle Jeremiah will be there and might be able to explain.”

“Absolutely.”

“Are you suggesting we wander down to the station with all the Temporal Peelers after us?” Charlotte asked.

Earnestine thought for a moment: “We’ll lie low for a while.”

Outside the street was still full of men in top hats, but there were bowlers, flat caps and many, many ladies’ bonnets.

“Which nowhere is it in the middle of?” Charlotte asked.

Earnestine lips tightened: “Gina didn’t say.”

They made their way back to the banks on the crossroads and checked the street names, and it was easy to walk along keeping pace with the traffic as they looked for a hansom. Luck was not with them and in the end Earnestine and Charlotte had to walk all the way to Queensbury Road.

Mrs Arthur Merryweather

The view from the bedroom was bleak and when the clouds blotted out the weak sun, Georgina could see her reflection in the window. She would have stood here with Arthur and he would have put his arm around her. She’d have been able to glance – just there – and see him, just as now she saw a ghostly figure standing at her shoulder made from the clouds beyond

A shaft of sunlight escaped and played about the moors much like the galvanic spotlight had at the theatre. She could walk there in the place that she’d been warned against (but then she’d been warned against this house too) and the moors would claim her. The others wouldn’t miss her, although no doubt Mrs Falcone would contact her to ask about eagles and wigwams.

Downstairs in the drawing room, Mrs Falcone was in full swing with Miss Millicent alternating between fluttering and downtrodden.

“My grandmother was an actress,” she announced. “Can you believe it? No better than she ought to have been, I declare. She duped the great Maestro Falcone, didn’t she Millicent – don’t hunch – and – you take after her, you know – and bore him nine children and only five of those died, but luckily we take after the Falcone side… with exceptions.”

“Mama, I…”

“Quite.”

“Sorry, Mama.”

“I have the acting blood in me, you see. Proper acting, not that cheap stuff of women who should know better, but perhaps a Shakespeare or a Marlowe or a recitation of poetry. I was known for my recitation. Perhaps this is why I am such a sensitive.”

Georgina almost sniggered aloud: “Sensitive?”

“Indeed,” Mrs Falcone’s tongue was sharp. “I feel things beyond the reach of ordinary people and that is why I can commune with the departed. They reach out, you know, looking for a suitable vessel.”

Georgina didn’t know how to answer this. It seemed tantamount to black magic, but the idea of communicating with her late husband drew her in. If only…

“You are an unbeliever,” Mrs Falcone announced. “I sense these things.”

“We live in a rational world,” Georgina replied calmly. “Everything works according to God’s laws, the immutable workings of the Universe as discovered by Sir Isaac Newton. The natural world functions like a clockwork mechanism or an engine.”

“That may be true in London, I dare say,” Mrs Falcone replied, “but there are more things in heaven and hell than in that new–fangled philosophy.”