The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts (2 page)

“This way,” Lieutenant McKendry suggested, and he led them up the stairs and along a curving corridor. Much to Earnestine’s chagrin, she realised that Major Dan had booked a box. Georgina and Charlotte loved the idea, but to Earnestine’s mind it was ostentatious. If they were going to see a show, they should see a show; and not face the rest of the audience as if they were the performers themselves.

“Sit here, my dear,” said Uncle Jeremiah guiding Earnestine to the front seat.

“Adults at the back,” Earnestine said.

“Yes, dear, and children at the front.”

“But–”

“And here are your sweetmeats.”

So Earnestine was sat at the front, with her packet of tiny pastries, with her face feeling as red as her dress.

She could hear Uncle Jeremiah, Captain Caruthers and Lieutenant McKendry discussing weighty matters: politics, the troubles in Africa, the recent disappearances and even the cricket with an emphasis on playing by the rules; whereas she had to–

“Do you think there will be elephants?”

“Lottie,” Earnestine replied, “how would they get an elephant in here?”

“They might.”

“Shhh…”

Where was she? Oh yes, playing by the rules; whereas she had to–

“Ow!”

“Sorry, Ness.”

“Don’t fidget, Lottie.”

Whereas she had to… take her mind off her worries. She’d write it out a hundred times:
I must take my mind…
No, she wasn’t a child, so there was no need to write lines any more.

Earnestine looked around the auditorium taking it all in. The curtains were red velvet, plush, and the walls were decorated with curls and patterns picked out in gold leaf. The stalls had the more middle classes, but the Circle and particularly the Boxes held collections of very finely dressed individuals. She could clearly see those in the opposite boxes. Lord and Lady Farthing, some foreign dignitaries with red sashes and, in the third box, a single, elegant woman dressed in a burgundy outfit with a black net veil pushed up to allow her to peer through a pair of powerful opera glasses.

Instinctively, Earnestine glanced over her shoulder: the men were earnestly discussing Grace and Darling, and then she realised they were still going on about whether Australia would win the Ashes. When she looked back, she saw the woman still staring in her direction as if she were studying something. Without doubt, the woman was watching one of them in their box.

But who?

There was only Caruthers, McKendry, Uncle Jeremiah, Georgina, Charlotte or… surely not.

The galvanic lights dimmed and the curtain twitched. An ‘ooh’ of anticipation gathered in the stalls below and those in the Circle leaned forward.

Instead of feeling excitement, the darkness let Earnestine’s recent worries intrude. Simply put, she was too young.

At twenty, she certainly didn’t feel like a little girl, but then she had never felt like a little girl. Recently, they’d been thrust into the desperate world of international affairs, vis–à–vis preventing an Austro–Hungarian faction from conquering the British Empire.

This, surely, was an experience that counted over and above the actual number of her birthdays. She had hoped that this service would be rewarded with the funds to mount an expedition to trace their Father and Mother’s last known whereabouts.

It didn’t and hadn’t.

Unfortunately, a twenty year old young lady was not considered responsible enough by the Foreign Office, the Royal Society, the British Archaeological Society or any of the other numerous clubs devoted to exploration. Leave it to the men, they explained patiently: which was all very well, she had no problem with that at all,
except that the men never did anything.

She was forming the opinion, quite strongly, that all they did all day in those clubs of theirs was sit around talking. Goodness only knew what they spent all that time discussing.

“No, no,” said Caruthers, “Darling captained in ‘99, and he’s a left–hander.”

“He has a beard though,” Uncle Jeremiah replied, “and Grace is right handed.”

“Yes, that’s all very well,” countered Caruthers, “but Grace retired in the series and Archie MacLaren took over.”

“Of the English team.”

“Yes, my point, and it was the Aussie, who had the moustache.”

The other issue, for Earnestine, was money.

The house in Zebediah Row was covered by an annuity put in place by Father and Uncle Edgar before they went exploring, but there was no arrangement for pocket money and they were down to their last shillings. The theatre sold cones of cockles, for example, but, unless one of the men offered, they couldn’t even share one between the three of them. (There was the emergency money in the Adventuring Kit, but no! They were not going on another adventure. Mother had been quite explicit:
no exploring, no trouble, no adventures…
so that had to stay there… just in case.)

So, in summary, Earnestine was not happy.

The solution, of course, was for one of them to marry. A man, even some callow youth aged sixteen, could control finances, organise expeditions
and
would be allowed to sit at the back with the adults.

Georgina had married: possibly well, for Merryweather had been a Captain, but now she was a widow. She was the middle sister, so Earnestine had been overstepped and was therefore destined to be a spinster. Without doubt, then, the family’s future rested firmly upon Charlotte’s shoulders. Earnestine turned to consider Charlotte, who was beautiful in a showy way with her long blonde hair and who was currently
pulling faces at some soldiers down in the stalls.

“Charlotte!”

Charlotte turned a sweet smile in Earnestine’s direction: “Ness?”

“Sit back.”

“But I won’t be able–”

“Sit! Back!”

Earnestine felt the nape of her neck burning. Charlotte was no doubt sticking her tongue out at Earnestine, but Earnestine refused to turn around and give the silly thing the satisfaction of seeing how cross she had made her elder and better. Captain Caruthers and Lieutenant McKendry wouldn’t be shocked, they knew Charlotte too well, but it meant that there’d be no bliss in her direction from either man.

Perhaps Major Dan was worth considering? He had, after all, a Major’s stipend and hadn’t actually met Charlotte.

The auditorium darkened and the galvanic lights came up on the stage. A hush and then applause rippled through the audience as the plump Master of Ceremonies, a jolly dandy in a dress suit, bounded from the wings.

“My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen,” he began. “Tonight, for your entertainment, for your exaltification, your edification and your entrepidation…”

His pause elicited an ‘ooh’.

“I don’t think those are words,” Earnestine said.

“Don’t spoil it, Ness,” Georgina whispered in reply.

“…your entrapulation.”

“See?”

“Ness!”

The Master of Ceremonies established and extended an edifice of excitement and exhilaration before, exhausted, he changed letter: “First, a Maestro of Magic, the Mage of Mañana, the Mephistopheles of Magnificence – do you want to know your future, madam? This man, this prestidigitator of precognition, can
and will.
Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, all the way from Moscow, the Master Malakov!!!”

Another formally dressed man entered to the Master of Ceremonies beckoning hand.

“Dames, Gospoda! And the spirits, the ethereal conveyors from the beyond, I bid thee welcome.”

The magician sported a Russian beard, piercing eyes and some vowels from Hackney, but he had a charisma that demanded attention. He strode across the stage, held his right hand to his forehead and invited the audience closer with his left.

“The spirits,” Malakov announced, “they are here, they can see the future. You madam, your name is… Ethel.”

“It is, it is,” said a woman in pink, turning round to tell everyone behind her row.

“You come from… Harrow.”

“I do, I do.”

“You – I see it now, clearly as if it were happening this very moment in front of me – you are going to meet a stranger, tall and dark.”

“Oh yes.”

Everyone in the stalls thought it incredible, but Earnestine was less impressed. I mean, she thought, how would one know if Ethel from Harrow was going to meet a tall, dark stranger? The audience applauded and Ethel was well pleased, but surely such an act should be congratulated only after it was demonstrably true. And men were either tall or short, light or dark, known or unknown, so surely by the law of averages, Ethel was bound to meet at least one tall, dark stranger with every eight men she met.

The Master Malakov turned his attention to the higher realms of the auditorium.

“I feel… is there someone who has lost a dear, dear person to them?”

Georgina stiffened next to Earnestine.

“Well, obviously, one’s only got to look at how many people are dressed in black,” Earnestine said, rather too loudly. She regretted it as the Master’s attention was drawn inexorably towards their box.

“Up here,” Malakov said. He pointed and a light from upon high shone in their faces. “Yes, a father… no, a husband… beginning with an eee… jaaa… aahhh.”

Georgina cried out: “Arthur!”

“Arthur, he was tall… a military man.”

Georgina lent forward: “Yes.”

“He’s here now.”

The audience applauded the arrival of the unseen military man.

“He wants to say something… yes… it’s coming through now… ‘I love you’.”

Georgina breathed out, a gasp of utter rapture: her cheeks shone in the light. She was crying: there was no excuse for such a display, Earnestine thought, and that went for all the women swooning in the stalls as well.

It was simply bad taste to remind those who had lost a loved one of their calamity. Part of the reason they were going out for the evening was to try and jolly Georgina out of the dark humour that had settled upon her, and not to have entertainers turn it into a spectacle for all and sundry.

Now, Georgina would just sink back into her black mood again, all because her husband had been murdered during that business with the Austro–Hungarians, which hadn’t been an adventure at all.

It was rotten luck, undoubtedly, but Earnestine had caught Georgina not exactly complaining, but sighing and gazing longingly into the distance and generally carrying on. All this sympathy for Georgina was one thing, but in truth she was jolly lucky to have had a husband at all. Earnestine suspected Georgina was deliberately being sick every morning to engender the appearance of romantically suffering. It came from reading Shelley.

The so–called Russian returned to the stalls and told a man on the third row that he would come into a fortune because of a red crow.

“Running in the two thirty,” shouted some wit.

The crowd laughed and the magician made his farewell with a bow.

Earnestine felt guilty: she was being unfair, deplorably so. Her worries were spilling over into meanness and she resolved to stop thinking ill of people and to be kinder.

“Would you like a sweetmeat?” Earnestine asked Georgina.

“Thank you,” Georgina replied. She took two: she was eating like a horse these days.

A hand and a military sleeve with frayed cuffs appeared from behind with a handkerchief for Georgina.

One should be more understanding, Earnestine thought. Yes, a little more consideration and a softer voice would be the right tonic for her sister.

“What’s the matter with you?” Georgina asked.

“Nothing at all,” Earnestine snapped.

Next was a comedy routine about the French Foreign Legion, which was distinctly bloodthirsty. Obviously Charlotte loved that, and jounced up and down braying in a vulgar manner.

This was followed by an equally uncouth turn: a singsong by a cockney lady, whose sharp voice was thankfully drowned out by the massed choir of the stalls.

Another magician showed genuine shimmering ghosts in a large room constructed on stage for the purpose, but their position in the box meant they couldn’t see properly. However, they did see an actual apparition clearly present, floating by the magician, which was extraordinary. He finished his act with sword swallowing and Charlotte named all the weapons used.

The crescendo of the cavalcade of coruscation – the Master of Ceremonies didn’t approach alliteration alphabetically – was a brass band and another singsong before a collection for Our Boys Across The Sea fighting the wicked Boer.

Eventually, thankfully, the interminable parade of nonsense came to an end.

Captain Caruthers held the door open as everyone made their way out. Earnestine was the last to reach it. Caruthers shifted, blocking her way.

“That magician: conjuring up the dead like that,” he said.

“If one believes in that sort of thing,” Earnestine said.

“Good old Merry, eh? Talking like that, in front of all those people and without a hint of a stutter.”

Earnestine remembered Captain Merryweather’s stutter with a smile: “And foretelling the future, but not in a way we can check.”

“The future, yes… Miss Deering–Dolittle?”

“Captain?”

He checked they weren’t being overheard: “I was wondering… that is to say. Two things. You’ve done a great service to the Empire over that Austro–Hungarian business. You were jolly brave, admirable in every way, so I thought that… there are other services… duties and wotnot… that is to say, what I mean is…”

“Captain?”

“I understand your situation. A young lady, who has yet to come of age, and therefore not eligible for her trust, is somewhat beholden to other men, so perhaps other men could…” he faltered, and then rallied: “You understand?”

“What are you trying to say?”

If Caruthers was actually bumbling towards a proposal – and it would take all evening at this rate – then everything would follow his suit like cards in Bridge. Georgina would come back into play naturally and Charlotte could be hidden up a sleeve until she was more sensible. This was a truly excellent turn of events.

But shouldn’t one feel all aflutter, Earnestine thought, as they did in those books Georgina read?

“I have something for you,” said Caruthers.