The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts (34 page)

There was a guffaw from the Public Gallery at the ludicrousness of Earnestine’s assertion. The young lady went red, which made her appear far more youthful than her twenty biological years.

“Please, Your Honour, forgive her,” said Mrs Frasier. “I was impetuous in my youth.”

“If Mrs Frasier’s word cannot be questioned, then my word cannot be questioned,” Earnestine said.

“My dear,” said the Judge, “we take Mrs Frasier’s word, the elder of our Earnestines as it were.”

“It is foolish of us to argue,” said Mrs Frasier. “Again.”

“Obviously we did. Are. We can’t both win this argument.”

Mrs Frasier considered Earnestine carefully, weighing up the options: “You are saying that one of us is Triumph and the other Disaster.”

“Yes,” said Earnestine. “If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken.”

Ah, she’s got it, Mrs Frasier realised: “Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.”

The Judge interrupted: “I beg your pardon, Mrs Frasier.”

“We’re quoting Kipling, Your Honour.”

“Our sister, Charlotte,” Earnestine said, “has been removed from history.”

“I know,” said Mrs Frasier.

Earnestine pounced on this: “How can you suddenly know?”

“When our sister Georgina mentioned it, I decided to read the report.”

“Oh, but it was by you? This is murder, Your Honour.”

“Habeas Corpus!” said Mrs Frasier. “Show me the body!”

“But my sister… our sister! Do you have no pity?”

“Sacrifices have to be made,” said Mrs Frasier. Why wouldn’t the silly girl
understand
?

“You–”

“I could do nothing, and even if I could, weighed against the survival of the human species, what is the life of one man? Or child? Not just this generation or yours, but for all generations to come from now until time eternal.”

Mrs Frasier pinched the bridge of her imperial nose. She was getting a headache, strong, powerful and full of those flashing lights that somehow whirled inside her cranium. She smoothed down her dress, pulled herself together and faced the young Earnestine for another round, but the child had no more fight in her. She was like a drowning kitten, helpless and forlorn.

“We must stand together,” Mrs Frasier said, “now more than ever. The point of changing events is to bring about a better outcome.”

“Here, here,” came a shout from the Public Gallery.

Mrs Frasier smiled: “Earnestine, it’s for your own good.”

“That would be your own good.”

“Yes! And for the good of all.”

“God Bless Mrs Frasier,” came another shout from above. “God Bless Mrs Frasier.”

The saying was taken up, repeated, and culminated in applause.

Mrs Frasier held up her hand and a hush descended.

“I was charged with perverting the course of justice,” she looked around the assembly and it was as if she were addressing each person individually. “I pleaded ‘guilty’, when I was not of age to do so, but now, today, when perverse justice is being swept aside by true justice, I can at last honestly change my plea to ‘not guilty’.”

“Very good, very good,” said the Judge. “Clerk, upon appeal, I say, upon appeal.”

“As I give myself a second chance, so we give the world a second chance.”

Miss Deering-Dolittle

Earnestine jumped up, shouting to make herself heard above the clapping: “But, but–”

“No, my dear,” said the Judge, and he pointed towards Mrs Frasier. “You have spoken.”

The Jury huddled together.

Earnestine felt like a told–off child. All her arguments were nothing, and generated nothing more than a ‘there, there’ and a pat on the head. She thought that Mrs Frasier, remembering exactly how this had made her feel, would have been more sympathetic. It was so unfair.

“Members of the Jury,” said the Judge, “have you reached a verdict?”

“We have, Your Honour.”

“Is it unanimous?”

“It is, Your Honour.”

“And what is that verdict?”

“Not guilty.”

There was applause again from the Public Gallery.

“Mrs Frasier is not guilty,” said the Judge. “Clerk, note it down, I say, note it down.”

The Clerk picked up his pen and then noticed that he’d already inscribed the letter ‘N’ by Earnestine Deering–Dolittle’s name.

Mrs Frasier smiled: she was happy.

Mrs Arthur Merryweather

Whatever Earnestine was doing in the courtroom, Georgina thought, she was generating an excellent distraction. Everyone had left the prison area sometime back, either to cram into the Public Gallery or to hover nearby. This might be her chance.

She gripped the umbrella. If she met anyone, she’d just say she was returning Earnestine’s property. She replayed a phrase or two over in her mind like a voice on a wax cylinder, and it sounded just as unconvincing.

When she reached the Rotunda, Mrs Frasier appeared from the courtroom, flanked by Peelers with a downtrodden Earnestine in her wake. They marched through, turning left into the Prison area.

“Move along now,” Chief Examiner Lombard announced.

With mumbles and complaints, the crowd moved away, filtering along to the accommodation area with its canteen and smoking room.

Georgina let the crowd push her to one side, closer and closer to the entrance to the Temporal Engineering section.

Chief Lombard checked the area, his height enabling his gaunt face to loom over people’s heads. He checked right and left, saw Georgina, looked back to the court room.

Georgina seized the moment, hunched low and sidled behind a loitering workman and slipped down the corridor towards the engineering area.

Did he see her?

She mustn’t look back.

He would see her, surely.

She glanced.

Saw his face.

Even so, she nipped around a corner, pressed herself against the wall, and waited, panting with dread.

He’d seen her, definitely seen her.

Any moment.

He couldn’t have missed her.

She heard something: a foot fall, the clink of sword against buckle, breathing?

And then she’d be hauled off to the court, tried, found guilty and then she’d meet the same fate as poor Charlotte. She wondered what the Latin inscription on her brass plaque would be.

She heard a ruckus behind her.

Don’t look.

She twisted her hands around the umbrella handle.

Don’t look.

She looked – the Rotunda was empty.

She wasted no more time and moved further along. Soon she reached the Chronological Conveyor itself. There was the dais, surrounded by a brass railing, and there was the technician’s post. It was deserted. Her luck was holding out.

She went over to the control lectern.

The surface was covered in a bewildering array of brass dials that could be turned for a date and time. The main slider wouldn’t budge, it needed unlocking somehow. In the centre was a hole with a screw thread cut into it. She remembered that something had caught the light when the technician had operated it. Something like… but she didn’t know.

However, she was at the machine, so surely she had command of time.

She looked beside the control lectern and found a sword hanging there, but no extra temporal devices. She added Earnestine’s umbrella to a spare hook, so that her hands were free.

One person, at the right moment, could alter history. She could erase the Chronological Committee, rescue Charlotte, save Arthur… anything. All she needed to know was the moment in time when the smallest of actions would tip the balance.

Arthur first, she decided, and then he’d know what was for the best.

There were dials to turn, so she did so, slowly at first and then with greater rapidity. They were linked together so that the 18th March 1975 was a Tuesday… Wednesday for the 19th and…

“Bother!”

She was going the wrong way.

She turned them in the other direction moving the dates back from the future… no, from the current present, and then into this era’s past.

She must go back to the moment before Arthur was killed.

But when?

Exactly.

If she changed history, stopped him from leaving Magdalene Chase, then they’d never meet. He’d think her some mad woman if she just turned up: ‘Oh, Arthur dear, we’re going to fall in love, but you mustn’t go to Austro–Hungary.’ All those moments abutted perfectly, one event following the other, and to change one link would surely cause everything to fall apart.

They could burst in at the last, critical moment – she was sure she would be able to find her way – and then she could save him. She would save the brave Captain Merryweather, but then that would mean that she would see herself.

No, that wouldn’t do at all.

Major Dan!

No–one had known where he had been on that fateful day. She could go back the day before and find him, explain and then they could be waiting to save Arthur.

But then what would she do as Arthur saved his bride, her earlier self, while being blissfully unaware of his ex–widow. Perhaps she could go and live on an island knowing he was safe and that would be enough. Would she be jealous of her younger self? If she never saw him again, how would she know he was safe?

Perhaps Charlotte first?

She’d been removed from history, so it must be easier to change those events back again. The proper moment would be just before whenever it was that the Temporal Peelers removed her.

Or was it the instant before they set off back from their time to the past?

She had access to the machine, she could control the destinies of men and nations, but she lacked the knowledge to use it properly.

She stopped turning and let the whirring dials come to rest: Friday 25th August 1922. It was as useless a date as any other she could think of.

Perhaps she could escape? Jump to the 1920s, change her name and stay there. But she would not be able to reset the machine once she was in the Chrononauts’ past, so they’d know exactly when, and presumably where, she materialised. They could simply go back to Thursday 24th August 1922 and wait for her to appear.

Or just an hour beforehand with this other panel and its clocks and wotnot.

A critical minute would be all that was needed.

She could go back to when this infernal contraption was invented and smash it up before it was ever used. Everything would then return to normal. All the erased people would be restored to life and daguerreotype.

And how would she operate the controls when she didn’t know how and she had to stand on the dais
at the same time
?

Should her first action be to come back to this very moment and operate the controls for herself?

But she wasn’t here to save herself.

She glanced at the dais: she didn’t appear.

And what would happen to this version of herself afterwards?

But the Chronological Conveyor wasn’t invented in the past, it was invented in the future. A railway line only works if it has two stations, so how did the future create a destination conveyor in the past?

“Tricky deciding, isn’t it?”

Georgina turned, recognizing Earnestine’s voice.

“All of time, every age, every moment, every historic event… but how to choose,” said Mrs Frasier.

Georgina fumbled around the control lectern, grabbed Earnestine’s umbrella hanging and then saw a sword. She dropped the umbrella and snatched down the weapon, drew it and faced the woman.

“That’s not a very polite way to greet your sister.”

“I’ll use this if I must.”

Mrs Frasier’s lips tightened in that familiar ‘oh–so’ superior way: “Really?”

“Yes,” Georgina said firmly, “so you just come and operate this while I stand on the dais.”

Mrs Frasier folded her arms.

“I’m warning you,” Georgina said, and she took a step forward, the sharp tip pointing waveringly at Mrs Frasier’s throat. “I don’t have all day.”

Quick as lightning, Mrs Frasier swiped the sword to one side and then, stepping close, she struck Georgina’s wrist hard.

The sword clattered away.

Mrs Frasier used the back of her other hand to slap Georgina across the face. The young lady fell, more out of shock than the actual impact.

“Oh, dear,” said Mrs Frasier, “another interfering Derring–Do.”

Georgina put her hand to her mouth, tasting blood.

“Jones! Get the sword.”

Scrutiniser Jones appeared: Georgina hadn’t even realised he was there. With a scraping noise, the man, agile for his bulk, picked up the fallen weapon. It looked like a hat pin in his huge hands.

“What were you thinking?” Mrs Frasier said.

“I was going to undo whatever you did to Charlotte.”

“This Charlotte again!”

“Yes, so… please.”

“Just Charlotte?”

Georgina knew what she meant. This older Earnestine could see straight through her just as the younger Earnestine knew when she was bluffing in Bridge.

“I wanted to save my husband.”

Scrutiniser Jones gave the sword to Mrs Frasier. She slashed it back and forth testing its weight. Clearly she knew what she was doing, whereas Georgina hadn’t had a clue. Sword fighting looked easy when she’d seen it in the theatre, Shakespeare and so forth, but the reality was so much harder. Mrs Frasier slipped the blade back into its scabbard, but Georgina was under no illusions that this made her any safer.

“Are you going to kill me?” she asked.

“What do you think?”

“I’m not afraid.”

“It’s not the lack of fear that counts; it’s the controlling of one’s fear.”

“Charlotte, me… you can’t remove everyone.”

“Oh, I think I can,” said Mrs Frasier, “there are only thirty million people in the country, a hundred million in the Empire and, say, four times that in the whole world.”

“You’re mad,” said Georgina. “Your own sisters! You’ve already erased Charlotte, if you
un
make me that would leave only Ness.”

“And then there were two,” said Mrs Frasier.

“One!”

“Ness and myself.”

“That’s one.”

“Counted twice.”

“She doesn’t agree with you.”