The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts (35 page)

“She doesn’t agree with me
yet
.”

“What if she never does?”

“Oh, I have a plan,” Mrs Frasier said, pointing the sheathed sword straight towards her, “I think, Georgina, it’s time you met Arthur Merryweather.”

Chapter XXI

Mrs Frasier

It was as if nothing had happened. Indeed nothing had happened, and it was all proceeding splendidly again.

Earnestine was in a cell like a naughty child to learn her lesson, Jones was taking Georgina to wait in the library and little Lottie, according to her report, wouldn’t be bothering anyone. The pieces were in position at last, she thought.

Mrs Frasier drew her sword. It felt familiar in her hand, the ridges of the handle and the central bulge meaning that her grip was firm. She touched the edge with her finger, felt the sharp point, and tested the balance – far, far better than she was used to – and an excellent weapon. All she had to ensure was that she followed through.

The blade fitted the scabbard well and the baldric went over her shoulder easily. The blade didn’t hang properly at first as the hilt couldn’t decide whether to lean over or behind the hard edge of her corset, but eventually, sliding the strap backwards and moving it outside her bosom, it found a natural lay. She made her way through the future to her office comforted by the slap and flick that the weapon made as she marched.

She had an appointment.

She checked her gold pocket watch just as a double knock resounded loudly on the door.

Mrs Frasier tidied her papers before calling out: “Come in.”

The door opened and Chief Examiner Lombard came in with another young Temporal Peeler, a young man with the start of a fine horseshoe moustache.

“Ma’am, this is Checker–”

“Ah! Come in, come in,” said Mrs Frasier, standing and coming around her desk with her hand extended. “It has been such a long time.”

The man shuffled, embarrassed, and shook his leader’s hand.

“You’ve been briefed?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Mrs Frasier smiled like a proud aunt: “If you are sure you can face her.”

“I can, I want to.”

“That’s my brave boy.”

“Ma’am,” said Lombard. “It’ll be time soon for Miss Deering–Dolittle.”

“Oh, yes, of course, I remember. She’s in her cell, isn’t she?”

“Yes, Ma’am… only a matter of time.”

“You wait for years and then it all happens at once.”

“Yes, Ma’am. The little bird will fly soon.”

“There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.”

“Hamlet,” said the young Checker.

“Act five,” the Chief Examiner said. “Well chosen, Ma’am, a date with destiny for all of us.”

“Are we ready?” said Mrs Frasier as she looked from one man to the other: they both nodded. “Then we should put our best foot forward.”

Miss Deering-Dolittle

The cell door and the jam weren’t aligned properly.

A fringe of light cast around one edge of the doorway, not enough to penetrate the cell, but a hint that the Scrutiniser hadn’t closed the door properly. Chief Lombard had arrived suddenly. Earnestine hadn’t caught the hurried conversation as they’d bundled her into the cell quickly and then trooped off. It was an appalling lapse.

On her toes, Earnestine stepped over and listened.

There was silence.

A cry, distant… maybe.

There was no handle on the inside of the door and she couldn’t get her fingers around the edge. It was heavy, cast iron. She tried high up and low down, even trying to find a gap under the door. It was no use. In frustration she thumped it and the tiny gap vanished with a heart rending clang. Call herself an Adventuress: she couldn’t even escape from an unlocked cell.

NO, it wasn’t an adventure!

She thumped the door again, punishing her hand because of her own foolishness. She was such a baby sometimes and–

The gap was back.

She put her fingers to the solid iron and pushed. When she let go, the door sprang back – just not enough.

She tried with both hands, and then again pushing opposite the massive hinges.

Oh, so close now, just… she broke a nail, but, by sixteenths of an inch, she eased the door open until she could squeeze the ends of her fingers into the gap and pull.

Outside, the corridor was empty.

Georgina had said that she and Charlotte had found out that Uncle Jeremiah was in Cell 19. Earnestine glanced at the doors to get her bearings and then she scooted down to the far end.

“Uncle! Uncle!” she hissed.

She peered through the tiny hole in the door and saw the magnified and distorted cell interior.

It was empty.

Just as she was about to leave, she saw the hatch and nestling at the bottom was a sparkling object. She picked it out and saw a thing of beauty, a rod with a jewel attached to the end. She tucked it into her belt.

Back she went, carefully, slipping into the shadows of the cell doorways, until she could peek around the corner.

The desk was empty.

The Warder was nowhere to be seen.

Despite her best attempts, she had been found ‘not guilty’ and yet they’d locked her up. Or rather not. She been taken to a cell and Mrs Frasier had been called away by Chief Examiner Lombard. This odd kerfuffle was why the cell door had not been locked. It had seemed to Earnestine strangely choreographed, moves on a chessboard being played out to some unknown end.

It felt like a trap.

Or was that destiny breathing down her neck?

But she’d been locked up, or could have been, so how could it be a trap?

They were all acting out some pre–arranged sequence, but then that was history. Wasn’t it?

She made it to the stone stairs and went up, step by step, craning her neck to see if anyone was above her. She couldn’t go any higher as the stairwell was blocked off. So, she had to get out on this level, where the Rotunda was effectively a crossroads linking the prison cells, the dormitories, the court rooms and ahead was Temporal Engineering with the Chronological Conveyor.

She heard some people approaching, so she slipped through a door held it open a crack, so it wouldn’t slam and so she could see who was passing.

It was Mrs Frasier striding along with Chief Examiner Lombard and a much younger Temporal Peeler.

“It is the essence of time travel,” Mrs Frasier said loudly, “that means one is always a step ahead.”

They’d gone.

She’d give it a couple of minutes just to be on the safe side.

Earnestine was in a cloakroom full of Temporal Peeler equipment and uniforms. She considered a disguise, but she’d not seen a female Peeler. Even so, she strapped on a sword and stole a pair of the peculiar white glasses. Amazingly she could see through them and the sword felt comforting, reminding her of the Duelling Machine back at the Patent Pending Office. She checked the blade, Sheffield steel, and it slipped easily back into its scabbard.

Peering through the gap again, she satisfied herself that the coast was clear and stepped out.

Mrs Arthur Merryweather

“You wanted your Arthur back… here he is.”

Georgina stood, pushing the chair back with her legs, and placed her hands in front of her. She was in the small library with all its heavy books, taken there by Mrs Frasier and Scrutiniser Jones, and told to wait. Scrutiniser Jones had stayed to keep an eye on her and his big bulk had blocked any chance of another escape attempt.

The man with Mrs Frasier was a youngster, barely a man, and yet she saw, vaguely, a hint in his features of the man she had fallen in love with.

“Who is this?” she asked.

“Arthur Merryweather.”

Georgina shook her head: “He isn’t my Arthur.”

“Oh, but he is,” Mrs Frasier said, and she turned to the young man, who stared at Georgina open mouthed. “Arthur, this is Georgina, Mrs Arthur Merryweather, your mother.”

“My… mother,” he said, shocked. He seemed to go pale in front of Georgina’s eyes.

“He was named after his father.”

He shook his head adamantly: “You aren’t my mother: my mother abandoned me, left me.”

Georgina swallowed, trying to think of something to say. Her legs felt hollow.

“You abandoned me!” said Arthur.

“I–”

“I was all alone at Magdalene Chase, left in that windswept desolation. If mother… if Mrs Fitzwilliam had not been there for me? She was more of a mother to me than you ever were.”

“Mrs Fitzwilliam? Who is Mrs Fitzwilliam?”

Mrs Frasier chuckled: “You knew her… know her as Mrs Falcone. She married the Colonel and brought up young Arthur as if he were her own.”

“Falcone – no!”

“Yes,
mother,
” said the young man. “You left me. All those years in that dark, dark place… a Bleak House. You left me there and Mrs Fitzwilliam was the only one who really cared for me.”

Mrs Frasier coughed.

“And Auntie Ness, of course,” he added.

“But why would I do such a thing?” Georgina asked.

“It was the great curse of the Deering–Dolittles, you went up the river,” said Mrs Frasier.

“No! I would not!”

“You are not my mother,” Arthur said. “I want nothing to do with you.”

The lad turned on his heel and with long strides left the room. He didn’t look back, he didn’t even close the door behind him and the dark rectangle in the wall emphasised the empty space.

“I would never take a child on an expedition,” Georgina wailed.

“Ever the Greek scholar, young Arthur, such a fine nephew,” said Mrs Frasier, not unkindly. “He doesn’t mean the family river, he means the Styx.”

Georgina gaped at the woman uncomprehendingly.

“What?”

“You died in childbirth.”

“I’m not pregnant… I would not… Arthur was the only one for me.”

“He is Merry’s, he is your son, you are with child now.”

Georgina was emphatic: “No.”

But she knew it was true, she knew the morning sickness for what it was and she had run from it, run to Dartmoor and Magdalene Chase, and all the time she’d been running towards this other Arthur. This apparition of her future hadn’t been a ghost come to haunt her, but a living man made of flesh and blood, her flesh and blood, her Arthur’s flesh and blood.

The moment he’d said ‘you are not my Mother’, she had felt something move inside her, something alive and real, not a kick as such, but a feeling, and with it came a solid and certain knowledge.

Mrs Frasier confirmed it: “You died bringing young Arthur Merryweather into the world.”

Chapter XXII

Mrs Frasier

Juggling: keeping three balls in the air, but she’d dropped one. Scrutiniser Jones was taking Georgina back to her room and by now Earnestine would be…

Mrs Frasier checked her gold pocket watch.

Time – that was the key.

She checked her silver watch.

Lord Farthing was taking the laws from the House of Lords to the House of Commons, a short walk down two corridors in the Palace of Westminster, with its many fancily dressed errand boys rushing back and forth. It was going through. He’d rung on the contraption and Mrs Frasier knew it was working. They’d baulked at some of it, of course, but the heavy, inexorable logic of history had forced it along. One law, one vote and a whole raft of changes would become legally binding. The future would be assured as the Sovereign’s pen moved across the vellum.

Mrs Frasier checked the sword slid from its scabbard easily. There were still dangers, it wasn’t in the bag.

Yet.

Earnestine was – she checked her pocket watch again – why didn’t Farthing send a message? There were enough of their agents now for someone to come via the Chronological Conveyor. Or was Lord Farthing making his move early? No, she thought. The bill had to pass a first and second reading, that was why. These things took time.

The man had tried to assassinate her: he’d thought of Earnestine as the serpent’s egg and so had sought to kill her in the shell. Calpurnia, wife of Caesar, so afeared of portents of the future.

She felt a rage: much like Boudicca of the Iceni in her painting as that Queen charged down on the Romans, a woman defeating men with scythes on her wheels. If only things could be that simple.

Did Farthing know she suspected him?

He understood that she didn’t have to rely on thunderstorms and omens: she could simply read a history book to know all and that should make him cautious. Or was he betting on time’s mutability? He couldn’t move until this day was over, could he? This date in history, when the law was passed.

Some dates were fixed: one always remembered where one was. The 22nd June a few years ago, when the Queen celebrated her Diamond Jubilee, or the 17th May, when one heard the news of the relief of the Siege of Mafeking, for instance.

Beware the Ides of March and remember, remember the Fifth of November.

She should prepare the Ultimate Sanction just to be safe. Safe! All these people were her responsibility… but so was the future.

Time.

She must be patient.

The young Earnestine was a concern.

Mrs Frasier checked her watch and decided she’d left it long enough. She checked the straps of her baldric and then walked as calmly as she could.

As she went down a corridor, through the Rotunda and along another corridor, she realised that her journey mirrored that of the law passing along the Peers Corridor, the Central Lobby and then along the Commons Corridor.

She entered the Temporal Engineering section, where she’d caught one sister: time to catch another.

Miss Deering-Dolittle

Earnestine reached the Chronological Conveyor with its raised dais, brass railings and control lectern. Lying on the floor next to the device was her old umbrella. She picked it up, wondered what to do with it and how on Earth it came to be lying there. She placed it on one of the hooks fitted into the wall.