The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts (43 page)

Lombard acted with competence and deposited a bucket of cold water over the struggling girl, turning the scene from an amazing spectacle into a damp farce.

“Enough!” Mrs Frasier shouted, clapping her hands now for attention. “Back to work! Bring her.”

She turned and marched away.

Chief Examiner Lombard grabbed Earnestine by the scruff of her neck and hefted her up like a naughty child.

Miss Deering-Dolittle

Earnestine looked somewhat dishevelled, her skirts burnt and ripped, and she was bent double, but she was alive after flying into the sky. She tried pulling her dress into some shape in an attempt to restore her dignity. Her hair was a mess, scorched and soaked.

“You have to flee,” Earnestine said.

“Why?”

“Mrs Frasier, you are about to be attacked.”

“Cowards run.”

“A wise man lives to fight another day.”

“We can still win.”

“How?”

“By writing the history,” Mrs Frasier said. “There are rumours that this is fake, but no proof. We’ve won it in the courts and in parliament, it’s law. If we remove all trace of the illusion, then it will stand.”

“That’s mad.”

“We just need a little more time,” said Mrs Frasier.

“You haven’t got any more time.”

“Are you with us? Once it’s all gone, then neither friends nor foes can hurt me.”

“If all men count with you,” said Earnestine.

Mrs Frasier grinned, she clearly liked this sparring: “None too much.”

Earnestine put out her hand, and Mrs Frasier took off her sword and handed it to her.

“Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno,” said Earnestine, taking it.

Mrs Frasier laughed: “Un pour tous, tous pour un.”

“You know it.”

“I played Milady de Winter once,” said Mrs Frasier. “Villains are always the best parts.”

“It could be our Club motto.”

“We’ll make Dumas proud.”

“Or Kipling: Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd.”

“Yes, Earnestine, you almost make me believe we can pull this back from the brink.”

“We can try,” said Earnestine as she held out her hand: “Welcome to the Derring–Do Club.”

Mrs Frasier’s grip was as strong as Earnestine’s own.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome… what are your orders?”

“Get to the conveyor,” said Mrs Frasier. “Stop anyone from finding out.”

Earnestine saluted: “Aye, aye, Ma’am.”

“Call me Charity.”

“I’ll call you Earnestine.”

Mrs Arthur Merryweather

The boy had waited with the hansom cab and thankfully knew enough about horses to drive them back towards Battersea. They dropped Charlotte off nearby, although Georgina had contrived to keep her some distance away. The girl was still in men’s clothing and wearing a sword belt, but she’d found a coat from somewhere.

“You’ll just observe,” Georgina told her.

“Yes.”

“From a distance.”

“Yes.”

“Promise.”

“Cross my heart,” said Charlotte, “and hope to die.”

Georgina asked the boy to take her across the river and on to Captain Caruthers’s Club. It seemed a long journey, and then they were there.

“Do I get another sovereign, Miss?” he asked.

“It’s probably worth sticking around,” Georgina admitted. “These gentlemen can be very generous.”

Georgina entered, and the Porter intercepted her.

“Captain Caruthers, please.”

“Again?”

“Yes.”

The Porter sent the Junior Porter running upstairs.

“You are becoming quite the regular, Ma’am.”

“I’ll have to take out a subscription.”

“Not to a Gentleman’s Club, Ma’am.”

Captain Caruthers came running down the stairs, followed by the faithful McKendry. Others dressed in regimental red or evening black gathered at the top of the staircase.

“Mrs Merryweather,” he said. “Any news?”

“There’s gunpowder under this club.”

“So the Porter told me, I didn’t believe it–”

“It’s there!”

“So I looked.”

“Lord Farthing placed it there.”

“Lord Farthing!”

“To kill you all.”

“To help Mrs Frasier… that makes no sense.”

“If he disposes of the dissenters here, you, me, Mac, Mrs Frasier, Ness, Lottie, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all, he can control the Chronological Committee. Whoever says what’s in the future is the one who says what happens now.”

“McKendry?”

The Lieutenant came to attention: “Sir.”

“Let’s raid this Chronological Committee.”

“Surely, we need orders.”

“In that case, I order you.”

McKendry smiled: “Right ho, Sir.”

Quickly, McKendry signalled to the others and they departed, hailing cabs as they went outside. The bustle was efficient and military.

“Good,” said Caruthers. “We’ll make this our base of operations, field hospital and so forth, if it comes to a fight.”

“What about me?” Georgina demanded.

“You’re to stay here. Ted, keep her here.”

“Sir, this is a Gentleman’s Club,” complained the Porter.

“Then be gentlemanly.”

“I suppose you can stay in the Ladies Drawing Room, Miss,” the Porter said.

“Ma’am,” Georgina said, before turning to Caruthers. “I can help.”

“Bandages and so forth,” said Caruthers. “I’m afraid a woman in your condition should stay at home.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Captain… what do you mean ‘a woman in my condition’?”

“You’re expecting.”

“Expecting?”

“Do I need to spell it out?”

“Yes, I think you should.”

“You’re expecting,” he said, and then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “That is to say, as in… you’re pregnant.”

Georgina laughed: “Don’t be foolish! Or impertinent! That was all a ruse. I’m not pregnant. How can I be pregnant? I’m not married.”

“You were married.”

“Yes,” said Georgina patiently. “But I’m not now, I’m widowed.”

“But you did sleep with him.”

“That one night… and we did more than sleep, we… oh my!”

And Georgina sat down, not because she was pregnant or from shock, but because she felt so utterly bewildered: pregnant, not pregnant and now pregnant again for sure. So she simply sat in the Gentlemen’s Club, while the men went in carriages to save the day.

It was hardly the stuff of Derring–Do.

How could she have been so foolish as to not realise?

All those visits to the Natural History Museum, all that interest in the theories of evolution and Darwin’s Natural Selection, and yet she had failed utterly to apply that knowledge to her own species and to herself. She still thought, ludicrously, of storks flying with bundles of joy and discoveries under gooseberry bushes.

Charles Darwin himself had written that light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history. Of course, man reproduced in the same manner.

Oh, how foolish, how utterly blind!

Arthur’s watch felt solid in her hand, round and comforting, like an egg, and it seemed the only real thing in the world, so she held on to it tightly, missing him.

Miss Charlotte

Charlotte reached the factory at the same time that Captain Caruthers and Lieutenant McKendry arrived with five or six carriage loads of soldiers, some in uniform and others still in their dress suits. The hastily assembled militia formed up and there was a hurried negotiation between the officers to find out who was the more senior.

Caruthers went down the line: “Be ready for anything,” he said.

Charlotte fell into step behind him.

“This is going to be jolly spiffing,” she said.

“Perhaps,” said Caruthers, “but no place for a child.”

No, no, surely they weren’t… but they were, and she wasn’t going to cry, but it was so unfair, utterly unfair.

“But I helped with the Austro–Hungarian business,” she said, conscious that her voice had gone up by an octave.

“And that was no place for a young lady either… Mac.”

Lieutenant McKendry came over at the double.

“Where did you get that coat?” Caruthers asked.

“It was cold,” said Charlotte, shifting her sword belt around to hide it beneath her jacket.

“What have you got inside?”

“Nothing.”

He frowned: why did adults never believe her?

“Mac, make sure she’s on her way,” said Caruthers. “We’ll move when the second group arrive.”

“Come on, Lottie,” said McKendry, and he led her away, and waited until she was all the way down the street and turning the corner. When Charlotte looked back, Captain Caruthers had led Major Dan’s Boys along the wall towards the iron arch. They took up position just outside the gate to the factory yard.

Unfair – they had all the fun and she was sent home to kick her heels. Mrs Frasier had locked her in a store room, so she was entitled to her revenge – surely? But she had no choice, and turned the corner trudging as much as she could. She wasn’t going to look back, she decided, she wasn’t going to give McKendry the satisfaction, except… that was strange.

Behind her, set in the wall was a door.

On it was a small symbol, a sundial. She glanced up at the sun, then squinted past the bright, orange smudge in her eyesight at her own shadow. She had no real idea of the time, except that the sundial wasn’t at anything like the right angle to work.

She fished into her pocket and took out the second key, the one that had been on the barrel in the cellar next to the handcuff keys. There was a piece of string threaded through the loop end of the key to hold a fob. It said, simply ‘
The Future
’.

Oh, this was a side door.

This door must lead into the Chronological Committee’s base.

And Charlotte had the key.

She should tell Caruthers about this way in, but he’d said to go home and he was busy and she’d found it and there wasn’t time anyway.

Charlotte glanced right and left, and then–

She had to wait for an omnibus to clatter past, its horses fretting with their load.

Right and left again, and then she nipped across the road to the doorway. She listened, but the noise of the street was too loud and the door too solid.

Huddling in the recess, so no–one could see, she checked her revolver – empty. She shouldn’t have fired all those bullets at Scrutiniser Jones when he was making a run for it. At least she had her sword.

Nothing ventured, she thought, and she pushed the key into the door. It turned, easily, and she went inside.

There was an office with oak panelling and a large desk with a green leather inlay. On the wall was an oil painting of Boadicea in a scene that was jolly stirring.

Charlotte went on and found herself somewhere near the Chronological Conveyor. She could see out of the windows of the corridor to the main entrance. Outside, in the central area, Peelers were busy unloading barrels off carts. They rolled them along and then down a chute.

Slipping around the glass wall of the Pepper’s Ghost apparatus, she went along the other dilapidated corridor and past the identical control lectern. The view from these windows, although superficially the same, ended with a backcloth expertly painted with buildings and the sky.

Turning round, she saw the other dais room. It was an extraordinary contraption, but even so, now she knew how it worked, she was amazed that she had been taken in at all.

There were a few barrels placed against the wall. When she went over and examined them she found them full of gunpowder. The grain size suggested it was artillery grade.

If she could find more of it, she could blow the place up, she thought and sniggered. That would show Mrs Frasier and her Temporal Peelers.

She made her way through Temporal Engineering towards the Rotunda, sneaking down some stairs to get to the ‘future’ version of the building. The gunpowder must be stored somewhere there, she thought, and sure enough, she found some more stacked by a wall.

She split the top of a barrel with her sword, and then glanced around wondering what was the best method to go about this. She tried picking up the barrel, but this one was too big. She needed a priming charge like the one she’d used earlier on the door.

“Charlotte!”

It was Earnestine.

“Ness, help me here.”

“I can’t allow this,” Earnestine said.

“We’ve got to stop them,” said Charlotte. “And besides, it’ll be such an explosion.”

“What they are doing here is too important.”

“Ness?”

“Charlotte, put that down.”

“Ness?”

“Put that down
at once!
”

“No.”

“Do as you are told.”

“No.”

“Charlotte Deering–Dolittle, you are going to be in a great deal of trouble when we get home.”

“I don’t care.”

“Will you–”

“You’ve always told me to do what is right, and, surely, the Defence of the Realm is important.”

“Then I will just have to teach you a lesson.”

“No you won’t.”

“Yes, I will.”

“Won’t.”

“Will.”

“Won’t.”

“Wi–”

“Don’t be childish, Ness.”

“I am not!” Earnestine drew a sword: “How dare you talk to me like that? I’m your elder and better.”

“Elder, but not better,” said Charlotte. She backed away and raised the sword she’d used to open the barrel. “I dare.”

The two sisters faced each other, weapons drawn.

“Did you use the duelling machine?” Earnestine said.

“Edgar, yes, every day, even when you were in the future.”

“Edgar?”

“It looked like Uncle Edgar.”

Earnestine laughed: “Oh, it does.”

“Which proves that I applied myself.”

“The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Did you get to the tenth level?”

“I did.”

“The Deutsche Fechtschule?”

“Yes.”

“The Fiore Furlano de Civida–”

“I did them all, Ness! I just didn’t work out how to pronounce them.”

“Well, Lottie, you clearly aren’t the expert you claim to be.”

“We’ll see… en garde.”

“No, Lottie, I cannot allow you to move on to practical aspects until you have a proper grounding in the academic side.”