The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts (45 page)

He met her gaze: “But you sounded as if you really cared.” The young man shivered.

Georgina reached for his frock coat, but, instead, she picked up a khaki jacket and slipped it around her patient’s shoulders.

The guards had moved away, standing tall with their arms folded to intimidate another Temporal Peeler, a prisoner too. There were shouts, another struggle as the fervour of battle spilled out again, even here amongst the wounded and dying.

“Head up, shoulders back, and just walk out,” she said.

“What?”

“Make your mother proud.”

“I will.”

He stood above her and he could have been Arthur. He held out his uninjured hand: “Philip.”

She shook it.

“My son will be called Philip,” Georgina said, amazed.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Arthur, my husband, wanted it.”

“Then that’s all well and good.”

“Philip.”

“Yes.”

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

“Here,” and Georgina gave him the watch.

“What’s this?”

“Your father’s watch.”

“I never had a father.”

“Now you do.”

“Don’t cry… Mother.”

“I won’t.”

He went and she did feel proud. He walked towards the light and became a dark blurry shape in the bright rectangle of the doorway, and then he stepped into the bright sunlight beyond and was gone.

Georgina rubbed her eyes, dried her hands on her dress and then went about her rounds.

Miss Charlotte

Charlotte wasn’t sure when the clamouring in her head was drowned out by the clamour around her. She tried to stand, but stumbled against the wall. Her mouth tasted of iron, blood, and the side of her face where Mrs Frasier had struck her throbbed.

There was an explosion, a deep ‘
crump
’ of a noise, distantly.

She made her way… her leg gave under her and she faltered, but kept going.

Nearing the Rotunda, she was suddenly surrounded by retreating soldiers mixed with gentlemen.

“They’re putting up a hell of a fight!” said someone… McKendry. “Someone’s given them a second wind.”

Charlotte shook her head and winced. That woman had knocked her so hard, she was addled.

Suddenly, she was alone and standing in the Rotunda.

A gun cocked.

She saw, behind a makeshift barricade, a Temporal Peeler aiming a rifle at her. They’d made a redoubt to defend the Judiciary section. Her own revolver was in her pocket, the weight pulling on one side of the frock coat, but she’d never fish it out fast enough and she’d still not found any ammunition to load it.

So she raised her hands.

The man took two steps towards her.

Charlotte heard a woman’s voice above the shouts and noise. It was Mrs Frasier’s grating voice, shouting: “Fall back! Don’t let them draw you out of the defensive position.”

The man kept his aim, and then, hearing that woman shout again, he raised his gun and withdrew from the barricade.

Charlotte breathed again – that dreadful woman, Mrs Frasier, had saved her life.

The third body had ammunition for her revolver. Charlotte loaded, carefully filling each chamber with a round before closing the top break with a satisfying click. The cylinder spun without obstruction. She held the gun up and aimed, squinting along until the fore sight blade sat in the rear notch. She held it firm until the lanyard ring stopped swinging. It was big for her hand, but satisfying: a good gun, the Webley, Mk 1.

In saving her, Mrs Frasier had made a mistake; Charlotte would make sure of that. She had a score to settle.

She scuttled across, keeping her revolver at the ready, and disappeared into the Prison area. She zigzagged around the fallen bodies, until she reached the stairs, jarring herself badly on the second step when she skidded on some black powder spilt across the floor.

Down below was the cell block. The two desks were unmanned. The
Half–penny Marvel
with its Sexton Blake story lay crumpled on the floor.

At the end of the corridor, she found Number 19.

She knocked.

“Whatever it is, I won’t,” came a familiar voice.

“Uncle,” Charlotte whispered. “I’m here to rescue you.”

“Who’s that?”

“Charlotte… Charlotte Deering–Do–”

“Lottie!”

“Yes.”

“It’s not safe here, run along home at once.”

“Uncle!”

Charlotte didn’t wait for a reply, but hurried back to the Warder’s desk. She put her gun back in her pocket and searched the drawers until she found the keys. They were all big and heavy. The fourth one she tried unlocked her Uncle’s cell door.

For a moment, they looked at each other and then she was not sure if she was hugging him or he was hugging her. It hurt and it was good at the same time.

“Are you in fancy dress,” Uncle Jeremiah said, gentle mocking, “or is it this rampant bloomerism?”

“Oh, Uncle,” she said. Her jaw felt strange, loose.

“Nasty knock there, Lottie,” he said. “You’ve a big bruise forming. Did you fall out of the tree again?”

“No, Uncle, I fought Mrs Frasier.”

He nodded.

“Let’s get out of here,” Charlotte said.

“Yes, my dear, good idea.”

They made their way back to the Warder’s desk.

“There’s no–one on guard,” Charlotte said, “but it might be jolly tricky upstairs.”

“Filthy place, I’ll be glad to go, look at the dirt.”

“That’s gunpowder, Uncle.”

“Gunpowder?”

“Yes, it trails up the stairs and probably goes to wherever they’ve stored the gunpowder.”

“The Ultimate Sanction!”

“Uncle?”

“It was Charity’s… Mrs Frasier’s plan to blow everything up, hide the evidence. Without evidence to the contrary, the new laws would stand. Perhaps it would be for the best. Why did you say it would be tricky upstairs?”

“There’s a battle going on.”

“What? Derring–Do Club to the rescue, eh? Our brave Earnestine fighting them single–handedly?”

“Hardly,” said Charlotte, pulling out her revolver.

They went back up the stairs, Uncle Jeremiah having to take each step one at a time. Charlotte went back to help him and so was taken by surprise when a figure appeared at the top.

A gun cocked.

“Stay where you are!”

Standing silhouetted in the door was Mrs Frasier!

“Mrs Frasier, we–”

“What are you doing here?”

“Escaping.”

“I should hope so too, I’m going to blow the place up.”

Charlotte’s eyes adjusted to the light: Mrs Frasier was still bleeding from the cut to her face, but even so she looked younger.

“Ness!?”

“So you’d better get a move on and escape,” Earnestine said.

“But Ness, you’d never outrun gunpowder.”

“I’m meeting Triumph and Disaster!”

“What?”

“Kipling.”

“Now isn’t the time for homework.”

“Don’t be impertinent.”

“I’m not being impertinent.”

“I haven’t forgiven you for this!”

Earnestine showed her bloodied hand in reference to her face. In the moment that she did so, Charlotte drew her revolver.

Earnestine tensed her aim: they were ready to resume their battle. All those times before, when the elder had beaten the younger, told her off, locked her in the pantry.

“Girls.”

So softly had Uncle Jeremiah spoken and yet his words silenced them quicker than any screeching governess.

Earnestine spoke as if she only just seen him: “Uncle?”

“Say you are sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“To Lottie.”

Earnestine lips went tight and then, in response to years of training given her by her elders and betters, she said: “Sorry.”

“And Lottie.”

“Sorry Ness,” said Charlotte, and for once she meant it.

“I’d like to see Charity,” said Uncle Jeremiah.

“Charity? Who’s Charity?” Charlotte asked.

“Mrs Frasier,” said Earnestine. “I’m… she’s dead.”

Uncle Jeremiah reacted as if he had been struck and grabbed the banister: “No… no.”

Earnestine gave Charlotte a sharp look.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Charlotte whined.

There was gunfire again, distant.

Uncle Jeremiah collapsed until he was sitting on the cold steps: “Oh, no, no, please no.”

“She died bravely,” said Earnestine.

“She would,” and the old man looked over his half–moon glasses at Earnestine. “She was so like your mother. How could I resist? How? And that’s what drew me to her, you see. A chance to win her instead of my brother, damned Earnest – he had all the luck. And Charity was the spit of your mother, the very spit, and you…”

“It was your idea?”

“Just an idea, a tiny fancy, a thought… but she teased it out of me and I made such embellishments to entertain her, until we both believed in the impossible.”

Earnestine nodded.

“It was a story,” said Charlotte.

“Yes,” said Uncle Jeremiah, “a story I started, so it’s only fitting I should end it.”

He had a box of matches and he was sitting on the trail of gunpowder. He lit one, letting it flare and then turning the match so that the wood caught. It was mesmerising.

Uncle Jeremiah looked at Earnestine: “What’s the line of Kipling’s ‘
If–
’ after ‘If all men count with you, but none too much’?”

Earnestine frowned: “If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance…
RUN!
”

Earnestine grabbed Charlotte’s hand and pulled. They were up, showing a good pair of heels, as they raced up the stairs, sprinted down the corridor and ran for their lives.

To anyone and everyone they passed, friend and foe whichever side they were now on, they shouted: “Out, everyone out!”

Earnestine was first to the Chronological Conveyor and hopped from one foot to another looking for the control.

“How does it work!?”

“Up here!”

“No, stand there,” said Chief Examiner Lombard.

The two sisters stood on the dais as the gaunt man went to the control lectern. He yanked at a lever and the floor shot upwards with a hiss of hydraulics and a burst of light. Suddenly, the tawdry future corridor was replaced by the pristine paintwork of the past.

Captain Caruthers was there to greet them: “Lottie! Miss Deering–Do– You’re injured.”

“Never mind that, run for it.”

“We’re not beaten, we’ll never retreat.”

“They’ve lit the explosives!” Charlotte yelled. She grabbed Captain Caruthers by the hand and then they were all running for the exit.

“Clear! Fall back!” Caruthers shouted.

The soldiers and gentlemen scampered under the iron archway and scattered into the street.

“How far?” McKendry shouted.

Charlotte thought about the barrels and barrels of gunpowder: “How would I know, but I imagine we’re nothing like far enough yet, because it’ll be–”

The moment was etched on their memories by an overpowering flash like magnesium powder flaring above a camera. It seemed that they were frozen, held trapped in a picture already, as the colour leeched from the scene. Then, with savage abruptness, they were plucked from the ground, hurled sideways, and hammered by the noise of the explosion.

The future had been underground, so the blast went up. The walls of the factory held long enough to deflect the flying shrapnel upwards and then they failed, tumbling down…

… broken.

Epilogue

Mrs Frasier,

Houses of Parliament,

St. Margaret’s Street,

Westminster,

London.

Miss Deering–Dolittle,

12b Zebediah Row,

Kensington,

London.

My Dearest Earnestine,

If you are reading this, then I am dead. That does not matter. Hopefully we will become have become firm friends and allies over the many years to come. It is the work that is important. You must carry the torch into the future. You will undoubtedly discover our secrets: what was done and how. Please understand why. I am confident that you are pragmatic and possessing that abundant common sense needed to see our great work through to the end. It is for the greater good.

Yours with highest regard,

Mrs Marcus Frasier.

Miss Deering-Dolittle

Earnestine fought the impulse to scratch. The dueling scar on her face hurt so, especially when she was anxious. She was still angry with Charlotte.
I do not want to talk about it
, she’d insisted. She’d been tempted to put the daguerreotype without Charlotte up on the wall, but the original picture of them all at the theatre was back in its place in the drawing room.

There was a scream.

Everyone looked at the ceiling briefly.

“Shame about your party,” said Captain Caruthers.

“I’ll have other birthdays,” Earnestine replied.

“But you only come of age once.”

Another piercing scream ripped the very air.

“Any news of Lord Farthing?” Earnestine asked.

Caruthers shook his head: “He got clean away. There was a report that he’d been seen in Paris, but that came to nothing. It’s not the sort of news you want as a birthday present, I know. They’ve declared all the laws null and void, so that’s something.”