The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts (7 page)

“Number three,” said Madam Waggstaff.

“Oh, perfect,” said the Gentleman.

Charlotte wondered what to do until Madam Waggstaff waved her to a door. This led along a passage with other doors on either side, but none of them had numbers. Charlotte had actually been to the Savoy when her sister, Georgina, had married Captain Merryweather, and that had been an altogether different arrangement.

“This one, my lovely,” said the Gentleman.

“Thank you,” said Charlotte, remembering her Ps and Qs. “Well, that will–”

The man came in too!

“A little entertainment if you will.”

“Ah, of course,” said Charlotte. She understood: clearly Madam Waggstaff’s clients were expected to keep one another amused in the evenings. She looked around for the pianoforte, but there was only a bed in the room. This was probably a lucky escape for the Gentleman as Charlotte hadn’t practised her scales, or her violin, in simply ages.

The man sat on the bed loosening his cravat as he ogled at Charlotte expectantly.

“I can recite the Henry Vth speech before Agincourt or Queen Elizabeth’s before the Armada,” Charlotte suggested.

“You can take off your clothes.”

“Of course, I… I beg your pardon?”

“No need to be shy with me, my lovely.”

He reached across and grabbed hold of her.

Charlotte fought back, but he was a big man and pulled her down upon the covers. The bed creaked and complained, jiggling up and down upon its springs. He was on top of her, fumbling for her undoings. Charlotte jabbed with her elbow, slipped out from under him and fell into an uncomfortable heap on the floor.

“Come now!” the man said, getting high–pitched, “Madam Waggstaff will beat you if you aren’t nice to me.”

Charlotte’s hand brushed against a sturdy handle. She grabbed it, lifted it and swung with all her strength. There was a mighty clang when the heavy metal object connected with the man’s pudgy face. He went down. The weapon was full of liquid, which went everywhere, cascading down onto the fallen body.

“Euurghh,” said Charlotte. She dropped the pot. “Yuk! Yuk!”

The door burst open: “What’s going on?” Madam Waggstaff demanded.

“He attacked me!”

“He did?”

“Yes,” said Charlotte, “he tried to take my clothes off.”

Madam Waggstaff’s mouth dropped open. The few teeth she had were rotten and she reeked of Juniper cordial.

“You ungrateful girl, you’ve killed him!”

The man groaned on the floor to give lie to that statement.

“He attacked me!” Charlotte repeated.

“Of course he attacked you,” Madam Waggstaff wailed.

“He came into the room! He attacked me. So I hit him. With the chamber pot.”

“We’ve only your word against his, and our Mister Foxley here is a proper Gentleman, Right Honourable and everything. Wait until Mister Waggstaff hears about this, you wicked girl.”

“I’m not doing lines.”

“Don’t you know what to do with a Gentleman Caller?”

“Of course, I do,” said Charlotte, indignantly, because she did know. “You offer whiskey or brandy, instead of sherry.”

“You’ve not been with a man! Oh, heavens protect us. You stupid girl, I could have got twenty five pounds for you, more at auction.”

“What are you talking about?” Charlotte was shouting now, partly in panic, but mostly because nobody here seemed to understand what she was saying.

“Where do you think you are?”

“I’m in a bed and breakfast,” she answered.

There was a sudden terrible splintering of wood, followed by screams.

“What now!” Madam Waggstaff demanded.

The commotion outside spilled along the corridor. A girl, dressed only in her undergarments, rushed past the open door.

“Odette, Odette!” Madam Waggstaff stormed into the corridor and then immediately backed away.

A figure appeared, silhouetted in the doorway: he was tall, dressed in a black frock coat and wearing a tall top hat. He was gaunt, clean shaven and wearing the most peculiar glasses imaginable. They were white and made him look blind, but he could clearly see through the slits that created a lattice or grid across the blank lenses.

Charlotte retreated too.

He stepped into the room, followed by another identically dressed man. They could have been twins.

Another appeared: triplets?

“We keep a clean house,” Madam Waggstaff was saying. “We paid the Sergeant at the station his money, always regular.”

The lead man replied in a deep voice: “We’re not the local constabulary.”

“Who are you then?”

“I am Chief Examiner Lombard of the Chronological Division, and this is Checker Rogers.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were Temporal Peelers. Is it readies you’ll be wanting?”

“No, woman, we’re not interested in your bordello,” said the Chief Examiner. “Leave us to our business.”

Checker Rogers stooped over the prostrate gentleman and felt for a pulse.

“Alive?” asked the first, Lombard.

“Yes,” said the second, Rogers, as he sniffed his own fingers suspiciously.

“Then arrest him.”

Checker Rogers dragged the body towards the passageway until the third man helped him. Metal clattered as they did so and Charlotte noticed their cavalry swords hanging from belts fixed around their frock coats.

“You can’t take him,” Madam Waggstaff complained. “He’s a Member of Parliament.”

“He’s covered in piss,” the third man complained.

“Excuse me, Sir,” Charlotte said.

Chief Examiner Lombard loomed over her; the top of his hat nearly scraping the ceiling.

“What?”

“Thank you for coming to my aid.”

“We didn’t come to help some strumpet.”

“Well, even so, I’m grateful… strumpet? No, I’m not a strumpet.”

But the man had gone.

Charlotte was not entirely convinced she knew what a ‘strumpet’ was, but it didn’t sound good. It might, she realised, refer to one of those unfortunate fallen women, whom the Reverend Long insisted had brought all their misfortunes down upon themselves and that
you young ladies will certainly go the same way if you don’t blah–blah–blah.
He didn’t explain what a ‘fallen woman’ actually was, unless he did so between the middle of his sermon and the inevitable ‘Charlotte, sit up’ that came before the end.

And, Charlotte realised, she could not be a fallen woman, because, even after being attacked, she was the one still standing and the man they’d just carted away had been the one on the floor.

“What are you doing?” thundered another man’s voice.

There were muffled replies.

Charlotte sneaked a look.

“Oh Mister Waggstaff, Mister Waggstaff,” Madam Waggstaff wailed.

The brightly waist–coated man ignored her and shouted at the top of his voice: “These are my girls! Mine! Get yer own.”

Chief Examiner Lombard levelled a device, a kind of gun ending in a giant two–pronged fork: it buzzed and sparked with a dazzle far brighter than the gaslight. Mister Waggstaff, if it was him, jerked upright, shook as if he were having a fit and specks of spittle formed around his lips, before, all of a sudden, he went rigid and keeled over.

Madam Waggstaff screeched and wailed, and threw herself over his prostrate form.

As the Chief Examiner wrapped up his weapon, the other two Peelers removed the arrested man. This gave Charlotte the opportunity to confront the leader.

“Excuse me, Sir,” she said, “but what are you arresting that man for?”

The Chief Examiner paused, looking utterly blank, the white, slatted glasses staring down disconcertingly, before he spoke:

“He destroyed the world.”

Chapter IV

Miss Deering-Dolittle

Earnestine arrived home late.

She was tired after work and not one of her sisters had stayed up to thank her. Not that Charlotte should have been allowed, of course, but honestly. Again, she was the one looking after them; again, she was the responsible one and, again, she was unappreciated.

Cook had left her a cold collation.

Their house in Zebediah Row seemed completely quiet as if she were the only one there.

Well, good riddance to them, they could nap all day and all night for all she cared, but as she tried to sleep, she couldn’t.

She looked at the evening paper, but it was all full of news about arrests and there was nothing about any expeditions, so she turned out the gas again and lay in the dark with various inventions whirring around in her thoughts and eventually in her dreams, mutating slowly in a mad workshop of mechanical toys.

Mrs Arthur Merryweather

A strange half–voice sounded from the pitch darkness: “Miss?”

“Yes?” Georgina wanted to sound confident, but her enunciation cracked.

The man was short, bent over with wisps of white hair protruding from under his bowler hat. He seemed to look with only one eye.

“Are you the lady we have been expecting?”

“I am Mrs Arthur Merryweather, if that’s who you mean?”

“Merryweather, you say?”

“Yes, I say.”

“That is to be decided.”

“No it isn’t, it has been decided already.”

“We must examine–”

“I have my certificate.”

“And witnesses to–”

“God, and half a regiment of British officers as well as my sister were witnesses.”

“We will be asking Arthur.”

Georgina was outraged and then realised that the figure was shambling away.

Georgina followed: “Excuse me, but who exactly might you be?”

“I am Fellowes.”

“Yes, exactly what?”

“Fellowes, just Fellowes.”

They reached a small pony and trap. The man indicated that Georgina should climb aboard.

“My trunk?”

Fellowes considered this a while. He did not appear to be strong enough to pick up her trunk.

“I will send the boy back for it.”

“I can’t leave it there.”

“No–one will take it and it will save time if it is here already for the return train in the morning.”

“I need my belongings.”

Again, the man considered this and then, with a limp that he hadn’t had before, he went back to the platform and scraped the trunk along. Georgina stood with her hands together in front of her as she watched him struggle theatrically.

“Oh, let me help,” she said.

She took one end, and the man relinquished his part of the bargain immediately. He shambled back to the trap, leaving Georgina to struggle across the platform and heave the trunk up onto the transport. Perhaps she hadn’t needed the spare corset or those lovely shoes or the towel?

When she reached the trap, Fellowes was already sitting in the front with the reins in hand, staring out into the darkness, ready to face with fortitude the eternity that it took for Georgina to lift the trunk onto the back.

It didn’t fit exactly, so she had to bump it around until she believed it would stay in place. Finally, she brushed her dress down straight, stood as upright as possible to recover some dignity and then went to the passenger side.

Fellowes sat there without even looking at her.

A lady should not get into a carriage without assistance.

She had been brought up properly and she would wait.

However, it was cold and getting darker all the time.

Negotiating raising her skirts, hiding her ankle, getting her foot in the metal step and jumping up required three attempts, but she pulled herself into her seat eventually.

“Now, Fellowes, you–”

They were off!

The pony dithering left until yanked around, and Georgina nearly fell out. Five hundred yards from the station the lane narrowed, so that branches from the stunted trees swiped at them dangerously as they hurtled along. The low moon cast a pale light interrupted by the stone walls and by distant rocky outcrops.

“I know it like the back of my hand,” said Fellowes, anticipating a question that hadn’t crossed Georgina’s mind. She was too busy holding on to the metal rail to think clearly.

They passed through a village complete with a church with a clock tower and a pub with a hanging sign, a painting of a man fighting a monster.

When she thought it would never end, they turned into a wider, more level road and the dry stone walls and bushes no longer hemmed them in on either side. The sudden space gave Georgina a desperate, isolating, agoraphobic panic. It was like the pony and trap were transporting them over a black and calm River Styx.

“Magdalene Chase,” said Fellowes.

Georgina looked – nothing.

And then she saw a black slab of a building against the dark sky and, to the right and high up, a weak flickering light.

Fellowes pulled the pony to a stop outside the main entrance, a dark door framed by white stone pillars that loomed over them.

Georgina climbed down.

“I’ll put the pony away,” said Fellowes.

“My trunk!”

“Yes, Miss.”

“Mrs… Ma’am!”

“When you’ve got it down then.”

Georgina stormed round to the back and grasped the handle of her trunk. It wasn’t so much a case of her pulling it down as of the trap being pulled out from under it when Fellowes whipped the pony forward. The trunk swung down and crunched into the gravel. She dragged it to the front and then hefted it up the three steps.

She yanked the bell pull.

There was a delay and then a distant chime.

“Arthur,” she said aloud, mist condensing in front of her, “I can understand why you joined the army.”

Once she had some light, she thought, she’d consult the Great Western timetable for the first return journey.

The door opened: a smartly dressed hag blocked the way in.

“I am expected,” Georgina announced.

The housekeeper opened the door wide: “This way, Miss.”

Georgina held her ground: “Mrs! Ma’am!”

The housekeeper merely looked at her uncomprehendingly.

“This way, Ma’am,” Georgina said. “You say, this–”

“This way… Miss.”

“Ma’am.”

“Mam.”

“My trunk.”

“There’s no–one to bring it in.”

Georgina remembered a suggestion Fellowes had made at the station: “Get the boy.”