The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts (27 page)

Earnestine went in, saying nothing. As Earnestine propped her umbrella against the wall, the big man closed the door and locked it just as if he were a gaoler.

The next door revealed a room for Georgina. It was small, positively Spartan and more like a cell than anything else.

“Your room, Miss,” said Scrutiniser Jones.

“Ma’am,” said Georgina. It looked worse than the Eden College for Young Ladies.

She stepped in, turned and the door was closed in her face.

“Why are we locked in?” she asked through the door.

“Safety.”

“Yours or mine?”

“Both.”

A key turned.

She heard Scrutiniser Jones and Charlotte’s footsteps move along, presumably to the next door.

She was a prisoner now.

They had been waiting for them.

Why had they rushed headlong into the future? It had been so stupid. Going up the river was the family curse: charging in where those angels of the Surrey Deering–Dolittles feared to tread.

There was a washbowl, a small table, a chair and a bed. No cupboard or wardrobe or press, and underneath the iron bedstead, there was only a chamber pot.

Dreading they’d be searched, Georgina pushed her bag under the mattress and sat down on it, leaning slightly due to the resulting bulge. She was in the future, she knew, and it was hard to fathom. Seventy five years. It meant that everyone she knew, everyone, was long dead and buried. Captain Caruthers, so handsome and virile, dead; McKendry, dead; Major Dan… Cook, their two maids, even Mrs Jago and Mrs Falcone, and her daughter Miss Millicent, all dead.

In sudden desperation, Georgina scrabbled under the mattress and fished out the picture from her bag. There was Caruthers, Earnestine the younger, McKendry, herself, Uncle Jeremiah and, of course, Charlotte.

If they ever managed to return to their own time, then they too would pass away from old age.

Mrs Falcone had conversed with the dead, so she claimed.

In this time, Georgina herself was no more.

If God allowed her the three score years and ten, then she would have died… twelve years ago. Was she already with her sweet Arthur now? Could she find a Ouija board and communicate with her own ghost? Join hands and say:

“Am I there?”

Georgina gasped, held her hand to her face.

It was ridiculous.

Saying it out loud made it more so: you can’t meet your own ghost.

She returned the daguerreotype to its hiding place.

Except, she thought, Earnestine had met herself.

Miss Charlotte

Charlotte decided to escape.

She’d started out on this adventure – and she didn’t care what Earnestine thought – searching for Uncle Jeremiah and she intended –
ow, wretched brooch pin –
to finish what she’d started. She’d played hide–and–seek with Uncle Jeremiah many times, always winning, but, with its rush to Dartmoor and the added interference of Earnestine the Even Elder, this round was proving the most challenging.

Charlotte smiled to herself: she’d outwitted that Earnestine. Older and wiser indeed.
‘I missed you so’
, ha! Gulled good and proper, and the woman hadn’t even realised.

But still, an older Earnestine!

What could be worse?

Now Charlotte had not two, but three older sisters. They’d all gang up on her, she knew it. Three against one was not odds she fancied.

It wasn’t fair.

It would be ‘Lottie, do this’, ‘Lottie, sit up straight’, ‘Lottie, elbows’, ‘Lottie, homework’, ‘Lottie, French tenses are important’, ‘be quiet, Lottie’, ‘careful, you’ll break it’, ‘oh, look what you’ve done now’, ‘that brooch was expensive and
you’ve just bent it
’, ‘you’ll never amount to anything if you have that attitude’, ‘language’, ‘do as you are told’, ‘don’t whine’ and ‘Oh, Charlotte, honestly!’

Ah ha
, locked door opens, mystery investigation begins.

Chapter XVI

Mrs Frasier

“Lord Farthing.”

The young Peer looked away to stare out of the window at the far horizon, and Mrs Frasier smiled. It always amused her to have a man under her spell. The dominant sex indeed, when they were often putty in her hands. It amazed her that in all the centuries since the creation of Eve, the sons of Adam had not been overthrown.
Yet
, she reminded herself.

“Everything proceeds, Mrs Frasier. The laws are phrased ready to go before the House.”

“Good.”

Lord Farthing tidied some papers on his desk.

“No clerk?” Mrs Frasier asked.

“Not today,” he said quickly. “You are prepared if things go badly?”

“I am,” said Mrs Frasier, and she lit another thin cigar. “Are you prepared if they go well?”

Lord Farthing coughed and nodded.

“We shall treat those two imposters just the same,” Mrs Frasier said.

“I beg your pardon.”

“Triumph and Disaster; it’s from a poem I had on my bedroom wall back in Zebediah Row.”

“Oh,” he said, with studied casualness. “I hear that you are hiring workmen.”

“A few, yes.”

“I would have thought that the working class of your time had far more skills than our backward types.”

“We lack certain abilities in the future,” said Mrs Frasier. “The war left us bereft of a whole generation of men.”

“Men that we will now save.”

“Yes.”

“But won’t that change the future and render your existence impossible?”

“Time is mutable,” said Mrs Frasier. “To change things is the Chronological Committee’s intention.”

“But to destroy yourself?”

“The Ultimate Sanction will remove all trace, wipe us from the face of history as it were.”

“Is it really necessary?”

“So that you have a fresh start, a clean slate as it were,” said Mrs Frasier and she waved her cigar at him playfully like a schoolmarm telling off a pupil, “so be careful not to waste it and repeat the mistakes of the future.”

“But to throw away that power? For whoever controls the Temporal Peelers, controls everything.”

“A power I would hand over gladly to make a better world.”

“You are a remarkable woman.”

Mrs Frasier inhaled and let the smoke flow from her lungs to drift through the office: “Thank you, but I shall live on in my younger self.”

“Isn’t she your Achilles heel?”

“She is safely tucked away in the future.”

“Safe? Surely the changes we make tomorrow will render that future null and void?”

“I returned… pardon me. She
will
return in plenty of time and grow up in the Utopian future we strive to deliver.”

“She is like your child.”

Mrs Frasier chuckled: “Although I am not her mother, she is my child.”

“Women have such a wondrous gift, the gift of bringing life into the world. Why would you want the vote?”

“It’s the future.”

“So you say.”

“You’ve seen the evidence with your own eyes.”

“Her Majesty will sign it into law, of course,” Lord Farthing said.

“The woman will do as you men command,” Mrs Frasier said and, when she saw his expression, she added: “I’m teasing you, forgive me.”

“I never know with your sort.”

“My sort?”

“Strong women,” said Lord Farthing. “Remember Doctor Mordant.”

“Elizabeth, yes. I met her at the Fabians.”

“She was the same. What happened to her?”

“She went to do some research in Austro–Hungary, I believe. Dead now.”

Mrs Frasier steadied herself with a draw on her cigar, and moved to the window to stare out across the Thames. They were high up in the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben chimed loudly. Reflected in the window, she saw the burning ember of her cigar. It reminded her of something – ah yes, remember, remember…

“Guido Fawkes,” she said, “once put barrels of gunpowder beneath this very building in an attempt to change politics.”

“And now we overthrow the established order with a proper legal framework,” said Lord Farthing. “Who is on trial next?”

“The Right Honourable James Foxley.”

“Earl Foxley.”

“Earl?”

“Yes, his brother was killed in an unfortunate duelling accident.”

“Really?”

“You killed him.”

“Ah yes, I remember,” said Mrs Frasier. “I was teasing. I still have the pertinent skill, you understand.”

Mrs Frasier flicked her arm up and pretended to parry and thrust.

“Of course you do,” Lord Farthing agreed. “And I have the cut and thrust of debate to win, and we will.”

“I know.”

“Tomorrow, it will all be decided, one way or another.”

“It will be our way,” Mrs Frasier stated.

“Yes, it’ll be a day to remember, but our opponents will regroup and form an opposition. They may prove difficult.”

“First they will have a meeting to scheme and contrive. Men like meetings.” Mrs Frasier returned to the view of Parliament: “Remember… remember…”

Lord Farthing poured himself a brandy and offered a second glass to Mrs Frasier. She nodded, so he poured a generous measure, and brought it over.

“Mrs Frasier,” he said.

“Please, call me Earnestine… Ness.”

“A toast, Ness.”

Mrs Frasier raised her glass: “To tomorrow.”

“And tomorrow’s tomorrow.”

“Yes, I know of no reason why the day after tomorrow should ever be forgot.”

Miss Deering-Dolittle

The lock in the door rattled.

Earnestine stood: she hadn’t been asleep and had no idea what time it was or what time it was supposed to be. Did it matter?

The same thoughts circled within her mind: she was merely a prototype, just a–

A man came in suddenly, his hands up and he lurched towards her as he went for her throat. Earnestine threw her arms up instinctively, blocking his grip, but his momentum caused them both to stumble back. She caught the edge of the bed as she went down, crashed against the chair, and heard the water basin bounce and clatter over the hard floor and her water jug shatter.

“You bitch!”

His right eye stared into her face with an angry hatred, but his left eye looked sideways.

Earnestine couldn’t cry out, such was the man’s stranglehold. Her own hands were fully occupied in fighting his inexorable grip and her legs trapped by her chemise. Her vision blurred, the galvanic light burnt her sight, but it was the only direction she could look.

He banged her head back on the floor: “We will.”

Again: “Not have.”

She was blacking out, her struggling fingers felt like they belonged to someone else.

“A dynasty of Frasiers.”

The man jerked, a spasm running through his entire body, then he wrestled around in twitches.

Earnestine gagged as the air came back into her lungs.

Despite her arms being partially pinned, she hit back with small, savage blows, striking again and again, nails gouging, but the man ignored her.

Instead, he twisted, then bucked, yelped and then toppled awkwardly.

Above, standing heroically, was Charlotte: her left hand raised high above her head and her right directed forward and down in a classic fencing posture. Her sword was black, evil, with a curved handle.

“Lott –
ah…
”

Charlotte beamed: “I killed him just like in a duel. Just like you.”

“It’s not…” Earnestine coughed, clearing her bruised throat, “…a competition.”

“Still, that’s one each and–”

“Be quiet, Lottie.”

Charlotte pulled her sword out of the man and brought it up to the En Garde position.

Earnestine pushed the dead man off her, wriggling out awkwardly: “And it wasn’t a duel, because you stabbed him in the back
with my umbrella
.”

“He was trying to kill you.”

“He was succeeding.”

There was a scuffle at the door and the frame was filled with the bulk of Scrutiniser Jones.

“What’s this?” he demanded.

“I was attacked,” Earnestine announced.

“By?”

“I don’t know,” she shouted, straining her voice. She pointed. “Him.”

“I killed him,” said Charlotte with a big grin.

Earnestine finally pulled herself up and clambered onto the bed.

Scrutiniser Jones surveyed the scene, his thick head rotating about, then he bent down to check the dead man’s pulse before glancing up at Earnestine, concerned.

“A glass of water, if you’d be so kind,” she said.

“Your jug is broken.”

“Can you… kind Sir.”

The big man hesitated, but then stood, pushed past Charlotte and went out.

Charlotte started to give advice: “Ness, just lean back and–”

But quick as a flash, Earnestine was going through the man’s belongings. He wore a thick workman’s coat with pockets on either side, but, as Earnestine discovered, only one inside. The total contents were an oily rag, some shillings with Queen Victoria on them, a small penknife, a bottle opener… hardly the stuff of a proper kit.

“From the past,” Earnestine said.

“Not a workman,” Charlotte replied. “His hands.”

“I am aware of his hands.”

“They’re clean and uncalloused.”

Earnestine checked. Sure enough, his big, murderous hands were quite soft and fine. His face was familiar.

“I’ve seen him before,” said Earnestine.

“Where?”

“Not where, when?” Earnestine tapped her forehead, it vexed her.

“Can you remember anything?”

“He doesn’t look right with his eyes looking upwards.” Earnestine reached out to close his eyelids and saw that his eyes didn’t match. “I was with Captain Caruthers.”

Scrutiniser Jones returned with a metal mug, spritely enough to take Earnestine by surprise.

She pulled back, guiltily.

The big man knew: “What did you find, Miss?”

“I’m afraid he has no identification.”

“Your water, Miss.”

Earnestine took the proffered mug and sipped, her first taste turning into a gulp as the cool water soothed the inside of her neck.

Scrutiniser Jones turned to Charlotte.

“What are you doing out of your room?” he asked.