The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts (36 page)

The controls were complicated and she fiddled with the dials, altering the date display, and then found the place where the technician operated the mechanism. There was no handle, just a hole with a screw thread as if something needed to be attached.

Something like… the rod tucked in her belt!

She took it out: its multi–faceted stone caught the light, sometimes green, sometimes violet. At the end of the brass rod was the spiral of a thread.

It fit.

Earnestine turned it clockwise, round and round, faster and faster and then slowing as it reached the end. Finally, the brass stopped turning all together.

Now what?

She set the dials; the application seemed straight forward, to her own present. The Chronological Committee was manipulating events in that time, so, logically, hers was the critical era. That seemed certain to her.

“Tricky deciding, isn’t it?”

Earnestine turned, recognizing her own voice.

The woman stepped forward and Earnestine backed away until the older version stood between the machine and the younger. Mrs Frasier took hold of the jewelled control lever, her painted nails obvious as her hand enveloped it. She shunted the rod sideways and carelessly reset the date to her present, before she unscrewed it.

“I never understood why I let myself run around so,” she said. “But now… I do. It’s a lesson, don’t you see? A lesson in the futility of fighting inexorable forces.”

“Charlotte…” Earnestine could feel her eyes watering, but there was no grit being blown around in this airless fortress and so no excuse for showing weakness.

“One learns too that there are responsibilities to the Empire and to civilisation that outweigh all other concerns. One is… you and I have an extra weight upon our shoulders.”

“What gives one the right?”

“Nothing gives one the right – nothing!”

“Then why?”

“Because one can.” Mrs Frasier grabbed Earnestine by the shoulders, the brass rod in her hand digging into the young lady’s collar bone. The older woman shook the younger: “We can and so we must, because – you must understand – if we don’t, then we are responsible. Standing by is as bad as if we had been the ones who turned the wheels and pulled the levers that blew up the world. That is our remit.”

“It’s wrong.”

“It’s necessary.”

Mrs Frasier let go and smoothed down the creases she’d made.

“There now,” she said. “You would risk your life for others?”

“Yes.”

“As would Charlotte?”

“Yes. But–”

“She did, didn’t she? In the sewers that time when the Austro–Hungarian faction raised that untoten army.”

“Yes.”

“So, she gave her life for the Empire.”

“No–one knows about her.”

“We know, and we can keep a tomb for this unknown soldier in our hearts.”

“But it’s so cold.”

“Yes, safe in our cold hearts.”

Mrs Fraser put her hand on Earnestine’s shoulder in a gesture that ought to have been comforting.

“We are not the same person,” Mrs Frasier said. “I am older, experiences change one, moments like this mould one’s character and after a few more, you will think as I do.”

“I’m not the same person,” said Earnestine. “And I don’t agree with you.”

“You don’t agree with me
yet.
”

Earnestine pulled away savagely and drew her sword, pointing it at Mrs Frasier to keep her distance.

“The impetuosity of youth,” said Mrs Frasier. She put the jewelled rod down on the control panel and drew her own weapon. “There is nothing that you can know about fencing that I do not.”

“I’ve been secretly practising on a machine.”

“I know, but I’ve learnt a few tricks since I was you and, most importantly, I learnt the limitations of fighting mechanical devices.”

“When did you learn that?”

“In about five minutes’ time when Mrs Frasier beat me,” said Mrs Frasier. “En garde!”

Earnestine was taken by surprise by the ferocity of the attack. Mrs Frasier’s left hand went upwards with her fingers splayed, and she kicked forward lightly on her feet in a skip that covered the ground so quickly. Her sword was a blur of motion.

Earnestine stumbled backwards.

Mrs Frasier hopped sideways in a manner utterly unlike a large bulky duelling machine.

Earnestine lashed out, but her moves were blocked. The older version knew before she did, and her steel was there clashing back any attack. Mrs Frasier reclaimed the offence; any initiative Earnestine might have stolen was whipped away by Mrs Frasier’s jab and stab. She wasn’t keeping to one school of fencing, but mixing cards from many decks.

Mrs Frasier circled, stabbing, testing, playing and always keeping Earnestine off–balance.

Earnestine twisted round, parried – just – and the heels of her Oxford boots slipped across the polished floor. It was all she could do to keep her feet under her and she swept her arms wide like a bird taking flight in an attempt to keep her balance. Her sword was pointing away, she was utterly defenceless.

Mrs Frasier thrust forward.

The blow struck true.

Earnestine yelped and gripped her hand, the flat of the blade had struck her hard and her own sword skittered away.

Even so, the glare she gave Mrs Frasier was defiant.

“You can’t kill me,” said Earnestine. “If you do, then you’d cease to exist.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Mrs Frasier.

“Kill me then.”

“No, no, you’ll come round.”

“I will not.”

“If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue.”

“…or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch.”

“Yours is the Earth, Earnestine, the whole wide world.”

“To defeat you, all I need to do is change something,” Earnestine said. “Choose Earl Grey instead of Assam, or… refuse Marcus Frasier’s proposal and then there will never be a Mrs Frasier.”

Mrs Frasier laughed to herself: “Marcus… we had such a wonderful two weeks in Brighton. He was such a wonderful lover.”

“I don’t care.”

Mrs Frasier’s eyes narrowed: “And then, behind the Theatre Royal, he proposed and we married.”

“I don’t care, so you can… what!” Earnestine yelped, the pain of her hand forgotten in an instant. “Before we were married?! Do you mean I’m some sort of common strumpet?”

“Hardly common.”

“I would never… ever…”

“It’s a new world, Ness, with suffrage and rights and an equal share of the wealth. Such old fashioned ideas have no place in our Utopia.”

“No!”

“It’s strange how all these obsessions fade away and one sees them for what they are: pointless and trivial when compared to the bigger picture.”

“The bigger picture?”

“They will be planning to meet now, all the Conspirators, all those opposed to a fair society and all in one obvious place.”

“Then they are going to move against you.”

“Against us? Us! You and me,” Mrs Frasier insisted. “But we’re going to blow the whole thing up and blame it on the Conspiracy. Guido Fawkes would be so proud. People will flock to our cause: the women, full suffrage – will you vote for that? The poor, proper state organised benefits. An end to the workhouse and all the vile prostitution of women. Men will have to be as good as their word. There’ll be proper funding for the arts.”

“You’re mad. And people like Charlotte? The people you’ve murdered.”

“I didn’t want to do it, but she left me no choice.”

“She was my…
your sister
. You were responsible for her!”

“Yes, our little girl, the baby of the family, our Lottie. And because it was me who gave the order–”

“You!”

“Yes, as the eldest, Earnestine, you are responsible for her, and then again when you become me, and then you give the order – thrice damned.”

Mrs Frasier went over to the control lectern and picked up the jewelled control rod. She held it in her hand, weighing it.

Earnestine swallowed: “Can it not be…
un
corrected?”

As if in answer, Mrs Frasier went over to the galvanic connector set in the wall.

“Once our Utopia is established, we’ll bring them back: Charlotte, Boothroyd, Jerry, even Foxley.”

“How?”

“We have a time machine!” said Mrs Frasier as she gripped the lever and pulled it down. It sparked with life, the control lectern lit up and hummed, almost demanding to be used.

“We can turn the clocks back,” said Mrs Frasier, and she flicked a switch. “You and I can shape the future. We’ll be able to do anything!”

***

From nowhere, Charlotte appeared on the dais.

Mrs Arthur Merryweather

Georgina had no more tears.

She would be with Arthur, her Arthur, soon enough, and that ungrateful son would… but wasn’t he Arthur’s legacy, his way of carrying on in the world? Kidnapped by Mrs Falcone.

Arthur, her husband, had wanted a son, and he had wanted him to be named after his father, Major Philip Merryweather, but as Georgina was destined to die in childbirth, then that wish would die with her. She had promised to love, honour and obey:
obey,
and she would fail to carry out the single order he had given her.

She took out the photograph: breathed a sigh of relief that Earnestine’s stern appearance was still evident. Caruthers, McKendry, Uncle Jeremiah and herself were arranged around her. Then there was that disturbing and dreadful gap – poor Charlotte.

Georgina didn’t want Earnestine to go the same way.

Perhaps if she stared at it, the very act of observation would fix it in position. George Berkley had suggested something similar when he’d asked if a tree falls in a forest, and no one was around to hear it, does it make a sound? But that was ridiculous. Things were, or weren’t, whether anyone was looking at them or not.

She remembered the moment the picture was taken, but the figures without Charlotte looked so strange. They were proud, as any Englishman and Englishwoman should be. There was the same dazzle of the flash reflected in the windows, the same smeared figure walking behind them… except that Charlotte was absent.

It was too awful: staring at Earnestine to fix her in place meant that she also saw where Charlotte had been erased, removed from this picture, and from all of history to become an
un
person. How could they oppose people who merely had to go back and snub out someone before they were grown, or born, or even conceived? It was like playing chess against an opponent who was allowed to change any of their previous moves. There were no rules to this.

Would staring really fix Earnestine in place or would she see her sister fading from the picture?

How did it happen?

What was the natural process that caused it?

“How?” she said aloud.

There were reports pictures of ghosts and fairies.

She considered the actual daguerreotype again.

The silver iodide caused a chemical reaction, light activated, and this fixed the pigment on the special paper. History then, changed, must mean that the light that entered the camera was different from the light that she herself had seen. She remembered seeing Charlotte standing there, before and after the glare and dazzle of the flash subsided. That light, the light that entered her eyes, was unchanged. Perhaps the way in which her mind stored memories was so fundamentally different from the physics of photography that the historical alteration could not affect it. Charlotte was closer to her heart, perhaps, than her impression was to the 2d–a–box Kodak paper.

Or was it some aethereal field that held their memory dyed in their mind?

But the daguerreotype had been with her the whole time, so whatever affected it, must also have influenced her thoughts.

And if history was changed and Charlotte had never existed, then she had never accompanied them to the theatre. When they all posed outside: McKendry, Uncle Jeremiah, Caruthers, Earnestine and Georgina – Charlotte had not been there. If that was the case, then they would never have needed to all huddle closer to fit on the steps. She remembered the apparently headless photographer signalling them to move together. However, here they were crowded to one side, the taller Caruthers and Earnestine standing slightly to the back
and the photographer would surely have turned the camera to move the group into the centre of the frame!

No–one took a group arrangement like this and left a wide gap on one side, a gap big enough for a sixth person.

Georgina could imagine the crystals upon the paper changing, a process dictated by chemical laws, but what possible process could reach to the photograph, once it was exposed, printed and framed safe under glass, to modify it.

Whether history had been rewritten or not, an invisible presence was pushing everyone to the picture’s left.

But who?

It could only be Charlotte’s ghost.

Miss Charlotte

Charlotte had been in the netherworld between one world and the next.

She’d gone up, towards the light and towards heaven, but she did not find Saint Peter waiting for her. This purgatory was cramped, full of pipes and brick dust, and by the time she’d crawled through the opening, she was filthy. Her skirts were ripped, her bustle snagged, so she got rid of it, and she’d taken the skin off the knuckles of her right hand. She smashed through, the breaking of plywood gave the lie to its appearance of metal and rivets, and then she’d wriggled out through the hole.

After the lights of the Chronological Conveyor had subsided, Charlotte found herself standing on the dais.

She thought that, perhaps, she could hear a voice: Earnestine arguing with herself, but there was no–one there.

The place by the control lectern was empty.

Everywhere the paint was fresh and the windows bright as it had been in the past, so long ago in her own personal chronology. She must have crawled through a time tunnel or something.

In front of her a corridor that led to the outside world. Nothing could stop her leaving and going into that world: the past, the future or whenever it was.