The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts (39 page)

At Bank station they changed, the gate–man opening the barrier for them to disembark. They climbed the stairs and then, just as the fresh air began to revive Georgina, they descended again to catch Central London service to British Museum.

All this was so new, only opened properly in the July, and it was heralded as the future. Was this really preferable to Mrs Frasier’s dream? Is that why her sister Earnestine hadn’t followed them?

“If we keep getting involved in adventures,” said Georgina, “one of us is going to get killed.”

“Not me,” said Charlotte.

Miss Charlotte

The Club, boasting members like Major Dan, Captain Caruthers, Lieutenant McKendry and so many others, was a good walk away from the British Museum. When they arrived, Georgina marched straight towards the staircase, but the Porter intercepted her.

“Miss?” the Porter began.

“Ma’am.”

“Ma’am.”

“Major Dan or Captain Caruthers please –
at once!”

“They’re not here, Ma’am.”

Georgina took a step forward.

“I’ll take a message,” said the Porter quickly, before he beetled off.

As they waited, Lord Farthing arrived, noticed them with surprise and doffed his hat. He placed it down in the Porter’s hatch along with his white scarf, gloves and cane.

A Junior Porter came over to collect them, but he interrupted by a strange ringing noise.

“My Lord, the Porter’s gone to fetch Major Dan or Captain Caruthers,” Georgina explained.

“I see,” he replied. “Thank you, Miss.”

“Ma’am.”

“Ma’am… and Miss.”

Finally, Charlotte thought, someone’s noticed me.

The Junior Porter reappeared: “My Lord, you are wanted upon the telephone.”

“Very well.”

Lord Farthing took the apparatus: “Yes… I see… they are gathered upstairs… Splendid… I can’t talk… I’ll see to it… Good–bye.”

Lord Farthing gave the device back: “Ladies,” he said, and he went away, not up the stairs, but down a side passage.

“I wonder where he’s going?” Charlotte asked.

“Never you mind, it’s none of our business,” Georgina said.

“Perhaps I could just go and get a lemonade.”

“No.”

Chapter XXV

Mrs Frasier

Mrs Frasier returned the ear piece to its resting position on the telephonic device. It rattled as the hook descended activating the switch to cut off the connection. She checked her gold watch.

“And Jerry?”

“I put him back in Cell 19,” said Chief Examiner Lombard. “It seemed best.”

“Then we’d best see this through to the end.” Mrs Frasier snapped the watch cover shut.

“Are you sure, Ma’am?” Chief Examiner Lombard asked.

“I am sure.”

Chief Examiner Lombard was appalled: “But, Ma’am, the Ultimate Sanction?”

After years of planning, the final hours were crowded with desperate improvisation.

“It is necessary,” she said.

“Jones will find those girls.”

“Lord Farthing is planning to move against us.”

“We are not ready, we need–”

“There is no more time, Lombard. If one of those dratted sisters convinces them…”

“They won’t believe them.”

“They believed Miss Deering–Dolittle when she told our side,” Mrs Frasier put her hands together to emphasise as if ten fingers pointing were needed to put the idea across. “The law is all that matters – what’s written.”

“The pen is mightier than the sword,” said Chief Examiner Lombard. “But the Sanction?”

“We must.”

“And the Conspiracy?”

“Farthing will deal with that, I’ve rung him. He thinks he needs to defeat us, but our part is to ensure that there’s nothing to contradict him.”

“But Farthing–”

“He’ll be bound by the law,” she replied. “He won’t undermine what gave him his power and, without evidence, who can say what is real and what is not.”

The tall man nodded: “We’ll keep to the script, Ma’am.”

“Thank you, and issue the firearms.”

“I’ll see that the preparations are made,” he said.

“You are a good man.”

“I take direction.”

“We’ll be in the West End soon enough.”

The man laughed and Mrs Frasier smiled.

“It’s been a good run,” Lombard said.

“The curtain’s not down yet.”

Miss Deering-Dolittle

“Well, well, well,” said Lord Farthing in an insufferably superior manner. He slicked his hair back and cupped his hand to his ear in a theatrical manner. “I don’t hear any Temporal Peelers rushing to your aid.”

Earnestine, blind beneath a bag over her head, said nothing.

“This must be an event you forgot,” the young man continued. “No hint, when you were ordering me about on the Alexander Bell. Time is mutable; we are changing things, so certain matters are adjustable… like your own personal survival. You’re not the controlling, know–it–all confident Mrs Frasier, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” said Earnestine, truthfully, trying to gauge where the man was standing. She was covered in coarse hessian, but reckoned she was underground. Once bundled from the carriage, she’d been hustled down stairs. She’d heard drips and echoes. Her hands had been handcuffed behind her back and her wrists caught when she tried to move.

She also heard the man walking as he talked, changing his position to disorientate her. There was another man present, some bruiser, standing still somewhere behind her, she thought.

“Your plan to hand over the reins of power to yourself, jolly clever, but those of us more suited to power, born to it, don’t agree with that part of your scheme.”

“I’m sure,” Earnestine mumbled. Overturning these insufferable male bounders was another jolly good reason to join Mrs Frasier and her Chronological Committee.

“Take the hood off her.”

The covering whipped away suddenly and the room wasn’t dark as she expected, but lit with galvanic light. Cables coiled like serpents along the floor and then rose to glowing bulbs held in cages that were hung from hooks. Water dripped down from the ceiling to splash into an already full bucket. Clearly no–one had come down here in an absolute age.

“Can’t have gas down here,” said Lord Farthing.

“I suppose not,” said Earnestine.

“On account of the explosives.”

“Exp– Oh!”

There were barrels of gunpowder stacked against the far wall dwarfing the empty wine racks.

“Another of your little schemes.”

“My schemes?” Earnestine said. She wracked her brains, but she had no idea what he meant.

“Once the law is passed, then the opposition, the conspiracy if you like, will meet here in the very rooms above. I’ve seen to that.”

Earnestine looked up and saw the vaulted brick ceiling, stained on one side where the water seeped through. All that weight held up by crumbling bricks weighed on her mind briefly, but not as much as the explosives that dominated the far wall. Earnestine was no expert, Charlotte would know, but they appeared to have stocked more with zeal than calculation.

“Well, serpent’s egg, your kind won’t grow mischievous for I shall kill her in the egg.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 1.”

“That’s nothing like Julius Caesar.”

“With you gone, and your future self with you, and all of the Chronological Committee’s enemies blown to kingdom come, I shall take the controls.”

“You’re operating under a misconception.”

“I think not,” said Lord Farthing. “I intend to change the course of history. Tie her up properly!”

“What? No, just– arr–uum, mmmm…”

Rough hands yanked her head back and, as she opened her mouth to complain, a gag went between her teeth and pulled her cheeks back. She kicked, but they simply pushed her over, grabbed her legs and wrapped cord around her ankles. She struggled, but she was expertly trussed, and then dragged across to be dumped by the barrels.

“Here, all your exciting belongings,” said Lord Farthing. He dropped her penknife, Kendal mint cake, a peg, the small sewing kit and so on, onto a barrel. He paused when he found the key. The fob dangled catching the weak galvanic light.

“The future,” he said, “I think yours is over. Someone has to die.”

“Mmm mm mm.”

“What was that? This would be a more useful key,” said Lord Farthing. He showed her the key to the handcuffs and then dropped both onto the barrel with the rest of her kit.

“Mmmmmmm!”

“Language, hardly the expression for a young lady. I suppose you expect to escape, crawl over here and get the keys to those handcuffs – the stuff of Derring–Do.”

“Mmmm mmm.”

“Tie the rope to the pipe, man!”

The thug did so, a midshipman’s hitch, and Earnestine groaned when she realised that she’d never get that undone. Even so, Earnestine tugged with her feet, but both the rope and the pipe were secure.

“The Derring–Do Club, always ready for adventure–”

“Mmm mmmmmmmmm.”

“Now, now, my dear. Derbies secure?”

The bludger man yanked her wrists, the handcuffs threatening to crush her wrist bones.

“Aye, boss.”

Earnestine squirmed, managed to roll over to look at Lord Farthing, just as his servant cast black powder all over her and the floor.

“Goodbye, dearest Ness,” said Lord Farthing. He strode away, laughing. The other man took his time, walking away backwards and leaving a trail of gunpowder behind.

Earnestine tried to spit, but couldn’t because of the gag, and her curse was muffled too.

She pulled at the cord, but her ankles were completely secured. Far too far away, the keys on the barrel glinted in the weird galvanic illumination.

The lights went out.

It was pitch black.

“Mmmm mmmm mmm
mmmmmmm!”

Mrs Arthur Merryweather

Georgina told Charlotte to stand to one side: she would do the talking. For once, Charlotte did as she was told.

Captain Caruthers arrived.

Georgina explained.

The Captain didn’t believe her.

Neither did McKendry.

The Porter scoffed too until Caruthers gave him a sharp look.

“It is true, Captain,” Georgina insisted.

Caruthers fished into his inside pocket and retrieved a set of much thumbed daguerreotype prints. He flicked through, selecting one, which he showed to Georgina. It was a double exposure of Earnestine and in the background… no, wait! It was a picture of Earnestine standing next to Mrs Frasier and behind them the panoply of a future city, complete with glass towers and flying machines with the Houses of Parliament in the distance.

“That’s one of Miss Deering–Dolittle and Mrs Frasier together,” said Caruthers. “She’s due to grow into a remarkably beautiful woman, isn’t she? A flawless face, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Yes,” said Georgina, distracted.

“The camera doesn’t lie,” said Caruthers.

Georgina took the picture off him. Caruthers fanned out the others for her inspection. It was as if he were asking her to choose a card before showing her a trick.

“I do not know the process used, I confess, but this is faked.”

“They’ve built that street outside like they do in the theatre,” said Charlotte. “It isn’t real. It’s paint and canvas.”

Caruthers shook his head: “Everyone is convinced.”

“People used to think that it was impossible to travel faster than twenty five miles per hour,” Georgina said.

“Which is an argument for the extraordinary wonders we see in these images,” Caruthers said.

“Perhaps, or our gullibility to want these wonders, but this is some trick, a painting, scenery or some photographic illusion,” Georgina said, handing the picture back to the Captain. “I am certain.”

“And the disappearing and appearing?”

“A stage magician’s trick, nothing more.”

Caruthers looked at her and then the picture, weighing it up in his mind. Georgina waited, knowing that anything she said would weaken her argument. He had to decide between his eyes and his heart. He flicked through the images: Earnestine, Earnestine, Earnestine with Mrs Frasier…

“Porter?”

“Yes, Captain?” said the Porter.

“Get Major Dan on the… ringing box.”

“Telephone, Sir.”

“Major Dan on the Tele… how do you pronounce it?”

“‘Telephone’, Sir.”

The Porter went to collect it.

“It might be quicker to send a boy?” Georgina said.

“It’s the future,” said Captain Caruthers.

“If the future is all telephonic contraptions, then I don’t want it,” Georgina said.

“Nonsense,” said Caruthers. “Soon everyone will have these convenient contraptions.”

“Sir,” said the Porter. “I’m afraid the cord won’t reach, you’ll have come into the office.”

Caruthers made his way into the Porter’s room: “Major Dan… Major Dan… Can you hear me? Hear me? I said… yes… I’m at the Club… At the Club. It’s one of the Deering–Dolittle sisters… No, the middle one.”

“What’s this?” Lord Farthing arrived from the side passageway.

“Lord Farthing,” said Caruthers.

“You shall explain to me,” said Lord Farthing.

“Of course, Sir,” said Caruthers. He put the phone down, but he didn’t place the earpiece on the hook. Georgina opened her mouth to remind him, but the Captain shook his head almost imperceptibly.

“Now,” said Lord Farthing, “what’s all this about?”

“It’s about the Temporal Peelers and the Chronological Committee,” Caruthers explained.

“What of it? The laws have been passed, the thing is done. I’ve just been assuring those meeting here, who disagree, that their fears are unfounded. All will be well. I’m just off to celebrate myself.”

“My Lord, if you please,” said Caruthers. “Mrs Merryweather.”

“My Lord,” Georgina responded, politely. “It appears that the Chronological Committee hasn’t been telling us the complete truth.”

“In what particular?”

Georgina thought for a moment: “In all particulars. Indeed, it is hard to think of any statement that has any truth.”

“No truth!” said Lord Farthing, looking to Caruthers for explanation.