The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts (9 page)

Earnestine rolled over and hustled out from under the flailing threat and turning, she pulled herself up.

Waiting for the right moment, she stepped in: parried the blow. It clanged backwards and she smiled, knowing that she’d got the hang of this–

“Oooph!”

She was on the ground again, her ear stinging from a swipe. The face mask came free and bounced away like a rugby ball. The machine had known where she was, her blow activating cogs and levers as her parry moved the arm in a certain way and this in turn directed the counter move. She struggled backwards, the device thrashing side–to–side above her and walking!

Walking!

Towards her!

It shunted from one short leg to another, the weights inside throwing it one way and then another in a travesty of motion.

It stopped moving as the internal forces wound down and presently the thrashing slowed, stuttered and stopped.

When it finally ceased, Earnestine stood and brushed the dirt off her dress before she–

“Ah!”

It struck again, the last spring giving its final oomph.

“Right!”

A simpler programme was the answer to expedite a gradual improvement of her skill, she thought.

She selected another: turned the handle again – that right one could do with some oil – and set off the combat once more.

This time she was ready, this time she parried and parried again before the thing somehow twisted its foil and disarmed her.

Second attempt – the oil was in the workshop and… there must be something to get this disgusting stuff off her hands without ruining her lace handkerchief.

“Now!”

Gauntlet down, Earnestine down.

Fourth attempt, the oil had done the trick, and she was soon hopping in the centre of the warehouse around the clever hansom cab, holding her hand and biting her lip to stop her yelling the ‘b’ word at the top of her voice.

When it had finally subsided, Earnestine glared at it for a long time and then, very deliberately, she stabbed the heart of the machine. The image depressed signifying that the machine was ‘off’. It was indeed so easy when the opponent wasn’t defending itself.

Oh, it was such a foolish un–ladylike activity anyway.

She made herself a cup of tea, but it was no victory celebration and her hand, ear, derriere and pride smarted dreadfully, so she put the very idea out of her mind completely and went back to filing, banging the doors shut and slamming the stacks of paper down with a certain vehemence.

“My dear, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing Mister Boothroyd.”

“I think we should have a spot of tea.”

They had yet another tea and Earnestine began to sort again, separating items into i) clearly obsolete, ii) interesting and iii) utterly perplexing. There were many on the same lines, often with extremely minor adjustments to their diagrams. If this was school, then clearly these pupils had copied each other’s homework. She’d also forgotten some of the mnemonics she’d invented in order to understand her system. The pile under the brick, for example, ought to have been Architecture, but clearly wasn’t any more.

She found the pile she’d removed from the fireplace, and decided to chance her luck.

“These ones were already in the fire.”

Boothroyd didn’t even glance up from his crossword: “Oh very well.”

Earnestine rammed them back into the fireplace and lit them quickly in case he changed his mind. The fire produced a lot of smoke that wafted into the room, until the heat allowed the chimney to draw. The paper took and whooshed, so Earnestine added some wood that she’d found and then a few coals. She went into the kitchen to wash her hands, prepare a pot of tea and put together a plate of assorted biscuits.

Boothroyd was sitting in the armchair, perplexed again by the empty desk. He’d finished the crossword, although he’d added some squares to the right hand side to do so.

“May I?” Earnestine asked, putting her hand on the copy of the Times.

“Certainly, my dear.”

Earnestine realised that it was, in fact, her newspaper.

The headline was about all these arrests, but Earnestine flicked through to see if there were any columns about explorers. There were no reports of any long lost expeditions being found. She was used to that, but even so she missed her mother and father. It was her regular morning tightness in her chest, but it passed.

“My dear?”

“I’m sorry, Mister Boothroyd, what was the question?”

“What do you think of all this talk about temporal travelling?”

“Oh… er…”

Earnestine glanced at the headline again: ‘More arrests’ and it went on to talk about men from the future.

“I’ve not been following it, I’m afraid.”

“They’ve been arresting those responsible.”

“Responsible for what?”

“And taking them to the future to stand trial.”

“Is that likely?”

“Just think it though, my dear,” said Boothroyd.

“It seems rather fantastical and far–fetched.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Surely such a…” She looked at the front page for the right expression. “…Temporal Engine would be impossible.”

Boothroyd dunked his garibaldi in his tea: “Why do you think that?”

“I’m sure I read somewhere that the Patent Office of the Americas suggested that we were reaching the end of all possible inventions.”

“My dear?”

“That all inventions that were possible had already been invented. Or, at the very least, nearly so. There must surely be a limit to the possibilities.”

“But we have so many inventions surrounding us. Steam power was unheard of only fifty years ago and now people go on day trips at velocities exceeding thirty miles per hour. There are steam powered boats made of metal. Zeppelins fly through the air. Why should it not be possible to construct a vessel to traverse the ether itself?”

“Because…”

“We could show the people of a hundred years ago marvels beyond their belief.”

“I grant you.”

“So it follows that in a hundred years’ time, there will be marvels that we would struggle to understand.”

“But surely time is different.”

“Certainly,” said Boothroyd. “But you already travel in time.”

“One does not,” Earnestine scoffed.

“If I were to travel to the continent, France or Italy, then I must reset my watch. I have travelled in time.”

“Of course not.” Earnestine put down her tea and biscuit to point at the floor. “Here is Greenwich Mean Time. I could easily decide that over there by the door it was half past five in the afternoon. I could go there, turn my watch until it said half past five, but I would not have travelled in time.”

Boothroyd stared at the corner: “And you would have missed afternoon tea.”

“Travelling to now from a distant age is quite another matter.”

Her paper appeared to have a lot of columns devoted to these people and, flicking over, on pages two and three. It was all there in black and white, with editorial comment on page seven, and clearly Earnestine had been living in another world for she had simply missed all of this.

“These people say they have,” said Boothroyd, pushing his hand through his grey streaked hair, “so it must be possible.”

“They say they have?”

“How else do you explain their appearances and disappearances?”

Earnestine, of course, could not.

“Responsible and trustworthy men have seen it with their own eyes,” Boothroyd finished. “And they have shown marvels beyond our current understanding.”

It was unfair, Earnestine thought, for everyone to strive so hard for a future that was suddenly, and inexplicably, handed to them on a plate. This department, the Patent Pending Office, was redundant. Why invent when one could simply have someone from the future give one the device, ready–made and, indeed, redeveloped and improved many times over?

“Why paint a picture, when one can go to the future to see it already hanging in the gallery,” she said.

Boothroyd snorted: “Why indeed?”

“All this…” Earnestine said, waving her hand to encompass the study and, by suggestion, the warehouses beyond.

“I wondered when you’d realise.”

“If they give one the plans and say you invented this, then would one?”

“I’d say so.”

“But one wouldn’t have actually done it.”

“Legally it’s whoever signed the patent application.”

“Only legally.”

“What other definition is there, my dear?”

Earnestine tidied away the cups and small plate, and took them to the kitchen. At some point she’d have to see if she could match cup to saucer.

“I suppose one can’t argue with them,” Earnestine said raising her voice. “After all, they’ll know what one is going to do, won’t they?”

Boothroyd didn’t answer.

“I mean,” Earnestine continued. “They have an unfair advantage.”

There was a clatter, like something falling.

“Mister Boothroyd?”

There was a palpable silence and then a scuffle.

“Mister Boothroyd?”

Earnestine stepped back into the main room.

Boothroyd was on his knees, his hands together pleading. Beside him were two tall men dressed in long frock coats and wearing high top hats. They had strange glasses, painted white which made them look blind. Another was suddenly standing beside her. He looked like a fighter or a bull, and he had a weapon in his hand, a brass device with prongs and a strange internal illumination.

“Don’t fight them,” Boothroyd said.

“What’s going on?” Earnestine demanded. She realised that she’d picked the flat iron up off the pile of ‘Household and Garden’.

“This man is under arrest,” said one of the men. He had a curved sword strapped to his belt. Earnestine saw that the others were similarly armed. Not that she could fight them… except that they were six paces apart and, unlike the duelling machine, they wouldn’t be expecting an attack.

“For what crime?” she demanded.

“Genocide.”

“Genocide?! But Mister Boothroyd is a harmless old man.”

The man snorted: “This harmless old man created a weapon that decimated Europe in a great war.”

Boothroyd didn’t look like a man who would hurt a fly, but then who knew what monstrous devices were tucked away here ready to be discovered when they reached a particular letter of the alphabet or deciphered something on yellow paper. Involuntarily, she glanced at the piles of documents fearing that her attention would alight on the very creation.

“Who are you?”

“I am Scrutiniser Jones,” said the burly one. He had a bent nose that spoke of long ago fisticuffs. “This is Chief Examiner Lombard.”

“You have no jurisdiction here to arrest anyone,” Earnestine replied.

“Jurisdiction? All of time is our precinct.”

The men hauled Boothroyd to his feet and frog marched him out. Earnestine took a step to follow, but the taller man blocked her way. As he left, Boothroyd looked directly at Earnestine and said, “By George–” but then he was gone.

“Excuse me,” Earnestine said. “But he needs… does he get representation?”

“Oh yes, these monsters get a fair trial.”

“Will one be allowed to speak in his defence?”

“Maybe… who are you?”

Earnestine didn’t want to tell him.

Somehow, she didn’t want to get involved despite desperately wanting to save Boothroyd, but was her loyalty misplaced? Should she side with a mass–murderer just because he gave her a biscuit with her tea? Even Napoleon for all his mad warfare and radical ideas, had probably meant well when he imposed the nonsense of the metric system on the continent.

“Your name?” Chief Examiner Lombard repeated.

“Miss Deering–Dolittle.”

The man stumbled back surprised: “Miss
Earnestine
Deering–Dolittle?”

“Yes.”

Chief Examiner Lombard took a moment to close his open mouth, and then he chuckled, deep and reflexively.

The others had gone with Boothroyd.

There was only Earnestine and the laughing Temporal Peeler.

Surely, if they had removed Boothroyd from history, then he wouldn’t be able to discover the weapon or whatever it was, so he would be innocent. But if it wasn’t him, then just as surely it would fall to his replacement, which could very well be Earnestine herself.

He handed her a coin: “For your door.”

“My door… oh.”

She had to put the flat iron down to examine the gold disc. It was a King Edward sovereign, but Edward was only the Prince of Wales, Queen Victoria was the Monarch.

The man, Lombard, was still chuckling. Under his breath he repeated her name to himself and shook his head: “Earnestine Deering–Dolittle,
the
Earnestine Deering–Dolittle – of all people.”

“What is it?” Earnestine asked. “Do you know me?”

“Mrs Frasier isn’t going to be happy.”

Mrs Arthur Merryweather

Georgina felt she didn’t sleep at all and then suddenly she was trying to come round in that befuddled manner which betrayed a late rising. She rubbed her eyes, found the bowl of water for washing and splashed her face to shock herself awake. She found Arthur’s pocket watch from under her pillow and, as she did every morning, she carefully wound the mechanism. It was – and this was utterly shocking to her – twenty five past eight!

She had a proper wash and dressed, wondering how to tighten her corset without a sister or a maid. She managed, but she wasn’t pleased with the result. Finally, it was done up. A familiar sensation rose within her, and rushed to find the chamber pot. She threw up, not much because she’d eaten lightly the day before, but surely she must be going down with something for this was getting far too regular.

Luckily, there was enough water in her glass to rinse her mouth and she’d remembered to bring chalk to clean her teeth.

She thought about writing in Arthur’s journal to finish yesterday’s interrupted entry, but instead she made her way downstairs, ravenous, and at the foot of the stairs realised that she had no idea where to find the dining room.

She coughed: “Ahem.”

She checked Arthur’s watch again: nearly five to nine.

Another clock was ticking loudly, an ancient looking grandfather clock tucked by one of the doors. Time was important here, clearly, but why this door? Once she’d asked the question, it was obvious. Everyone needed to know when it was exactly right and proper to enter for a particular meal.