The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts

by David Wake

  The banging on the front door stopped.

  “They’ve given up, Ma’am,” said Fellowes.

  “I doubt it. Calm before and all that,” said the Colonel. He raised his putter. “One for all?”

  “The Derring–Do Club against the world,” said Charlotte.

  “The Derring–Do Club?”

  “It’s an adventuring club,” said Charlotte. “And you’ve just joined what might be our last stand.”

  “It is not an adventuring club,” Earnestine insisted.

  “You might as well face facts, Ness,” Georgina said. “It’s always an adventure.”

  “Gina, we have to at least make an effort.”

  They made their way back to the top of the stairs and peered down. Lights moved, apparently haphazardly, behind the frosted panes to either side of the solid oak door. The iron fittings arranged to reinforce and strengthen made the entrance look impenetrable.

  There was a cry outside, something fizzed loudly and then the edges of the door were highlighted by a bright white light. It focused on the lock, shining in a beam through the keyhole, until sparks burst through the door. The piercing brightness that was so intense everyone had to look away. On the far wall of the landing, their shadows jerked and pranced as if they were trying to run away.

  “If we can keep our heads,” Earnestine shouted.

  The metal of the lock melted away, the liquid shrapnel scouring the stone flooring as it splashed and flared.

  The door opened, its heavy lock falling away.

  A man in a frock coat and a welder’s mask stood up from his kneeling position and backed away.

  Now, looking at the empty doorway, it did feel like the calm before the storm.

  “Earnestine,” said Uncle Jeremiah. “Saint George.”

  “For England, yes,” Earnestine replied, gripping her golf club.

  “No, Saint George.”

  Two lines of Temporal Peelers entered holding weapons that even Charlotte herself didn’t recognize, although she spotted a few of those galvanic pistols she’d seen earlier. The troops went left and right, but instead of storming the staircase they formed an honour guard.

  “St George!” Uncle Jeremiah insisted.

  “And the Dragon,” Charlotte said, not understanding.

  “Booth–”

  A woman entered, her heels clicking on the floor as she sidestepped the glowing debris from the door lock.

  “I am here,” she announced.

  She tilted her head, haughty and superior, upwards to spy them all clustered at the top of the stairs. She wore a burgundy dress, tight fitting at the waist and splayed out in a fashionable manner, and she carried a matching velvet bag over her arm. Perched upon her head was a pillbox hat with a tiny, black veil pushed up to reveal her chiselled features.

  She smiled – a thin, tight smile of satisfaction.

  “I am Mrs Frasier.”

  Chapter X

  Miss Deering-Dolittle

  Whereas the idea of a desperate last stand against a squad of Temporal Peelers armed with strange weapons had seemed viable, a heroic Rorke’s Drift, no–one wanted to fight this woman. Their defiance simply wilted away. The Temporal Peelers confiscated their weapons and the Colonel even handed them the golf bag in which to store them. Earnestine relinquished her knobkerrie without even realising it was being taken. They had handcuffs for Uncle Jeremiah.

  “There’s no need for those,” Georgina said.

  They ignored her and pulled the poor old man down the staircase to face Mrs Frasier.

  “Jeremiah Deering?”

  “I told them nothing, Mrs Frasier, nothing.”

  “But they must have asked.”

  “I told them nothing.”

  “Do you have it?”

  Uncle Jeremiah looked furtive: “Yes.”

  “Give it to me – now!”

  The defeated man fished into the inside pocket of his jacket, but he couldn’t extract anything due to the handcuffs. Mrs Frasier herself reached into his coat, a strangely intimate gesture, and plucked it out. It was a book, yellow with an Egyptian sphinx on the cover and–

  Earnestine just couldn’t make out any letters before Mrs Frasier tucked it away in her velvet bag.

  “We wouldn’t want this falling into the wrong hands, would we?”

  Uncle Jeremiah looked away.

  “I have a warrant for your arrest, signed, stamped and… post–dated.”

  “I haven’t done anything.”

  “You haven’t done anything yet!” she corrected. “Nor will you, now. Take him away!”

  The Peelers removed their prisoner, frog marching him out into the night. Carriage doors slammed, a horse whinnied, and then their vehicle clattered away. They all listened well beyond the final crunch of gravel.

  Mrs Frasier clapped her hands: “Let’s have dinner, I’m famished.”

  The Derring–Do Club sidled down the stairs with its tail between its legs. Mrs Fraser examined them from a distance and then made a closer review as if inspecting the decidedly motley, military unit.

  “In view of the circumstances, let’s all be rebels and not dress for dinner.”

  They trooped past the ticking clock to the dining room.

  Mrs Frasier called out: “Earnestine.”

  Earnestine paused and then turned back.

  “That’s close enough,” said Mrs Frasier.

  Earnestine halted, feeling much like a little girl called before a headmistress. There were only the two of them in the hall, the cold Dartmoor atmosphere drifting in through the broken door. Earnestine knew she could flee, run out into the darkness, but what would have been the point? She knew she could not escape this woman. Indeed, such was the power of the woman’s gaze that it held Earnestine’s attention completely.

  As far as Earnestine could tell, Mrs Frasier wasn’t just not unhappy, she was taking a positive delight in everything she said. A gold tooth flashed when she smiled.

  “You are the honest one.”

  Earnestine answered back: “We’re all honest.”

  “Did – ha – Uncle Jeremiah tell you anything?”

  “No.”

  “Come now, the truth will out.”

  “He said he was responsible, that he created the Temporal Apparatus and the plan for a new world order.”

  “And the details, the theory?”

  “We were interrupted.”

  Mrs Frasier glanced at the damage to the hallway: “Ah, yes.”

  “How long has Uncle Jeremiah been mixed up in all this?”

  “Not until a few years yet.”

  “Then how?”

  “He created it all and then popped back to let himself in on it, as it were.”

  “But surely one can’t meet oneself… can one?”

  “Most assuredly one can.”

  Mrs Frasier picked her way across the hallway, kicking the damaged lock with the toe of her Oxford boot. Earnestine did not like her overbearing attitude and standoffish manner.

  “Have we met?”

  “Yes… a long time ago and just now.”

  “You come from the future?”

  “Yes, your future, my past.”

  “Your present.”

  “Yes, but here and now it’s my past.”

  Earnestine said nothing and waited for Mrs Frasier to continue.

  “The present is your personal here and now; your personal past is what you remember, so, Ness, your future is my past.”

  “Please don’t call me ‘Ness’.”

  “You think you don’t like me, you think of me as your enemy, but you will come to think of me as… your elder sister.”

  “I don’t have an elder sister.”

  “Always the responsible one, Ness. The weight always rests on the shoulders of people like you… and me. One must accept it, embrace it.”

  “Miss Deering–Dolittle, if you please.”

  “So keen to be taken seriously.”

  “What’s
wrong with wanting to be taken seriously?”

  “Do you trust yourself?”

  “Of course.”

  “But make allowance for their doubting too.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “This way,” said Mrs Frasier, showing the way to the dining room.

  But make allowance for their doubting… oh! The lines came unbidden: …doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired of waiting. ‘If–’, Kipling.

  “It’s all part of growing up,” said Mrs Frasier, “you’ll learn that, when the time comes.”

  The clock chimed.

  Mrs Arthur Merryweather

  For her first evening meal since coming to power in Magdalene Chase, Georgina felt deeply ashamed of the fare on offer. There was practically nothing on the table: simply a cold ham, some beef, pheasant that hadn’t been hung long enough, only quickly steamed vegetables of carrots, parsnips, runner beans, peas and new potatoes, some pickles and preserves in ill–matching condiment sets, a truly pathetic fish course, and all with only the cooking wine from the kitchen rather than any choice vintage from the cellar. There wasn’t even icing on the cake.

  The Cook had conscripted the Boy to help, but clearly that had been a desperate measure. Mrs Jago would take some replacing, Georgina admitted to herself.

  Mrs Frasier had chosen the seating plan: she sat at the head of the table, Earnestine at the foot and then the Colonel to her right with Georgina herself relegated down one with Charlotte opposite. The place to Mrs Frasier’s left hand was set, but vacant throughout.

  When they’d entered, Mrs Frasier and Earnestine had been discussing poetry of all things; something privately circulated, but not published yet. The conversation, thankfully, settled down to other matters.

  “More pickle, I see, Gina,” the woman said, tucking into her meat.

  Georgina looked down: there was far too much pickle on her plate. She ate it anyway – she didn’t want to give the woman the satisfaction – and had some more afterwards as well.

  “Music I adore,” Mrs Frasier said. “In the future, it’s all automatic by recording. I want to listen to the Berlin Philharmonic, I just ring for it to come out of the cupboard.”

  “Wax cylinders?” Georgina asked.

  “Vinyl Chloride.”

  “It sounds thrilling,” Charlotte said.

  “Thank you, Lottie – no wine though – and what else? Automatic carriages, which your driver operates, but it has no horse.”

  “Automobile,” Georgina said.

  “Ah, you have them already. Despite being able to dip in and out as it were, my knowledge of history is appalling, quite appalling.”

  “Does everyone travel by Zeppelin?” Charlotte asked eagerly. “We’ve been in a Zeppelin.”

  “The sky is full of them and we have personal Zeppelins too.”

  “Amazing.”

  The main course was finished. Fellowes, flanked by two Temporal Peelers, cleared away the dishes.

  “Fellowes,” Georgina asked as he passed her. “Can we do cheese and biscuits?”

  Fellowes looked panicked: “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Mrs Frasier chortled: “Ma’am! Capital, capital.”

  Georgina seethed inside, but tried to remain the good hostess. On her right, Earnestine was staring straight ahead, her lips disappearing such was her silence. Charlotte – silly girl – was entranced by all the talk of the future, which seemed to be full of toys and trinkets, gadgets and gearing, contrivances and contraptions.

  While Fellowes brought in brandy with the cheese and biscuits, Mrs Frasier lit a thin cigar, inhaling deeply.

  “Would you like one, Colonel?” Mrs Frasier said offering them to the Colonel, who shook his head. She then indicated Earnestine.

  “I don’t smoke,” said Earnestine.

  Mrs Frasier corrected her: “You don’t smoke yet.”

  As she took another long drag on her cigar, the tip glowed brighter than the candles.

  “Should the ladies retire?” the Colonel asked, confused.

  “We won’t leave you on your own,” Mrs Frasier said. She poured herself a generous glass of Armagnac. She swirled it around expertly.

  “And then came the Great War,” she continued.

  Charlotte was confused: “Do you mean the Napoleonic War?”

  “The Greater War then.”

  Knives scraped across cream crackers. The hall clock chimed the half–hour. No–one dared speak. The chill in the air had nothing to do with ice and bellows this time.

  “You’ve had wars in which thousands died. In this war, millions died. It almost never ended. We were in blood stepped in so far that should we wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er. Whole landscapes became indistinguishable from the mires of Dartmoor. The dead envied the living. And it all began here!”

  Mrs Fraser struck the table with her fist. Ash fell from her cigar leaving black marks on the tablecloth.

  “These people must be held accountable. They will be held accountable.”

  She pointed now, stabbing forward.

  “We arrest them. We give them a fair trial and then… we change history.”

  She took up her brandy again, swirled it and caused the light from the candle to flicker around her haughty features.

  “We mould it, shape it, make it our own.”

  She knocked her glass back, draining it.

  “But Uncle Jeremiah?” Georgina said.

  “And Mister Boothroyd?” said Earnestine. The first words she’d spoken since they’d started.

  “And the man in the bordello?” Charlotte added.

  Georgina was aghast: “Bordello!?”

  Mrs Frasier laughed: “Oh yes, the bordello…”

  “They’ve not done anything,” said Earnestine.

  Mrs Frasier corrected her once again: “Not done anything yet!”

  The woman stood suddenly.

  Colonel Fitzwilliam was taken completely by surprise and struggled to get out of his chair.

  “We should get some sleep,” said Mrs Frasier. She stubbed out her cigar on her plate. “We’ve a long journey tomorrow. I’ll take the guest room.”

  “I’ll show you the way,” Georgina said, dropping her napkin on the tablecloth.

  “I know the way,” Mrs Frasier replied sharply. “I have an advantage, you see.”

  “You have these thugs to do your bidding,” said Earnestine.

  “More than that… I know what happens next.”

  “How?”

  “Gina wrote it down,” said Mrs Frasier, “but just not yet.”

  Mrs Frasier chuckled as she climbed the stairs and unerringly turned towards the East Wing. In her wake, everyone fussed and prepared until accommodation was found for everyone. Fellowes found bedding for the Peelers, who slept on the floor in the library and guarded the hallway. Georgina found another bedroom for Earnestine and Charlotte to share.

  And then – “good night” – and Georgina was suddenly alone in her own room.

  She changed for bed and then, as was her new habit, she picked up Arthur’s journal and took out the fountain pen. So much to write, she thought, and she needed to do so now, while it was fresh in her memory, but when she tried to make sense of it all, she realised it was all a jumble, events falling over each other in the wrong order in her mind. Arrests before the crimes? It was as if she were reading a story with all the pages in the wrong order.

  Moreover, as the pen touched the page, she remembered what Mrs Frasier had said: ‘Gina wrote it down, but just not yet.’

  With a numbing shock, she realised that the woman had meant after dinner. Now! This was the very moment that had been predicted.

  These blank pages would be where she’d write about the séance, her sisters’ sudden appearance, the flight through the night to the George and Dragon, Uncle Jeremiah’s arrest and Mrs Frasier claiming the guest room.

  But what if she didn’t write it down, and instead left it blank? What if, this instant, she d
ashed the book into the fire? What if? If?

  But had events already gone too far: in the blood so deep it’s best go on wading through the mire? Mrs Frasier had said that, hadn’t she? Something like that anyway.

  And she’d said that history could be moulded, changed and shaped. Did Georgina herself have that power in this moment? She could write anything, make something up, phrase it such that Mrs Frasier spent the night in the library. Would Mrs Frasier then read the journal years hence, and therefore know, without a shadow of a doubt, that she’d slept in the library, and therefore choose that room instead?

  What else could Georgina change?

  Could she cross out Arthur going to see Major Dan? Would they then never meet? Have met? But that had happened: cause followed by effect.

  Except now, it didn’t.

  This wasn’t the fakery of séance and mysticism, easily swept aside by turning up a gas light: this was science and engineering with its chronological mechanisms and time apparatuses. Even so, one of the basic tenets of science, cause followed by effect, had been overturned. They’d not stepped back to a Dark Age, but forward… into what?

  Such was the pressure of her hand on the pen that the ink blotched on the page making a mark and recording for all time her indecision.

  Miss Charlotte

  Charlotte had not slept well: Earnestine snored.

  The London they returned to, after a long carriage trip and an uneventful train journey, seemed on edge and very different from the one they had left. People went about their business much the same, the bustle at Paddington was as busy as ever, but it was subdued. Soldiers from another train fell into neat columns to march along the platform, but they were all in khaki rather than their proper dress uniforms. The newspaper hawkers no longer shouted their headlines, but merely held up a sign saying ‘more arrests’ or ‘Lord Farthing to address the House’.

  The sisters arrived back at 12b Zebediah Row exhausted and defeated. They had failed to protect one of their own and the fate of Uncle Jeremiah was a mystery.

  “We could break into their secret base,” Charlotte suggested, “steal a time machine and voyage to whenever and rescue Uncle.”

  Neither Earnestine nor Georgina had the energy to object. Cook made them tea and brought cake, but by the time they’d finished it, they couldn’t remember what sort of cake it had been.