The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts

by David Wake

  “She is now,” Charlotte said, pointing at the door to indicate Mrs Frasier. “She’s married to Mister Frasier.”

  “Lottie! She’s not said ‘yes’.”

  “But Mrs Frasier has and aren’t laws retroactive now?”

  “Lottie!”

  “What’s the obvious question?” Earnestine asked.

  Georgina couldn’t think. She felt utterly flustered.

  “Will I be a bridesmaid?” Charlotte asked.

  Georgina ignored her: “We have to find Uncle Jeremiah.”

  “Isn’t he in the future?” Charlotte said. “We could go there. Use the Temporal Engine.”

  “We could,” said Georgina. Earnestine looked pale; perhaps something to occupy her mind was just what was needed. “Couldn’t we? Ness? You’re in charge of the Derring–Do Club.”

  Earnestine’s retort was without expression: “Mrs Frasier is now the ranking officer.”

  “Ness?”

  “If I was supposed to, then Mrs Frasier… I’d have told myself.”

  “You might meet Marcus Frasier?” Charlotte suggested.

  Earnestine glared at Charlotte.

  “Perhaps we’re meant to,” Georgina said quickly.

  “We have to do something,” Earnestine agreed.

  “That’s the spirit.”

  “We could talk to Captain Caruthers.”

  “Yes, that would be sensible,” Georgina agreed. “The men will know what to do.”

  “That wasn’t quite what I meant.”

  Charlotte had an idea: “Perhaps Captain Caruthers knows Marcus Frasier.”

  “Oh do be quiet, Lottie!” Georgina shouted.

  “I was only trying to help.”

  “Perhaps, Lottie, you should stay here,” said Georgina.

  “No,” Earnestine said, “otherwise she might run away and join the French Foreign Legion or a bordello. Or we might discover that she’s our great grandmother.”

  “That’s settled then,” said Georgina, “we’ll ask the men.”

  They collected their bags and Earnestine’s umbrella, and set off.

  Their assumption was that Captain Caruthers would be at his Club, or at least they’d have information as to his whereabouts, and a Hansom dropped them off outside. The front of the building was like a Greek temple and inside the lobby was the most austere of libraries, lit by shafts of sunlight from a skylight and with a silence that stunned the motes of dust floating in the air into immobility. The Porter behind his desk considered them as both unwelcome and unbelievable.

  “Good day,” Earnestine began, but a ‘shhh’ of a finger raise made her quiet. He pointed to the exit.

  Earnestine stood and folded her arms.

  He pointed again.

  “We are here–”

  This was too much and he quickly shuffled them across the marble floor to a room marked ‘Ladies Drawing Room’. It was a waiting room with chairs with backs designed to make sitting with a bustle difficult and persuasively suggesting that a ‘message left’ would be more beneficial than a ‘female waiting’.

  “Captain Caruthers, please,” Earnestine said.

  “He may be in.”

  “He is in.”

  “I will check.”

  “If you check and come back to say he isn’t here, then we will check.”

  The man’s expression of utter horror was a brief picture before he fled.

  A clock ticked with an interval that seemed far too long for a mere second.

  Captain Caruthers came in smartly, followed by Lieutenant McKendry.

  “Miss Deering–Dolittle, Mrs Merryweather, Miss Charlotte, how can I be of service?”

  “You know about matters,” Earnestine said.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “I was away for five days and you were… consorting with Temporal Peelers, so we have questions.”

  “Yes,” said Charlotte. “For instance, do you know Marc– Ow!”

  Georgina smiled sweetly at the Captain as if she had done absolutely nothing untoward.

  “Is there somewhere we can go to discuss matters?” Earnestine asked.

  Captain Caruthers hesitated: “This is the Ladies Drawing Room.”

  Earnestine simply waited.

  “There’s the Wellington Room,” McKendry said. “Ted’s the porter.”

  “Mac, they are young ladies… oh, very well.”

  They went back into the hallway. Ted the Porter had their gloves and umbrella ready in a jiffy, so he was wrong–footed when they went up the wide flight of stairs.

  “Just taking them to the Wellington,” said Caruthers breezily, “don’t worry, it’ll all become legal in 1920 or so, I expect.”

  “Captain,” said Ted, “Lord Farthing–”

  “Yes, we’ll be out before his cronies arrive.”

  The Wellington Room had a number of red leather arm chairs clumped around small tables under the watchful eye of the Iron Duke himself, who stared down from a tall portrait over the mantelpiece. Caruthers directed them away from the door and across the open space of the marble floor to an area behind a display cabinet. Charlotte gazed up in wonder at all the weapons and military exhibits.

  “Waterloo,” McKendry explained. “The Club famously won more medals than the Diogenes. They have a Nelson Room. We’re not so good on water.”

  They settled: Earnestine sat with her hands neatly in her lap, Georgina was concerned about her sister, and Charlotte fidgeted.

  “I have some news,” said Earnestine.

  Caruthers nodded.

  “It appears… that is to say… I am… I will become: Mrs Frasier.”

  Caruthers let out a breath and fell back in his chair.

  “Well, I’ll be…” said McKendry as he tugged on his chin puff beard.

  “I suspected as much,” Caruthers said, recovering. “Mrs Frasier herself let something slip, you could see she feared she had, and she knows too much about us all. There’s been a rumour circulating. I don’t know where it started.”

  Earnestine was shocked: “A rumour!”

  “It was in the Standard,” McKendry added.

  “Not the Times?”

  “Perhaps the evening edition.”

  “Then we are inextricably linked with all this,” Earnestine said. “I find myself at odds with the situation.”

  “Mrs Frasier said you’d come round eventually.”

  The silence that followed was palpable. No–one really knew what they were supposed to do, as if the other side in the game, if it was the other side, was allowed to dictate their moves and change the rules.

  Charlotte broke the silence: “Do you know–”

  Georgina hit her sharply across the arm, then said, “We’re worried about Uncle Jeremiah, Doctor Deering.”

  Caruthers looked to McKendry.

  “He was arrested last week,” McKendry added.

  “In front of us,” Georgina added. “In Magdalene Chase by Mrs Frasier herself.”

  “By…” Caruthers glanced at Earnestine and then nodded. “Who else has been arrested?”

  McKendry took a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and unfolded it.

  “Colonel Jefferies, Lord Stockton, the Right Honourable James Foxley–”

  Charlotte sniggered.

  “…Doctor Deering, Chief Constable Rodman, Mister Mellers, our own Mister Boothroyd–”

  “Poor Mister Boothroyd,” Earnestine said. “I met him in the future.”

  “How was he?” Caruthers asked.

  “Much older, repentant, and pleased to see me.”

  “Older?”

  “He’d been there for ten years at least.”

  Caruthers brushed down his moustache as he reflected on this: “Not the same time in the future every journey then?”

  “No.”

  “Mac?”

  “There are a few others,” McKendry finished.

  “And the pattern?” Caruthers asked.

  “They are all important, n
ot high ranking exactly, and they are all supposedly involved in this conspiracy. We can’t see how.”

  “Because there isn’t a how,” Earnestine said. “They aren’t involved yet.”

  “You sound like Mrs Frasier,” said Caruthers, and then when he saw Earnestine’s expression, he added: “No offence.”

  “And this conspiracy will destroy the world?” Georgina said.

  “That’s the one,” McKendry confirmed.

  “I’ve had those pictures developed,” said Caruthers. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and produced some daguerreotype prints. He handed them around, and Georgina had to wait patiently until Earnestine had seen them.

  Charlotte reached out, desperate to see for herself, but Earnestine gave them to Georgina next.

  There were images of a street quite unlike anything she had seen before, and then one of Earnestine standing in the foreground which gave the scene a sense of scale. She could see the Houses of Parliament in the far distance. The next one had Earnestine standing next to Mrs Frasier. They did look alike, so very alike, and yet Georgina could not reconcile their characters.

  “So we’re right to support this Chronological Committee,” said Georgina. “Don’t snatch.”

  “My turn,” said Charlotte.

  “That’s the kit and caboodle of it,” said McKendry. “Our hands are tied by destiny.”

  “Particularly as Miss Deering–Dolittle will end up in charge of it,” Caruthers said.

  There was another longer pause.

  “There’s nothing to be done then,” Earnestine said.

  “We can find Uncle Jeremiah and defend him,” Georgina said. “At least mitigating circumstances.”

  Caruthers nodded.

  A cry sounded from the doorway: “There she is!”

  A man dressed in formal evening attire with his bow tie awry and his white silk scarf in disarray, strode forward. He was flanked by another man in a frock coat,

  Caruthers stood and faced the newcomer: “Foxley… Schofield, I know Club rules and all that, but I couldn’t leave them in the Ladies Drawing Room, it’s not decent. And anyway, Mrs Frasier says that suffrage and all that, and it’s retroactive, so we should perhaps move with the times and allow Ladies into some of the other rooms.”

  “My brother was arrested by that creature.”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” Earnestine replied.

  Foxley’s face twisted and his tone was sarcastic: “Ignorance is no excuse.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Yes, the Right Honourable James Foxley, MP.”

  “Oh, the man I saw at the brothel,” said Charlotte.

  “That’s a damn slander!” the man spat, dribbling. “My brother is a paragon of virtue. He always supported bills in the house that promote family values.”

  Caruthers tried to step between them: “Foxley, perhaps when you’ve sobered–”

  “Go to hell!”

  The man, Foxley, lurched over to the other, Schofield, grabbed something off him, and then Foxley came to Earnestine. She stood her ground as the man threw a glove into her face. It rebounded and flopped onto the floor.

  “You are a monster!” Foxley shouted. “I challenge you!”

  “I say,” said Captain Caruthers, “steady on. You can’t challenge a lady, it’s simply not cricket.”

  “Ha! That’s where you are wrong. Mrs Frasier made it legal,” said Foxley. He changed his voice, twisting it to imitate Caruthers’ clipped accent. “Suffrage and all that, and it’s retroactive, so we should perhaps move with the times.”

  He went to the wall and extricated two cutlasses from the display. He handed them to Schofield, who weighed them and then brought them over.

  “Doesn’t the challenged party choose the type of weapon?” Charlotte said, helpfully.

  “What would you like?” Schofield asked.

  “Hockey sticks,” Earnestine suggested.

  “Oh, be serious,” Foxley said.

  “They can be jolly vicious,” Charlotte said.

  “We can’t do this with the child here,” said McKendry.

  “Quite right,” said Caruthers.

  “Then get her out!” Foxley screamed.

  “Charlotte,” said Earnestine, “I think–”

  “Oh, but–”

  “Don’t whine.”

  “I could be your second.”

  Earnestine picked a sword, experimenting with the grip. Schofield returned the other to Foxley, who lashed out, slicing the air angrily.

  “Miss?” said Caruthers to Charlotte indicating the door.

  “Oh, this is so unfair,” said Charlotte. She stamped her foot.

  “Lottie,” said Earnestine, firmly.

  “Edgar,” said Charlotte.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Earnestine, “but who?”

  “The…” Charlotte lowered her voice to a whisper. “Duelling machine.”

  “Oh, that. Why is it called Edgar?”

  “After Uncle… never mind,” Charlotte glanced at McKendry as he gently took hold of her arm and moved her towards the exit. “It’s not cricket.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Men: they play cricket,” said Charlotte, “it’s all sportsmanship and gentlemanly behaviour. Duelling is like that.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Girls play hockey,” said Charlotte, and she winked at Earnestine in an overly obvious manner.

  Finally, McKendry moved Charlotte out of the Wellington Room and into the corridor beyond: “Just stay there, please,” he said.

  Foxley pointed at Georgina: “And the other one!”

  “She’s my second,” said Earnestine.

  “I’d rather… may I have your handkerchiefs please,” said Georgina, and she went to Caruthers and McKendry for their clean spares. “For the… blood.”

  For Georgina, this was suddenly real, and the act of gathering materials to staunch blood brought it home to her. Earnestine was going to let her pride get her chopped up by this inebriated blackguard.

  It shouldn’t be allowed: fighting women was clearly suffrage gone mad.

  She went over to Earnestine and whispered: “Ness, don’t do this!”

  “I must.”

  “What did Charlotte mean about cricket and hockey?”

  “She’s been practising on the Duelling Machine.”

  “Duelling Machine?” said Georgina. “Oh, at the Patent Pending Office. She called it Edgar after Uncle Edgar, because it wobbled.”

  Foxley, Georgina decided, didn’t look like Uncle Edgar or a Duelling Machine. Any contraption would be a cuddly child’s doll in comparison to this obvious bounder. Although he looked drunk and smelt of brandy, he was agile on his feet, unlike the real Uncle Edgar. It was obvious from his movements that Foxley was practised in the art of fencing.

  “Oh, cricket! Playing by the rules, of course.”

  “What?” Georgina asked urgently.

  “I did learn one trick from the Duelling Machine.”

  “Which is?”

  “Ready?” Schofield asked.

  “I need a second,” Earnestine replied.

  The man shrugged: “Take as long as you like, a minute, two even – let’s just get on with it.”

  “No, I meant a person to assist me. Captain Caruthers,” Earnestine said. “Would you mind awfully?”

  “Not at all, Miss Deering–Dolittle,” Caruthers said. “I could get the Duty Porter.”

  “Oh shut up, Caruthers,” Foxley said, spitting, as he brought his cutlass up to the ready position. “En garde!”

  “En garde,” Earnestine replied, gingerly bringing the blade closer to her nose.

  She bowed and, when the man followed suit, she stabbed forward, straight, like one does when one is skewering beef steak and the man jerked back, wrenching the sword from her grip. It vibrated side to side, stuck as it was in his chest.

  He stared down, surprised, at the growing red stain that seeped angrily across his
starched white shirt front, before his eyes turned as if he were trying to see the inside of his skull and then he toppled backwards like a felled tree. His cutlass clattered from his grasp to skitter across the marble floor.

  “I say,” said Caruthers, “you can see why we’re not allowed to fight the weaker sex.”

  “Yes,” McKendry agreed. “We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  “Excuse me!” said Schofield: “That wasn’t a legal move.”

  “Oh,” said Earnestine, her voice soft, her eyes wide with innocence and her demeanour positively exuding the sense that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. “Is there something you forgot to explain to me?”

  Schofield’s face muscles tensed: “Yes, there is.”

  “Oh?”

  “You are supposed to raise your sword thus!” Schofield brought his pointed finger in front of him like an angry teacher. “Swipe it to one side, and then fight.”

  “Oh, silly me.”

  “Silly–”

  “Thank you for letting me know,” said Earnestine. “It won’t happen again.”

  “It won’t– but… he’s dead now.”

  “Yes, and a good job he’s not on any carpet. Blood is awfully tricky to scrub out.”

  Caruthers coughed: “I think honour has been satisfied.”

  Earnestine could see the Captain’s eyes twinkling with the effort of trying to keep a straight face.

  Georgina was horrified: a man was dead and they, including her sister, were practically joking about it. She saw a side of Earnestine she didn’t like, a side that would become manifest when she turned into Mrs Frasier.

  “Honour has not been satisfied,” Schofield insisted. “The Earl will want to… well, that is to say…”

  “Perhaps next time he’ll pick on someone his own size, or at least over six foot, rather than on some slip of a young lady who’s only five foot eight,” Caruthers pointed out.

  “Next time!? But he’s dead.”

  “He was an Earl?” Earnestine asked.

  “Was? Yes. I suppose his brother is the Earl now.”

  “He’ll be pleased,” said Caruthers.

  “Except that he’s been arrested and taken to the future,” said Schofield. “By her!”

  McKendry coughed and shuffled forward to Schofield, taking him to one side in a conspiratorial way.

  “I think we ought not to mention this,” he said.

  “Why ever not?” Schofield demanded.