The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts

by David Wake

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome… what are your orders?”

  “Get to the conveyor,” said Mrs Frasier. “Stop anyone from finding out.”

  Earnestine saluted: “Aye, aye, Ma’am.”

  “Call me Charity.”

  “I’ll call you Earnestine.”

  Mrs Arthur Merryweather

  The boy had waited with the hansom cab and thankfully knew enough about horses to drive them back towards Battersea. They dropped Charlotte off nearby, although Georgina had contrived to keep her some distance away. The girl was still in men’s clothing and wearing a sword belt, but she’d found a coat from somewhere.

  “You’ll just observe,” Georgina told her.

  “Yes.”

  “From a distance.”

  “Yes.”

  “Promise.”

  “Cross my heart,” said Charlotte, “and hope to die.”

  Georgina asked the boy to take her across the river and on to Captain Caruthers’s Club. It seemed a long journey, and then they were there.

  “Do I get another sovereign, Miss?” he asked.

  “It’s probably worth sticking around,” Georgina admitted. “These gentlemen can be very generous.”

  Georgina entered, and the Porter intercepted her.

  “Captain Caruthers, please.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes.”

  The Porter sent the Junior Porter running upstairs.

  “You are becoming quite the regular, Ma’am.”

  “I’ll have to take out a subscription.”

  “Not to a Gentleman’s Club, Ma’am.”

  Captain Caruthers came running down the stairs, followed by the faithful McKendry. Others dressed in regimental red or evening black gathered at the top of the staircase.

  “Mrs Merryweather,” he said. “Any news?”

  “There’s gunpowder under this club.”

  “So the Porter told me, I didn’t believe it–”

  “It’s there!”

  “So I looked.”

  “Lord Farthing placed it there.”

  “Lord Farthing!”

  “To kill you all.”

  “To help Mrs Frasier… that makes no sense.”

  “If he disposes of the dissenters here, you, me, Mac, Mrs Frasier, Ness, Lottie, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all, he can control the Chronological Committee. Whoever says what’s in the future is the one who says what happens now.”

  “McKendry?”

  The Lieutenant came to attention: “Sir.”

  “Let’s raid this Chronological Committee.”

  “Surely, we need orders.”

  “In that case, I order you.”

  McKendry smiled: “Right ho, Sir.”

  Quickly, McKendry signalled to the others and they departed, hailing cabs as they went outside. The bustle was efficient and military.

  “Good,” said Caruthers. “We’ll make this our base of operations, field hospital and so forth, if it comes to a fight.”

  “What about me?” Georgina demanded.

  “You’re to stay here. Ted, keep her here.”

  “Sir, this is a Gentleman’s Club,” complained the Porter.

  “Then be gentlemanly.”

  “I suppose you can stay in the Ladies Drawing Room, Miss,” the Porter said.

  “Ma’am,” Georgina said, before turning to Caruthers. “I can help.”

  “Bandages and so forth,” said Caruthers. “I’m afraid a woman in your condition should stay at home.”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Captain… what do you mean ‘a woman in my condition’?”

  “You’re expecting.”

  “Expecting?”

  “Do I need to spell it out?”

  “Yes, I think you should.”

  “You’re expecting,” he said, and then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “That is to say, as in… you’re pregnant.”

  Georgina laughed: “Don’t be foolish! Or impertinent! That was all a ruse. I’m not pregnant. How can I be pregnant? I’m not married.”

  “You were married.”

  “Yes,” said Georgina patiently. “But I’m not now, I’m widowed.”

  “But you did sleep with him.”

  “That one night… and we did more than sleep, we… oh my!”

  And Georgina sat down, not because she was pregnant or from shock, but because she felt so utterly bewildered: pregnant, not pregnant and now pregnant again for sure. So she simply sat in the Gentlemen’s Club, while the men went in carriages to save the day.

  It was hardly the stuff of Derring–Do.

  How could she have been so foolish as to not realise?

  All those visits to the Natural History Museum, all that interest in the theories of evolution and Darwin’s Natural Selection, and yet she had failed utterly to apply that knowledge to her own species and to herself. She still thought, ludicrously, of storks flying with bundles of joy and discoveries under gooseberry bushes.

  Charles Darwin himself had written that light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history. Of course, man reproduced in the same manner.

  Oh, how foolish, how utterly blind!

  Arthur’s watch felt solid in her hand, round and comforting, like an egg, and it seemed the only real thing in the world, so she held on to it tightly, missing him.

  Miss Charlotte

  Charlotte reached the factory at the same time that Captain Caruthers and Lieutenant McKendry arrived with five or six carriage loads of soldiers, some in uniform and others still in their dress suits. The hastily assembled militia formed up and there was a hurried negotiation between the officers to find out who was the more senior.

  Caruthers went down the line: “Be ready for anything,” he said.

  Charlotte fell into step behind him.

  “This is going to be jolly spiffing,” she said.

  “Perhaps,” said Caruthers, “but no place for a child.”

  No, no, surely they weren’t… but they were, and she wasn’t going to cry, but it was so unfair, utterly unfair.

  “But I helped with the Austro–Hungarian business,” she said, conscious that her voice had gone up by an octave.

  “And that was no place for a young lady either… Mac.”

  Lieutenant McKendry came over at the double.

  “Where did you get that coat?” Caruthers asked.

  “It was cold,” said Charlotte, shifting her sword belt around to hide it beneath her jacket.

  “What have you got inside?”

  “Nothing.”

  He frowned: why did adults never believe her?

  “Mac, make sure she’s on her way,” said Caruthers. “We’ll move when the second group arrive.”

  “Come on, Lottie,” said McKendry, and he led her away, and waited until she was all the way down the street and turning the corner. When Charlotte looked back, Captain Caruthers had led Major Dan’s Boys along the wall towards the iron arch. They took up position just outside the gate to the factory yard.

  Unfair – they had all the fun and she was sent home to kick her heels. Mrs Frasier had locked her in a store room, so she was entitled to her revenge – surely? But she had no choice, and turned the corner trudging as much as she could. She wasn’t going to look back, she decided, she wasn’t going to give McKendry the satisfaction, except… that was strange.

  Behind her, set in the wall was a door.

  On it was a small symbol, a sundial. She glanced up at the sun, then squinted past the bright, orange smudge in her eyesight at her own shadow. She had no real idea of the time, except that the sundial wasn’t at anything like the right angle to work.

  She fished into her pocket and took out the second key, the one that had been on the barrel in the cellar next to the handcuff keys. There was a piece of string threaded through the loop end of the key to hold a fob. It said, simply ‘The Future’.

  Oh, this was a side door.

  This door must lead into the Chrono
logical Committee’s base.

  And Charlotte had the key.

  She should tell Caruthers about this way in, but he’d said to go home and he was busy and she’d found it and there wasn’t time anyway.

  Charlotte glanced right and left, and then–

  She had to wait for an omnibus to clatter past, its horses fretting with their load.

  Right and left again, and then she nipped across the road to the doorway. She listened, but the noise of the street was too loud and the door too solid.

  Huddling in the recess, so no–one could see, she checked her revolver – empty. She shouldn’t have fired all those bullets at Scrutiniser Jones when he was making a run for it. At least she had her sword.

  Nothing ventured, she thought, and she pushed the key into the door. It turned, easily, and she went inside.

  There was an office with oak panelling and a large desk with a green leather inlay. On the wall was an oil painting of Boadicea in a scene that was jolly stirring.

  Charlotte went on and found herself somewhere near the Chronological Conveyor. She could see out of the windows of the corridor to the main entrance. Outside, in the central area, Peelers were busy unloading barrels off carts. They rolled them along and then down a chute.

  Slipping around the glass wall of the Pepper’s Ghost apparatus, she went along the other dilapidated corridor and past the identical control lectern. The view from these windows, although superficially the same, ended with a backcloth expertly painted with buildings and the sky.

  Turning round, she saw the other dais room. It was an extraordinary contraption, but even so, now she knew how it worked, she was amazed that she had been taken in at all.

  There were a few barrels placed against the wall. When she went over and examined them she found them full of gunpowder. The grain size suggested it was artillery grade.

  If she could find more of it, she could blow the place up, she thought and sniggered. That would show Mrs Frasier and her Temporal Peelers.

  She made her way through Temporal Engineering towards the Rotunda, sneaking down some stairs to get to the ‘future’ version of the building. The gunpowder must be stored somewhere there, she thought, and sure enough, she found some more stacked by a wall.

  She split the top of a barrel with her sword, and then glanced around wondering what was the best method to go about this. She tried picking up the barrel, but this one was too big. She needed a priming charge like the one she’d used earlier on the door.

  “Charlotte!”

  It was Earnestine.

  “Ness, help me here.”

  “I can’t allow this,” Earnestine said.

  “We’ve got to stop them,” said Charlotte. “And besides, it’ll be such an explosion.”

  “What they are doing here is too important.”

  “Ness?”

  “Charlotte, put that down.”

  “Ness?”

  “Put that down at once!”

  “No.”

  “Do as you are told.”

  “No.”

  “Charlotte Deering–Dolittle, you are going to be in a great deal of trouble when we get home.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Will you–”

  “You’ve always told me to do what is right, and, surely, the Defence of the Realm is important.”

  “Then I will just have to teach you a lesson.”

  “No you won’t.”

  “Yes, I will.”

  “Won’t.”

  “Will.”

  “Won’t.”

  “Wi–”

  “Don’t be childish, Ness.”

  “I am not!” Earnestine drew a sword: “How dare you talk to me like that? I’m your elder and better.”

  “Elder, but not better,” said Charlotte. She backed away and raised the sword she’d used to open the barrel. “I dare.”

  The two sisters faced each other, weapons drawn.

  “Did you use the duelling machine?” Earnestine said.

  “Edgar, yes, every day, even when you were in the future.”

  “Edgar?”

  “It looked like Uncle Edgar.”

  Earnestine laughed: “Oh, it does.”

  “Which proves that I applied myself.”

  “The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Did you get to the tenth level?”

  “I did.”

  “The Deutsche Fechtschule?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Fiore Furlano de Civida–”

  “I did them all, Ness! I just didn’t work out how to pronounce them.”

  “Well, Lottie, you clearly aren’t the expert you claim to be.”

  “We’ll see… en garde.”

  “No, Lottie, I cannot allow you to move on to practical aspects until you have a proper grounding in the academic side.”

  “You’re only saying that because you know you’ll lose.”

  “I most certainly am not.”

  “En garde.”

  “En garde.”

  They both brought their swords up in front of their faces. Charlotte imagined the dueling machine, Uncle Edgar, and then kept a watchful eye on Earnestine, so that Earnestine didn’t take her by surprise and attack before she was ready. Earnestine had killed someone in a duel, she knew, so she was a formidable foe. But still she had to fight her elder sister. It was clear that Earnestine had been turned by the evil, but charismatic, Mrs Frasier.

  So Charlotte attacked, a lunge, and Earnestine had to sidestep and parry to avoid it.

  “Oh, you did apply yourself, Lottie,” Earnestine said.

  “Yes.”

  They cut and parried, moving sideways and then to–and–fro, each countering the other as if playing different Jacquard cards from their hand, one after another.

  Snap!

  Their swords clattered back and forth until–

  “Ow!”

  Earnestine leapt back, putting her left hand over her right where Charlotte had smacked it with the side of her blade. Charlotte realized just how much further she’d reached with the Dueling Machine than her sister.

  “See… Ness, you can’t beat me, so you’ll just have–”

  Earnestine slashed angrily catching Charlotte off guard. Her sword clattered to the ground, her left hand gripped over her right arm copying Earnestine’s earlier gesture, but this time vivid red blood seeped between her fingers.

  They glared at each other.

  It wasn’t a game anymore.

  Earnestine leveled the point of her sword.

  “Now, Charlotte, say sorry, put away this gunpowder and we’ll say no more about it.”

  “Never!”

  Charlotte leapt to one side, lurching into a cartwheel and as she went over, her heels and borrowed trousers uppermost, she picked up her fallen sword. When she landed, she was ready for a second bout.

  They fought again with no love lost between them.

  The stakes ever higher, Earnestine fought with renewed strength, but it wasn’t brute force that counted. Although the machine had more power in its fully wound springs than any person, Charlotte could still beat it.

  She parried, blow after blow, but each attack from her sister, despite her longer arms, was wilder and clumsier. Charlotte just needed to wait for the best opening as her older sister tired.

  It came soon enough.

  Earnestine’s sword went down, strong and powerfully, going past Charlotte’s in an arc. The edge of Charlotte’s sword found its target and she drove the move home.

  Earnestine’s yelped, her sword clattered across the floor and she put her right hand to her face. Blood spurted and then oozed between her fingers, dripping down and splattered bright red flecks on the ground.

  “That hurt!”

  “Sorry Ness.”

  “I’m bleeding.”

  “I’m sorry, Ness, really I am, but I win: you have to give ground.”

  “No.”

  “Ness, you have to ask for quarter, because I can ju
st run you through.”

  Earnestine lips tightened, but she had no choice: “Quarter?”

  “Of course,” said Charlotte, genuinely disturbed by the injury she’d inflicted.

  “NO!”

  It was Mrs Frasier.

  The woman put the toe of her boot under Earnestine’s sword and flicked it into the air. She caught it expertly.

  “But I won,” Charlotte complained. “It’s two against one.”

  “Don’t whine,” said Earnestine and Mrs Frasier together.

  “There’s only one other person besides yourself here,” said Mrs Frasier. “We can’t help it if we came here twice. Ah ha! We can finally use the Royal ‘we’.”

  “You aren’t Ness!” Charlotte roared. “You’re a fake. See! Ness will have a duelling scar and you don’t.”

  Mrs Frasier put her sword to her cheek and pressed: when she took the blade away, a line of blood oozed and dripped.

  “En garde!” she said.

  She slashed forward, swiping at Charlotte, who parried giving ground.

  “Don’t kill her!” Earnestine shouted.

  They fought, Charlotte and Mrs Frasier, swords clashing, but for Charlotte it was her second bout. She might have beaten Earnestine, but her skills didn’t match those of Mrs Frasier. The older woman showed flair, a dramatic ability to cut and thrust, moving and skipping to change the angle of attack with confidence and aplomb.

  Charlotte, used to a machine, couldn’t cope with the changes of pace. The speed and agility required were beyond her. With each attack, she had to back away, a step here, a shuffle there.

  In a flurry of cuts, Mrs Frasier trapped Charlotte against the glass wall and, with nowhere to go, Charlotte’s defence was desperate, each parry more hopeless and more uncontrolled until, inevitably, she left herself open.

  Mrs Frasier stabbed forward.

  There were men running behind Mrs Frasier, hidden in the blur of tears and fear, but all Charlotte could see was the steel point coming in, past her own sword, closer than an arm’s length, striking her with utter conviction.

  There was nothing Charlotte could have done.

  Mrs Frasier let out a cry of triumph: “Ha!”

  And Charlotte was still alive.

  Charlotte wrenched her own arm around, twisting her wrist to bring her blade to bear, and then she stabbed with all her might. Her weapon went under Mrs Frasier’s corset, somehow finding a way through the ribs of whalebone to penetrate deep into the woman’s tightened internal organs.