by David Wake
Mrs Frasier let out an almighty bellow.
The woman punched Charlotte with her right fist, still encased in the cutlass hilt, and Charlotte felt the blow ring inside her skull. She toppled over, the darkness of unconsciousness rushing in just as she saw Earnestine on her feet, running towards her. Her sister was moving too slowly and Charlotte knew she wouldn’t reach her in time.
Earnestine’s mouth opened, a silent shout, words that Charlotte could not hear and then…
Charlotte hit the ground.
Chapter XXIX
Mrs Frasier
Mrs Frasier felt herself slipping from her body. She’d heard of that, a common description in séances, and for a moment she felt like she was looking down from above and that the candles were flickering.
Two figures stumbled down the corridor: one coughed, blood coming up, and the other pulled her upright. They made it to the court room. Everywhere else was chaos and confusion, clashes of metal, gunshots, the screech of ricocheting bullets and human screams.
There was no–one in the court room: the battle was in the Rotunda. Whoever held that, held the future.
Earnestine hauled Mrs Frasier towards the Judge’s office.
“No,” said Mrs Frasier. “I’m done for.”
“Come on,” said Earnestine, tears in her eyes. “We can make it.”
“I had the chance to kill her, but instead I locked her up. I couldn’t – she was like a sister – remember how she hugged me when she first arrived here? So sweet. She’s done for me.”
“Nonsense.”
“Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once.”
Mrs Frasier slipped down and Earnestine, trying to hold on, went with her.
“I pulled the blow,” Mrs Frasier explained. “Instinctive.”
“You didn’t want to kill our sister.”
“No… it was… oh, this hurts so. Bloody stage combat… looks good, but useless in the end.”
“Please…”
“Mother said acting would be the death of me.”
“You’re an actress?”
“An actress can be… you can… Ness. Be anyone.”
“Me?”
“You were–” Mrs Frasier coughed, blood came up.
“Lie still,” said Earnestine, her left hand raising the fallen woman’s head and her right hand fluttering over the injuries as she agitated over what to do. Her own face must have stung and throbbed, but she ignored it.
“All those earrings to get my ear lobes to look like yours,” Mrs Frasier said. “You were my best part. I see myself, the girl I could have been, in you.”
“Lie still.”
They were alone in the court. All the seats were empty: the judge’s bench, the lawyers, jury and the Public Gallery. The paraphernalia of the drama, the grand set and the litter of props were just waiting to start up again for another act.
“My death scene…” Mrs Frasier laughed then, a cackle that slipped into a painful hacking. “And – typical – there’s no bloody audience!”
“I can get help,” said Earnestine, but Mrs Frasier could feel her lifeblood flowing out to make the stage slippery. She saw it now, a bright light above her, stronger even than limelight, but not as welcoming, and the edges of her vision were like a curtain slowly closing.
She gasped, clutched in her pocket: “Watches… Jerry gave them… I miss him… they’re yours.”
“No, I–”
“Silver is… the past and the other… the golden future.”
“No… please.”
“Take them.”
“Thank you.”
“I did it well, I convinced them all… for nothing. The dream, Ness, it will die with me. Ness… Ness… don’t let it… end. Prom… ise… m…”
Mrs Frasier’s eyes fluttered and then a most strange exhalation blew from her lips.
Miss Deering-Dolittle
“I promise you… Earnestine,” said Earnestine, moving aside a loose lock of Mrs Frasier’s dark red hair.
Earnestine was not sure how long she sat there with Mrs Frasier slipping from her arms and into her lap. When she looked up to find the source of a gasp, she saw a line of Temporal Peelers.
Scrutiniser Jones burst in, bleeding at the shoulder, full of energy and rage.
“They hold the north end, we must…” but then he saw the body before him. He stopped, deflated, the fight going out of him in an instant. He took off his top hat and held it in his big, meaty hands.
The others, one by one, took off their top hats too and held them to their chests with heads bowed.
“Not Mrs Frasier,” he said, and then he added: “We’re done for.”
“She was an extraordinary woman,” said Chief Examiner Lombard. “So bold, imaginative and she tried to change the world. She weaved this amazing story and we were taken in.”
“I heard Doctor Deering tell it, but she made you believe it,” said Checker Rogers.
Scrutiniser Jones leant down and, despite his great musculature, he acted with painstaking tenderness as he closed Mrs Frasier’s eyes, then, so carefully, he arranged her body tidily.
Earnestine shuffled away, still sitting on the floor.
“Aye,” Chief Examiner Lombard said, “she gave us a better script than you get on the number three tour.”
Earnestine felt numb: “Number three?”
“We’re all actors. Were actors. There just aren’t the roles. Charity… Mrs Frasier gave us a future, literally a future.”
Earnestine realised she was holding the pocket watches: gold and silver. They were slippery with blood. They represented a choice. She opened the gold one and saw an engraving on the inside cover:–
‘For Our Future, J. J. D.’.
“She treated me like a person and not just a boxer and strongman,” said Scrutiniser Jones. “She didn’t just promise a better future, she was going to deliver.”
“But why can’t we still create that future?” Earnestine pleaded. “Surely if everyone wants a better world, then it ought to be straight–forward.”
“People need to believe. That was the plan: pretend it was real, argue it in the courts and then it would become real.”
“It’s not over,” said Earnestine.
“She’s dead, there’s no–one else.”
Earnestine stood, faced them: “There’s me!”
“You?”
“If we can hold them off,” Earnestine said, “and set off the gunpowder, then the laws can still stand. It won’t be for nothing.”
“You’re just a child.”
“If she could pretend to be me, then I can become her.”
Earnestine brushed her dress down and held her head up, stretching, trying to become taller, to stand prouder, and to somehow fill the space vacated by Mrs Frasier’s exit.
“Different actors play the same parts,” she said.
The Scrutiniser shook his head: “You’re not Mrs Frasier.”
Earnestine rounded on him: “I’m not Mrs Frasier yet!”
Mrs Arthur Merryweather
Arthur Merryweather appeared before her.
Georgina saw his shoes first, singed trousers and damaged frock coat. He held his arm and winced.
“I thought you…” he began, but words failed him.
“Arthur?”
“I’m not.”
“No.”
The wounded were being brought in from the battle, a fleet of carriages pulling up outside the Club and stretcher bearers hurrying back and forth. Georgina had started to help, brought into it when someone practically dropped some poor young boy, not much older than herself, onto her lap. There were a few other women too, moving between the camp beds that had been set up in the hallway of the Club. There were screams from the billiard room, where an army surgeon worked on those who needed to be stitched up or sawn apart.
“Shame,” the lad said. “I’d liked to have been.”
“Your arm?”
“Broken.”
“Here…” she said, leading him to one side.
“Miss, he’s our prisoner!” Georgina noticed the two guards for the first time.
“It’s Ma’am! And he’s my patient.”
She sat him down and took off his frock coat gingerly. He flinched but didn’t cry out. She checked, frightened of hurting him, and then strapped his arm to his chest.
“How did you?” Georgina asked.
“That flying rucksack… tricky to land.”
“I imagine.”
“You said be careful.”
“Did I?”
“You’re the second person in my life who’s shown me any concern.”
Georgina fussed with the knot: “Surely not?”
“I had nothing and Mrs Frasier gave us hope: all the actors, pick pockets, con artists, the disenfranchised. She cared in her harsh way.”
“Much like my sister.”
“You know…”
“Yes.”
“That one moment, even though I was your enemy, even though I’d deliberately hurt you.”
Georgina said nothing, the pain was still too raw.
He met her gaze: “But you sounded as if you really cared.” The young man shivered.
Georgina reached for his frock coat, but, instead, she picked up a khaki jacket and slipped it around her patient’s shoulders.
The guards had moved away, standing tall with their arms folded to intimidate another Temporal Peeler, a prisoner too. There were shouts, another struggle as the fervour of battle spilled out again, even here amongst the wounded and dying.
“Head up, shoulders back, and just walk out,” she said.
“What?”
“Make your mother proud.”
“I will.”
He stood above her and he could have been Arthur. He held out his uninjured hand: “Philip.”
She shook it.
“My son will be called Philip,” Georgina said, amazed.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Arthur, my husband, wanted it.”
“Then that’s all well and good.”
“Philip.”
“Yes.”
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
“Here,” and Georgina gave him the watch.
“What’s this?”
“Your father’s watch.”
“I never had a father.”
“Now you do.”
“Don’t cry… Mother.”
“I won’t.”
He went and she did feel proud. He walked towards the light and became a dark blurry shape in the bright rectangle of the doorway, and then he stepped into the bright sunlight beyond and was gone.
Georgina rubbed her eyes, dried her hands on her dress and then went about her rounds.
Miss Charlotte
Charlotte wasn’t sure when the clamouring in her head was drowned out by the clamour around her. She tried to stand, but stumbled against the wall. Her mouth tasted of iron, blood, and the side of her face where Mrs Frasier had struck her throbbed.
There was an explosion, a deep ‘crump’ of a noise, distantly.
She made her way… her leg gave under her and she faltered, but kept going.
Nearing the Rotunda, she was suddenly surrounded by retreating soldiers mixed with gentlemen.
“They’re putting up a hell of a fight!” said someone… McKendry. “Someone’s given them a second wind.”
Charlotte shook her head and winced. That woman had knocked her so hard, she was addled.
Suddenly, she was alone and standing in the Rotunda.
A gun cocked.
She saw, behind a makeshift barricade, a Temporal Peeler aiming a rifle at her. They’d made a redoubt to defend the Judiciary section. Her own revolver was in her pocket, the weight pulling on one side of the frock coat, but she’d never fish it out fast enough and she’d still not found any ammunition to load it.
So she raised her hands.
The man took two steps towards her.
Charlotte heard a woman’s voice above the shouts and noise. It was Mrs Frasier’s grating voice, shouting: “Fall back! Don’t let them draw you out of the defensive position.”
The man kept his aim, and then, hearing that woman shout again, he raised his gun and withdrew from the barricade.
Charlotte breathed again – that dreadful woman, Mrs Frasier, had saved her life.
The third body had ammunition for her revolver. Charlotte loaded, carefully filling each chamber with a round before closing the top break with a satisfying click. The cylinder spun without obstruction. She held the gun up and aimed, squinting along until the fore sight blade sat in the rear notch. She held it firm until the lanyard ring stopped swinging. It was big for her hand, but satisfying: a good gun, the Webley, Mk 1.
In saving her, Mrs Frasier had made a mistake; Charlotte would make sure of that. She had a score to settle.
She scuttled across, keeping her revolver at the ready, and disappeared into the Prison area. She zigzagged around the fallen bodies, until she reached the stairs, jarring herself badly on the second step when she skidded on some black powder spilt across the floor.
Down below was the cell block. The two desks were unmanned. The Half–penny Marvel with its Sexton Blake story lay crumpled on the floor.
At the end of the corridor, she found Number 19.
She knocked.
“Whatever it is, I won’t,” came a familiar voice.
“Uncle,” Charlotte whispered. “I’m here to rescue you.”
“Who’s that?”
“Charlotte… Charlotte Deering–Do–”
“Lottie!”
“Yes.”
“It’s not safe here, run along home at once.”
“Uncle!”
Charlotte didn’t wait for a reply, but hurried back to the Warder’s desk. She put her gun back in her pocket and searched the drawers until she found the keys. They were all big and heavy. The fourth one she tried unlocked her Uncle’s cell door.
For a moment, they looked at each other and then she was not sure if she was hugging him or he was hugging her. It hurt and it was good at the same time.
“Are you in fancy dress,” Uncle Jeremiah said, gentle mocking, “or is it this rampant bloomerism?”
“Oh, Uncle,” she said. Her jaw felt strange, loose.
“Nasty knock there, Lottie,” he said. “You’ve a big bruise forming. Did you fall out of the tree again?”
“No, Uncle, I fought Mrs Frasier.”
He nodded.
“Let’s get out of here,” Charlotte said.
“Yes, my dear, good idea.”
They made their way back to the Warder’s desk.
“There’s no–one on guard,” Charlotte said, “but it might be jolly tricky upstairs.”
“Filthy place, I’ll be glad to go, look at the dirt.”
“That’s gunpowder, Uncle.”
“Gunpowder?”
“Yes, it trails up the stairs and probably goes to wherever they’ve stored the gunpowder.”
“The Ultimate Sanction!”
“Uncle?”
“It was Charity’s… Mrs Frasier’s plan to blow everything up, hide the evidence. Without evidence to the contrary, the new laws would stand. Perhaps it would be for the best. Why did you say it would be tricky upstairs?”
“There’s a battle going on.”
“What? Derring–Do Club to the rescue, eh? Our brave Earnestine fighting them single–handedly?”
“Hardly,” said Charlotte, pulling out her revolver.
They went back up the stairs, Uncle Jeremiah having to take each step one at a time. Charlotte went back to help him and so was taken by surprise when a figure appeared at the top.
A gun cocked.
“Stay where you are!”
Standing silhouetted in the door was Mrs Frasier!
“Mrs Frasier, we–”
“What are you doi
ng here?”
“Escaping.”
“I should hope so too, I’m going to blow the place up.”
Charlotte’s eyes adjusted to the light: Mrs Frasier was still bleeding from the cut to her face, but even so she looked younger.
“Ness!?”
“So you’d better get a move on and escape,” Earnestine said.
“But Ness, you’d never outrun gunpowder.”
“I’m meeting Triumph and Disaster!”
“What?”
“Kipling.”
“Now isn’t the time for homework.”
“Don’t be impertinent.”
“I’m not being impertinent.”
“I haven’t forgiven you for this!”
Earnestine showed her bloodied hand in reference to her face. In the moment that she did so, Charlotte drew her revolver.
Earnestine tensed her aim: they were ready to resume their battle. All those times before, when the elder had beaten the younger, told her off, locked her in the pantry.
“Girls.”
So softly had Uncle Jeremiah spoken and yet his words silenced them quicker than any screeching governess.
Earnestine spoke as if she only just seen him: “Uncle?”
“Say you are sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“To Lottie.”
Earnestine lips went tight and then, in response to years of training given her by her elders and betters, she said: “Sorry.”
“And Lottie.”
“Sorry Ness,” said Charlotte, and for once she meant it.
“I’d like to see Charity,” said Uncle Jeremiah.
“Charity? Who’s Charity?” Charlotte asked.
“Mrs Frasier,” said Earnestine. “I’m… she’s dead.”
Uncle Jeremiah reacted as if he had been struck and grabbed the banister: “No… no.”
Earnestine gave Charlotte a sharp look.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Charlotte whined.
There was gunfire again, distant.
Uncle Jeremiah collapsed until he was sitting on the cold steps: “Oh, no, no, please no.”
“She died bravely,” said Earnestine.
“She would,” and the old man looked over his half–moon glasses at Earnestine. “She was so like your mother. How could I resist? How? And that’s what drew me to her, you see. A chance to win her instead of my brother, damned Earnest – he had all the luck. And Charity was the spit of your mother, the very spit, and you…”
