The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts

by David Wake

  “And you, Miss?” said Scrutiniser Jones to Earnestine.

  “I need some more time to consult the books,” Earnestine said.

  The big man nodded.

  “I’ll find Charlotte,” Georgina said.

  “Yes,” said Earnestine, distracted. “Sort the silly girl out.”

  Left alone, Earnestine turned her attention back to the books, but the case studies blurred in front of her tired eyes. Her neck hurt, the recent bruising kept rubbing against her collar.

  There must be a loophole.

  There were probably dozens of them, but she’d need to study law, and Universities frowned upon women reading male subjects.

  And she wasn’t a woman yet; she was only a girl.

  Reading the charges, pleas, prosecution, defence, summing up, jury deliberation, verdict and finally the sentencing. The point of her pencil broke with a certain finality.

  They were like stations on a railway line and the timetable was quite clear and rigid. She needed to adjust the points somewhere, get the court onto a branch line or…

  “Oh!”

  She scrabbled through the heap of all her notes and found the list of charges.

  “Ah!”

  There it was – a branch line into the unknown.

  And risk it on one turn of pitch–and–toss…

  She’d confront the woman first, of course: play by the rules.

  Mrs Arthur Merryweather

  Georgina was practically frog–marched from Judiciary to the Accommodation wing and, she realised, she still had Earnestine’s umbrella with her, such was her annoyance. When they reached the Rotunda, Mrs Frasier happened to be coming out of Temporal Engineering with Chief Examiner Lombard.

  “Gina,” Mrs Frasier said.

  “Mrs Frasier.”

  “Please, Gina, you’ve always called me Ness.”

  Georgina moved on, biting her lip and then, best foot forward she thought. She broke away from the two Peelers and ran back.

  “What have you done with Charlotte?” she demanded.

  Mrs Frasier turned to her in surprise: “Gina, what is it?”

  “Charlotte! Don’t deny it, I was there, I saw you and those thugs go to the cell.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you, when the Warder tele–voiced you.”

  “I simply do not know who you are referring to. I’ve been to the past,” Mrs Frasier said. “I’ve not been here.”

  “Don’t lie!”

  Mrs Frasier turned to Chief Examiner Lombard: “Do you know what this is about?”

  Georgina was infuriated: “Where is Charlotte?”

  Mrs Frasier turned a kindly eye towards Georgina and smiled: “Charlotte? I’m afraid I don’t recall anyone named Charlotte.”

  The Chief Examiner coughed: “You were in the past, Ma’am, outside the aethereal field.”

  “Oh, you changed something?”

  “Yes, Ma’am, on your orders.”

  “I see.”

  “You changed…” Georgina tried to understand. All these euphemisms and strange words: aethereal fields, fields of aether, the fundamental substance of time and space, and ‘changed’…

  “You’ve killed her!”

  “We have not,” the Chief Examiner replied, “we have removed her from history.”

  “That’s…. murder!”

  “No, no, you don’t understand. She was never born. You can’t kill someone who was never born.”

  “Never…”

  The Chief Examiner grinned, showing his bad teeth.

  Mrs Frasier spoke in soft, understanding tones: “Georgina, whatever it was, it was for the best. You must understand that.”

  “I’ll never understand.”

  “Please Gina, there’s no need to create a scene.”

  “Create a scene!?”

  “Jones, I think my sister needs to lie down.”

  “Ma’am,” said the big man. He put his big hand on Georgina’s shoulder and guided her, she had no choice, to her room. Mrs Frasier came too, keeping an eye on her until they’d locked the door.

  For a few moments Georgina heard Mrs Frasier talking: “What was that about? She mentioned a sister… Charlotte, I think she said.”

  “Nothing to worry about, Ma’am,” Chief Examiner Lombard answered. “All gone now.”

  “Will there be plaque to this ‘Charlotte’ on the memorial wall?”

  “Already seen to, Ma’am.”

  “Jolly good,” said Mrs Frasier as their voices and footsteps receded. “We need to increase security…”

  A cold grip spread across Georgina’s chest as if the fire had long died in a room.

  Charlotte removed from history.

  Mrs Frasier, Charlotte’s own sister, didn’t even remember her.

  It was unthinkable.

  Charlotte gone.

  How many others?

  Had they had a fourth sister? A fifth? Or a brother? Was she next? Or Earnestine?

  Georgina’s hands twisted into claws in front of her as if she were trying to grasp Charlotte’s ghost from the air and hold on. There was nothing there, of course, not even phantoms, but if Charlotte had never been born, never lived, then she was even denied the afterlife.

  ‘The usual’ and ‘sort the silly girl out’ – that’s what Mrs Frasier had… what Earnestine had said, mere minutes ago. She didn’t care about Charlotte, didn’t care now and didn’t care then… won’t care whenever.

  There was a strange noise, a gasping and when it happened again, Georgina realised that it was her own fractured breathing.

  She sat on the bed, abruptly and with force, and the springs heaved and shifted beneath her weight, but awkwardly.

  Her bag was still hidden beneath the mattress. She took it out, mechanically and with no real feeling. Her emotions were draining away, leeching from her body and leaving her like a cold, broken mechanism.

  There was something sharp in the bag, a corner of a hard rectangle. It was the framed daguerreotype. She took it out, turned it over and saw the image of a happier time, when the six of them had been outside the theatre – except that there were only five figures: Caruthers and Earnestine standing to the back and in the front row, McKendry, Uncle Jeremiah and herself. To Georgina’s left, the right edge of the frame, there was… nothing. The building was there, the poster, the smeared figure of a man walking behind them, who was now less obscured by the party in the picture, and the empty steps.

  She stared at it for a long time, uncomprehendingly, before she cried out, a formless, pitiful syllable that meant nothing and everything. Crying would be a release, an unEnglish display in this private cell, but the bottleneck of her tear ducts was too narrow for the floodgates of her despair. She wanted to scream and shout, she wanted to destroy them, to bring down upon them the terrible war because they deserved it. If they had a form for the Conspiracy, then she’d sign it now in a futile gesture of defiance.

  Maybe they’d blot her out, rub her away from diaries and letters and pictures, and it would be a blessed relief.

  And then there’d be one – the winner.

  She remembered hearing that the winners wrote the history books, and these people could rewrite the history books.

  How could that woman, Earnestine, lose?

  Miss Charlotte

  Charlotte Rosemary Deering–Dolittle

  1885–1975

  R. I. P.

  Died Aged 15

  Victis Honor

  Chapter XIX

  Mrs Frasier

  Aethereal field or no aethereal field, all this jumping about in time was playing havoc with her sleeping pattern. Perhaps she should leave her office and catch up on some rest, but she knew, on today of all days, the hopelessness of that idea. Mrs Frasier checked her watches and did that oft–repeated mathematical calculation in her head. If it was half past ten here… morning, then it was–

  The rap at the door was sharp: tap, tap, tap.

  “Come in.”

 
; Checker Rogers came in smartly: “Ma’am.”

  “You have a report.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  He didn’t say anything further. Mrs Frasier understood why ancient rulers executed messengers bearing bad news: they wasted so much time putting off the inevitable.

  “Rogers?”

  “I found out who our corpse was.”

  “Corpse?”

  “The man who tried to kill Miss Deering–Dolittle.”

  “And?”

  “I had a hunch.”

  “Please Rogers, just tell me.”

  “He worked for a parliamentary group, a sort of clerk or fixer.”

  Rogers stopped talking.

  Mrs Frasier sat back in her fine chair, heard the leather squeak and felt her back stretch over her bustle. This day was never going to end and she’d thought the months and months leading up to it were purgatory.

  “He was a Fadge Man,” said Rogers.

  “Fadge Man?”

  “You know what ‘fadge’ means?”

  “It’s a quarter penny… oh, farthing.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “I thought he’d come into line rather too smartly.”

  “You’re not angry, Ma’am.”

  “No, Rogers – I’m not happy, not happy at all – but any ill feelings are directed against Lord Farthing,” she nodded and smiled, tight–lipped, but containing some warmth. “You’ve done well, Rogers.”

  “Do you want me to…”

  “No… not yet.”

  Rogers shuffled uncomfortably.

  “I realise the danger,” she said, “but we can’t remove him from history before he’s made history.”

  Mrs Frasier mulled over the news and found she wasn’t surprised. Somewhere there was a piece of paper with all the possible groupings: helper, hinderer, hanger–on. Lord Farthing had been in one division, now she knew he was in another. Well, it was merely a matter of a few seconds to add his name to the list, but vexing to have to wait until his usefulness was over.

  “Bloody Farthing,” said Mrs Frasier, aloud. A penny for her thoughts? She should not have trusted a man whose title only came up to a quarter of a penny: a fadge by any other name. “Does Chief Examiner Lombard know?”

  “No, Ma’am. I came straight here.”

  “We’d better brief everyone, double the guard and everyone carries swords.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Mrs Frasier stood and Checker Rogers opened the door for her. She strode out along the corridor towards the Rotunda, conscious that she’d left her own sword in her office. She should go back for it.

  “Mrs Frasier, Mrs Frasier?” It was a female voice.

  She rounded: “What now?”

  It was Earnestine.

  “Yes?”

  “Mrs Frasier, I need to talk to you.”

  “I don’t have time right now.”

  “But Mrs Frasier–”

  “Don’t whine.”

  Earnestine’s lips went tight and she flushed, angrily.

  “Earnestine,” Mrs Frasier said, “don’t be such a child!”

  Miss Deering-Dolittle

  Earnestine’s face burned with shame.

  To be told off by herself.

  Like a child.

  Mrs Frasier, having cut her to the quick, had departed towards Temporal Engineering, striding without a care or a backward glance. She was happy to see others put on trial, but she’d clearly never been brought to book herself.

  Well, I’ll show her, Earnestine thought, so she hurried too, taking tiny steps, with her dress clutched and held above the ground as if she were running for a train. The Clerk of the Court was hastening along too. Earnestine picked a spot, tucked into a doorway and chose her moment perfectly.

  She stepped out.

  They crashed in a flurry of apologies and papers.

  “Oh, oh, I’m so sorry,” she said automatically, as she bent down to retrieve his fallen documents, her own falling into the mix. Quickly, she gathered them back up.

  “It’s fine, fine,” said the Clerk, flustered.

  They were both standing upright soon enough, each with a disordered collection. The clerk sorted his, trying to straighten them to bring order back to the world.

  “Is everything satisfactory?” Earnestine asked.

  The man glanced at his paperwork.

  “So sorry,” said Earnestine, handing him his wig.

  He’d checked, a quick glance, she’d seen his eyes scan the page.

  “Everything is in order,” the Clerk said. The man’s face furrowed showing confusion and suspicion, his eyes narrowed. It was obvious that he knew he’d been gulled and – yes – he checked that his watch and chain were in order with a pat of his stomach.

  “Good day, Miss,” he said, and he went on his way.

  Earnestine skipped to catch up.

  “Mrs Frasier said I could attend the court,” she said. “I have a note.”

  She gave it to him.

  Now he was suspicious.

  “It’s in her handwriting,” Earnestine said sweetly, hoping her handwriting wasn’t due to change in the years to come.

  “Oh, very well,” he said.

  They went on, through the side entrance and into the court proper.

  “Just sit… there,” said the Clerk.

  She sat, meekly, and folded her hands together in her lap once she’d placed her own papers on the table. She waited patiently, fighting her agitation down, and eventually the court was called to stand.

  The judge came in, blinked in surprise at Earnestine’s presence. He sat on his throne on the higher bench and looked down at the Clerk.

  The Clerk stood.

  He read from the charge sheet: “For conspiracy to thwart the course of justice, the accused one Miss Earn–”

  The man baulked.

  “Go on, I say, go on.”

  “There is some mistake, Your Honour.”

  “Nonsense, read the sheet, I say, read the sheet.”

  “Your Honour, I must decline.”

  “Who signed it?”

  The Clerk checked the foot of the page: “Mrs Frasier.”

  The functionary glanced at Earnestine, realising.

  “If it’s written down, then it must be true,” said Earnestine softly, but audibly.

  “Quite so,” the Judge agreed.

  The Clerk straightened: “For conspiracy to–”

  “We’ve heard all that,” said the Judge.

  “Your Honour, the Chronological Committee arraigns one, Miss Earnestine Deering–Dolittle.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath. This hadn’t been in anyone’s script.

  Earnestine walked calmly, but quickly to avoid Checker Rogers’ move to intercept her, and she climbed the wooden steps to the dock. High above the lawyers, and on show in this box, she could see the whole panorama of the legal process spread out before her. She stood erect and took hold of the brass railing around the raised wooden stage to steady herself.

  The Public Gallery was writhing with punching fist gestures and angry faces.

  The Clerk pounded his gavel: “Silence, silence!”

  The Judge adjusted his wig.

  “Please state your name for the records,” the Clerk demanded.

  “I am Miss Earnestine Deering–Dolittle.”

  “This woman is known to us,” said the Judge. “She is our own Mrs Frasier. Take her down from the dock. Take her down, I say.”

  “Your Honour, I wish to plead.”

  “But you are innocent. This is known. This is a matter for the history books only.”

  “Nonetheless, I am here and proper process demands that I enter a plea. It is important that justice is seen to be done. In my time terrible events were planned and so, in effect, everyone from my time must stand partially accountable.”

  “But there is no crime against your name.”

  “There is a crime listed upon the arraignment,” Earnestine replied. />
  “Clerk?” the Judge prompted.

  The Clerk fussed with his papers: “Your Honour, it was conspiracy to thwart the course of justice.”

  How apt, Earnestine thought: “Then I will plead against that.”

  “Oh, very well,” said the Judge. “Clerk, do note this down. Note it down, I say.”

  The Clerk returned to his desk and dipped his pen in his inkwell.

  “And you, Prosecutor,” the Judge demanded with a stabbing finger motion, “will present no evidence.”

  “I have no evidence to present, Your Honour,” said the lawyer in question, jerked to his feet when his title was mentioned.

  The Judge turned to Earnestine: “How do you plead… not guilty? Note it down, Clerk, note it down, I say.”

  The Clerk started to write in his records with a bold ‘N’ and then Earnestine spoke, clearly and loudly:

  “Guilty.”

  Mrs Arthur Merryweather

  Georgina wore black, of course: she was still in mourning for her late husband. Scrutiniser Jones stood to one side, quiet as a mouse despite his rhino–like build. He had knocked on her door, apologised, and wondered if it would help her to pay her respects.

  The wall was tucked away down a side corridor from Judiciary and it looked like the bricks were made of brass. They were plaques, row upon row, column by column, filling the space from the left until they stopped, abruptly, a third of the way along. They contained names, unsorted, hopelessly out of sequence with names, dates and sometimes an epitaph.

  She found Charlotte complete with dates that made no sense and ‘Victis Honor’ as if she needed encouragement.

  “Honour to the vanq… vanquished.”

  Scrutiniser Jones had a clean handkerchief for her.

  “She wouldn’t have felt anything, if that’s what you are wondering.”

  “Gone, but not forgotten.”

  “That’s it, Mrs Merryweather.”

  But it wasn’t that at all. It was ‘never been and… made up’ or some such expression. How long was one supposed to mourn a sister who never was, who never came into being 15 years earlier… or, adding another 75 for the temporal motion, a hundred. It was a century and Georgina was reminded of cricket again.