The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts

by David Wake

  “Are we going to get all six of Rudyard Kipling’s questions?”

  “Yes.”

  “It is a simple idea,” said Mrs Frasier. “We present our credentials with a trick, a vanishing act. Audiences love it when things appear and disappear. That’s what stage magicians do: pledge, turn and prestige. And people lap it up.”

  “But it’s a trick.”

  “People want to believe the trick, just as people want to believe in a better future, a war to end all wars between good and evil. Revelations, séances, fortune telling… it’s all the same promise. We appeared as if by magic and so, with no evidence to the contrary, they had to believe our scientific explanation. Queen Victoria’s reign has marked an age of wonders, so why not temporal engines. And once they’d swallowed the big lie, then others, the forged books for example, followed easily. This Imperial world with its factories and fogs and endless drudgery isn’t the world people want, they want hope and betterment.”

  “But someone must have suspected.”

  “Many,” Mrs Frasier admitted with a shrug. “We presented proofs as we did with you. Some were convinced, some came over to our side and some we arrested and locked downstairs. But most doubters just sat still. It was too big, you see, too gigantic – easier to accept it all than point out the Emperor’s new clothes. It’s truly amazing how the masses will go along with the herd.”

  “But it’s a lie!”

  “Don’t you occasionally lie to make things better?”

  “No.”

  “Ah well, that’s why I’m grown up and you’re not.”

  “The world is good as it is.”

  “Oh really, that is too much. Please, don’t even bother to defend it. Most women in this fine city are prostitutes, forced into it by financial necessity and the lack of opportunity. These stalwart gentlemen may have banned slavery in the Empire, but they revel in it here in the capital. They keep their wives, their Angels of the Home, locked away in their airless houses and go off to fornicate every night with gin–riddled opium addicts desperate for a few pennies. And ever so grateful for the attention. I wanted more. I wanted a better world. Not just for me, and not just for men, but for everyone. Is that wrong? Is that not the ultimate act of doing good?”

  Mrs Frasier waved her hand as if she were trying to conjure this new world from the air. She could see in Earnestine’s eyes that the girl was wavering, entranced by the spell.

  “We will do it, why not – you and me, side by side, making a better tomorrow,” Mrs Frasier said. “The plan can still work.”

  “You’re a strumpet.”

  “I am not! I’m an actress.”

  “They’ll stop you.”

  “Who?”

  “Men like Major Dan and Captain Caruthers.”

  “Men!” Mrs Frasier laughed. “With all their brass buttons and smart uniforms, their wars and death and destruction. This is a modern age, an age of reason and law. If you want to conquer, there are armies and battles, but better yet to come up with a good, solid legitimate reason and fight it–”

  “What sort of–”

  “And then you fight it through the courts. That’s where laws are made, not over in the Houses of Parliament, not by Kings and Queens, but by the judges and the lawyers. They interpret the law, they create precedent. In a civilised country, that’s what establishes the laws. And he who makes the rules, wins the game.”

  “What sort of legitimate reason?”

  “One was descended from King Harold or one took a sword from a stone or a burning bush talked to one. It doesn’t matter, and if one doesn’t have a legitimate reason, then one makes one up. Then one fights it through the courts and we have the best lawyers.”

  “You have the best lawyers?”

  “Of course, we locked all the others up.”

  Earnestine screamed in frustration: “But it’s a lie!”

  “Not a lie, a story. One of Jerry’s finest.”

  “Jerry?”

  “Uncle Jere–”

  “I’d never call him ‘Jerry’.”

  “Why not?”

  “Uncle’s stories are make–believe,” Earnestine protested. “This I thought was real… and I wanted to believe it all, suffrage and a fair deal for everyone, a Utopia, but you’ve let everyone down because it’s not true.”

  “Why not still believe and then make it happen,” said Mrs Frasier, leaning forward and down. “Stories can change the world. It’s not true yet.”

  “But you are blackened by your actions,” Earnestine said. “You’re tainted. How can you rule fairly if you’ve done these unspeakable acts?”

  “By handing the reins to someone who is good enough to rule.”

  “Who?”

  “You, of course.”

  “Me!?”

  “Yes. The ends never justify the means, I know that, but I am the means that can be discarded and you can make the ends work.”

  Earnestine tightened her lips and shook her head.

  Mrs Frasier’s expression softened: “If you don’t wish to be part of this, then go. I won’t stop you.”

  Mrs Frasier stepped back, one foot neatly tucked behind the other and her hand unfurled in a theatrical gesture to present a side door.

  Miss Deering-Dolittle

  Earnestine hesitated.

  She knew when she was going to be gulled.

  “It’s a trick.”

  Mrs Frasier smiled: “Of course.”

  What choice did she have? She didn’t want to be included in this insane plan. Instead, she wanted to sit in her room, look at her maps and read her adventure books, so she went to the door, slowly, carefully and–

  It was locked.

  Mrs Frasier had a clutch of keys.

  “There’s always an answer,” she said as she picked out a particular fob.

  Earnestine took it, placed the big, black key in the lock and turned. She offered it back to Mrs Frasier. A fob dangled and Earnestine saw the legend ‘The Future’.

  “I have mine here,” Mrs Frasier said, holding up a copy. “Keep yours, in case you change your mind.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Indulge me.”

  Earnestine pushed the key up her sleeve, opened the door and then, fearful that she was going to be plucked back inside at any moment, she sprang through.

  The outside!

  The time: her present.

  No–one stopped her.

  She walked away, carefully, and when she heard the door close and lock behind her, she scarpered as fast as she could. She was soon down the side street by the factory wall and then out into the safety of the crowds.

  A newspaper vendor shouted and waved an example of his wares aloft.

  “Brave New World! Law passed today!”

  She reached an open space, hardly a park, and there were children using sticks to knock makeshift hoops along, and others poking their fingers into a patch of dirty water. Ladies, dressed in outrageous outfits, staggered about due to the effects of gin, only to be propositioned by the occasional man making lewd gestures. Everything was dilapidated, grey and unpleasant.

  The more Earnestine looked, the more she saw the streets for what they really were. These children had no real future, these women were used and beaten, and these men were no gentlemen.

  The present was exposed to her in all the waifs and strays, filthy, barefooted and marked with bruises, cuts and smallpox scars.

  There!

  A man threatened his women, forcing them to be whores; even the Nannies with their prams and charges were slaves to necessity, like the servants running errands for those imprisoned by polite convention in their plush houses. Servants like their own cook and their maids… whose names she could not even recall, and whom she treated like instruments to fetch and carry and cook and clean. They should be free and she should be more caring and responsible.

  The flowering Empire had brought prosperity, but not to everyone. The rich industrialists were fat from the proceeds cr
eated by those chained by poverty to work in the factories. The rich became richer, investors paid themselves dividends and bankers hoarded the wealth, while those too destitute to pay the ever rising rents had to slave in the workhouses to pay back those who put them there. The poor were blamed as if they had chosen this hard life for themselves and punished for that choice. What little they had was taken from them and this broiling mass of mankind had no say in the world.

  And women had no rights at all as such, twenty one or not twenty one.

  It could be changed. It should be changed. It would… but the ends did not justify the means. She knew that.

  But she was not responsible for the means.

  But she could be for the ends.

  But… and that was Mrs Frasier’s point.

  Earnestine gasped, winded, and needed to stretch out her hand to grasp a lamppost for support. She bent over and–

  “Are you well, Miss?”

  “Yes, I’m well,” Earnestine replied without looking, “don’t worry yourself, everything is going to be well.”

  If… only, but there was time yet.

  No more ‘buts’: she would join Mrs Frasier and change the world. She was a member of the Derring–Do Club, after all – best foot forward and all that.

  “Perhaps you should step this way, Miss.”

  “No, I have to–” but everything went dark. Something was over her head, a coat, a bag… something cloying and there were strong arms around her and her kicking feet came off the ground. Doors clattered and clunked and she was bundled into a carriage.

  A deep voice shouted: “Move it.”

  The floor jolted under Earnestine as she struggled to extricate herself.

  “Be still,” said the voice, “if you know what’s good for you.”

  Earnestine heard a revolver being cocked.

  She went still, jolly still.

  Mrs Arthur Merryweather

  Outside, it had been suddenly ordinary and normal, a street like many, many others she knew and a complete shock after the future world.

  “What do we do?” Charlotte asked as they ran.

  “We go to the Club,” Georgina replied. “The men will know what to do.”

  “The men!”

  “Otherwise it’s taking them all on single handed… Charlotte, come back at once.”

  Charlotte did so, but froze: “Peelers!”

  There were a few appearing, searching, gradually spreading out as they assigned each other various routes. Georgina and Charlotte shrank back to the wall, and worked their way down the street.

  “Underground station,” said Charlotte pointing. It was the City and South London Railway at Stockwell. “We can change at Bank.”

  “Unaccompanied young ladies don’t go on the Underground,” said Georgina.

  “I’m accompanying you.”

  “That doesn’t… but under the circumstances.”

  They made it to the station, handed over their two pence each and descended into the depths. The platform was full of men and accompanied ladies. Eventually, the train arrived, pushing a strong breeze before it, and they entered the ‘padded cells’. It was claustrophobic, the only windows were mere slits at the top of the carriage, but then there was nothing to see in this underground tube. It snaked north–east and then went under the Thames. Georgina felt her stomach lurch as the slope took them down below the waters.

  At Bank station they changed, the gate–man opening the barrier for them to disembark. They climbed the stairs and then, just as the fresh air began to revive Georgina, they descended again to catch Central London service to British Museum.

  All this was so new, only opened properly in the July, and it was heralded as the future. Was this really preferable to Mrs Frasier’s dream? Is that why her sister Earnestine hadn’t followed them?

  “If we keep getting involved in adventures,” said Georgina, “one of us is going to get killed.”

  “Not me,” said Charlotte.

  Miss Charlotte

  The Club, boasting members like Major Dan, Captain Caruthers, Lieutenant McKendry and so many others, was a good walk away from the British Museum. When they arrived, Georgina marched straight towards the staircase, but the Porter intercepted her.

  “Miss?” the Porter began.

  “Ma’am.”

  “Ma’am.”

  “Major Dan or Captain Caruthers please – at once!”

  “They’re not here, Ma’am.”

  Georgina took a step forward.

  “I’ll take a message,” said the Porter quickly, before he beetled off.

  As they waited, Lord Farthing arrived, noticed them with surprise and doffed his hat. He placed it down in the Porter’s hatch along with his white scarf, gloves and cane.

  A Junior Porter came over to collect them, but he interrupted by a strange ringing noise.

  “My Lord, the Porter’s gone to fetch Major Dan or Captain Caruthers,” Georgina explained.

  “I see,” he replied. “Thank you, Miss.”

  “Ma’am.”

  “Ma’am… and Miss.”

  Finally, Charlotte thought, someone’s noticed me.

  The Junior Porter reappeared: “My Lord, you are wanted upon the telephone.”

  “Very well.”

  Lord Farthing took the apparatus: “Yes… I see… they are gathered upstairs… Splendid… I can’t talk… I’ll see to it… Good–bye.”

  Lord Farthing gave the device back: “Ladies,” he said, and he went away, not up the stairs, but down a side passage.

  “I wonder where he’s going?” Charlotte asked.

  “Never you mind, it’s none of our business,” Georgina said.

  “Perhaps I could just go and get a lemonade.”

  “No.”

  Chapter XXV

  Mrs Frasier

  Mrs Frasier returned the ear piece to its resting position on the telephonic device. It rattled as the hook descended activating the switch to cut off the connection. She checked her gold watch.

  “And Jerry?”

  “I put him back in Cell 19,” said Chief Examiner Lombard. “It seemed best.”

  “Then we’d best see this through to the end.” Mrs Frasier snapped the watch cover shut.

  “Are you sure, Ma’am?” Chief Examiner Lombard asked.

  “I am sure.”

  Chief Examiner Lombard was appalled: “But, Ma’am, the Ultimate Sanction?”

  After years of planning, the final hours were crowded with desperate improvisation.

  “It is necessary,” she said.

  “Jones will find those girls.”

  “Lord Farthing is planning to move against us.”

  “We are not ready, we need–”

  “There is no more time, Lombard. If one of those dratted sisters convinces them…”

  “They won’t believe them.”

  “They believed Miss Deering–Dolittle when she told our side,” Mrs Frasier put her hands together to emphasise as if ten fingers pointing were needed to put the idea across. “The law is all that matters – what’s written.”

  “The pen is mightier than the sword,” said Chief Examiner Lombard. “But the Sanction?”

  “We must.”

  “And the Conspiracy?”

  “Farthing will deal with that, I’ve rung him. He thinks he needs to defeat us, but our part is to ensure that there’s nothing to contradict him.”

  “But Farthing–”

  “He’ll be bound by the law,” she replied. “He won’t undermine what gave him his power and, without evidence, who can say what is real and what is not.”

  The tall man nodded: “We’ll keep to the script, Ma’am.”

  “Thank you, and issue the firearms.”

  “I’ll see that the preparations are made,” he said.

  “You are a good man.”

  “I take direction.”

  “We’ll be in the West End soon enough.”

  The man laughed and Mrs Frasier sm
iled.

  “It’s been a good run,” Lombard said.

  “The curtain’s not down yet.”

  Miss Deering-Dolittle

  “Well, well, well,” said Lord Farthing in an insufferably superior manner. He slicked his hair back and cupped his hand to his ear in a theatrical manner. “I don’t hear any Temporal Peelers rushing to your aid.”

  Earnestine, blind beneath a bag over her head, said nothing.

  “This must be an event you forgot,” the young man continued. “No hint, when you were ordering me about on the Alexander Bell. Time is mutable; we are changing things, so certain matters are adjustable… like your own personal survival. You’re not the controlling, know–it–all confident Mrs Frasier, are you?”

  “No, I’m not,” said Earnestine, truthfully, trying to gauge where the man was standing. She was covered in coarse hessian, but reckoned she was underground. Once bundled from the carriage, she’d been hustled down stairs. She’d heard drips and echoes. Her hands had been handcuffed behind her back and her wrists caught when she tried to move.

  She also heard the man walking as he talked, changing his position to disorientate her. There was another man present, some bruiser, standing still somewhere behind her, she thought.

  “Your plan to hand over the reins of power to yourself, jolly clever, but those of us more suited to power, born to it, don’t agree with that part of your scheme.”

  “I’m sure,” Earnestine mumbled. Overturning these insufferable male bounders was another jolly good reason to join Mrs Frasier and her Chronological Committee.

  “Take the hood off her.”

  The covering whipped away suddenly and the room wasn’t dark as she expected, but lit with galvanic light. Cables coiled like serpents along the floor and then rose to glowing bulbs held in cages that were hung from hooks. Water dripped down from the ceiling to splash into an already full bucket. Clearly no–one had come down here in an absolute age.

  “Can’t have gas down here,” said Lord Farthing.

  “I suppose not,” said Earnestine.

  “On account of the explosives.”

  “Exp– Oh!”

  There were barrels of gunpowder stacked against the far wall dwarfing the empty wine racks.

  “Another of your little schemes.”