by David Wake
She stumbled back, and fell in the dry and expectant gunpowder.
Earnestine kicked her.
“Yes! What!” Georgina shouted. She reached out and tugged off Earnestine’s gag.
“Mmcket! Water!”
“Yes, all jolly good,” said Georgina, “I’ve done that.”
“Keys!”
“Yes, after Charlotte.”
Georgina crawled on her hands and knees to the gap that Charlotte had made. Beyond it, a creature like a demonic chimney sweep coughed and hacked.
“Stay – ack – there!” Charlotte commanded.
Georgina stopped.
Charlotte spat in a jolly, unladylike fashion.
“If I’m still hot, I could ignite the gunpowder.”
“Gunpowder?”
“You’re covered in it,” Charlotte said. “You look a mess.”
“You should talk,” said Georgina. “You’ve ruined your dress.”
“It just went up.”
“Are you all right?”
“Of course not, I’m drenched!”
“And filthy,” Georgina added.
“If you’d let me wear trousers,” Charlotte said, “this wouldn’t have happened.”
“We will not have rampant bloomerism.”
“KEYS!!!” screamed Earnestine. “Will you two stop blathering and get the keys!!”
“Where?”
“There,” said Earnestine, her head jerking like an overwound clockwork toy.
Charlotte, having checked she wasn’t alight anywhere, found them. There was very little left of her outer layers, her crinoline gone and her corset singed and blackened.
“Which one?” she asked.
“Bring them both!!!”
“Will you stop shouting,” Georgina yelled.
Charlotte went over to Earnestine and fumbled behind her until she’d released the mechanism from the Sheffield steel restraints. Once free, Earnestine flung the handcuffs away.
“What’s the other key for?” Charlotte asked. “It says ‘The Future’?”
“Gina!” Earnestine put out her hand: “At least you could help me up.”
“Gladly,” said Georgina, and she leant down and extended her hand to help her sister up.
Mrs Arthur Merryweather
At the reception desk, Ted the Porter looked upon their arrival with pure horror mixed with utter disbelief, when three filthy chimney sweeps came up from the cellar, a horror that intensified when he realised that the chimney sweeps were female.
“We need a dress,” said Earnestine.
“Miss, I… dress, this is a Gentleman’s Club.”
“My sister needs a dress. Her current attire, as you can see, is somewhat ruined.”
“We’ve spare dress for dinner.”
“A dress, excellent.”
The man fussed at the back and returned with a smart dinner jacket, trousers and shirt on a hanger.
“Thank you, now Charlotte, if… those are trousers.”
“I don’t mind,” said Charlotte sweetly, showing her pearly white teeth in the middle of her blackened face.
“No, Charlotte, we will not have rampant bloomerism.”
“Ness,” said Georgina.
Earnestine lips tightened: “Just this once.”
“Yippee!”
Earnestine must have said “oh, hurry up” a dozen times before Charlotte emerged from the Porter’s office clad in a jacket that looked like a skirt and trousers that were rolled up at her ankles.
“That’s…” said Earnestine. “Words fail me.”
“Comfortable,” Charlotte suggested.
“Unladylike.”
“Excuse me,” said Georgina to the Porter. “But you need to clean up in the cellar.”
“Why, Miss?”
“It’s Ma’am, and it’s because your cellar is full of dangerous explosives.”
“Now, Ma’am, how likely is that?” said the Porter. “I’m sure you’ve confused it with something else.”
“Go and look, but I’d advise against taking a lighted flame.”
Earnestine led them outside.
It was a lovely day, blue skies and the usual bustle of London went on despite the legal revolution that had occurred around them.
“Now,” she said, “we have to–”
“Peelers!” Charlotte shouted.
Across the road, Scrutiniser Jones and other top hatted men heard her and reacted to their appearance.
“We’ll just talk to them,” said Earnestine.
“Not likely,” said Charlotte, and she nipped along the pavement.
The traffic was heavy for the time of day, four wheelers, hansoms and growlers jostled with a landau and omnibus coming the other way.
“Back to the Club,” Georgina suggested.
When an omnibus obscured the Peelers from view, Earnestine picked up her skirts and took to her heels. Georgina struggled to keep up.
Charlotte was talking to a cab driver.
“Would you mind fetching my trunk,” Charlotte said. “There’s a shiny silver sixpence in it for you.”
The man got down, his posture complaining about a bad back, but he ambled towards them. Georgina and Earnestine slowed to a walk and passed him. Charlotte waved to them.
“Oh no,” Georgina said.
“Come on,” said Earnestine, and she sprinted to the hansom.
“No, no,” Georgina said, even as she ran too.
Charlotte clambered on the top.
“Take it steady,” said Earnestine as she stepped up and turned to hold a hand out to Georgina.
“Oi!”
The cab driver had turned, his bad back forgotten in his haste to intercept them. Behind him, Temporal Peelers were crossing the road.
Charlotte whipped the reins: “Yay!”
The hansom jumped as the horse lurched forward.
Georgina knew it was too far – she wasn’t going to make it – and then a hand grabbed her and up she went.
A Peeler reached the cab too and clutched at her bustle, yanking her back, but somehow using the force to pitch himself up onto the platform. He fumbled for a gun, but Earnestine stabbed out with her umbrella. He fell back, his revolver clattering down onto the cab floor as he disappeared.
There were more men in front now, the cab driver and several Peelers, but they scattered as Charlotte drove the horse on. Georgina was half in the cab, half out and then on the floor at Earnestine’s feet.
“Go slowly,” Georgina shouted.
“Yay! Yay!” Charlotte yelled, flicking the reins.
When they turned the corner, it was Georgina’s turn to grab Earnestine to stop her falling out.
“I’ll drive,” said Earnestine, pulling herself up onto the cab.
Georgina fell back as the hansom slalomed between one side of the street and the other as they bounced along at breakneck speed. Horses and carriages tried to get out of the way and only just succeeded. A four–wheeler cracked a spoke and, out of control, hit a lamppost.
Earnestine wasn’t there anymore; she was up top with Charlotte precariously holding on.
Through the rectangular window at the back, Georgina saw others in pursuit, Peelers with their top hats long blown away by the wind.
“I’ll take this,” Charlotte said reaching down to grasp the fallen revolver.
No, no, thought Georgina, not Charlotte and guns!
Boom! Boom!
The percussion of Charlotte firing cracked even over the clatter of hooves on the cobbles.
Luckily, she’d missed.
The traffic behind them slewed, destined for one of those appalling pile–ups that left horses writhing on the floor, whinnying in agony, until some kindly gentleman arrived with a revolver.
Earnestine yanked the reins and the horse turned right, the hansom going up on a single wheel threatening all the time to tip over.
Georgina pulled herself into the cab properly and sat down. The small doors in front clattered and banged shut.
> Charlotte’s hair streamed behind her as she leaned out from the top of the hansom like a sailor tacking a boat. She took aim: boom!
Georgina had no idea where the bullet went. It was really irresponsible of them to let Charlotte have a gun.
Behind them, the Peelers scattered in their chase.
Charlotte’s weight pulled their vehicle over… almost, yes, the wheel came down with an almighty smack sending sparks hither as the metal rim struck the stones.
Ahead was a tram, gentlemen talking in the street, a nanny crossing with a pram and a landau manoeuvring.
Earnestine pulled back, slowing, but not enough and so jigged the horse to the left. It jumped the pavement edge easily enough, but the shock of the hansom mounting the kerb was bone shaking. Passers–by dodged left and right as the horse galloped along the pavement smashing dropped belongings into fragments. They reached a crossroads, came down off the kerb and then right into another busier street.
This one was completely blocked: street vendors had positioned fruit and vegetable stalls across the road and there were barrels with burning coals at intervals. Men looked up from warming their hands in shock at the sound of their arrival.
Earnestine turned left.
There was no street left!
A set of ornate metal arches flickered past overhead – Georgina just ducked in time – and tore the top off the hansom as the vehicle entered a fashionable arcade. The clatter of hooves on marble, echoing back from the high, glass ceiling was percussive and overpowering. In front, those out for a stroll flung themselves into shop doorways as the horse and carriage hurtled past.
Georgina saw herself suddenly, here and there, reflected in the shop windows like some crazy moving stained glass image. Earnestine, leaning down behind the vehicle, tried to steer the horse she could no longer see.
Then, suddenly, they were outside again, turning, going across a bridge over the Thames.
Charlotte whooped.
There was no pursuit behind them now.
Earnestine had control of the vehicle, slowing the panting horse and turning again. Zebediah Row was over there, Captain Caruthers and Lieutenant McKendry’s Club must be there, Georgina thought, but they were making for Queensbury Road.
The hansom jerked slightly as Earnestine brought them to a halt.
They each alighted: Georgina felt quite pale.
“I threw up,” she admitted.
“Never mind,” said Earnestine. “You! Boy!”
A young lad of about twelve was standing opposite, torn between the order and a desire to run for it.
“A shilling if you look after the hansom.”
“Shillin’.”
“Now and one when we come back.”
Earnestine hooked her umbrella over her arm and checked her bag: “I’ve only got a sovereign.”
“Oh, give it to him,” Georgina said. She took the coin and flipped it through the air. The boy caught it expertly. He bit it and checked the lack of imprint, no lead in that.
“Right you are, Miss,” he said. He took the exhausted horse and pulled it towards the kerb. It was sweating, moisture coming off its flanks like a pea–souper rolling up the Thames.
They went inside the Patent Pending Office, Earnestine depositing her umbrella by the coat stand.
“Oh!” said Earnestine. “We gave the boy that coin from the future.”
“He can spend it when he’s an adult,” Georgina replied.
“I think more likely he’ll have run off with our money, horse and cab,” said Charlotte. “This is a daft place to hide.”
“This is the Patent Pending Office,” Earnestine said striding across the study to the shelves. “And we’re not hiding.”
“I’ve been here,” said Georgina.
“And so have the Peelers,” Charlotte reminded them.
Earnestine pulled at a particular book and a section of the wall opened.
“Through here,” she said.
“I’ve been through there too,” Georgina said.
“It’s jolly exciting,” said Charlotte.
Having marched along the small passage into the wide open warehouse full of machines, engines and mechanisms, Earnestine stopped, struck by indecision.
“I need to get back to the Chronological Committee’s base,” she said.
“Whatever for?” Georgina asked.
“If I can get Mrs Frasier to see sense,” Earnestine said. “She’s planning some Ultimate Sanction.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know,” Earnestine admitted. “But it’s in case their plans fail, then… they might blow up Parliament.”
Georgina asked the obvious: “How?”
“Gunpowder. Like in the rhyme.”
“How are we going to get there? There are Peelers all over the place and they have agents in this time.”
“This time?”
“I mean… well, yes, this time.”
“What about us?” Charlotte said.
“You two can stay here and keep out of trouble,” said Earnestine.
“You still have to get through the streets and across the river,” Georgina said.
Earnestine pointed to the warehouse’s central exhibit: “This is a modified hansom cab. There are controls inside to release a spray to make the road behind slippery, and the lanterns at the front swivel away to reveal shotguns, and the front seat comes up to show a map of London, and see this lever? Don’t pull this lever, because if you do the whole top comes off and–”
“I’m not getting in that,” Georgina said. “And it needs a horse.”
“Ah.”
They were defeated for want of a horse. Wait, they had one outside attached to the ordinary hansom cab, but Georgina decided not to mention that.
“Is there a horseless carriage?” Charlotte asked.
“A horse, a horse…” Earnestine said, absently.
“Can we order one using the telespeaking apparatus?”
“No, of course not,” said Earnestine. She was still searching and her unconscious acted like a magnet guiding her to…
“The Haversham!”
“The what?” Georgina asked.
“Help me put it on.”
Earnestine dragged a lot of brass cylinders and straps out from a crate of similar devices, and started to put it on.
“Well, help,” she said.
“How can we help when we don’t know what it is?” Georgina said.
“It’s a haver–rocket,” said Earnestine fiddling with the brass buckles.
“What’s a haver–doodah?”
“‘Haver’ as in ‘Haversham’ and ‘haversack’… these straps… It’s like a haversack, but instead of a sack it has a rocket.”
Charlotte went forward and took the weight of the brass cylinders, so that Earnestine could get her arms through the shoulder straps. It stopped being a strange metal and canvas spider and became a piece of luggage for hiking.
“Charlotte, get the welder’s goggles,” Earnestine said pointing.
Charlotte went over and unhooked them.
“And the rocket part?” Georgina asked insistently.
“The ‘sack’ is replaced by a rocket. Hence ‘haver–rocket’.”
“Yes, I can see that, it’s stencilled on the side – what’s a rocket?”
Charlotte jumped up and down and put her hand up: “Oh, oh, oh…”
Georgina knew Earnestine wasn’t going to give her a straight answer, so: “Charlotte?”
“It’s a Chinese military weapon. You light the end, fire shoots–”
“Fire!”
“Yes, out the back and it flies–”
“Flies!”
“Through the air and then it hits the enemy and explodes.”
“Explodes!”
Georgina looked from Charlotte to Earnestine, back again and then ended up wide eyed looking at her elder sister.
“Ness, no, no, no…”
“Don’t be a baby, Gina.�
��
“Ness!”
Earnestine jiggled the straps and checked that the large apparatus was secure on her back.
“This is a firework,” said Georgina suddenly. “You are strapped to a firework, a jolly big firework!”
“It’s a lot more powerful than a firework,” Earnestine said.
“Do these work?” Georgina demanded; she checked the stencilled letters, “The Haversham Mark III Haver–rocket?”
“He had some success according to his notes,” Earnestine replied. “The Mark I didn’t work at all, but the Mark II went twenty feet.”
“And then what?”
“It hit the roof of his laboratory, exploded and the resulting fire burnt the building down.”
“What about this one, the Mark III?”
“It was never tested.”
“Why not?”
“Because he moved on to the Mark IV.”
“And…”
“It exploded.”
“Exploded!?”
“They found his hat.”
“Ness, you’re using the one between burning the laboratory down and the one that just blew up!”
Earnestine took the goggles from Charlotte and put them on, wiggling them until they felt comfortable. They made her eyes look wide and innocent.
“I’ll be fine,” said Earnestine. “I’ve done this before.”
“No–one alive has done this before.”
“I’ve flown.”
“You plummeted out of a Zeppelin straight down and were saved only because you had an umbrella,” said Georgina pointing down and then she indicated the sky. “This is up and attached to a portable volcano.”
“Wait,” said Charlotte. “You can’t.”
“Not you as well?” Earnestine complained. “What is it now?”
Charlotte pointed upwards towards the ceiling with all its girders and cross beams supporting a very solid looking pitched roof. There was a lantern section, a skylight letting in plenty of sunshine, crisscrossed with ironwork to hold the thick glass in place.
“Good point,” Earnestine said, and she began to haul herself and the extra weight to the door. “Bring my brolly.”
“Whatever for?”
“Insurance.”
The two sisters went outside leaving Georgina alone with her awful worries. She went down the secret passageway and into the study.
Where would Earnestine put her stupid brolly?
Georgina wished she’d never bought it for her, although to be fair it had saved her life once before.