The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts Read Online Free Page B

you please,” said Charlotte and she bobbed a curtsey.
    A hint of a face shimmered in the evening gas light as the woman leant forward. Charlotte picked out an imperious outline, a regal nose and an elegant chin, a face she felt she had seen before, but couldn’t place.
    “Little Lottie?”
    “Yes, Ma’am.”
    “Well, well…” the woman sat back, so that her deep chuckling came from the darkness itself.
    “Ma’am,” said Charlotte, “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
    Charlotte looked at the servant, but he said nothing.
    “Charlotte,” said the darkness. “I am Mrs Frasier.”
    “Pleased to meet you, Mrs Frasier,” said Charlotte politely. “May I ask–”
    “Charlotte! Charlotte!” It was Earnestine shouting out from the theatre steps. “Where are you?”
    Two sharp raps sounded on the ceiling of the carriage: “Driver!” Mrs Frasier commanded.
    The driver whipped the horse and the carriage jerked out into the traffic. The man Jones ran, caught a handle and pulled himself up to sit beside the driver.
    Charlotte was pulled around by a grip on her elbow.
    It was Earnestine: “Where have you been?”
    “Here.”
    “Don’t wander off.”
    “I didn’t.”
    “Who was that?”
    Charlotte looked out into the street, but couldn’t tell which distant carriage had been the strange woman’s.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “Some lady called Mrs Frasier.”

Chapter II
    Miss Deering-Dolittle
    How time flew!
    Almost a month later and on a Monday morning, Earnestine set off to walk to Queensbury Road. It was a fair distance, but it was a lovely morning, sunny, though chill. A few young ladies shot past her on their bicycles, and a chimney sweep and his lad made rude noises. Earnestine ignored them.
    A newspaper vendor shouted and waved his wares: “Temporal Peelers! Temporal Peelers! More arrests.”
    It was the News of the World, so Earnestine declined.
    She stopped briefly at the book shop on the corner. She saw herself hovering ghost–like in the reflection of the street before she focused through the glass to see the atlases, expedition journals and biographies of great explorers. She could go in, she thought, she had plenty of time, but common sense prevailed. Once she was in the shop, she knew, an hour or two could easily fly by. She walked on as she wanted to be early.
    She took the route through the park. Children used sticks to knock hoops along and others at the small lake launched toy boats. Ladies strolled in pairs and the occasional gentleman tipped his hat as he passed. It was lovely, green and pleasant, and surely England at its best.
    Queensbury Road was a small crescent and hardly the place for such an illustrious establishment as the Patent Pending Office. Captain Caruthers had informed her that the place was impossible to miss, but it turned out to be easily possible. She had to go up and down, up and down again, until, eventually, Earnestine spotted a blue door with a small brass plaque announcing the ‘Patent Pending Office’.
    She rang the bell, stepped back and linked her hands together in front of her.
    Presently the door opened and a bewhiskered old man, his dark hair streaked with grey, appeared, blinking in the sunlight.
    “I don’t drink,” he said sharply.
    “You don’t?”
    “No! So I don’t need a lecture and I don’t need any literature – good day.”
    “Good day.”
    The door closed.
    Earnestine rang the bell again.
    The door opened once more.
    “Yes… I said I don’t drink.”
    “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
    “You’re not from the temperance movement?”
    “No.”
    “Sally Army?”
    “Assuredly not.”
    “Thank goodness, but, whatever you are selling, I already have plenty.”
    “I have a letter.”
    “It’s not more of the Chronological Jurisprudence nonsense is it?”
    “I have no idea what that is, I’m sure,” Earnestine said.
    “The Law of Time.”
    “I’m here promptly, if a little early. It’s five