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

couldn’t bear to face them in person considering what she had planned.
    Was she really going to go through with it?
    But she was packed, wasn’t she?
    The decision had been made when she’d ordered the cab or earlier, when she’d said ‘yes’ to become Mrs Arthur Merryweather.
    In the hallway, she peered through the red and blue stained glass of the front door to see if the hansom was waiting. She’d inserted far too much safety margin into her schedule. Writing and packing clearly didn’t take as long as–
    “Letter!”
    She ran upstairs and found the envelope on her writing desk. She re–read it, even though she’d double and triple–checked it last night when she’d finally resolved to do this. She sealed it – finally – and went downstairs.
    Fifteen minutes.
    She put Arthur’s watch back in her bag and checked outside again, the red pane for up the road and the blue pane for down.
    She became aware of the hallway, its embossed Lincrusta wall covering and the teak table by the coat stand. There was Earnestine’s umbrella, almost a family heirloom considering its provenance. She wondered about the rest of the house and when she would be back again, or if… ever.
    She didn’t want Cook to spot her and ask some awkward questions, so she slipped into the quiet of the drawing room and closed the door behind her. The heavy curtains had been drawn back by one of the maids and, although the lace remained, there was a reasonable view of the street. With the drapery tied back, it made the outside world appear like a stage beneath a proscenium arch: a play awaiting her entrance.
    She took a long, lingering look around the room and drank in the ambiance as one might savour the fine whisky or the brandy that graced the sideboard. The pianoforte was silent, the photographs on the wall were still and the dust wasn’t even allowed in here to settle. Even so, without any specks in the air, something had lodged in her eye.
    She should have said something.
    She owed it to Earnestine and to Charlotte, and to the Derring–Do Club.
    She felt sick.
    Breakfast, even though it was kippers today, had held no appeal for Georgina. Her stomach had been very delicate recently, but that was undoubtedly due to the growing trepidation.
    The clock ticked.
    The hansom was due any minute now – ten minutes – and London cabbies were never late.
    Tick–tock, tick–tock.
    Hanging on the wall was a new addition, the daguerreotype taken of them all together at the theatre. From left to right, there was Lieutenant McKendry, Captain Caruthers, Earnestine, Uncle Jeremiah, then herself and finally on the right hand side Charlotte. Charlotte appeared indistinct, caught by the slow exposure in the act of fidgeting. Silly Charlotte! She looked like – Georgina shivered – a ghost. She’d seen photographs of real ghosts, spectre–like figures that were seen in shapes and shadows. Most were probably like this one, an effect of the photographic process, but, despite knowing the mechanics, this example disturbed her.
    Death seemed everywhere: the world through her veil was dark, her widow’s weeds were black and the sinister troubled her thoughts.
    There were other pictures, all neatly framed: Mother and Father; Uncle Jeremiah, who had stayed behind; Uncle Edgar, who had not, and even one taken at the expedition’s first camp, that last sighting before they had gone up the river and disappeared. There he was, smudged slightly because this was where they always pointed: Father, standing proudly surrounded by native guides and missionaries with his hunting rifle slung over one shoulder.
    The clock ticked.
    There was no time.
    Five minutes.
    It wasn’t long enough.
    She should have snuck down last night to be all maudlin.
    She put the letter in its cream envelope behind the mantelpiece clock – the obvious place. She’d addressed it simply to ‘Miss Deering–Dolittle’, but inside she’d written ‘To My Dearest Sisters, Ness and