The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts by David Wake

Author:David Wake
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Steampunk, Victorian, time-travel, adventure, legal
Publisher: Watledge Books
Published: 2014-08-25T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter XIV

Mrs Frasier

She smiled at the three sisters and their shocked faces. Earnestine – the younger Earnestine – looked utterly aghast, amusingly so; while the other two, Georgina and Charlotte, looked from their elder sister to their… more elder sister and back again.

Mrs Frasier relished Earnestine’s startled reaction. She knew she shouldn’t. She should feel sympathy for this young lady. Mrs Frasier did, after all, know what was in store for her.

She took a calm sip of her tea, tasting the sharp tang of lemon.

“Yes, Earnestine,” she said, “I was you, Earnestine Deering–Dolittle, and you will be me, Mrs Marcus Frasier.”

“No, it can’t be,” cried Earnestine.

Mrs Frasier stood, took two decisive strides right up to Earnestine. Nose to nose, they had the same angle and shape making an even ‘V’ between them. She put her hand upon her head and shifted it across. They were the same height. She pulled her earlobes to signify that they were identical apart from the slight elongation caused by the older version’s heavy earrings, but their ears each had the same shell–like appearance.

Mrs Frasier stepped back and smiled.

“You have a gold tooth,” Earnestine said. “I don’t.”

“You don’t… yet.”

Earnestine put out her arm behind her, feeling for a chair, but it wasn’t positioned straight on. Georgina leaned in and guided her down.

“No, no…” said Earnestine.

“You see, we are on the same side… in fact, we are the same side.”

Georgina glanced back and forth, comparing eye colour, hair, shape of chin, everything. Mrs Frasier let her examine fully, knowing that Georgina was finding it suddenly obvious – of course it was. If one sees two people who look similar, perhaps one thinks of a family relationship, but one never for a moment thinks they are the same person.

Still, she had a part to play.

“Now, if I remember rightly, we have some foolish questions and then I went… I will go and attend to certain matters.”

“What foolish questions?” Charlotte asked.

“Quite.”

Earnestine found her voice: “You can’t be me?”

“Really? Why not?”

“Because… you’re nothing like me.”

“I’m older, lost some of my puppy fat, and clearly I’ve grown up, but we’re the same.”

“Ness,” Georgina put her hand on her sister’s arm, “she does look like you, the same sharp nose and red hair.”

Earnestine snatched her arm away: “I don’t have a sharp nose.”

“I prefer regal,” said Mrs Frasier, touching the sharp edge with her index finger.

She considered the three young ladies in front of her and she felt happy. It was such a pleasant experience to see them again, all together, and the need for pretence gone.

“Well, I’ll leave you three alone as I have duties. Thank you for the tea,” Mrs Frasier said. “I remember… so long ago. It’s like one of those fairground exhibits – the Hall of Mirrors. Do you remember them? Of course you do. They make you thin or fat or like an hour glass or… young again.”

“Or old,” Earnestine managed to say.

“I’d forgotten that part of the conversation until now.”

Mrs Frasier nodded and then walked away closing the drawing room door behind her.

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