A Chase in Time Read online

  Dora had her own bedroom, which was very neat; it reminded Alex rather of the guests’ rooms in Aunt Joanna’s house, although the bed-and-breakfast guests didn’t have iron bedsteads, or eiderdowns and counterpanes, or a dressing table with a silver-backed hairbrush and a washstand with a heavy china basin and jug with shepherdesses on it. Unlike Ruby’s bedroom at home, which was covered in posters of rock bands and photographs of Ruby and her friends, and screamed “nearly a teenager!”, Dora’s room looked rather grown up. Only the pictures of ladies in ballgowns, cut out of magazines and stuck up around the mirror, the books in the bookcase, and the three rag dolls lolling rather sadly on the window sill suggested that this room belonged to a child at all.

  Clothes in 1912 were weird. Boys and girls apparently wore long underwear – like a sort of vest-and-pants-all-in-one combination. Ruby refused to even try them on.

  “Aren’t you boiling?” she said. “It’s summer!”

  But for girls, she soon discovered, things quickly got even worse. Over the combinations, Ruby was expected to wear petticoats, something called a liberty bodice, which was somewhere between a corset and a vest, and black stockings. On top of that, a 1912 girl wore a long dress, a white pinafore and – if she was going outside – a hat.

  “This is ridiculous!” Ruby said furiously. “In our time you wear sundresses in summer! Bare legs! Sandals!”

  “Well,” said Alex, trying to be fair. “In our time, we’ve got climate change.” But even he had to admit that Dora and Ruby looked rather hot in all their layers.

  “That does sound nice,” Dora said rather wistfully, looking at Ruby’s blue jeans and fitted T-shirt. “But isn’t it frightfully indecent?”

  “Someone,” said Ruby grimly, “should teach you lot about feminism.”

  Clothes for boys were better. Without the combinations, Henry’s cousin’s grey knickerbockers and jacket, shirt and straw hat seemed almost reasonable (though the shirt did come with a detachable Eton collar, which was very weird). Alex was feeling rather smug, until he saw the last item Henry was pulling out.

  “Stockings! Black stockings!”

  Dora and Henry looked at him blankly.

  “No!” said Alex firmly. “No way. Boys do not wear stockings. Not in the future. Not ever!”

  But it appeared that in 1912, they did. The only socks Henry owned were a pair of white ankle socks bought for dancing class, and far too small for Alex, even if he could have brought himself to wear them. Ruby was unsympathetic.

  “At least you can run!” she said.

  Downstairs, someone was banging a gong.

  “Tea!” said Dora. “Are you hungry? I’m simply ravenous.”

  On their way back down, Alex stopped by the mirror. It stood, looking just as it always had in Aunt Joanna’s hallway, innocently reflecting the green-and-yellow wallpaper and the white front door. He touched it. Nothing happened.

  “Do you think we’re stuck here forever?”

  It was Ruby. Alex didn’t know how to answer.

  “I hope not,” he said, rather inadequately.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “About that wish you made. Do you think it had something to do with that? Like, I bet that Cup is worth thousands and thousands of pounds, don’t you? So perhaps it got stolen, and that’s why Aunt Joanna’s poor now. Well, poor-ish.” No one who owned Applecott House could possibly be described as poor. “So maybe there was a genie in that bottle, and it’s granting your wish. If we can find the Cup, then Atherton wouldn’t have lost it, and then he’ll have all that money, and then Aunt Joanna can inherit it, and everyone will be happy, and we can go home.”

  “Maybe,” said Alex doubtfully. That morning he would have said he didn’t believe in magic or wishes. But a lot had happened since that morning. “Wouldn’t a genie just put the money in Aunt Joanna’s bank account though? That’s what I’d do.”

  “It wasn’t a genie though, was it?” said Ruby. “It was a pile of dust. Maybe it didn’t have enough magic left.”

  “Or maybe,” said Alex, “it’s nothing to do with that bottle. Maybe it’s just a time-travelling mirror. We should ask Atherton where he got it from, and if he knows how to work it.”

  “He doesn’t know it can send you through time,” said Ruby. Alex had to agree. Atherton hadn’t looked at all like he believed in time-travel when Henry had brought it up that morning. “In books,” she went on, “kids always have to fix something before they can solve whatever their problem is. Like, if there’s a ghost, you have to sort out the ghost’s problem, and then it stops haunting the house. Or you have to not kill your grandfather or whatever. So maybe it’s got nothing to do with your stupid genie. Maybe there’s a problem here that needs fixing, and when we fix it we can go home.”

  “That’s the Cup again,” said Alex.

  “Yes…” said Ruby thoughtfully. She pressed her finger against the glass. Then she laughed. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get some tea. We can worry about that stupid Cup later.”

  Neither Alex nor Ruby had a very clear idea of what tea would involve. Alex was picturing the sort of high tea farmers’ wives always served in Famous Five novels, with whole roast ham, and homemade bread, and apple pie. Ruby was hoping for afternoon tea, the sort with china cups you drank your tea out of with your little finger sticking out, and cakes on silver cake stands, and cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

  What was actually brought into the room (which in Aunt Joanna’s house was the room set aside for bed-and-breakfast guests to sit in, but here was apparently the drawing room) was a solid-looking teapot, a plate of bread and butter, a jar of strawberry jam, and something the children had never seen before, but Dora said was plum cake.

  “Don’t you have plum cake in the future?” said Henry in astonishment.

  “I don’t think so,” said Alex. “We have lots of other things though,” he added hastily. “Chocolate fingers, and Mini Rolls, and carrot cake—”

  “Carrot cake!” said Henry, and nearly fell off his seat, he was laughing so hard.

  “It’s nicer than it sounds,” said Alex, but Dora and Henry looked horrified.

  They were halfway through their second slices of cake when Atherton and Mary appeared, both looking much cleaner than the children had managed (although Atherton did have a suspicious-looking black tidemark behind the ears).

  “What ho!” said Atherton. “Oh, cake! Three loud cheers!”

  And he ignored the bread and butter and went straight for the cake knife, cutting himself an enormous slice, which he devoured with great enthusiasm.

  “Someone’s taken something down to the wedding guests, haven’t they?” said Mary, watching him with amusement as she poured the tea.

  “I told Eileen to see to it, oh my best beloved,” said Atherton. “They seemed to have mostly avoided total sootification and decided to get back to decking the halls. Edmund said we were to join them once we’d cleaned up. I suppose you kids had better come too,” he added doubtfully, looking at Alex and Ruby. “Who did you say you were, exactly?”

  “I told you!” said Henry indignantly. “They came from the future!”

  “Oh, Henry, do chuck it,” said Atherton. It was hard to think of him as a grown-up; he behaved much more like an overgrown teenager.

  “We do though,” said Alex. “Ruby, show him your phone.”

  Ruby felt in her bag. Then she had another rummage. Then she tipped the bag upside down, so house keys, purse, hairbrush and an odd collection of receipts, fluff and sweet wrappers fell on to the floor.

  “It’s gone!”

  “What do you mean, it’s gone?” said Alex.

  “My phone! It’s not there! Someone’s stolen it!”

  “Maybe it just fell out,” said Dora, helpfully.

  “It did not!” said Ruby, furiously. “Someone’s stolen it! And I know who, too! It was that boy! The one who brought in those crates with Hodges. He bumped against me when he came in! And he grabbed m
e! I thought he was trying to pinch my bum or something, but he wasn’t! He was stealing my phone!”

  “Why would he steal your phone?” said Alex, practically. “He wouldn’t even know what it was.”

  “I’m afraid your friend’s probably right,” said Atherton. “That’s Frank, the gardener’s boy. He does steal things, little wretch. Go down and ask for it back – he won’t mind. He’s perfectly used to it.”

  “Uncle Atherton’s right,” said Dora. “I’m frightfully sorry, but nobody’s ever been able to stop him. He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

  “He doesn’t mean anything by stealing?” said Ruby. She looked at Alex, who shrugged.

  “He doesn’t though,” said Dora. “He’s … a bit simple. He just likes collecting things.”

  She stood up.

  “Come on. I expect he’s down at the stables with Hodges, helping clear up. Let’s go and find him.”

  “And then you’ll see!” said Henry to Atherton.

  “Top hole,” said Atherton. He leaned over and cut himself another slice of cake.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Flat caps, bowler hats and boaters

  The stables were looking rather sorry for themselves in the late afternoon sunshine. The firemen and all the wedding guests had gone, and all that was left of the disaster was the blackened stone walls and burned beams of the stables. Up close, Alex could see that the damage wasn’t too bad; the door and interior woodwork – and of course the straw – were completely burned away, but the walls were solid stone, and the roof was tile, and these were soot-blackened but intact.

  Hodges was busy dousing the burned wood with buckets of water, presumably to make sure that the fire was completely out. Dora and Henry ran over to him.

  “Darling Hodges! Is it all completely ruined?”

  “Is the stable going to fall down?”

  Alex had thought servants were people you bossed around, but Dora and Henry seemed to consider them an extension of the family. Hodges seemed to agree. He put down the bucket and beamed at them fondly.

  “Nay,” he said. “We’ll put it right. It’s just the woodwork that’s gone. Mr Pilgrim said he’d get an architect chappie he knows to come down and have a look at it. I told him we can put up stalls without an architect, but Mr Pilgrim, he said the beams and whatnot need to be right.”

  “Did you hear?” said Henry. “Someone lit the fire, then stole Uncle Atherton’s new antiquity!”

  “It’s true,” said Dora. “Isn’t that perfectly beastly? Wherever are the horses going to sleep?”

  “Don’t you fret about the horses, Miss Dora,” said Hodges. “Mrs Pinkerton said she’d take them until the stables were fixed up. You’ll be able to go over and ride whenever you want.”

  “Good-o!” said Henry.

  “Mrs Pinkerton’s a brick,” Dora agreed. “Hodges, do you know where Frank is?”

  “Nay,” said Hodges. “Not since we brought those crates in for your uncle. But you know what Frank’s like. He’s probably up to some mischief. If you see him, you tell him from me, there’s plenty of work needs doing here, and he’s not paid to lollygag.”

  Hodges, Dora explained, was the gardener, groom and odd-job man. Frank was his son and was paid a small wage to help his father with the extra garden work in the summer holidays.

  He was discovered without much effort behind one of the potting sheds, bent over some objects in a heap on the floor. He started rather guiltily when he saw Dora.

  “Frank!” she said. “Whatever are you doing here? Have you been taking things again?”

  Frank grinned a little sheepishly but didn’t answer.

  Dora held out her hand.

  “Come on,” she said. “Hand ’em over. You know you can’t take things without asking.”

  Frank dug his hand in his pocket and brought out a rather curious handful of small objects: Ruby’s phone, a china shepherdess, and the bag of sweets Henry and Dora had been fighting over in the mirror. Dora took them gravely.

  “That was very wrong of you, Frank,” she said, and he gave her another sheepish grin and ducked his head.

  “Here,” she said, handing the phone to Ruby and the paper bag to Henry, but Ruby was busy looking at the heap of things Frank had been evidently in the middle of trying to conceal.

  “What’s that?” she demanded.

  Frank looked panicked. “Nothing!” he said. “It’s nothing!”

  “It is not nothing,” said Ruby. She darted forward, and the others followed. Now Alex could see what Frank had been hiding. A can of petrol. A box of matches. Some rags.

  “You started the fire!” he cried. “Did you steal the Cup too?”

  Frank was shaking his head.

  “Not me, not me,” he said. “They told me to!”

  “Who told you to?” said Dora. Frank shook his head again.

  “Frank, this is serious,” said Dora. “Those brutes who told you to set the fire – they’ve stolen something important from Uncle Atherton. You have to tell us who they were, so we can find it. Were they someone you knew?”

  Frank was shaking his head. “Just men,” he said. “Men at the station.”

  “You don’t know their names?” said Alex hopefully.

  Frank shook his head. There was a despondent pause. Then he said brightly, “They’re staying in Mrs Pinkerton’s coach house. Come down last night, they did.”

  “Oh!” said Dora. “Oh, Frank, thank you!”

  Frank beamed.

  “Let’s go and find them!” said Ruby.

  “We should tell Uncle Atherton and Miss Flynn,” said Dora.

  “No time,” said Alex. “They’ve probably left already. I would, wouldn’t you? Someone needs to go and get help, and someone needs to go and stop them leaving, if they’re still there.”

  Dora bit her lip.

  “Henry,” she said. “You run and get Uncle Atherton. He’ll know what to do. We’ll go to the coach house. And hurry!”

  Mrs Pinkerton lived on the other side of the village. In Alex and Ruby’s time, her house was a Hotel and Spa with Extensive Grounds. Alex and Ruby’s parents had taken them there for lunch once, to celebrate some relation’s birthday, and there had been grown-ups wandering around in dressing gowns, and fancy lemonade in glass bottles, and three different types of bread in a basket. It was funny to think that in 1912, just one family lived in it.

  A coach house turned out to be exactly what it sounded like: a building designed to keep coaches in, sort of like a 1912 garage. There was a coach in there now, and an old-fashioned-looking car, and another car parked in the driveway. At the side of the coach house was a set of stone steps leading up to the second storey, where there were evidently some sort of living quarters. A man in a black suit and a bowler hat was coming down the steps, a suitcase in each hand, evidently about to load them into the car. He glanced up at the children, but didn’t speak.

  “Do you think that’s one of Frank’s men?” Alex whispered to Dora. Dora shrugged. The man looked rather like a servant, a butler perhaps. It occurred to him that stopping someone driving a car out of a building designed to store cars in was perhaps not the best way of catching a criminal. What if they tried to arrest Mrs Pinkerton’s chauffeur by mistake? On the other hand, he had come from the rooms above the coach house. Presumably those suitcases belonged to someone, and presumably that someone would come to claim them.

  He did. A moment later, a second man appeared, a young man about Atherton’s age, with red hair and freckles. Even Alex could see that this man was better dressed than the man who looked like a butler; he was wearing a flannel suit rather like Atherton’s and a flat straw boater rather like a grown-up version of the hat Alex was wearing. Neither of the men looked like storybook robbers. They looked like a young gentleman and his servant.

  “Look!” hissed Ruby, and pointed.

  For a moment, Alex couldn’t understand what she meant. Then he saw it. A piece of straw, attached to the young man’s
sleeve. A piece of straw looking suspiciously similar to the straw in which the Newberry Cup had been packed.

  “It’s them!” Ruby said excitedly. The man who looked like a butler put the suitcases in the back of the car, shut the door and climbed into the passenger seat. “And they’re about to get away! We have to delay them!”

  “How?” said Alex, but Ruby was already hurrying forward.

  “Hello!” she said brightly. “We’re … er … collecting for … er…”

  She shot a meaningful look at Dora, who said, “The Missionary Aid Society” at once.

  “Yeah!” said Ruby. “Them. We want to aid missionaries. Would you care to make a donation? It’s very good work, um, converting heathens and so forth.”

  “Not right now, kiddies,” said the man in the straw hat. “We’re in a hurry.”

  “Oh, but it won’t take long,” said Ruby earnestly. She moved between the man and the car door. “Let me tell you about all the good work they’re doing in … Africa. And Asia! And Australia! Probably! Singing hymns! Exploring jungles!”

  Alex was pretty sure missionaries didn’t explore jungles. The young man didn’t seem to think so either.

  “All right,” he said. “Very nice. Move along now.” And he made a shooing gesture at Ruby. Ruby didn’t move.

  “And another thing!” she said. “Before you go! Have you seen my dog? I’ve lost him. He’s about this big – he’s white – his name is Samuel, but he answers to Sammy. He’s—”