Doctor Who_ Ghost Light - Marc Platt [62]
Gwendoline blinked several times as if in waking. She slowly turned and looked at the woman who had been her servant. Her mouth opened as she tried to mouth the word
‘Mamma’.
Her mother fell forward and embraced the child. For long moments they clung to each other, reunited after so long so close, yet so monstrously distant.
Lady Margaret stroked Gwendoline’s hair, memories welling in her mind. She was so afraid of losing the past again; so afraid of returning to the present.
‘We were so happy once. Remember riding with your father down to the village. And the dogs running behind the carriage, barking. But then your father went away to Java. You sent him.’
Gwendoline clung tightly to her mother. At last, through the tears, the words came. ‘Mamma! I thought you were lost!’
Lady Margaret knelt before her daughter and clasped her hands. ‘I am, dear. We both are.’ But it seemed so far away now. It faded in the golden haze that was spreading dreamlike through the room.
‘Oh, Mamma. What have we done?’
‘You changed,’ said Light. He was scrutinizing them with distaste from across the bedroom. ‘Like the rest of this verminous planet, you adapted to your new situation to survive.’
Pierced by the crazed, analytical eyes of the angel of retribution, their minds grew numb and heavy. Their limbs lost all will to move. Their pale skins whitened and hardened, crackling as they succumbed to a creeping, grey hoar-frost.
Nimrod came through the door, drawn by the radiance, and faltered in his tracks. Seated on and beside the bed were two perfect statues of Lady Margaret Pritchard and her daughter Gwendoline, their reunion preserved, forever calcified in stone.
‘They never harmed you,’ said the manservant.
‘I have decided Earth’s future,’ declared the angel.
‘Follow me to dinner.’
Nimrod was instantly alone. Although he was trapped in the wrong time and place perhaps, he knew that this was the world he still belonged to. He had changed, but he was still the tale-bearer; he still carried the past with him. Now he might even write the tales he bore as words in books for the whole world to read. None of it must be lost, not his past, his people’s past, nor even the whole world’s. But unless Light was stopped, it would all be gone for ever. His head full of desperate thoughts, he ran from the room.
Josiah sat at the head of his table, tapping out the seconds with his knife on the crystal stem of his wine glass. He awaited an invited guest who did not appear, surrounded by guests he did not welcome. Well, when Light came, he would feed the others to it, one by one, and then it would see he had not been idle and he would trick it into his power and trap it, even extinguish its cold, heartless heart and then...
‘So Josiah, tell me about your plan to assassinate Queen Victoria,’ said the Doctor, leaning back in his chair, opposite his host.
‘Your what!’ exclaimed Ace.
An icy spasm of fear turned in Josiah’s stomach. ‘Who have you been talking to!’ He threw a sudden glance of accusation at Redvers, who looked up startled from the napkin he had been studiously folding into a crown.
‘Myself mainly,’ the Doctor confessed. ‘But to be honest, you’re not really Empire material, are you? I mean, your background’s a bit dodgy. And I doubt if Light’ll be amused.’
‘Neither’ll Queen Vic,’ inserted Ace.
Josiah lounged back arrogantly. ‘The British Empire?’
he scoffed. ‘It’s an anarchic mess! There’s no clear directive from the throne! No discipline! Result —
confusion, wastage. I can provide a new order — wealth, prosperity...
The Doctor had heard it all before. ‘...confusion, wastage, tyranny, burnt toast, until all the atlas is pink!’ He hummed a snatch of Rule Britannia and saluted. ‘But it isn’t your invitation to Buckingham Palace. Redvers!’
He sat back confidently, having poured the fat into the fire. Now let others play the roles he had rehearsed in his mind. Redvers rose on cue and taking the envelope from