Doctor Who_ The Adventures of Henrietta Street - Lawrence Miles [43]
He must have become less comfortable still when Fitz and Juliette first inspected Sabbath’s rooms. Although they found nothing of their prey, Fitz did notice traces of chalk on the floorboards, evidently recent and not properly erased. When he questioned the Professor on this, the Professor ‘shuffled his feet’ and claimed that errant students were always taking over unoccupied rooms for their own illicit social functions. Fitz was suspicious, and speculated that the rooms were still being used for some form of foul practice. He told the Doctor that if they could find out what was being done at the University now, they might have some clue as to what Sabbath had done there.
Scarlette’s journal doesn’t record the Doctor’s reaction to Fitz’s letters, because throughout the later half of May Scarlette was spending time in Windsor. So was Lisa-Beth.
It seems odd that Scarlette would spend so much time away from the House in the company of someone she’d only just come to trust, but it has to be remembered that Scarlette was a master (mistress?) when it came to manipulating personal circumstances. For example, two nights before Fitz and Juliette left for London most of the Doctor’s ‘coven’ were assembled in the salon of the House. Young Emily was present, and describes ‘the room ful of fumes, from some devise put by Scarlette in the room for the enjoyment of all’. She describes the fumes in much the same terms as those from Juliette’s secret experiments, and notes that many members of the House present – probably not including the Doctor – slowly entered a merry, intoxicated state. Only Juliette remained stony-faced, as alert as ever, while Scarlette lightly flirted with Fitz (Emily writes as if Scarlette were older than Fitz and toying with him like a teenager, though in fact he was her senior by far). Emily writes:
…Mr. K [Fitz] became glass eyed and philosophickal in the fumes. It was as though he felt he could see further than most in this euphoria and the Doctor appeard conserned though he said nothing… Mr. K said that he now understood how fragile was the world, and more that beloe it he could see the way the horison had changed. Scarlette teased him at this before asking him a question. ‘Tell me Mr. K,’ said she. ‘Did you ever feel that the world was but a dream, and should someone pinch you you would wake to another world all together?’. Mr. K appeard serious and said that he did. To which Scarlette said: ‘Perhaps someone should pinch us, Mr. K, so that we should know for sure.’ At this Mr. K whose propriety was lessened by the fumes, reached out and pinched Mistress Scarlette on the top of the leg… there was a look of shock on Scarlette’s face, but then in a blink Scarlette vanished before our eyes! We were amazed and none more than Mr. K (though the Doctor thout it most funy).
It’s best not to take this story at face value. Scarlette may have ‘disappeared’, but as Emily points out the room was both ‘hidden and intoxicated’ by the fumes, and Scarlette spent some time before her disappearance building up the correct atmosphere for those assembled to believe in her seemingly magical transportation. It was, by her own admission, a kind of trick: and only the Doctor seems to have spotted how it was done. But it must have made an impression on Fitz, who regarded Scarlette as a powerful presence from that point on.
Now that Juliette had left London, Scarlette knew there were certain issues she had to address with Lisa-Beth, and felt it was best for the two of them to get out into the fresher, greener atmosphere of Windsor. She and Lisa-Beth would regularly display themselves in the Park during their visit, wearing their best clothes (Scarlette in red, Lisa-Beth in black), letting the rich young gentlemen of the town