Doctor Who_ The Adventures of Henrietta Street - Lawrence Miles [54]
Even Rebecca must surely have been unnerved by what she saw in the flickering light. When she told the tale to Scarlette she was as non-committal as ever, but when Scarlette wrote it down there was a certain black romance to it:
It was not unlike being in the heart of a throbbing, black machine. The chamber was iron as [was] the rest of the vessel, high as it was wide, the walls being laid with pipes or passages through which the oily life-blood of the device ran… there were levers and wheels smeared with grease so that pressures and differences could be measured. But though it was these things that caught the attention of Jack [her name for the Doctor], Rebecca’s interest lay elsewhere. For they were not alone in this dark and brooding hall of metal. There were galleries and platforms set round the walls of the chamber, so from these Jack and Rebecca found themselves watched by burning and sunken eyes. The machine was a ship of apes… the creatures leered from above like the gargoyles that gave them their names. They hooted and cackled, with black lips drawn back in hisses of venom. The smell from them was great enough to overcome the [smell of] oil. Their pelts were dark and matted, in some cases their snouts wet with blood, not without reason. Rebecca recalls that there were at the least three bodies there, all in blackened hoods. They had been éventré [French for ‘eviscerated’] by the Beasts. Their bodies had been torn open by terrible, animal hands. In one case an ape had torn from a cadaver the bone of a thigh, still red though stripped of flesh by its teeth, which it shook at Jack. They shrieked their lust at my associates, yet from all Rebecca says Jack appeared unshaken. ‘This,’ he said, ‘must be the crew.’
While all this was happening, Scarlette was still at the White Hart, where a major brawl had begun. Lisa-Beth, in concert with Anji and two of the other London women, had been drawn into a fight in which they’d enticed two of the rowdier gentlemen to battle for their honour. Juliette was trying to calm down some of the other locals, probably not using the glass totem in such an indiscreet place. But Scarlette simply sat at her table, contemplating her cup of cheap, watery chocolate, by her own admission hardly taking an interest in the events around her. It’s odd to think that none of the combatants bothered her.
According to Scarlette’s journal – though not Lisa-Beth’s – during the fight one of the male denizens of the tavern edged his way through the violent crowds and quietly seated himself at Scarlette’s table. Though no name is given for the man, Scarlette says that he was ‘a gentleman of distinguished nature’, clean-shaven and dark-haired, and at first she thought he might have been in the market for business. She does note, however, that on the lapel of his black clothing he wore a rosette in blue-and‐white. It would have marked him out as a member of the Opposition, but nonetheless he was quite gracious and civil.
The man was as untroubled by the violence as Scarlette herself, evidently having seen much of it before. Despite their obvious differences, the two of them began to talk. They spoke of current events; about America; about the rumours from London which stated that the Prince of Wales had become obsessed with the Countess of Jersey, who’d in some way bewitched him (although the Countess denied everything, claiming that if ‘the Prince has fallen in love with me then it’s not my fault’). The society affairs of London, the stories of illicit couplings in theatre boxes and sedan chairs, were notorious even in Manchester. At one point a bottle was thrown across the room, and Scarlette ducked her head to avoid it. At this point the man is said to have simply glanced at the brawl, tutted, and said: ‘Politics.’
Perhaps because the man was a complete stranger, the two of them ended