Doctor Who_ The Awakening - Eric Pringle [11]
The Doctor, who was first to enter, could not disguise his surprise at the sight of this antique room and the burly, red-faced man in Parliamentary battle uniform who sat on a carved oak settle, facing him. For a second he wondered, as Tegan had done, whether somehow all their instruments had gone wrong and they had turned up hundreds of years awry, but then he saw Jane Hampden sitting at a table by the window in casual, twentieth-century clothes. Reassured by that, he tried to relax, yet still he felt uncertain; all these efforts to make the twentieth century seern like the seventeenth were unsettling.
The sight of three strangers being thrust unceremoniously into his parlour caused Ben Wolsey to jump out of his seat in surprise. ‘What’s going on here?’ he demanded.
Willow followed them inside and closed the door. His hand hovered on the hilt of his sword. ‘They’re trespassers, Colonel,’ he answered curtly. ‘I’ve arrested them.’
Willow’s final shove had sent Tegan and Turlough staggering across the room towards a small woman, who sat at a long oak table with outrage and astonishment spreading across her face. ‘I don’t believe this!’ she exploded, and jumped to her feet.
Wolsey’s face, too, was a picture of surprise and embarrassment. ‘Are you sure you should be doing this?’
he challenged Willow.
The Sergeant casually removed his riding gloves. ‘Sir George has been informed,’ was all he would say in reply.
Wolsey turned to the Doctor with an apologetic smile.
‘I’m sorry about this,’ he said. ‘Some of the men get a bit carried away. We’ll soon have this business sorted out and you safely on your way.’
The Doctor, who had been giving the room a close examination, now turned to Wolsey. He leaned forward and treated the farmer to his most courteous smile. ‘Thank you,’ he said, with only the slightest hint of sarcasm.
Indicating the furnishings, he added, ‘This is a very impressive room, Colonel.’
Ben Wolsey smiled proudly. His head nodded with pleasure at approval from a stranger. ‘It’s my pride and joy,’ he confided.
‘Seventeenth century?’
‘Yes,’ Wolsey nodded again. ‘And its perfect in every detail.’
Tegan felt exasperated: chatting about antiques wasn’t going to get them very far. Beginning to think they had entered a lunatic asylum, she glared at the woman who, because she was wearing normal clothes, seemed to Tegan to be the only sane person around here. ‘What is going on?’
she asked her.
Jane smiled and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, but I just don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I think everyone’s gone mad.’
That made two of them. ‘Look,’ Tegan tried to sound more reasonable than she felt, ‘we don’t want to interfere.
We’re just here to visit my grandfather.’
‘Oh yes, so you said,’ the Sergeant snapped, banging into their conversation as he had barged into their lives.
‘And who might he be?’
‘His name is Andrew Verney.’
Just two simple words – a name – but their effect was enormous. A stunned silence foollowed, and the atmosphere became electric. Tegan felt almost physically the shock her words had inflicted upon these villagers. She saw their hasty glances at each other and noticed Joseph Willow look for instructions from the big Roundhead soldier he called Colonel.
‘Verney?’ he prodded, but the red-faced man said nothing; he appeared to be embarrassed, and not to know what to say. Tegan felt suddenly apprehensive.
‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded.
Jane Hampden was also looking to Ben Wolsey for some explanation, but he remained stolidly silent and eventually she herself turned to Tegan. As gently as she could, she said, ‘He disappeared a few days ago.’
Tegan’s apprehension became chilling anxiety. ‘Has anything been done to find him?’
‘Ben?’ Again Jane turned to Ben Wolsey, and again the former