Doctor Who_ Wolfsbane - Jac Rayner [15]
It was a beautiful sight.
The man from the kitchen joined him. Faint sobs and comforting murmurs from behind suggested he had handed his burden to another.
Harry didn‟t turn to look at the man, just gazed on at the strange new jungle where the kitchen garden had been.
„This is rather a rum thing,‟ said Harry.
„The land has awoken,‟ said the Doctor.
* * *
After talking to the butler they knew a lot more than they did before, but nowhere near enough. The butler hadn‟t been there, didn‟t know what had gone on, only the consequences.
There had been sheep mutilations; a wolf had been suspected. Around the same time a stranger had arrived in the village - yes, he had met the Doctor on several occasions, no, he wasn‟t a tall white-haired man, like Miss Smith‟s friend, it must be a different Doctor. This man was not that tall, fairly young, had curled brown hair and an air of being...
well, he wasn‟t local, let us say No, not a foreigner, just... just different. And no, he couldn‟t tell them where he lived so they could visit him - he left the village shortly after - well, after
that night. Gone to London, perhaps, or back to sea - he‟d been a sailor, it was said, although he was a very clever gentleman; he invented things.
It had been the Doctor who brought Lieutenant Sullivan to the house, the night Miss Ryan was murdered. Murdered how? By the wolf, so they thought at the time. And it was the next morning that Jane had gone out to pick some winter tarragon for the bernaise sauce and screamed that the garden had gone mad, but then if she‟d known what was going to happen to her later on she probably would never have stopped screaming... Yes, leaves and flowers everywhere, where there‟d been bare earth the day before, and when he‟d gone out to look an apple had fallen on his head, just like the gentleman in the books who‟d discovered something, or did he mean the Austrian one who‟d had to shoot his son? And cook had said she didn‟t know what the world was coming to. That was the morning Mr Stanton had arrived home all covered in blood, and said a tree had attacked him, and they had to break the news to him about Miss Ryan - they were to be married, you see. And there‟d been all sorts of comings and goings that day, only of course it wasn‟t his place to listen to what was being said, and anyway they had been very distracted with Jane, who had a religious aunt, and thought the Book of Revelations was coming to pass, although quite where in that book it said anything about off-season apples he did not know.
Then the next day they heard that Ezekial Perry‟s daughter had been got by the wolf, and everyone spent the day hurrying about, and didn‟t even come home at night, and the next morning only Miss Neuberger - yes, a German young lady, but very nice for all that, a sort of cousin of Lady Hester‟s - returned, and she said that Lady Hester and Mr Sullivan had died, oh, and the other young gentleman, and young Mr George - Mr Stanton, he should say - had been taken to St Sebastian‟s. What other young gentleman? A young gentleman by the name of Godric. He knew no more than that; the gentleman‟s manners had been impeccable, but he seemed unaccustomed to country house life.
Undoubtedly he was not a local either. He had believed the young man was a friend of Mr Sullivan‟s.
How had they died? He did not know. Miss Neuberger had not vouchsafed that information before she left for London.
Her departure had come without warning; perhaps she found it distressing to remain here, she had certainly seemed upset that morning. He also made it a rule not to listen to village gossip. Yes, he had attempted conversation with the locals merely to be polite, but they had regrettably been entirely uncommunicative. A lawyer had visited - the house would pass to Mr Stanton, of course, but with him being in St Sebastian‟s...