Doctor Who_ Wolfsbane - Jac Rayner [19]
Chapter Four
The Insanity of Kings
Two people from The Manor had survived whatever carnage had occurred, or so it seemed. Emmeline Neuberger, German cousin to Lady Hester Stanton - now in London - and Hester‟s son George, now in St Sebastian‟s Home for the Insane. They didn‟t muck around in these days, Sarah realised - if they thought insane‟ they said „insane‟, and damn whatever people might think.
Two people had survived. Convenient, the Doctor said, they could have one each. Again, Sarah decided to take it as a compliment, the Doctor‟s assumption that she could get on with things herself, with no need for him to hold her hand.
The Doctor would go to London to look for Emmeline Neuberger - needle in a haystack, Sarah had suggested, but the Doctor had indicated his similarity to a magnet in attracting such, and she‟d had to agree. She would stay in the area, and make her way to St Sebastian‟s. She was convinced she could charm her way inside anywhere, even a lunatic asylum. Especially a lunatic asylum.
Sarah accompanied the Doctor to the railway station. She felt a need in herself to see him off, wave as he chugged away into the distance, steam billowing all around, and she wasn‟t quite sure what it was. The nearest she could get to it was a need to know where he was, to know that he was safely on his way somewhere - perhaps a degree of selfishness in there, because she was always afraid he was getting into trouble whenever he was out of her sight, and the further away he was, the more she could get on with her own life. Because even if he were in trouble there wouldn‟t be anything she could do about it.
The station was some way from the village, and they would have known that even if it wasn‟t plainly obvious from the fact they‟d walked an hour to get there - because suddenly nature was... natural again. Fields were brown and fallow, trees were bare; occasionally a robin would flit from leafless branch to leafless branch but of other creatures of nature there were no signs.
„It‟s not the whole world, then,‟ said Sarah. „Just there.
Just that village.‟
„Possibly,‟ said the Doctor.
The station was on a little branch line - the Doctor would have to travel onwards to connect with the main London & SouthWest Railways line that came from Exeter and travelled all the way to Waterloo.
And it was while waiting at the station that they discovered the date. Sarah pounced on the newspaper that was lying beside the solitary bench, with no obvious owner nearby.
„Manchester Guardian‟, she said. „Hang on, it dropped the
“Manchester” in the late fifties, so - let me see - Friday December 11th 1936.‟ She glanced up at the Doctor in surprise. We‟re less than a fortnight out.‟ He didn‟t reply, and she sighed. „Might as well be a hundred years,‟ she muttered.
She looked back at the paper. „Hey! We‟ve landed at one of those significant points in history again. “New King proclaimed tomorrow. Coronation on May 12. King Edward to broadcast tonight.”„ She read on. „Oh, I didn‟t know this.
George the Sixth had to decide whether he‟d be called that or Albeit the First. I didn‟t even know his name was really Albert. Did you know that?‟
„Know it? I was asked to be a godparent.‟
Sarah was saved from taking the Doctor up on this no-doubt mendacious pronouncement by the arrival of the train.
It was a lot smellier than she‟d expected, but there again she‟d rather have the dirty, smoky, romantic engine than the equally fragrant commuter transporters of her day, packed with unwashed armpits and sweaty feet.
„King Arthur class locomotive,‟ pointed out the Doctor in his guise of man who knew everything.
Sarah really didn‟t care. „You‟ll be back soon?‟
„I‟ll see you back at the inn,‟ he called through the coach‟s open window, waving the newspaper which she hadn‟t seen him pick up. „Have fun with George.‟
The train bumped slowly out