FIC: "Relatives & Relativity" (DW/S&S, G, gen) 2/2
Part one is here. Now, the conclusion:
3.
Sir Roger de Coverley was among Elinor’s favourite dances, usually - she liked imagining the dancers like foxes, darting in and out of cover amid the hunt. Also, it allowed for conversation between partners, which she quite enjoyed.
However, at the Willoughbys’ ball, the feeling of being hunted was far too real, and the conversation she overheard was extremely troubling.
“That younger girl is the one who threw herself so audaciously at Willoughby during that London ball I told you about,” a man whispered. “Shocking.”
“I suppose those are the sorts of gowns we can expect to see in the country,” said a woman on the chasse, with a glance at Elinor and Marianne’s simple cotton dresses, trimmed with ribbon yet plain compared to the shimmering silks that bedecked the fashionable set from London.
Elinor was spared the indignity of hearing what Mrs. Willoughby said herself, though her sharp eyes followed both Dashwood sisters about the dance floor without ceasing. Sometimes she seemed to be laughing at them - though, Elinor felt, a better-tempered woman than Mrs. Willoughby might be forgiven for making merry at the sight of Mrs. Jennings loudly giving them counsel, or of Elinor herself trying as best she could to dance with Sir John.
Most worrisome, however, was the conversation she heard between the dancers next to her.
“Tell me, what gave you the idea to wear - that?” Marianne said to her partner.
The Doctor replied, “A wise man once said - or will say, can’t recall at the mo - ‘beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.’ I intend to make do with what I’ve already got.”
“I suppose a uniform for cricket is not wholly inappropriate for dancing, as both practices are so vigorous. It is not at all the thing for a ball, however. Or so most men would say.” Marianne paused as they took hands with the next couple. “And celery for a boutonniere?”
“It’s in season,” he said blithely.
It was not so much the conversation itself that worried Elinor - after only a brief acquaintance, she was well aware that the Doctor’s talk could be both elliptical and frivolous. What concerned her was the odd note in Marianne’s questions. Her mind was still turning around the puzzle of the Doctor, and no doubt still coming up with magical explanations, as though it would require divine influence for a man to come into possession of a stalk of celery. Such irrationality could not possibly help Marianne navigate the difficult situation in which they found themselves.
When they took a rest to sample the punch, Mrs. Jennings declared, “Doctor, ‘tis too true that you’re out of practice at dancing. Though you followed the steps well enough, you did jostle the poor curate on the glissade.”
“It’s been ages. Literally.” The Doctor’s mind did not seem to be on the conversation, nor on the punch. His gaze remained fixed on a far corner of the ballroom - in particular, on a hallway down which the Willoughbys had briefly parted from the company. “Dare say I’ll get the swing of it.”
“A swing?” Sir John said. “A daring addition to a ballroom, I would think. But who’s to say what these young bucks might get up to?”
The Doctor straightened and placed his cup of punch on the table - avoiding all the other abandoned cups there, though he did not look. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment. Ladies, Sir John.”
“Do not forget our Miss Dashwood at the next allemande!” Mrs. Jennings called. To the sisters, she said, “Droll man. Most curious. And yet I find him quite dear.”
“We too must beg your leave,” Marianne said, taking Elinor’s hand. “Do not fear. We will not long abandon our good chaperone.”
Mrs. Jennings beamed. Elinor was heartened to see that Marianne had at last learned to appreciate the kindly nature of their boisterous hosts. She was less encouraged to realize that Marianne was following the Doctor.
“Marianne, what can you be thinking? Surely the Doctor wishes some privacy.”
“This is not as mundane as ducking behind the screen,” Marianne said, a most shocking statement to make where they might be overheard. But Elinor’s blushing was cooled by her sister’s next words: “I believe that the Doctor has become suspicious of Willoughby’s wife.”
“Suspicious? What can you mean?”
“I hardly know. But there is such in his expression when he looks at her - as though he found her fearsome.”
“As well he might, a woman so proud and unpleasant.” Elinor extricated her hand from her sister’s grip. “Please, you must use good sense. You must display reserve, tact, an immunity to the - cruel situation in which you are caught.”
“Why must I, Elinor? In order to win the good opinion of those whose regard is not worth the having? I care not what these people make of me. But I care very much to know what secrets the Doctor is hiding. This is not mere gossip. Do not you see it, Elinor? That this is more?”
Elinor did not see it. She did, however, see the brightness in Marianne’s eyes and the flush of her cheeks. For the first time since Willoughby had left Barton Cottage forever, Marianne seemed wholly herself. Even happy.
If her bizarre convictions about the Doctor somehow gave her peace - and gave her courage in the face of disapproval that Elinor herself would do well to emulate - then by all means, they would investigate.
“Lead on, Marianne,” Elinor said. Her sister smiled brilliantly, and they hurried down the hallway, following in the Doctor’s footsteps.
A door creaked, and they turned a corner just in time to see the Doctor disappearing into a darkened room quite far away - surely the very edge of the house. The sisters followed. Elinor whispered, “Ought we to make our presence known? I do not wish to be rude.”
“Nor do I. Yet as kind as the Doctor has been to us, he has not told us the whole truth, and he is skilled in the arts of evasion. If we are ever to learn more, we must catch him out.”
Their words stilled as they reached the threshold of the darkened room; the Doctor had not closed the door behind him but had pulled it to, so that only a sliver of the darkness beyond showed around the door’s edges. The sisters exchanged a glance before Marianne pressed her hands to the door and pushed it forward, slowly, so that the hinges might not creak.
The Doctor stood in the middle of what must have once been a sort of library, to judge by the high bookshelves that covered each wall from floor to ceiling. Yet the shelves no longer held books. Instead, glass cylinders, perhaps jars, were piled thickly where the books ought to have gone. And each cylinder held -
What was it? Elinor could not say. Her first thought was fireflies, but that was not correct; fireflies showed as small skittering dots of orange light, and this was another type of brilliance altogether. An arc of light, perhaps, bouncing within each jar, like serpents in water. The glow radiated thereby was enough to illumine the shelves, but not the centre of the room, where the Doctor stood. He stared down into a black square, roughly the dimensions of a billiards table. To judge by the greenish flickering that played upon his sombre face, it was certainly something else. The Doctor took from his pocket a sort of metal contraption, the same size as a letter-opener, and pointed it downward; its tip began to glow, not unlike the light-serpents themselves.
Magic, Elinor thought. She was too astonished to feel chagrin, but could there be any doubt she had been proved wrong?
Marianne took one tentative step within, then, when no disaster befell her, walked quickly toward the Doctor. Elinor kept only a short distance behind. When they were very near, Marianne said, “You will not tell us this is a trick of the light.”
The Doctor jumped. “What the -“ When he saw them, he scowled. “Dancing slippers on thick carpets. Quieter than cats. I’ll have you know every civilized world has outlawed such a thing.”
“Explain,” Elinor said. Her heart beat at an alarming rate. “You must explain this. Explain yourself. Do not mislead us any longer.”
“We wish to be friends,” Marianne added. “True friends do not keep such secrets.”
“True friends can keep secrets you’d never imagine.” The Doctor’s gaze slid sideways, and his sour expression transformed into one of profound unease. “… and it might have been better if we’d tried whispering.”
“What do you mean?” Elinor looked in the same direction as he, and realized that the light-serpents were moving differently now. Instead of gliding about gently within their jars, they now thrashed from side to side, so that all the glass rattled and vibrated.
Marianne clutched Elinor’s arm. “What is happening?”
“We’re running!” The Doctor pushed them both in front of him so that all three began to dash toward the door. As they ran, jars started to shatter, each fall of glass resulting in a louder and louder hiss, as though the work of real serpents. Elinor glanced back once and saw that the lights were meeting one another, forming a larger creature, almost a dragon, that seemed to stare at them - to be pouncing at them -
The Doctor tackled the sisters as a cowherd might an unruly calf, bearing all of them down onto the carpet in the hallway outside. He managed to kick shut the door behind them just before the light-dragon struck it; the wood vibrated with a terrible sound that must have echoed within the whole house and far beyond it.
They stumbled to their feet just before the first partygoers began to venture into the hallway, in search of the source of the noise. “What has happened?” said one fashionable Londoner. Elinor could not think how to explain. The Doctor’s face took on a very odd expression, and she became certain that he was on the verge of inventing some colourful, implausible tale that would reassure no one whatsoever.
Marianne, with what Elinor considered great wisdom and excellent timing, chose that moment to feign a swoon.
When she collapsed against Elinor’s shoulder, all those witnessing were overcome with concern for her - or, as she overheard in various whispers, the need to gossip about Miss Dashwood’s obvious distress at the sight of her former swain and his new bride. The Doctor managed to say that she had fallen, which could not at all have explained a crash so loud. However, as this tale enhanced the dramatic nature of their gossip, the party was satisfied. By supplying a new source of conversation, Marianne had successfully diverted the interrogation.
And, Elinor thought with a worried glance backward, Marianne had also kept anyone from opening the door that held back the terrifying light-dragon.
As Mrs. Jennings helped Marianne into her carriage, Elinor heard Sir John say to the Doctor, “Will you remain at the ball, sir? Surely Miss Dashwood will be well once she is restored to her home. But if you prefer to come with us, you are welcome to stop a while with my dear mamma and myself.”
“I’ll see myself home,” the Doctor said, with a not-unkindly smile. Yet there was that in his voice as presaged great danger.
Elinor, now in the carriage beside her sister, looked down at Marianne. When their eyes met, she knew what they would do, and how they would do it, as surely as though they had planned it some months in advance.
No, she needed no more persuasion to investigate “magic.”
**
Later that night, after Mrs. Jennings and Sir John had left and their mother had fussed over Marianne at length, the sisters Dashwood were at last able to shut the door of their bedroom in the pretence that they wished to sleep. Elinor felt some surprise when Marianne began to undress. Then she realized that it would be most foolish to venture out in their party gowns, and inadequate to the evening chill. Together, without a word, they helped one another into their warmest and sturdiest dresses and coats, the ones they normally reserved for days of labour.
It was fortunate that both Mamma and Margaret were both quick and sound sleepers. Once they were dressed, Marianne and Elinor could immediately set out down the stairs to their front stoop, where they put on their shoes at the door and closed the latch quietly. The moon was near full and the sky cloudless, so silvered light showed them the way toward the meadow where they had first seen the Doctor’s shed.
“Are you afraid, Elinor?” Marianne said.
“We have never walked out so late, it is true, but one never hears of vagrants or other such trouble in this vicinity.”
“I meant, of the Doctor.”
Elinor realized that the question was not an unreasonable one, and yet even upon further consideration she could discern no trace of fear within herself. “I am only curious, I find.”
“I, too.” Marianne smiled so brightly that Elinor thought she might laugh aloud. “Is it not exciting?”
In prudence, Elinor thought, she should say something cautionary. In honesty, she could not entreat her sister to a greater caution than she felt herself. She therefore said nothing as they made their way quickly through the meadow toward the tiny blue shed silhouetted by the moonlight.
When Elinor knocked on the door, there followed a long pause, so long that the sisters glanced at one another in dismay. “Could he have remained at the Willoughbys’ ball?” Marianne asked. “Surely he has not gone back to fight the dragon himself.”
“He would not be so foolish, I think.”
“And yet he had gone to fight it alone before!”
“Then it was several serpents in jars, not a - larger sort of - dragon. Or such.” The necessary vocabulary was most unseemly.
The shed’s door opened, and the Doctor stood there, still in his cricketer’s uniform, plus an odd sort of straw hat with a flat crown and a band decorated with marks of interrogation. “Might’ve known you two couldn’t leave well enough alone.”
Elinor did not take kindly to being growled at. “Had you beheld such as - as that, and you did not understand its nature, could you rest easily without answers?”
The Doctor sighed heavily, yet despite himself seemed somewhat amused. “Well, neither of you has fainted yet. Good a sign as any, I suppose.” He turned and walked inside the mysterious golden interior of the shed, then glanced back after them. “What are you waiting for? An engraved invitation? Get in before you catch your death. It’s chilly out there, and as you’ve seen --- strange things are afoot.”
The sisters walked inside, in no less a feeling of awe than they had felt the first time. “How is this possible?” Marianne said. “This phenomenon of this shed’s true size. Of your transformation when we met you. The earth-quake, if that is indeed what it was.”
“And how all of this can possibly involve Mrs. Willoughby,” Elinor added. When Marianne stared at her, she said, “You had realized the connexion before now.”
“I - yes, I had wondered as much, but I half believed the notion to be only my own mean feeling,” Marianne confessed.
“Sometimes, you even have to trust your petty side,” the Doctor confided. “Because it’s steered you in the right direction this time.”
Enough vagaries. Elinor demanded, “What is this … shed?”
The Doctor looked heavenward. “Shed. A shed, she calls it! Don’t jostle her too much, dear girl; she knows not what she beholds. This, Misses Dashwood, is a TARDIS. That stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, which is what she can move within. She’s a living thing, no machine … but you wouldn’t expect a machine, would you? More used to horses than to horseless carriages.”
A horseless carriage sounded particularly useless to Elinor, but she had no time to puzzle over his odd phrases. “This - TARDIS moves? Under its own locomotion?”
He grinned. “We can go to Paris. To the West Indies. To the moon. To the indigo grasslands of Levixtian Three, which is a planet orbiting a different star altogether from the sun. And if your discontent with the here and now has more to do with the ‘now’ than the ‘here,’ I can take you back to meet Edward the Confessor. Boudicca. Whoever else strikes your fancy.”
None of it was remotely sensible. None of it had any place beyond the pages of a fairy story. The Doctor was telling lies, mocking them: That was the only rational explanation. Yet Marianne stared at him, her face dawning with wonder, as though she believed every word and had never heard anything so delightful. It was no great surprise that her fanciful nature would accept and even welcome such a tale.
The great surprise was that Elinor - against all logic and inclination - believed it too.
Marianne gaped. “So this is - this is truly - magic.”
“A wise man once said - or will say, honestly, I ought to check the dates in my Bartlett’s sometimes - ‘Any science sufficiently developed will be indistinguishable from magic.’ And that’s what this is. Science. The unfolding of natural law, in ways that haven’t yet been discovered on your planet, in your century.”
“On … our planet,” Elinor said. “Not your planet.”
“What gave me away? It’s the ears, isn’t it? I thought they didn’t quite regenerate correctly this time. Overenthusiastically, at any rate.”
In a far steadier voice than she would have thought possible for such a sentence, Elinor continued, “You are a sort of … scientist-traveller from another world and era, using a living vehicle that is larger on the inside to move great distances or over centuries.”
The Doctor grinned. “Nicely done! As many times as I’ve had to explain, I don’t think I’ve ever made so neat a job of it.”
The sisters’ eyes met, as each sought confirmation of the other’s belief. Marianne brightened as she saw that she would not need to convince Elinor further. “How delightful!” Marianne said. “That seems somehow inadequate to the moment, but I know not what else to say.”
“Delight’s rather nice, actually,” the Doctor said. “I’ll take it.”
Elinor turned these revelations over in her mind once more. What they had learned here - it was not a fancy, not a delusion. Not was it simple, plain fact, to be fitted into the ordinary course of life. It was both logic and illogic, fantasy and science, the merging of her reason and Marianne’s sensibilities. For once, neither of them was wrong; both of them had been completely right, even though their beliefs had been exact opposites!
She laughed aloud. Marianne raised her eyebrows, and even the Doctor seemed to be surprised. Elinor covered her mouth with her hand, but she knew her glee to be ill-concealed. “Delightful,” she said. “Yes.”
The Doctor turned back to the machination at the centre of the TARDIS, and with his long fingers punched at certain bits of metal. An illustration of the light-dragon appeared, though instead of a drawing it seemed to be made of light as well, and it hung in mid-air. Although the sisters gasped at such a marvel, he did not seem to pay much heed. “Looks familiar, hmm? What you see here is a Nalosian Congregation, which is actually several dozen or hundred Nalosians all jumbled together.”
“The Nalosians -“ Marianne hesitated on the unfamiliar word. “Were they the serpents in the jars?”
“Precisely, Marianne!” the Doctor declared, indelicately omitting the proper “Miss” before her name. Then again, Elinor rationalized, they had gotten on rather familiar terms very quickly. “Each Nalosian on its own - hardly worth worrying about. Off their home planet, they’re badly weakened. Worst thing one could do is tip over a vase. Not much to worry about, unless you’re extremely fond of some particular vase. But when you get a Nalosian Congregation, you have something fairly deadly on your hands. The one in the Willoughbys’ home isn’t very large - yet. Given more time, however, I suspect Mrs. Willoughby could work up a proper monster. And I think she means to.”
Elinor interjected, “How is Mrs. Willoughby the cause of this? You suggest that these creatures are from another world, and surely she is not.” A pause. “Is she?”
“Doubt it. To be precise, it’s nothing to do with Mrs. Willoughby itself,” the Doctor said. “It’s the thing that’s taken up residence inside her.”
Marianne paled. “Do you mean … possession? As if by demons?”
“Very like.” The Doctor punched at a small contraption of metal squares and rectangles; the illustration of the Nalosian Congregation vanished and was replaced with an image of a finely worked silver bracelet.
“That is Mrs. Willoughby’s bracelet,” Marianne said. “The one you noted when we all first met on the path that day.”
The Doctor folded his arms, running one finger absently along the stalk of celery pinned to his jumper. “Some people would call it a bracelet. Other people would call it a ‘telepathic tether.’ The Nalosians shoot them out into space, in all different sizes, always bright and shiny. Every planet’s intelligent races love bright and shiny things. We’re all pathetic like that, it turns out. Anyway, somebody eventually takes the tether. That person is then possessed by a Nalosian, and as the possessed person subverts the will of one person after another - turns them into her puppets, whether for an hour or forever - essentially, they make little baby Nalosians.” He paused. “Sorry, was that improper? I keep forgetting, this era’s rather … staid.”
In truth, Elinor’s cheeks had pinked, but she said smoothly, “We are not ignorant of such matters. Pray continue.”
“Well. The more Nalosians that come into being on this world, the larger a Nalosian Congregation we’ll be dealing with. Which raises the prospect of mass hysteria, property destruction on an enormous scale, the occasional murder, and, for some reason, a gigantic increase in the fox population. Something about Nalosian Congregations affects foxes the same way Barry White affects humans. Or will affect them. Really, I’ve got to brush up on my Earth dates.”
Marianne stepped closer to the Doctor, her youthful face alight with hope. “You mean that Mrs. Willoughby - she truly is controlling people’s behaviour? Including Willoughby’s?”
Elinor had thought Willoughby’s protestations of being forced into cruelty by his wife to be merely weak pretexts for his own ill-conduct. Faced with the possibility that this was the literal truth, she no longer knew how to assess her own condemnation of him - or what this might mean for Marianne.
This matter did not bear discussing at the moment, however; a more pressing question had come to Elinor’s mind. “The bracelets are used in the subversion of people’s will, you said?”
“Precisely,” the Doctor replied.
“Just as Mrs. Willoughby tried to subvert Mrs. Jennings’s will, according to what she told us that day at tea.” The story - with the bracelet being flashed about, and commands being given - sounded so different now. “Yet she was unable to subdue Mrs. Jennings.”
“A platoon of Cybermen couldn’t subdue Mrs. Jennings.” At the sisters’ stares of incomprehension, the Doctor further explained, “Highly strong-willed people aren’t as susceptible to the Nalosians’ influence. Mrs. J. fits into that category, wouldn’t you agree?”
“It could not be argued otherwise,” Elinor said, keeping as straight a face as she could manage.
Marianne’s focus had remained unchanged. “If Willoughby is under this infernal creature’s influence, how can we free him? How do we stop her?”
The Doctor took a deep breath. “We go over there, bonk her on the head and get the bracelet back.”
The sisters looked at one another for a moment, then turned back to the Doctor as Elinor said, “… bonk?”
“Hit. Strike. Thump. Whack.” He mimed the motion against the wall of the TARDIS, perhaps in the belief that none of these words would be comprehensible to them. “Whatever it takes to get that bracelet off her wrist. It’s one of the only two ways to break the link between Mrs. Willoughby and the Nalosians; the other involves a soak in a solution including polyphenols, phenolic acids, alkaloids, and - you know, what say we just grab the bracelet? As soon as the link is broken, the Nalosians will begin to fade, and they’ll instantly lose the power to form a Congregation.”
“As surely you will undertake the more combative aspect of this plan, what role do you wish for us to play?” Marianne asked. Elinor started in surprise, but Marianne continued, “I do not believe you would have told us any of this, had you not felt our cooperation necessary.”
The Doctor did not deny this, which Elinor felt to be a compliment to their good sense. “I don’t know what Willoughby was like before. So I don’t know whether he’s merely under her sway, or whether he’s possessed as well.”
“But he wears no bracelet,” Marianne protested. “We would notice anything so peculiar as that!”
“Which is why he’d hide it - as an armband under his shirt, perhaps. But if he’s merely being controlled, you might be able to snap him out of it - bring him back to himself, maybe. If the two of you come with me now, once we’ve parted Mrs. Willoughby from her jewellery, you can tell me whether the problem is solved, or whether he’s going to need bonking on the head as well.”
Elinor privately felt that Willoughby rather deserved a … bonk … on the head, irrespective of whether it was strictly required. “Now? It is the dead of night.”
Marianne interjected, “Every moment we linger potentially adds to her strength. And if we are to slip in secretly, it must be by night.”
“Like thieves?” Elinor protested.
Crossly, Marianne said, “Do you wish to wait for an invitation to dine? If Mrs. Willoughby ever invites us again, it will be with the object of subverting our will, and I would prefer therefore to go when she does not anticipate our arrival.”
The Doctor looked impressed. “You’ve got a knack for this sort of thing, you know that?”
Her words indeed represented good sense. Elinor straightened her bonnet. “Very well,” she said. “Let us begin.”
**
No servants stirred at this hour - even the lowliest scullery maid would have finished her scrubbing up by then and gone to her garret to sleep, and not even the most vigilant footman had yet risen. Thus the Dashwood sisters and the Doctor were able to approach the great house without fear of discovery. The door proved to be locked, but the Doctor’s odd little contraption - which he called a “sonic screwdriver” - undid that in an instant.
“You are a formidable man, Doctor,” Marianne whispered as they pushed the door open, slowly, that the hinges might not squeak. “I shudder to think what it would mean to have you as an enemy, rather than a friend.”
“You do well to shudder.” As the Doctor said this, Elinor studied his face in the moonlight, in the hope that he was jesting. She believed he was not.
They made their way through the ballroom, which showed very little sign of its earlier glamour; already the servants had taken away all the flowers and put up all the candles. Only a lingering scent of gardenias suggested that a dance had taken place this night. Wordlessly, they travelled the way they had come before, toward the room where the Nalosians had been kept in their jars. As they tiptoed down the hallways - carefully, for they were now in boots rather than their soft slippers - they began to hear voices.
“My love,” Willoughby said, all politeness, “the hour grows late. We should to bed.”
Mrs. Willoughby replied, just as sweetly, “We cannot rest until we finish our labours, dearest.”
The doorway from before had been opened, and a sickly green light flickered in the hallway. Elinor felt quite nervous that the Nalosian Congregation - or, as she still thought of it, the light-dragon - could easily come after them. Nothing now held it in place. Yet the Doctor and Marianne kept on, and where they went, Elinor would follow.
When they reached the open door, the Doctor leaned over to peer inside the room with far more confidence than Elinor thought the situation merited. However, when no shrieks of anger greeted this movement, she and Marianne both followed suit.
The light-serpents had returned to their jars - or, as it were, to new jars. Broken glass still littered the floor; no doubt the Willoughbys had told the servants never to enter this room. Willoughby sat, straight-backed, in a chair in one corner, and only a certain stiffness in his posture betrayed that all was not well. His eyes were blank, and his smile handsome as ever, if ill-focused, like a man thinking of someone not present. On the table next to him sat a teapot and two cups, though no steam issued forth - the tea was no doubt long-abandoned, gone cold. In the centre of the room, in front of the strange billiard-table-shaped device, paced Mrs. Willoughby. Still she wore her glittering ballgown, though it was slightly askew now, one of the sleeves pulled entirely off her shoulder in an unseemly manner. Her fair curls had escaped their hairband, but Mrs. Willoughby paid this no notice. Instead she went back and forth, back and forth.
“How can he know?” she whispered. “Who can he be? He smells of a Time Lord, but they are only concerned with their mad wars against the Daleks.”
“Sorry,” the Doctor declared loudly, stepping into the room. “The Time War’s ended. Which puts me back on duty, so to speak.”
What madness was this? Elinor could hardly believe that the Doctor had done anything so foolish as announcing himself to their enemy, particularly while she was surrounded by light-serpents that could band together to do her bidding. But Marianne quickly took her place at the Doctor’s side, leaving Elinor little choice than to do likewise.
Mrs. Willoughby, spying them, began to laugh. “Have you brought along little human girls to do your bidding, Time Lord? How unworthy of you.”
“I haven’t stolen their bodies. Used them like toys in a dollhouse,” the Doctor said. “Like some others I could mention.”
“I do what I must.” Mrs. Willoughby tossed her curls in a manner so natural and familiar that Elinor felt certain this, at least, was something that survived of the true woman, not the demon alien possessing her. “You attempt what you should not.”
She flung out her hands, which crackled with a strange light, like the sparks in woollens on dry cold mornings. And the light-serpents began to writhe.
Why had the Doctor showed himself? Elinor wondered. Yet immediately she comprehended the answer. No opportunity to surprise Mrs. Willoughby had showed itself. Therefore he meant to distract her, leaving any show of force to the Dashwood sisters. Elinor meant to have a word with the Doctor about the imprudence of this plan later, but for now, she slipped away to the side, attempting to get lost in the shadows.
Marianne followed, but more swiftly, and she obviously did not govern her conduct to avoid attention. “Willoughby!” she cried. “Willoughby, you must awaken. You must free yourself from her power!”
Willoughby glanced at Marianne, but absently, as he might look about a ball for any special acquaintance.
“Do you not hear me? Willoughby! We need you - you must overcome her!” Marianne went to Willoughby and shook his shoulders. When this produced no effect, she slapped him across the cheek. “Willoughby!”
As Willoughby made no particular movement, despite having now been “bonked” upon the head, Elinor privately decided that he was not a separate prisoner of the Nalosians, but rather the plaything of his possessed wife. Quietly she tiptoed behind Marianne and Willoughby, glad of the hubbub in the room that would disguise her movements - and increasingly nervous about the thrashing of the light-serpents. She suspected that, if the light-dragon came forth again, this time they would discover its true power.
“Why do you continue to drive us from Earth, Time Lord?” Mrs. Willoughby said, circling the Doctor as their gazes locked. “We will always return, you know. It is so rich for us.”
The Doctor’s smile held no mirth. “You’ll always return,” he agreed. “And you’ll always be wrong. That’s why I’ll always be here to stop you.”
“How grand you think yourself,” Mrs. Willoughby sneered.
Now the Doctor actually seemed amused. “And isn’t that fine, coming from someone who gads about in dyed emu feathers?”
Mrs. Willoughby hissed in the manner of an angry cat. The light-serpents writhed so desperately that the jars began to rattle. Time was running out.
Elinor did not trust the strength of her own blows, but she thought perhaps she might throw something at Mrs. Willoughby. That might prove most forceful. But what could she throw? This room was devoid of books, she dared not shatter even one of the jars. Then an idea came to her. In desperation, Elinor seized the china teapot and threw it directly at Mrs. Willoughby - and missed, only splashing her thoroughly with tea.
But as the teapot fell to the ground and shattered, Mrs. Willoughby began to scream.
The terrible long peal of her cry trembled through the very walls. Slowly, the light-serpents dimmed, darkening the room to near blackness as they faded entirely. Mrs. Willoughby swooned to the floor, quite insensible.
“Miss Dashwood!” the Doctor exclaimed, quite beside himself with glee. “That - that was - it was -“ He struggled in vain for a word, then hit on, “Fantastic!”
Willoughby stood up very suddenly, and Marianne stumbled back a few steps in shock. He said, “My God. You have defeated her. That vile creature. I am myself again.”
“I do not understand,” Elinor confessed. “I did not strike her, and the tea would not have been hot enough to scald.”
“You soaked her in a solution of polyphenols, phenolic acids and alkaloids,” the Doctor pronounced with pleasure. “Did the trick in a jiff. I was hoping you’d catch on when you saw the teapot.”
Marianne said, “Do you mean that all we needed was - a cup of tea?”
The Doctor nodded and folded his arms across his chest. “Tea solves everything.”
Aware that her sister was gaping at her, Elinor revealed no reaction, in an effort not to appear too thoroughly self-satisfied.
4.
The Doctor took upon himself the complicated task of explaining to Willoughby precisely what had transpired. Of this lengthy and not entirely sensible discourse, the one point Elinor found of particular note was that the Nalosians already upon this world had all passed back into their original dimension, and would trouble them no further. Despite this, Marianne removed Mrs. Willoughby’s silver bracelet as a precaution and slipped it into the pocket of the Doctor’s coat, so that it might later be dismantled in the TARDIS.
Throughout the conversation, Elinor noted, Willoughby did not glance once at the insensate form of his wife on the floor.
“Such an unbelievable tale,” Willoughby said. “And yet it has happened to us, and for the best.”
“The best?” Elinor said, unable to discern his meaning. She understood more when Willoughby turned to her sister and boldly took Marianne’s hands in his own. Marianne gasped, and became quite still.
“My beloved Marianne,” Willoughby said. Warmth was in his every word, and his eyes again shone with the sincere affection they had known from him before. “Now you know why I married Miss Grey, and the truth of the terrible influence she had over me. You must realize now that not one word of that wretched letter I wrote you was an expression of my true feeling.”
Marianne whispered, “I do. I believe that now.”
Willoughby stepped closer to Marianne, so much so that Elinor thought he had quite forgotten she and the Doctor remained in the room. “Can you forgive me, my dearest? Can you at last believe that I still love you, and only you?”
Marianne stared up at him for a few moments, until she said in a small voice, “I believe that you still love me.” Yet as Willoughby smiled, she added, “But I do not forgive you.”
Most shocked, Willoughby protested, “This marriage - this unkindness - it was not at all my own doing or my will!”
“No. It was not.” Marianne’s words gained firmness as she spoke. “However, you were not under Nalosian influence when you seduced Colonel Brandon’s ward, nor when you left her, alone and desolated, while with child. Nor when your aunts took away your money, and you abandoned me to be free to marry another who would have a greater fortune. You did not meet Miss Grey until after that. Those earlier actions were your doing, yours alone.”
Willoughby’s cheeks coloured, and he looked very much as if he wanted to speak - but for once, words did not come easily to his tongue.
Marianne continued, “The bracelets do not overcome the strong-willed, or so the Doctor says. You were overcome quite easily. Yet that fact was not necessary to prove that - you are a weak man, Willoughby. I do not condemn you, for I too have been weak. But I can no longer regret the circumstances that have parted us.”
With that, she stepped away from Willoughby to Elinor’s side. As Elinor petted Marianne’s shoulder, Willoughby protested, “Is this all you have to say to me?”
“Don’t know about Marianne, but I’ve got something to add,” the Doctor said. “What makes you think you’re free to go about protesting your love to her or anyone else besides your wife? You a married man.”
Willoughby protested, “I did not marry of my own free will! I married some - creature that no longer exists!”
The Doctor shook his head. “At least half of her continues to exist. And you’re still quite married.”
As if summoned by his words, Mrs. Willoughby sat upright and rubbed her head. “Goodness,” she said. “Goodness me. I must have taken a spill. The fool servants polished the floors with too much wax. Tomorrow I shall box their ears.”
Her voice was sharp, her manner ill-tempered. The scene about her would have excited the curiosity of the most inobservant witness, and yet Mrs. Willoughby seemed primarily interested in examining her fine ballgown for tears or stains. Elinor detected that Mrs. Willoughby was not insensible to the strangeness of their situation, and this meant she must have some memory of what had transpired - but she seemed to regard it primarily as an embarrassment, a social awkwardness best ignored altogether.
“John?” she whined. “Help me up. I must wake Millie so that she can rinse this dress. If it is tea-stained, I shall not answer for it.”
Willoughby seemed to shrink some inches in stature. Quite suddenly, his dash and vigour had deserted him - and forever, Elinor suspected. Without a word he offered his wife an arm, and she took it, clasping her thin fingers around his forearm so tightly that Elinor was put in mind of the links of a chain.
Mrs. Willoughby deigned to glance at the Dashwood sisters and the Doctor only briefly. “I trust you can show yourselves out?” she said, as she began walking toward the door, Willoughby silent by her side.
“Absolutely!” the Doctor called with great good cheer. “Brilliant party, by the way!”
Very quietly, just as the Willoughbys stepped through the doorway of the room, Marianne whispered, “Goodbye.” Elinor did them both the courtesy of pretending not to notice that Willoughby flinched.
**
They returned to the TARDIS, rather than to Barton Cottage, for Elinor felt certain that sleep remained many hours away for them both. What they had just witnessed must be spoken of before it could be laid to rest. To Elinor’s surprise, the strange golden interior of the TARDIS already felt familiar - almost homely. The Doctor sensibly made them some tea.
“Poor Willoughby,” Elinor said. “He will have such regrets.”
“They are largely of his own making,” Marianne retorted. Her old spirit had returned in full now. “And his purse is no poorer than before. I suppose he will console himself well enough with hunting trips, and a fine house in London, and perhaps a new phaeton or whatever else is the finest carriage in the land this season.”
The Doctor’s straw hat was tipped far back on his head, somehow rendering his grin even more boyish. “We’re in the finest carriage in the land, any season. Pity you don’t know what the TARDIS can do.”
Elinor took another sip. “You were good enough to explain to us, and after the marvels we have beheld, you may rest assured that Marianne and I believe you.”
He hesitated - a pause that flickered, like the first sparks of a fire just as the blaze took hold. “But wouldn’t you rather see for yourselves?”
Surely he was speaking of a journey, one of the wondrous feats of transport of which he claimed the TARDIS to be capable. Elinor protested, “If we are not at home in the morning, Mamma will be most concerned.”
“Time machine, remember?” The Doctor stepped toward the whirring contraption at the centre of the great golden room. “You’ll be back before dawn, make no mistake. Now, where would you two like to go?”
The sisters stared at one another, hardly sure what to do. Although the Doctor had suggested infinite possibilities, such infinity was difficult to sort through at a moment’s notice. Elinor ventured, “Could we … could we even go as far as London before dawn?” Next to her, she saw Marianne looking sceptical, as well she might upon hearing such a wild proposition.
The Doctor laughed. “All the universe before them, and they ask for London! It shows good taste, really. Very well.” He slammed down a lever in the works, and a strange sound - like the one they had heard on the day of the earth-quake - began to hum and whirl within the TARDIS. “I’ll show you London.”
Marianne clutched Elinor’s shoulder as the TARDIS shifted from side to side. “It feels like an earth-quake, and sounds like one as well, but this is different, isn’t it?” Marianne cried.
“Just the TARDIS on her way!” the Doctor shouted over the din. “Hang on, ladies!”
Elinor prepared herself for a long and rocky journey, though she reasoned it was no worse than the average carriage on a bumpy road. Yet within only a few seconds, the rocking had stopped. She and Marianne looked at one another in dismay. Marianne said, “Is it broken?”
The Doctor made a rude sound. “Broken. My TARDIS. Hardly. Well … not again, at any rate. We’re there.”
“You wish us to believe that we have been transported to London? In the blink of an eye?” Elinor protested. By way of answer, the Doctor gestured toward the door.
No doubt this would prove to be another of his odd jokes. Yet as they walked toward the door, Marianne clutched Elinor’s hand in anticipation, an emotion Elinor realized was mutual. She reached out and pushed open the door of the TARDIS -
--to behold pure Bedlam.
Assuredly the TARDIS had moved, for they were no longer in the silent meadow, but upon pavement in the middle of a throng of people. Although the crowds reminded Elinor of London, nothing else did. The buildings around them stretched up as high as palaces, though they were as plain as huts, and windows and lamps along the streets glowed with eerily bright, steady lights. Nor were these crowds like those in London save in number, for these people were loud and raucous, and dressed in a most peculiar and vulgar manner. The women were, in truth, indecent, many of them showing naked legs and some of them in no sleeves at all; furthermore, it seemed that many of them wore paint upon their faces. Though the rouge was less garish than that Elinor had glimpsed before, she knew only actresses or women of ill-repute wore such things. A few individuals held strange metal devices to their ears and spoke to them as though they were other persons.
“Is this -“ Marianne sounded as confused as Elinor felt. They each stepped out from the TARDIS, more in a sort of stunned stupor than through any actual desire to be part of the melee surrounding them. “Is this some sort of carnival? Or a gathering of theatrical performers?”
“This,” the Doctor pronounced with relish, “is a party, one being celebrated by the entire world - including here in London.”
Elinor protested, “This is not London!”
The Doctor said, “This is London, on New Year’s Eve in the year of our Lord 1999.”
1999? Did he mean - could he possibly mean - almost two centuries hence? Elinor knew the Doctor had claimed his TARDIS could travel through time, but surely there could be no means of travelling to an era that did not yet exist. And this swirling cacophony could not be London. He was playing a trick on them, a miraculous trick to be sure but a trick all the same.
Then Marianne seized her arm. “Elinor - Elinor, look!”
Marianne pointed, and Elinor followed the gesture to look across a river, toward an equally tall and eerie city. There, illuminated by the strange, unchanging light, stood St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Elinor gasped, overcome with wonder. St. Paul’s she had seen before in all its beauty and majesty. Surely there could be no other such edifice anywhere else in the world. This truly was London. Once again, the Doctor’s most magical stories had proved to be no more than simple fact.
Next to her, Marianne began to laugh. Elinor joined her, the two sisters clinging to each other in overwhelmed rapture. The Doctor’s smile - though mysteriously almost sad - made him look younger, too, and she knew that their joy was truly shared.
**
Such a night as this Elinor had never before experienced. Occasionally she remembered that they had in fact begun the evening at a ball, but Mrs. Willoughby’s festivities were as nothing compared to this - the party held to celebrate the end of the millennium.
(“But surely that is incorrect,” Elinor had said when the Doctor first told them this. “The millennium will not properly end until the last day of the year 2000.”
“They’ve gotten rotten at arithmetic, in the future,” the Doctor had replied. “Don’t tell them and spoil all the fun, hmm?”)
People drank champagne freely in the streets, and the Dashwood sisters accepted glasses that the Doctor seemed to have collected from thin air. In some of the taverns and clubs, they danced - a peculiar sort of dancing without steps, which involved merely jumping about to rhythmic primitive beats; awkward though it seemed at first, Elinor found the practice easy to master and more enjoyable than she would have anticipated. Though their clothing was very different from that of the gaudy women about them, nobody commented, except for a few people who thought it was lovely that they had worn “costumes.”
Now, the Doctor’s bizarre garb, with his cricketer’s outfit, straw hat and celery - that drew attention.
“That is amazing,” slurred one fellow, fully as tall as the Doctor, and clothed all in black; his leather jacket was polished to the sheen of a finely made saddle. “That’s hilarious, and you’re saying, you’re saying -“
He stumbled to one side, and the Doctor amicably caught him with one arm. “What is it I’m saying, then?”
“You’re saying - I don’t care what they think of me, and to hell with all of them, and it’s - it’s amazing.” The man belched in a most uncouth manner, though Elinor had seen gentlemen far more intoxicated at balls. “I wish I could say that. You know what? I’m sayin’ it. I’m sayin’ it. I’ve got to get one of those hats. Where did you get that hat?”
The Doctor smiled rather wickedly. “What say we try a trade?”
The two gentlemen ducked into a nearby pub, leaving the two sisters alone for a few moments. Together, Elinor and Marianne leaned against the shiny metal railing that now framed the south bank of the Thames. At first they were silent, enjoying being a part of this celebration, and yet apart from it and therefore able to enjoy it all the more.
“Is it not wondrous, Elinor?” Marianne said.
“It is.”
Marianne dimpled. “What? You will not qualify your pleasure? Say that ‘wonder’ is a fancy for children?”
“No,” Elinor said softly. “I shall not say that tonight. Perhaps I shall never say so again. The Doctor - he has a way of convincing one that wonder is as much a part of the world as earth, water or air.”
She expected Marianne to exult in triumph over this, but instead this won only a rueful smile. “I was going to say that the Doctor convinces one to trust one’s own senses and reason. That the reality around us is more splendid than any fairy-tale story.”
The sisters linked arms, utterly content.
Eventually the drunken man stumbled out, now attired in the Doctor’s gaudy gear. The celery had browned a bit over the hours, but otherwise the outfit was none the worse for wear. Behind him strode the Doctor, clothed entirely in black. He brushed his hands along the arms of his leather jacket and appeared altogether well-pleased with himself. “You know, I think this suits me.”
“Does that make this an enterprise requiring new clothes, Doctor?” Marianne asked.
“They say that clothes make the man - or will say-“
“They say it already,” Elinor and Marianne said in unison.
“Thank you. At any rate, it was high time I got something for myself. I think this will do nicely.” He rocked back and forth on his heels. “See anything puzzling while I was away? I’m ready and waiting to explain.”
He had indeed made sense of many of the peculiarities around them; Elinor now felt she had a reasonable understanding of the “mobile phone,” the “double-decker bus” and the “electric light bulb,” though no amount of Doctoral explanation could convince her that the “high heel” would be anything other than torturous. Until now, however, she had felt somewhat intimidated about asking the nature of her - literally - largest source of confusion. Now, at last, she was ready. “Can you tell us what … that … is?”
She pointed at the enormous pale metal structure that stretched up perhaps a quarter of a mile into the sky, a framework like a giant spiderweb, though it stood upon a pedestal.
The Doctor said, “That, my dears, is the London Eye. They said they’d have it ready for tonight - and it’s operational enough - but not yet open for business. Pity. It would be something to see the fireworks from there.” Then his eyes lit up. “Of course, we could open it to certain select members of the public.”
“What do you mean, Doctor?” Marianne said, though an impish light in her eyes suggested she knew the answer.
“Follow me!”
They walked to the base of the London Eye; guards there attempted to impede their progress, but the Doctor held forth a piece of paper that apparently proclaimed them to be “Ferris Wheel Inspectors,” whatever that might be. They were allowed to walk to one of the orb-like protrusions at the end of the wheel’s spokes, and the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver opened the glass doors.
“And now, to point this at the main controls.” The Doctor squinted as he aimed his sonic screwdriver at a small structure nearby. “It’s a tricky shot from here, but think I can do it - there!”
Marianne and Elinor each gasped as the wheel began to rotate. Its movement was slow and gentle, but they were unmistakably being borne forward - no, upward.
“We shall be spun high into the air,” Marianne said. “Is it entirely safe?”
“Safe as houses,” the Doctor gently replied. “And you’ll see London as never before.”
“Will our actions not be noticed? And the wheel stopped?” Elinor asked, half-hoping this would occur before the London Eye rose any higher.
The Doctor shook his head. “Moves so slowly, most people can’t even detect the motion. We’re fine. Relax, will you? I brought you across two centuries well enough, and I didn’t do it just to drop you from a mere few hundred feet up.”
Elinor trusted the Doctor’s judgment, but found that she was dizzied by looking down through glass at the ground as it became farther and farther away. She therefore sat on the small wooden benches provided in the centre of the pod. Marianne, however, could not have been more enthralled. Quickly she darted from side to side to marvel at every vista presented, calling out each sight so that Elinor might see too. Throughout all of this, the Doctor stood near the doors, arms folded. His delight, though quieter, was clearly the equal of Marianne’s - but he took pleasure in their pleasure, not this extraordinary view of London. To him, Elinor suspected, almost nothing could be truly “extraordinary.”
“What a miracle is this,” Marianne said, smiling, as they reached the very top of their orbit. “Doctor, we cannot thank you enough for this experience.”
For a moment, the Doctor seemed - however improbably - shy. “You know, there’s no reason we have to stop here.”
“The wheel does not spin free of its moorings, does it?” Elinor felt quite alarmed.
“The London Eye won’t budge; I promise you that.” The Doctor shifted on his feet, clearly both awkward and eager. “I meant, we don’t have to stop travelling in the TARDIS. We can go anywhere. Any time. And still have you back by morning.”
Marianne’s face lit up. “Could we? I thought you said you would journey no more.”
The expression upon the Doctor’s face could only be described as sheepish. “So I said. And so I meant. But - I find I want to show the universe to you. To someone. That means I’ll have to take a look myself, doesn’t it?” He gathered himself, and some of the tragic gravity Elinor had glimpsed in him before was again evident. “After the Time Wars, I’d lost any faith in simple decency. Any sense of pleasure in the world around me. I fought to protect humanity, but I fought so long that I forgot why. And then, when I was alone and helpless and wanted only to forget that I’d ever loved my life - you two came along. You cared about what became of me, even when I didn’t. And that meant I had to care what became of you.”
Such an extraordinary pronouncement. Elinor was unused to such naked emotion from men, but she found that she was not embarrassed, only deeply moved.
Marianne ventured, “Would we really be able to return on the night we left, no matter how long we were actually away?”
“Absolutely.” The Doctor paused. “Well, every once in a while, the TARDIS is a bit … off. Occasionally we miss a date. Or a place. One exemplary passenger of mine wanted to return to London and wound up in, well, Aberdeen.”
The Dashwood sisters gasped.
The Doctor hurriedly added, “But almost certainly I’d get you back safe, sound and on schedule. I’m more reliable than the post coach to London. Good enough for you?”
Certainly it sounded reasonable enough, and Marianne had become as giddy as a small girl. “We could literally go back in time? Or forward yet farther? We could visit …” Her voice trailed off as she clearly searched her mind for the most exotic locale imaginable. “… Japan!”
“Japan it is! Leave the when to me.” The Doctor grinned yet again. “What do you say, Elinor?”
Such infinite possibility - and yet Elinor knew her answer. “Your offer is very kind, Doctor. I know I shall never have a like opportunity again. Yet I must decline.”
How hurt he looked. “If you’re worried about being safe -“
“I feel entirely safe in your company, Doctor,” Elinor said, surprised as ever that it was true. “But, if I were to live more than one night in this way, I think our cottage would come to feel very small. Smaller than it is, I mean. I have never disliked the intimacy of country society, but if I came to find it confining … do not ask me to bear it. If I were to travel with you, I would have to leave my home forever. That I cannot do to my mother, nor to Margaret.” Marianne looked so crestfallen that Elinor hastened to add, “But if my dear sister awakens me in the morning to tell me of her many adventures in other lands, I will be only too happy for her.”
The Doctor nodded slowly. He understood her choice, Elinor felt, at least well enough that her refusal would cause no offence. She did not want to offend him, not only because of his great kindness, but also because she wanted the offer to be open for Marianne.
After all, had Marianne not been the chief subject of the invitation? It was Marianne who had first realized the Doctor’s extraordinary nature, who had responded most swiftly and ingeniously to the strange situations in which they had found themselves. Marianne had ever dreamed of romantic adventure, and travels in the TARDIS would no doubt provide those in ample measure.
Now, too, Marianne knew that she had lost Willoughby forever. Her attachment to Colonel Brandon was still too new to provide greater promise than the Doctor’s offer. Certainly nothing could provide Marianne greater pleasure or satisfaction, and Elinor was determined to be happy for her.
“What do you say, Marianne?” the Doctor said. “We could arrange a chaperone, if you think that’s appropriate. Dare say Sarah Jane’s forgiven me for the whole Aberdeen incident. And oh, the fun we’ll have.”
Marianne smiled, her face aglow. “I thank you so dearly - so much, you will never know! But I must refuse as well.”
“Marianne?” Elinor was startled. “Why will you not go?”
“I cannot leave my sister,” Marianne said. Though she still spoke to the Doctor, she looked only at Elinor. “Once she asked me not to leave her alone, and I never shall.”
Elinor protested, “I will not have time to miss you, dearest, if the Doctor’s words are true. I should hardly know you were gone. Do not surrender such an opportunity for my sake alone.”
Marianne only smiled, and continued speaking to the Doctor. “She is my best friend, such a friend as could never be surpassed. She is the sharer of my daily pleasures, and the soother of my deepest sorrows. We do not conceal any thoughts from one another, not anymore, and to be without her - it would be as though I were without a part of myself.” After a deep breath, she finished, “It does not matter whether she would miss me, for I would miss her terribly. Where she goes, I go. And so we shall go home.”
All Elinor’s arguments vanished into the tight knot in her throat, and her eyes swam with tears. She held one hand out to Marianne, who grasped it tightly. But Elinor managed to say, “Will you not persuade her, Doctor?”
“And come between you? Never,” the Doctor said. His voice sounded almost as affected as Elinor’s. “Neither of you will ever be alone. That’s more precious than anything the stars have to offer.”
At that moment, the sky exploded into brilliance - fireworks, Elinor realized, though she had never seen any so spectacular before. She rose to her feet so that she and Marianne might both stand at the very edge, her fear lost at last in the splendour of the moment.
“The year 2000 is here,” the Doctor said, his voice faraway. “The future. Run from it all you like, and yet it finds you, just the same.”
“Oh, Elinor,” said Marianne. “Is it not beautiful?”
“It is.” Elinor hugged her tightly. “And it always shall be.”
**
The Doctor, true to his word, brought them back to Barton Cottage at daybreak. Elinor saw Margaret’s kite dangling from her treehouse, where it had been abandoned the evening before, so she knew it to be the correct day.
“Will you come to Sir John’s home for dinner tonight?” Elinor said. “For, you remember, we were all invited.”
As she had suspected he would, the Doctor shook his head. “I’ve sat still long enough. Time to move. There’s a certain ocean liner I’ve always meant to visit - the RMS Titanic. No time like the present.”
Marianne asked, “Will we ever see you again?”
“I prefer not to predict these things. I’m always wrong, you see.” The Doctor smiled, more gently than before. “Let’s hope.”
An idea came to Elinor. “If you were to return in a few years, I believe Margaret would prove a most willing companion on your voyages.”
He laughed. “If I return, it’ll be for Mrs. Jennings, and the Cybermen will rue the day.” Then he became more serious. “Goodbye, Elinor and Marianne. Thank you for reminding me that the universe truly is a wondrous place.”
“But you are the one who showed us its marvels,” Marianne protested.
The Doctor shook his head. “What I needed to remember was that it contains people like you.” With that, he strolled to the TARDIS, waving briefly as he stepped inside. Then the odd whirring sound began, and the TARDIS faded - both from view and from existence.
“No one would ever believe it,” Elinor murmured.
“No one else needs to, for we know, and that is quite enough.” Marianne yawned as she studied the brightening horizon. “Goodness, I am tired, and yet there is no point in going to bed at this hour.”
Elinor could not yet turn her mind to such practical concerns. “How do we begin, Marianne? How do we go back to our tasks - to our lives as they were?”
At first they were both silent. Then Marianne straightened and smoothed her skirt. “I believe that I should make us a pot of tea.”
They both smiled, slowly and broadly, in a way that expressed more mirth than the loudest laughter. Briefly Elinor leaned her forehead against Marianne’s in sisterly, conspiratorial happiness.
Elinor said, “I think that would be lovely.”
THE END
3.
Sir Roger de Coverley was among Elinor’s favourite dances, usually - she liked imagining the dancers like foxes, darting in and out of cover amid the hunt. Also, it allowed for conversation between partners, which she quite enjoyed.
However, at the Willoughbys’ ball, the feeling of being hunted was far too real, and the conversation she overheard was extremely troubling.
“That younger girl is the one who threw herself so audaciously at Willoughby during that London ball I told you about,” a man whispered. “Shocking.”
“I suppose those are the sorts of gowns we can expect to see in the country,” said a woman on the chasse, with a glance at Elinor and Marianne’s simple cotton dresses, trimmed with ribbon yet plain compared to the shimmering silks that bedecked the fashionable set from London.
Elinor was spared the indignity of hearing what Mrs. Willoughby said herself, though her sharp eyes followed both Dashwood sisters about the dance floor without ceasing. Sometimes she seemed to be laughing at them - though, Elinor felt, a better-tempered woman than Mrs. Willoughby might be forgiven for making merry at the sight of Mrs. Jennings loudly giving them counsel, or of Elinor herself trying as best she could to dance with Sir John.
Most worrisome, however, was the conversation she heard between the dancers next to her.
“Tell me, what gave you the idea to wear - that?” Marianne said to her partner.
The Doctor replied, “A wise man once said - or will say, can’t recall at the mo - ‘beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.’ I intend to make do with what I’ve already got.”
“I suppose a uniform for cricket is not wholly inappropriate for dancing, as both practices are so vigorous. It is not at all the thing for a ball, however. Or so most men would say.” Marianne paused as they took hands with the next couple. “And celery for a boutonniere?”
“It’s in season,” he said blithely.
It was not so much the conversation itself that worried Elinor - after only a brief acquaintance, she was well aware that the Doctor’s talk could be both elliptical and frivolous. What concerned her was the odd note in Marianne’s questions. Her mind was still turning around the puzzle of the Doctor, and no doubt still coming up with magical explanations, as though it would require divine influence for a man to come into possession of a stalk of celery. Such irrationality could not possibly help Marianne navigate the difficult situation in which they found themselves.
When they took a rest to sample the punch, Mrs. Jennings declared, “Doctor, ‘tis too true that you’re out of practice at dancing. Though you followed the steps well enough, you did jostle the poor curate on the glissade.”
“It’s been ages. Literally.” The Doctor’s mind did not seem to be on the conversation, nor on the punch. His gaze remained fixed on a far corner of the ballroom - in particular, on a hallway down which the Willoughbys had briefly parted from the company. “Dare say I’ll get the swing of it.”
“A swing?” Sir John said. “A daring addition to a ballroom, I would think. But who’s to say what these young bucks might get up to?”
The Doctor straightened and placed his cup of punch on the table - avoiding all the other abandoned cups there, though he did not look. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment. Ladies, Sir John.”
“Do not forget our Miss Dashwood at the next allemande!” Mrs. Jennings called. To the sisters, she said, “Droll man. Most curious. And yet I find him quite dear.”
“We too must beg your leave,” Marianne said, taking Elinor’s hand. “Do not fear. We will not long abandon our good chaperone.”
Mrs. Jennings beamed. Elinor was heartened to see that Marianne had at last learned to appreciate the kindly nature of their boisterous hosts. She was less encouraged to realize that Marianne was following the Doctor.
“Marianne, what can you be thinking? Surely the Doctor wishes some privacy.”
“This is not as mundane as ducking behind the screen,” Marianne said, a most shocking statement to make where they might be overheard. But Elinor’s blushing was cooled by her sister’s next words: “I believe that the Doctor has become suspicious of Willoughby’s wife.”
“Suspicious? What can you mean?”
“I hardly know. But there is such in his expression when he looks at her - as though he found her fearsome.”
“As well he might, a woman so proud and unpleasant.” Elinor extricated her hand from her sister’s grip. “Please, you must use good sense. You must display reserve, tact, an immunity to the - cruel situation in which you are caught.”
“Why must I, Elinor? In order to win the good opinion of those whose regard is not worth the having? I care not what these people make of me. But I care very much to know what secrets the Doctor is hiding. This is not mere gossip. Do not you see it, Elinor? That this is more?”
Elinor did not see it. She did, however, see the brightness in Marianne’s eyes and the flush of her cheeks. For the first time since Willoughby had left Barton Cottage forever, Marianne seemed wholly herself. Even happy.
If her bizarre convictions about the Doctor somehow gave her peace - and gave her courage in the face of disapproval that Elinor herself would do well to emulate - then by all means, they would investigate.
“Lead on, Marianne,” Elinor said. Her sister smiled brilliantly, and they hurried down the hallway, following in the Doctor’s footsteps.
A door creaked, and they turned a corner just in time to see the Doctor disappearing into a darkened room quite far away - surely the very edge of the house. The sisters followed. Elinor whispered, “Ought we to make our presence known? I do not wish to be rude.”
“Nor do I. Yet as kind as the Doctor has been to us, he has not told us the whole truth, and he is skilled in the arts of evasion. If we are ever to learn more, we must catch him out.”
Their words stilled as they reached the threshold of the darkened room; the Doctor had not closed the door behind him but had pulled it to, so that only a sliver of the darkness beyond showed around the door’s edges. The sisters exchanged a glance before Marianne pressed her hands to the door and pushed it forward, slowly, so that the hinges might not creak.
The Doctor stood in the middle of what must have once been a sort of library, to judge by the high bookshelves that covered each wall from floor to ceiling. Yet the shelves no longer held books. Instead, glass cylinders, perhaps jars, were piled thickly where the books ought to have gone. And each cylinder held -
What was it? Elinor could not say. Her first thought was fireflies, but that was not correct; fireflies showed as small skittering dots of orange light, and this was another type of brilliance altogether. An arc of light, perhaps, bouncing within each jar, like serpents in water. The glow radiated thereby was enough to illumine the shelves, but not the centre of the room, where the Doctor stood. He stared down into a black square, roughly the dimensions of a billiards table. To judge by the greenish flickering that played upon his sombre face, it was certainly something else. The Doctor took from his pocket a sort of metal contraption, the same size as a letter-opener, and pointed it downward; its tip began to glow, not unlike the light-serpents themselves.
Magic, Elinor thought. She was too astonished to feel chagrin, but could there be any doubt she had been proved wrong?
Marianne took one tentative step within, then, when no disaster befell her, walked quickly toward the Doctor. Elinor kept only a short distance behind. When they were very near, Marianne said, “You will not tell us this is a trick of the light.”
The Doctor jumped. “What the -“ When he saw them, he scowled. “Dancing slippers on thick carpets. Quieter than cats. I’ll have you know every civilized world has outlawed such a thing.”
“Explain,” Elinor said. Her heart beat at an alarming rate. “You must explain this. Explain yourself. Do not mislead us any longer.”
“We wish to be friends,” Marianne added. “True friends do not keep such secrets.”
“True friends can keep secrets you’d never imagine.” The Doctor’s gaze slid sideways, and his sour expression transformed into one of profound unease. “… and it might have been better if we’d tried whispering.”
“What do you mean?” Elinor looked in the same direction as he, and realized that the light-serpents were moving differently now. Instead of gliding about gently within their jars, they now thrashed from side to side, so that all the glass rattled and vibrated.
Marianne clutched Elinor’s arm. “What is happening?”
“We’re running!” The Doctor pushed them both in front of him so that all three began to dash toward the door. As they ran, jars started to shatter, each fall of glass resulting in a louder and louder hiss, as though the work of real serpents. Elinor glanced back once and saw that the lights were meeting one another, forming a larger creature, almost a dragon, that seemed to stare at them - to be pouncing at them -
The Doctor tackled the sisters as a cowherd might an unruly calf, bearing all of them down onto the carpet in the hallway outside. He managed to kick shut the door behind them just before the light-dragon struck it; the wood vibrated with a terrible sound that must have echoed within the whole house and far beyond it.
They stumbled to their feet just before the first partygoers began to venture into the hallway, in search of the source of the noise. “What has happened?” said one fashionable Londoner. Elinor could not think how to explain. The Doctor’s face took on a very odd expression, and she became certain that he was on the verge of inventing some colourful, implausible tale that would reassure no one whatsoever.
Marianne, with what Elinor considered great wisdom and excellent timing, chose that moment to feign a swoon.
When she collapsed against Elinor’s shoulder, all those witnessing were overcome with concern for her - or, as she overheard in various whispers, the need to gossip about Miss Dashwood’s obvious distress at the sight of her former swain and his new bride. The Doctor managed to say that she had fallen, which could not at all have explained a crash so loud. However, as this tale enhanced the dramatic nature of their gossip, the party was satisfied. By supplying a new source of conversation, Marianne had successfully diverted the interrogation.
And, Elinor thought with a worried glance backward, Marianne had also kept anyone from opening the door that held back the terrifying light-dragon.
As Mrs. Jennings helped Marianne into her carriage, Elinor heard Sir John say to the Doctor, “Will you remain at the ball, sir? Surely Miss Dashwood will be well once she is restored to her home. But if you prefer to come with us, you are welcome to stop a while with my dear mamma and myself.”
“I’ll see myself home,” the Doctor said, with a not-unkindly smile. Yet there was that in his voice as presaged great danger.
Elinor, now in the carriage beside her sister, looked down at Marianne. When their eyes met, she knew what they would do, and how they would do it, as surely as though they had planned it some months in advance.
No, she needed no more persuasion to investigate “magic.”
**
Later that night, after Mrs. Jennings and Sir John had left and their mother had fussed over Marianne at length, the sisters Dashwood were at last able to shut the door of their bedroom in the pretence that they wished to sleep. Elinor felt some surprise when Marianne began to undress. Then she realized that it would be most foolish to venture out in their party gowns, and inadequate to the evening chill. Together, without a word, they helped one another into their warmest and sturdiest dresses and coats, the ones they normally reserved for days of labour.
It was fortunate that both Mamma and Margaret were both quick and sound sleepers. Once they were dressed, Marianne and Elinor could immediately set out down the stairs to their front stoop, where they put on their shoes at the door and closed the latch quietly. The moon was near full and the sky cloudless, so silvered light showed them the way toward the meadow where they had first seen the Doctor’s shed.
“Are you afraid, Elinor?” Marianne said.
“We have never walked out so late, it is true, but one never hears of vagrants or other such trouble in this vicinity.”
“I meant, of the Doctor.”
Elinor realized that the question was not an unreasonable one, and yet even upon further consideration she could discern no trace of fear within herself. “I am only curious, I find.”
“I, too.” Marianne smiled so brightly that Elinor thought she might laugh aloud. “Is it not exciting?”
In prudence, Elinor thought, she should say something cautionary. In honesty, she could not entreat her sister to a greater caution than she felt herself. She therefore said nothing as they made their way quickly through the meadow toward the tiny blue shed silhouetted by the moonlight.
When Elinor knocked on the door, there followed a long pause, so long that the sisters glanced at one another in dismay. “Could he have remained at the Willoughbys’ ball?” Marianne asked. “Surely he has not gone back to fight the dragon himself.”
“He would not be so foolish, I think.”
“And yet he had gone to fight it alone before!”
“Then it was several serpents in jars, not a - larger sort of - dragon. Or such.” The necessary vocabulary was most unseemly.
The shed’s door opened, and the Doctor stood there, still in his cricketer’s uniform, plus an odd sort of straw hat with a flat crown and a band decorated with marks of interrogation. “Might’ve known you two couldn’t leave well enough alone.”
Elinor did not take kindly to being growled at. “Had you beheld such as - as that, and you did not understand its nature, could you rest easily without answers?”
The Doctor sighed heavily, yet despite himself seemed somewhat amused. “Well, neither of you has fainted yet. Good a sign as any, I suppose.” He turned and walked inside the mysterious golden interior of the shed, then glanced back after them. “What are you waiting for? An engraved invitation? Get in before you catch your death. It’s chilly out there, and as you’ve seen --- strange things are afoot.”
The sisters walked inside, in no less a feeling of awe than they had felt the first time. “How is this possible?” Marianne said. “This phenomenon of this shed’s true size. Of your transformation when we met you. The earth-quake, if that is indeed what it was.”
“And how all of this can possibly involve Mrs. Willoughby,” Elinor added. When Marianne stared at her, she said, “You had realized the connexion before now.”
“I - yes, I had wondered as much, but I half believed the notion to be only my own mean feeling,” Marianne confessed.
“Sometimes, you even have to trust your petty side,” the Doctor confided. “Because it’s steered you in the right direction this time.”
Enough vagaries. Elinor demanded, “What is this … shed?”
The Doctor looked heavenward. “Shed. A shed, she calls it! Don’t jostle her too much, dear girl; she knows not what she beholds. This, Misses Dashwood, is a TARDIS. That stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, which is what she can move within. She’s a living thing, no machine … but you wouldn’t expect a machine, would you? More used to horses than to horseless carriages.”
A horseless carriage sounded particularly useless to Elinor, but she had no time to puzzle over his odd phrases. “This - TARDIS moves? Under its own locomotion?”
He grinned. “We can go to Paris. To the West Indies. To the moon. To the indigo grasslands of Levixtian Three, which is a planet orbiting a different star altogether from the sun. And if your discontent with the here and now has more to do with the ‘now’ than the ‘here,’ I can take you back to meet Edward the Confessor. Boudicca. Whoever else strikes your fancy.”
None of it was remotely sensible. None of it had any place beyond the pages of a fairy story. The Doctor was telling lies, mocking them: That was the only rational explanation. Yet Marianne stared at him, her face dawning with wonder, as though she believed every word and had never heard anything so delightful. It was no great surprise that her fanciful nature would accept and even welcome such a tale.
The great surprise was that Elinor - against all logic and inclination - believed it too.
Marianne gaped. “So this is - this is truly - magic.”
“A wise man once said - or will say, honestly, I ought to check the dates in my Bartlett’s sometimes - ‘Any science sufficiently developed will be indistinguishable from magic.’ And that’s what this is. Science. The unfolding of natural law, in ways that haven’t yet been discovered on your planet, in your century.”
“On … our planet,” Elinor said. “Not your planet.”
“What gave me away? It’s the ears, isn’t it? I thought they didn’t quite regenerate correctly this time. Overenthusiastically, at any rate.”
In a far steadier voice than she would have thought possible for such a sentence, Elinor continued, “You are a sort of … scientist-traveller from another world and era, using a living vehicle that is larger on the inside to move great distances or over centuries.”
The Doctor grinned. “Nicely done! As many times as I’ve had to explain, I don’t think I’ve ever made so neat a job of it.”
The sisters’ eyes met, as each sought confirmation of the other’s belief. Marianne brightened as she saw that she would not need to convince Elinor further. “How delightful!” Marianne said. “That seems somehow inadequate to the moment, but I know not what else to say.”
“Delight’s rather nice, actually,” the Doctor said. “I’ll take it.”
Elinor turned these revelations over in her mind once more. What they had learned here - it was not a fancy, not a delusion. Not was it simple, plain fact, to be fitted into the ordinary course of life. It was both logic and illogic, fantasy and science, the merging of her reason and Marianne’s sensibilities. For once, neither of them was wrong; both of them had been completely right, even though their beliefs had been exact opposites!
She laughed aloud. Marianne raised her eyebrows, and even the Doctor seemed to be surprised. Elinor covered her mouth with her hand, but she knew her glee to be ill-concealed. “Delightful,” she said. “Yes.”
The Doctor turned back to the machination at the centre of the TARDIS, and with his long fingers punched at certain bits of metal. An illustration of the light-dragon appeared, though instead of a drawing it seemed to be made of light as well, and it hung in mid-air. Although the sisters gasped at such a marvel, he did not seem to pay much heed. “Looks familiar, hmm? What you see here is a Nalosian Congregation, which is actually several dozen or hundred Nalosians all jumbled together.”
“The Nalosians -“ Marianne hesitated on the unfamiliar word. “Were they the serpents in the jars?”
“Precisely, Marianne!” the Doctor declared, indelicately omitting the proper “Miss” before her name. Then again, Elinor rationalized, they had gotten on rather familiar terms very quickly. “Each Nalosian on its own - hardly worth worrying about. Off their home planet, they’re badly weakened. Worst thing one could do is tip over a vase. Not much to worry about, unless you’re extremely fond of some particular vase. But when you get a Nalosian Congregation, you have something fairly deadly on your hands. The one in the Willoughbys’ home isn’t very large - yet. Given more time, however, I suspect Mrs. Willoughby could work up a proper monster. And I think she means to.”
Elinor interjected, “How is Mrs. Willoughby the cause of this? You suggest that these creatures are from another world, and surely she is not.” A pause. “Is she?”
“Doubt it. To be precise, it’s nothing to do with Mrs. Willoughby itself,” the Doctor said. “It’s the thing that’s taken up residence inside her.”
Marianne paled. “Do you mean … possession? As if by demons?”
“Very like.” The Doctor punched at a small contraption of metal squares and rectangles; the illustration of the Nalosian Congregation vanished and was replaced with an image of a finely worked silver bracelet.
“That is Mrs. Willoughby’s bracelet,” Marianne said. “The one you noted when we all first met on the path that day.”
The Doctor folded his arms, running one finger absently along the stalk of celery pinned to his jumper. “Some people would call it a bracelet. Other people would call it a ‘telepathic tether.’ The Nalosians shoot them out into space, in all different sizes, always bright and shiny. Every planet’s intelligent races love bright and shiny things. We’re all pathetic like that, it turns out. Anyway, somebody eventually takes the tether. That person is then possessed by a Nalosian, and as the possessed person subverts the will of one person after another - turns them into her puppets, whether for an hour or forever - essentially, they make little baby Nalosians.” He paused. “Sorry, was that improper? I keep forgetting, this era’s rather … staid.”
In truth, Elinor’s cheeks had pinked, but she said smoothly, “We are not ignorant of such matters. Pray continue.”
“Well. The more Nalosians that come into being on this world, the larger a Nalosian Congregation we’ll be dealing with. Which raises the prospect of mass hysteria, property destruction on an enormous scale, the occasional murder, and, for some reason, a gigantic increase in the fox population. Something about Nalosian Congregations affects foxes the same way Barry White affects humans. Or will affect them. Really, I’ve got to brush up on my Earth dates.”
Marianne stepped closer to the Doctor, her youthful face alight with hope. “You mean that Mrs. Willoughby - she truly is controlling people’s behaviour? Including Willoughby’s?”
Elinor had thought Willoughby’s protestations of being forced into cruelty by his wife to be merely weak pretexts for his own ill-conduct. Faced with the possibility that this was the literal truth, she no longer knew how to assess her own condemnation of him - or what this might mean for Marianne.
This matter did not bear discussing at the moment, however; a more pressing question had come to Elinor’s mind. “The bracelets are used in the subversion of people’s will, you said?”
“Precisely,” the Doctor replied.
“Just as Mrs. Willoughby tried to subvert Mrs. Jennings’s will, according to what she told us that day at tea.” The story - with the bracelet being flashed about, and commands being given - sounded so different now. “Yet she was unable to subdue Mrs. Jennings.”
“A platoon of Cybermen couldn’t subdue Mrs. Jennings.” At the sisters’ stares of incomprehension, the Doctor further explained, “Highly strong-willed people aren’t as susceptible to the Nalosians’ influence. Mrs. J. fits into that category, wouldn’t you agree?”
“It could not be argued otherwise,” Elinor said, keeping as straight a face as she could manage.
Marianne’s focus had remained unchanged. “If Willoughby is under this infernal creature’s influence, how can we free him? How do we stop her?”
The Doctor took a deep breath. “We go over there, bonk her on the head and get the bracelet back.”
The sisters looked at one another for a moment, then turned back to the Doctor as Elinor said, “… bonk?”
“Hit. Strike. Thump. Whack.” He mimed the motion against the wall of the TARDIS, perhaps in the belief that none of these words would be comprehensible to them. “Whatever it takes to get that bracelet off her wrist. It’s one of the only two ways to break the link between Mrs. Willoughby and the Nalosians; the other involves a soak in a solution including polyphenols, phenolic acids, alkaloids, and - you know, what say we just grab the bracelet? As soon as the link is broken, the Nalosians will begin to fade, and they’ll instantly lose the power to form a Congregation.”
“As surely you will undertake the more combative aspect of this plan, what role do you wish for us to play?” Marianne asked. Elinor started in surprise, but Marianne continued, “I do not believe you would have told us any of this, had you not felt our cooperation necessary.”
The Doctor did not deny this, which Elinor felt to be a compliment to their good sense. “I don’t know what Willoughby was like before. So I don’t know whether he’s merely under her sway, or whether he’s possessed as well.”
“But he wears no bracelet,” Marianne protested. “We would notice anything so peculiar as that!”
“Which is why he’d hide it - as an armband under his shirt, perhaps. But if he’s merely being controlled, you might be able to snap him out of it - bring him back to himself, maybe. If the two of you come with me now, once we’ve parted Mrs. Willoughby from her jewellery, you can tell me whether the problem is solved, or whether he’s going to need bonking on the head as well.”
Elinor privately felt that Willoughby rather deserved a … bonk … on the head, irrespective of whether it was strictly required. “Now? It is the dead of night.”
Marianne interjected, “Every moment we linger potentially adds to her strength. And if we are to slip in secretly, it must be by night.”
“Like thieves?” Elinor protested.
Crossly, Marianne said, “Do you wish to wait for an invitation to dine? If Mrs. Willoughby ever invites us again, it will be with the object of subverting our will, and I would prefer therefore to go when she does not anticipate our arrival.”
The Doctor looked impressed. “You’ve got a knack for this sort of thing, you know that?”
Her words indeed represented good sense. Elinor straightened her bonnet. “Very well,” she said. “Let us begin.”
**
No servants stirred at this hour - even the lowliest scullery maid would have finished her scrubbing up by then and gone to her garret to sleep, and not even the most vigilant footman had yet risen. Thus the Dashwood sisters and the Doctor were able to approach the great house without fear of discovery. The door proved to be locked, but the Doctor’s odd little contraption - which he called a “sonic screwdriver” - undid that in an instant.
“You are a formidable man, Doctor,” Marianne whispered as they pushed the door open, slowly, that the hinges might not squeak. “I shudder to think what it would mean to have you as an enemy, rather than a friend.”
“You do well to shudder.” As the Doctor said this, Elinor studied his face in the moonlight, in the hope that he was jesting. She believed he was not.
They made their way through the ballroom, which showed very little sign of its earlier glamour; already the servants had taken away all the flowers and put up all the candles. Only a lingering scent of gardenias suggested that a dance had taken place this night. Wordlessly, they travelled the way they had come before, toward the room where the Nalosians had been kept in their jars. As they tiptoed down the hallways - carefully, for they were now in boots rather than their soft slippers - they began to hear voices.
“My love,” Willoughby said, all politeness, “the hour grows late. We should to bed.”
Mrs. Willoughby replied, just as sweetly, “We cannot rest until we finish our labours, dearest.”
The doorway from before had been opened, and a sickly green light flickered in the hallway. Elinor felt quite nervous that the Nalosian Congregation - or, as she still thought of it, the light-dragon - could easily come after them. Nothing now held it in place. Yet the Doctor and Marianne kept on, and where they went, Elinor would follow.
When they reached the open door, the Doctor leaned over to peer inside the room with far more confidence than Elinor thought the situation merited. However, when no shrieks of anger greeted this movement, she and Marianne both followed suit.
The light-serpents had returned to their jars - or, as it were, to new jars. Broken glass still littered the floor; no doubt the Willoughbys had told the servants never to enter this room. Willoughby sat, straight-backed, in a chair in one corner, and only a certain stiffness in his posture betrayed that all was not well. His eyes were blank, and his smile handsome as ever, if ill-focused, like a man thinking of someone not present. On the table next to him sat a teapot and two cups, though no steam issued forth - the tea was no doubt long-abandoned, gone cold. In the centre of the room, in front of the strange billiard-table-shaped device, paced Mrs. Willoughby. Still she wore her glittering ballgown, though it was slightly askew now, one of the sleeves pulled entirely off her shoulder in an unseemly manner. Her fair curls had escaped their hairband, but Mrs. Willoughby paid this no notice. Instead she went back and forth, back and forth.
“How can he know?” she whispered. “Who can he be? He smells of a Time Lord, but they are only concerned with their mad wars against the Daleks.”
“Sorry,” the Doctor declared loudly, stepping into the room. “The Time War’s ended. Which puts me back on duty, so to speak.”
What madness was this? Elinor could hardly believe that the Doctor had done anything so foolish as announcing himself to their enemy, particularly while she was surrounded by light-serpents that could band together to do her bidding. But Marianne quickly took her place at the Doctor’s side, leaving Elinor little choice than to do likewise.
Mrs. Willoughby, spying them, began to laugh. “Have you brought along little human girls to do your bidding, Time Lord? How unworthy of you.”
“I haven’t stolen their bodies. Used them like toys in a dollhouse,” the Doctor said. “Like some others I could mention.”
“I do what I must.” Mrs. Willoughby tossed her curls in a manner so natural and familiar that Elinor felt certain this, at least, was something that survived of the true woman, not the demon alien possessing her. “You attempt what you should not.”
She flung out her hands, which crackled with a strange light, like the sparks in woollens on dry cold mornings. And the light-serpents began to writhe.
Why had the Doctor showed himself? Elinor wondered. Yet immediately she comprehended the answer. No opportunity to surprise Mrs. Willoughby had showed itself. Therefore he meant to distract her, leaving any show of force to the Dashwood sisters. Elinor meant to have a word with the Doctor about the imprudence of this plan later, but for now, she slipped away to the side, attempting to get lost in the shadows.
Marianne followed, but more swiftly, and she obviously did not govern her conduct to avoid attention. “Willoughby!” she cried. “Willoughby, you must awaken. You must free yourself from her power!”
Willoughby glanced at Marianne, but absently, as he might look about a ball for any special acquaintance.
“Do you not hear me? Willoughby! We need you - you must overcome her!” Marianne went to Willoughby and shook his shoulders. When this produced no effect, she slapped him across the cheek. “Willoughby!”
As Willoughby made no particular movement, despite having now been “bonked” upon the head, Elinor privately decided that he was not a separate prisoner of the Nalosians, but rather the plaything of his possessed wife. Quietly she tiptoed behind Marianne and Willoughby, glad of the hubbub in the room that would disguise her movements - and increasingly nervous about the thrashing of the light-serpents. She suspected that, if the light-dragon came forth again, this time they would discover its true power.
“Why do you continue to drive us from Earth, Time Lord?” Mrs. Willoughby said, circling the Doctor as their gazes locked. “We will always return, you know. It is so rich for us.”
The Doctor’s smile held no mirth. “You’ll always return,” he agreed. “And you’ll always be wrong. That’s why I’ll always be here to stop you.”
“How grand you think yourself,” Mrs. Willoughby sneered.
Now the Doctor actually seemed amused. “And isn’t that fine, coming from someone who gads about in dyed emu feathers?”
Mrs. Willoughby hissed in the manner of an angry cat. The light-serpents writhed so desperately that the jars began to rattle. Time was running out.
Elinor did not trust the strength of her own blows, but she thought perhaps she might throw something at Mrs. Willoughby. That might prove most forceful. But what could she throw? This room was devoid of books, she dared not shatter even one of the jars. Then an idea came to her. In desperation, Elinor seized the china teapot and threw it directly at Mrs. Willoughby - and missed, only splashing her thoroughly with tea.
But as the teapot fell to the ground and shattered, Mrs. Willoughby began to scream.
The terrible long peal of her cry trembled through the very walls. Slowly, the light-serpents dimmed, darkening the room to near blackness as they faded entirely. Mrs. Willoughby swooned to the floor, quite insensible.
“Miss Dashwood!” the Doctor exclaimed, quite beside himself with glee. “That - that was - it was -“ He struggled in vain for a word, then hit on, “Fantastic!”
Willoughby stood up very suddenly, and Marianne stumbled back a few steps in shock. He said, “My God. You have defeated her. That vile creature. I am myself again.”
“I do not understand,” Elinor confessed. “I did not strike her, and the tea would not have been hot enough to scald.”
“You soaked her in a solution of polyphenols, phenolic acids and alkaloids,” the Doctor pronounced with pleasure. “Did the trick in a jiff. I was hoping you’d catch on when you saw the teapot.”
Marianne said, “Do you mean that all we needed was - a cup of tea?”
The Doctor nodded and folded his arms across his chest. “Tea solves everything.”
Aware that her sister was gaping at her, Elinor revealed no reaction, in an effort not to appear too thoroughly self-satisfied.
4.
The Doctor took upon himself the complicated task of explaining to Willoughby precisely what had transpired. Of this lengthy and not entirely sensible discourse, the one point Elinor found of particular note was that the Nalosians already upon this world had all passed back into their original dimension, and would trouble them no further. Despite this, Marianne removed Mrs. Willoughby’s silver bracelet as a precaution and slipped it into the pocket of the Doctor’s coat, so that it might later be dismantled in the TARDIS.
Throughout the conversation, Elinor noted, Willoughby did not glance once at the insensate form of his wife on the floor.
“Such an unbelievable tale,” Willoughby said. “And yet it has happened to us, and for the best.”
“The best?” Elinor said, unable to discern his meaning. She understood more when Willoughby turned to her sister and boldly took Marianne’s hands in his own. Marianne gasped, and became quite still.
“My beloved Marianne,” Willoughby said. Warmth was in his every word, and his eyes again shone with the sincere affection they had known from him before. “Now you know why I married Miss Grey, and the truth of the terrible influence she had over me. You must realize now that not one word of that wretched letter I wrote you was an expression of my true feeling.”
Marianne whispered, “I do. I believe that now.”
Willoughby stepped closer to Marianne, so much so that Elinor thought he had quite forgotten she and the Doctor remained in the room. “Can you forgive me, my dearest? Can you at last believe that I still love you, and only you?”
Marianne stared up at him for a few moments, until she said in a small voice, “I believe that you still love me.” Yet as Willoughby smiled, she added, “But I do not forgive you.”
Most shocked, Willoughby protested, “This marriage - this unkindness - it was not at all my own doing or my will!”
“No. It was not.” Marianne’s words gained firmness as she spoke. “However, you were not under Nalosian influence when you seduced Colonel Brandon’s ward, nor when you left her, alone and desolated, while with child. Nor when your aunts took away your money, and you abandoned me to be free to marry another who would have a greater fortune. You did not meet Miss Grey until after that. Those earlier actions were your doing, yours alone.”
Willoughby’s cheeks coloured, and he looked very much as if he wanted to speak - but for once, words did not come easily to his tongue.
Marianne continued, “The bracelets do not overcome the strong-willed, or so the Doctor says. You were overcome quite easily. Yet that fact was not necessary to prove that - you are a weak man, Willoughby. I do not condemn you, for I too have been weak. But I can no longer regret the circumstances that have parted us.”
With that, she stepped away from Willoughby to Elinor’s side. As Elinor petted Marianne’s shoulder, Willoughby protested, “Is this all you have to say to me?”
“Don’t know about Marianne, but I’ve got something to add,” the Doctor said. “What makes you think you’re free to go about protesting your love to her or anyone else besides your wife? You a married man.”
Willoughby protested, “I did not marry of my own free will! I married some - creature that no longer exists!”
The Doctor shook his head. “At least half of her continues to exist. And you’re still quite married.”
As if summoned by his words, Mrs. Willoughby sat upright and rubbed her head. “Goodness,” she said. “Goodness me. I must have taken a spill. The fool servants polished the floors with too much wax. Tomorrow I shall box their ears.”
Her voice was sharp, her manner ill-tempered. The scene about her would have excited the curiosity of the most inobservant witness, and yet Mrs. Willoughby seemed primarily interested in examining her fine ballgown for tears or stains. Elinor detected that Mrs. Willoughby was not insensible to the strangeness of their situation, and this meant she must have some memory of what had transpired - but she seemed to regard it primarily as an embarrassment, a social awkwardness best ignored altogether.
“John?” she whined. “Help me up. I must wake Millie so that she can rinse this dress. If it is tea-stained, I shall not answer for it.”
Willoughby seemed to shrink some inches in stature. Quite suddenly, his dash and vigour had deserted him - and forever, Elinor suspected. Without a word he offered his wife an arm, and she took it, clasping her thin fingers around his forearm so tightly that Elinor was put in mind of the links of a chain.
Mrs. Willoughby deigned to glance at the Dashwood sisters and the Doctor only briefly. “I trust you can show yourselves out?” she said, as she began walking toward the door, Willoughby silent by her side.
“Absolutely!” the Doctor called with great good cheer. “Brilliant party, by the way!”
Very quietly, just as the Willoughbys stepped through the doorway of the room, Marianne whispered, “Goodbye.” Elinor did them both the courtesy of pretending not to notice that Willoughby flinched.
**
They returned to the TARDIS, rather than to Barton Cottage, for Elinor felt certain that sleep remained many hours away for them both. What they had just witnessed must be spoken of before it could be laid to rest. To Elinor’s surprise, the strange golden interior of the TARDIS already felt familiar - almost homely. The Doctor sensibly made them some tea.
“Poor Willoughby,” Elinor said. “He will have such regrets.”
“They are largely of his own making,” Marianne retorted. Her old spirit had returned in full now. “And his purse is no poorer than before. I suppose he will console himself well enough with hunting trips, and a fine house in London, and perhaps a new phaeton or whatever else is the finest carriage in the land this season.”
The Doctor’s straw hat was tipped far back on his head, somehow rendering his grin even more boyish. “We’re in the finest carriage in the land, any season. Pity you don’t know what the TARDIS can do.”
Elinor took another sip. “You were good enough to explain to us, and after the marvels we have beheld, you may rest assured that Marianne and I believe you.”
He hesitated - a pause that flickered, like the first sparks of a fire just as the blaze took hold. “But wouldn’t you rather see for yourselves?”
Surely he was speaking of a journey, one of the wondrous feats of transport of which he claimed the TARDIS to be capable. Elinor protested, “If we are not at home in the morning, Mamma will be most concerned.”
“Time machine, remember?” The Doctor stepped toward the whirring contraption at the centre of the great golden room. “You’ll be back before dawn, make no mistake. Now, where would you two like to go?”
The sisters stared at one another, hardly sure what to do. Although the Doctor had suggested infinite possibilities, such infinity was difficult to sort through at a moment’s notice. Elinor ventured, “Could we … could we even go as far as London before dawn?” Next to her, she saw Marianne looking sceptical, as well she might upon hearing such a wild proposition.
The Doctor laughed. “All the universe before them, and they ask for London! It shows good taste, really. Very well.” He slammed down a lever in the works, and a strange sound - like the one they had heard on the day of the earth-quake - began to hum and whirl within the TARDIS. “I’ll show you London.”
Marianne clutched Elinor’s shoulder as the TARDIS shifted from side to side. “It feels like an earth-quake, and sounds like one as well, but this is different, isn’t it?” Marianne cried.
“Just the TARDIS on her way!” the Doctor shouted over the din. “Hang on, ladies!”
Elinor prepared herself for a long and rocky journey, though she reasoned it was no worse than the average carriage on a bumpy road. Yet within only a few seconds, the rocking had stopped. She and Marianne looked at one another in dismay. Marianne said, “Is it broken?”
The Doctor made a rude sound. “Broken. My TARDIS. Hardly. Well … not again, at any rate. We’re there.”
“You wish us to believe that we have been transported to London? In the blink of an eye?” Elinor protested. By way of answer, the Doctor gestured toward the door.
No doubt this would prove to be another of his odd jokes. Yet as they walked toward the door, Marianne clutched Elinor’s hand in anticipation, an emotion Elinor realized was mutual. She reached out and pushed open the door of the TARDIS -
--to behold pure Bedlam.
Assuredly the TARDIS had moved, for they were no longer in the silent meadow, but upon pavement in the middle of a throng of people. Although the crowds reminded Elinor of London, nothing else did. The buildings around them stretched up as high as palaces, though they were as plain as huts, and windows and lamps along the streets glowed with eerily bright, steady lights. Nor were these crowds like those in London save in number, for these people were loud and raucous, and dressed in a most peculiar and vulgar manner. The women were, in truth, indecent, many of them showing naked legs and some of them in no sleeves at all; furthermore, it seemed that many of them wore paint upon their faces. Though the rouge was less garish than that Elinor had glimpsed before, she knew only actresses or women of ill-repute wore such things. A few individuals held strange metal devices to their ears and spoke to them as though they were other persons.
“Is this -“ Marianne sounded as confused as Elinor felt. They each stepped out from the TARDIS, more in a sort of stunned stupor than through any actual desire to be part of the melee surrounding them. “Is this some sort of carnival? Or a gathering of theatrical performers?”
“This,” the Doctor pronounced with relish, “is a party, one being celebrated by the entire world - including here in London.”
Elinor protested, “This is not London!”
The Doctor said, “This is London, on New Year’s Eve in the year of our Lord 1999.”
1999? Did he mean - could he possibly mean - almost two centuries hence? Elinor knew the Doctor had claimed his TARDIS could travel through time, but surely there could be no means of travelling to an era that did not yet exist. And this swirling cacophony could not be London. He was playing a trick on them, a miraculous trick to be sure but a trick all the same.
Then Marianne seized her arm. “Elinor - Elinor, look!”
Marianne pointed, and Elinor followed the gesture to look across a river, toward an equally tall and eerie city. There, illuminated by the strange, unchanging light, stood St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Elinor gasped, overcome with wonder. St. Paul’s she had seen before in all its beauty and majesty. Surely there could be no other such edifice anywhere else in the world. This truly was London. Once again, the Doctor’s most magical stories had proved to be no more than simple fact.
Next to her, Marianne began to laugh. Elinor joined her, the two sisters clinging to each other in overwhelmed rapture. The Doctor’s smile - though mysteriously almost sad - made him look younger, too, and she knew that their joy was truly shared.
**
Such a night as this Elinor had never before experienced. Occasionally she remembered that they had in fact begun the evening at a ball, but Mrs. Willoughby’s festivities were as nothing compared to this - the party held to celebrate the end of the millennium.
(“But surely that is incorrect,” Elinor had said when the Doctor first told them this. “The millennium will not properly end until the last day of the year 2000.”
“They’ve gotten rotten at arithmetic, in the future,” the Doctor had replied. “Don’t tell them and spoil all the fun, hmm?”)
People drank champagne freely in the streets, and the Dashwood sisters accepted glasses that the Doctor seemed to have collected from thin air. In some of the taverns and clubs, they danced - a peculiar sort of dancing without steps, which involved merely jumping about to rhythmic primitive beats; awkward though it seemed at first, Elinor found the practice easy to master and more enjoyable than she would have anticipated. Though their clothing was very different from that of the gaudy women about them, nobody commented, except for a few people who thought it was lovely that they had worn “costumes.”
Now, the Doctor’s bizarre garb, with his cricketer’s outfit, straw hat and celery - that drew attention.
“That is amazing,” slurred one fellow, fully as tall as the Doctor, and clothed all in black; his leather jacket was polished to the sheen of a finely made saddle. “That’s hilarious, and you’re saying, you’re saying -“
He stumbled to one side, and the Doctor amicably caught him with one arm. “What is it I’m saying, then?”
“You’re saying - I don’t care what they think of me, and to hell with all of them, and it’s - it’s amazing.” The man belched in a most uncouth manner, though Elinor had seen gentlemen far more intoxicated at balls. “I wish I could say that. You know what? I’m sayin’ it. I’m sayin’ it. I’ve got to get one of those hats. Where did you get that hat?”
The Doctor smiled rather wickedly. “What say we try a trade?”
The two gentlemen ducked into a nearby pub, leaving the two sisters alone for a few moments. Together, Elinor and Marianne leaned against the shiny metal railing that now framed the south bank of the Thames. At first they were silent, enjoying being a part of this celebration, and yet apart from it and therefore able to enjoy it all the more.
“Is it not wondrous, Elinor?” Marianne said.
“It is.”
Marianne dimpled. “What? You will not qualify your pleasure? Say that ‘wonder’ is a fancy for children?”
“No,” Elinor said softly. “I shall not say that tonight. Perhaps I shall never say so again. The Doctor - he has a way of convincing one that wonder is as much a part of the world as earth, water or air.”
She expected Marianne to exult in triumph over this, but instead this won only a rueful smile. “I was going to say that the Doctor convinces one to trust one’s own senses and reason. That the reality around us is more splendid than any fairy-tale story.”
The sisters linked arms, utterly content.
Eventually the drunken man stumbled out, now attired in the Doctor’s gaudy gear. The celery had browned a bit over the hours, but otherwise the outfit was none the worse for wear. Behind him strode the Doctor, clothed entirely in black. He brushed his hands along the arms of his leather jacket and appeared altogether well-pleased with himself. “You know, I think this suits me.”
“Does that make this an enterprise requiring new clothes, Doctor?” Marianne asked.
“They say that clothes make the man - or will say-“
“They say it already,” Elinor and Marianne said in unison.
“Thank you. At any rate, it was high time I got something for myself. I think this will do nicely.” He rocked back and forth on his heels. “See anything puzzling while I was away? I’m ready and waiting to explain.”
He had indeed made sense of many of the peculiarities around them; Elinor now felt she had a reasonable understanding of the “mobile phone,” the “double-decker bus” and the “electric light bulb,” though no amount of Doctoral explanation could convince her that the “high heel” would be anything other than torturous. Until now, however, she had felt somewhat intimidated about asking the nature of her - literally - largest source of confusion. Now, at last, she was ready. “Can you tell us what … that … is?”
She pointed at the enormous pale metal structure that stretched up perhaps a quarter of a mile into the sky, a framework like a giant spiderweb, though it stood upon a pedestal.
The Doctor said, “That, my dears, is the London Eye. They said they’d have it ready for tonight - and it’s operational enough - but not yet open for business. Pity. It would be something to see the fireworks from there.” Then his eyes lit up. “Of course, we could open it to certain select members of the public.”
“What do you mean, Doctor?” Marianne said, though an impish light in her eyes suggested she knew the answer.
“Follow me!”
They walked to the base of the London Eye; guards there attempted to impede their progress, but the Doctor held forth a piece of paper that apparently proclaimed them to be “Ferris Wheel Inspectors,” whatever that might be. They were allowed to walk to one of the orb-like protrusions at the end of the wheel’s spokes, and the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver opened the glass doors.
“And now, to point this at the main controls.” The Doctor squinted as he aimed his sonic screwdriver at a small structure nearby. “It’s a tricky shot from here, but think I can do it - there!”
Marianne and Elinor each gasped as the wheel began to rotate. Its movement was slow and gentle, but they were unmistakably being borne forward - no, upward.
“We shall be spun high into the air,” Marianne said. “Is it entirely safe?”
“Safe as houses,” the Doctor gently replied. “And you’ll see London as never before.”
“Will our actions not be noticed? And the wheel stopped?” Elinor asked, half-hoping this would occur before the London Eye rose any higher.
The Doctor shook his head. “Moves so slowly, most people can’t even detect the motion. We’re fine. Relax, will you? I brought you across two centuries well enough, and I didn’t do it just to drop you from a mere few hundred feet up.”
Elinor trusted the Doctor’s judgment, but found that she was dizzied by looking down through glass at the ground as it became farther and farther away. She therefore sat on the small wooden benches provided in the centre of the pod. Marianne, however, could not have been more enthralled. Quickly she darted from side to side to marvel at every vista presented, calling out each sight so that Elinor might see too. Throughout all of this, the Doctor stood near the doors, arms folded. His delight, though quieter, was clearly the equal of Marianne’s - but he took pleasure in their pleasure, not this extraordinary view of London. To him, Elinor suspected, almost nothing could be truly “extraordinary.”
“What a miracle is this,” Marianne said, smiling, as they reached the very top of their orbit. “Doctor, we cannot thank you enough for this experience.”
For a moment, the Doctor seemed - however improbably - shy. “You know, there’s no reason we have to stop here.”
“The wheel does not spin free of its moorings, does it?” Elinor felt quite alarmed.
“The London Eye won’t budge; I promise you that.” The Doctor shifted on his feet, clearly both awkward and eager. “I meant, we don’t have to stop travelling in the TARDIS. We can go anywhere. Any time. And still have you back by morning.”
Marianne’s face lit up. “Could we? I thought you said you would journey no more.”
The expression upon the Doctor’s face could only be described as sheepish. “So I said. And so I meant. But - I find I want to show the universe to you. To someone. That means I’ll have to take a look myself, doesn’t it?” He gathered himself, and some of the tragic gravity Elinor had glimpsed in him before was again evident. “After the Time Wars, I’d lost any faith in simple decency. Any sense of pleasure in the world around me. I fought to protect humanity, but I fought so long that I forgot why. And then, when I was alone and helpless and wanted only to forget that I’d ever loved my life - you two came along. You cared about what became of me, even when I didn’t. And that meant I had to care what became of you.”
Such an extraordinary pronouncement. Elinor was unused to such naked emotion from men, but she found that she was not embarrassed, only deeply moved.
Marianne ventured, “Would we really be able to return on the night we left, no matter how long we were actually away?”
“Absolutely.” The Doctor paused. “Well, every once in a while, the TARDIS is a bit … off. Occasionally we miss a date. Or a place. One exemplary passenger of mine wanted to return to London and wound up in, well, Aberdeen.”
The Dashwood sisters gasped.
The Doctor hurriedly added, “But almost certainly I’d get you back safe, sound and on schedule. I’m more reliable than the post coach to London. Good enough for you?”
Certainly it sounded reasonable enough, and Marianne had become as giddy as a small girl. “We could literally go back in time? Or forward yet farther? We could visit …” Her voice trailed off as she clearly searched her mind for the most exotic locale imaginable. “… Japan!”
“Japan it is! Leave the when to me.” The Doctor grinned yet again. “What do you say, Elinor?”
Such infinite possibility - and yet Elinor knew her answer. “Your offer is very kind, Doctor. I know I shall never have a like opportunity again. Yet I must decline.”
How hurt he looked. “If you’re worried about being safe -“
“I feel entirely safe in your company, Doctor,” Elinor said, surprised as ever that it was true. “But, if I were to live more than one night in this way, I think our cottage would come to feel very small. Smaller than it is, I mean. I have never disliked the intimacy of country society, but if I came to find it confining … do not ask me to bear it. If I were to travel with you, I would have to leave my home forever. That I cannot do to my mother, nor to Margaret.” Marianne looked so crestfallen that Elinor hastened to add, “But if my dear sister awakens me in the morning to tell me of her many adventures in other lands, I will be only too happy for her.”
The Doctor nodded slowly. He understood her choice, Elinor felt, at least well enough that her refusal would cause no offence. She did not want to offend him, not only because of his great kindness, but also because she wanted the offer to be open for Marianne.
After all, had Marianne not been the chief subject of the invitation? It was Marianne who had first realized the Doctor’s extraordinary nature, who had responded most swiftly and ingeniously to the strange situations in which they had found themselves. Marianne had ever dreamed of romantic adventure, and travels in the TARDIS would no doubt provide those in ample measure.
Now, too, Marianne knew that she had lost Willoughby forever. Her attachment to Colonel Brandon was still too new to provide greater promise than the Doctor’s offer. Certainly nothing could provide Marianne greater pleasure or satisfaction, and Elinor was determined to be happy for her.
“What do you say, Marianne?” the Doctor said. “We could arrange a chaperone, if you think that’s appropriate. Dare say Sarah Jane’s forgiven me for the whole Aberdeen incident. And oh, the fun we’ll have.”
Marianne smiled, her face aglow. “I thank you so dearly - so much, you will never know! But I must refuse as well.”
“Marianne?” Elinor was startled. “Why will you not go?”
“I cannot leave my sister,” Marianne said. Though she still spoke to the Doctor, she looked only at Elinor. “Once she asked me not to leave her alone, and I never shall.”
Elinor protested, “I will not have time to miss you, dearest, if the Doctor’s words are true. I should hardly know you were gone. Do not surrender such an opportunity for my sake alone.”
Marianne only smiled, and continued speaking to the Doctor. “She is my best friend, such a friend as could never be surpassed. She is the sharer of my daily pleasures, and the soother of my deepest sorrows. We do not conceal any thoughts from one another, not anymore, and to be without her - it would be as though I were without a part of myself.” After a deep breath, she finished, “It does not matter whether she would miss me, for I would miss her terribly. Where she goes, I go. And so we shall go home.”
All Elinor’s arguments vanished into the tight knot in her throat, and her eyes swam with tears. She held one hand out to Marianne, who grasped it tightly. But Elinor managed to say, “Will you not persuade her, Doctor?”
“And come between you? Never,” the Doctor said. His voice sounded almost as affected as Elinor’s. “Neither of you will ever be alone. That’s more precious than anything the stars have to offer.”
At that moment, the sky exploded into brilliance - fireworks, Elinor realized, though she had never seen any so spectacular before. She rose to her feet so that she and Marianne might both stand at the very edge, her fear lost at last in the splendour of the moment.
“The year 2000 is here,” the Doctor said, his voice faraway. “The future. Run from it all you like, and yet it finds you, just the same.”
“Oh, Elinor,” said Marianne. “Is it not beautiful?”
“It is.” Elinor hugged her tightly. “And it always shall be.”
**
The Doctor, true to his word, brought them back to Barton Cottage at daybreak. Elinor saw Margaret’s kite dangling from her treehouse, where it had been abandoned the evening before, so she knew it to be the correct day.
“Will you come to Sir John’s home for dinner tonight?” Elinor said. “For, you remember, we were all invited.”
As she had suspected he would, the Doctor shook his head. “I’ve sat still long enough. Time to move. There’s a certain ocean liner I’ve always meant to visit - the RMS Titanic. No time like the present.”
Marianne asked, “Will we ever see you again?”
“I prefer not to predict these things. I’m always wrong, you see.” The Doctor smiled, more gently than before. “Let’s hope.”
An idea came to Elinor. “If you were to return in a few years, I believe Margaret would prove a most willing companion on your voyages.”
He laughed. “If I return, it’ll be for Mrs. Jennings, and the Cybermen will rue the day.” Then he became more serious. “Goodbye, Elinor and Marianne. Thank you for reminding me that the universe truly is a wondrous place.”
“But you are the one who showed us its marvels,” Marianne protested.
The Doctor shook his head. “What I needed to remember was that it contains people like you.” With that, he strolled to the TARDIS, waving briefly as he stepped inside. Then the odd whirring sound began, and the TARDIS faded - both from view and from existence.
“No one would ever believe it,” Elinor murmured.
“No one else needs to, for we know, and that is quite enough.” Marianne yawned as she studied the brightening horizon. “Goodness, I am tired, and yet there is no point in going to bed at this hour.”
Elinor could not yet turn her mind to such practical concerns. “How do we begin, Marianne? How do we go back to our tasks - to our lives as they were?”
At first they were both silent. Then Marianne straightened and smoothed her skirt. “I believe that I should make us a pot of tea.”
They both smiled, slowly and broadly, in a way that expressed more mirth than the loudest laughter. Briefly Elinor leaned her forehead against Marianne’s in sisterly, conspiratorial happiness.
Elinor said, “I think that would be lovely.”
THE END