Chapter Two

‘Is the Reverend Chasuble in, ma’am?’

The Doctor and Alf had started with the address given to them in the reverend’s pamphlet - the address of the private publisher, it turned out, who had then directed them to this highly respectable boardinghouse in the middle of a highly respectable neighbourhood. The Doctor’s ring had been answered by a maid, who had then directed him and Alf to the parlour, where they had been greeted by the proprietress of the house, a forbidding old widowed lady dressed in black. She had instructed them to sit down and join her in drinking tea.

‘It is with him we really wish to have our discussion,’ the Doctor continued in his most polite and solicitous tones. Alf scowled at him, though he apparently chose to ignore it. She disliked it when he turned on the charm like that. It seemed dishonest.

‘Dr Chasuble doesn’t take many visitors,’ the old lady replied. ‘He always asks that I look at them myself before sending them up to his rooms.’

‘Oh.’ The Doctor looked thoughtful at that, arousing Alf’s suspicions, and she stared hard at the other woman, who in turn gave Alf a long, hard, and disapproving glare of her own. Alf was admittedly starting to feel a little foolish in the tuxedo - at least she’d blended in a bit at the theatre, when all the guys were wearing them along with her - but she was damned if she was going to let some little old biddy intimidate her. ‘I see,’ the Doctor continued hopefully, with another charming smile. ‘And are we acceptable?’

It was the Doctor’s turn to be coldly eyed by the woman. ‘I am not entirely sure, sir. Might I ask what this young lady - your ward, I presume? - is doing in that… outfit?’

‘What does it matter?’ Alf asked. ‘We’ve all gotta wear something, right? Or would you rather I went around naked?’

The Doctor laid a restraining hand on her arm. ‘Alf, it’s all right,’ he said soothingly. She pulled away from his touch; she didn’t need to be restrained or soothed. She was in control. She just wasn’t so sure he was. He turned back to the old woman again with a smile. ‘You must excuse my ward, madam. The young are so headstrong, as I’m sure you well know, hardly being past the first blush of youth yourself.’

The woman thawed slightly at the compliment, and Alf rolled her eyes, sitting back in her seat impatiently. She wanted to get on with it; the reverend and whatever answers he might have were practically in sight and instead they sat down here, buttering up some old cow. If the Doctor didn’t get moving, she thought, she’d just go upstairs and start searching for the homophobic old sod herself!

She glanced again at the Doctor, a scowl settling in place once again on her features. Since regaining her memory, she’d started finding it more… difficult… to be around this man. He claimed to be the same person as her Doctor, the Doctor she remembered only subconsciously, but she wasn’t sure she could trust that. He’d admitted that it was his fault this universe was created - a universe in which Earth, her home, had been taken over by the Cybermen, and she was the only human left, discounting Nick, and he didn’t really count anyway, did he? And if this wasn’t the universe any of them were supposed to be in, one in which not even the Doctor really belonged… then how could he know what he was doing?

The idea - revelation - had come to her when he had so confidently told Wilde that he was just the man to solve Wilde’s problems. How the hell would he know if he were the man? she thought. This wasn’t his universe; he had no qualifications. Why should this place play by the same rules that he thought he knew so well?

She wasn’t happy about leaving Nick alone with that writer, either. Yeah, the guy seemed harmless, but it was his characters wandering around, apparently come to life and painting portraits of him; why should they trust his word when he said he didn’t know what was going on? And he’d definitely been holding something back.

‘I suppose, Doctor, you may go up and see Canon Chasuble,’ the old lady’s words broke through Alf’s thoughts, and the young woman glanced up with a barely repressed sigh. At last! ‘The maid will show you the way.’ The woman glanced askance at Alf’s apparel when she stood up with the Doctor, but she said nothing more on the subject. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you, sir.’

‘And you, madam,’ the Doctor raised her limp wrist to his lips with a smile before striding out of the parlour on the heels of the maid. Alf slipped in between him and the maid smoothly.

‘You needn’t have been so rude, Alf,’ the Doctor rumbled at her from behind in what he probably considered a whisper. His voice had definitely not been made for speaking softly. ‘We needed her approval before we could see Chasuble.’

‘Oh really? I think it would’ve been easier to climb up the outside of the building and break into his room!’

‘Yes, but we wouldn’t have known which room was his. And we would have looked very silly. Please try to be civil when talking with him.’

‘Why? He’s a bloody fictional character.’

‘Just because he’s fictional doesn’t mean we have to be rude. And he may give us the answers we need.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that,’ Alf muttered, her thoughts going back to Wilde’s reluctance to speak, but the Doctor could only shoot her a frowning look before the maid introduced them to the person inside the room and held the door open for them. The Doctor smiled at her graciously before going past her inside; Alf smiled as well.

‘Reverend Chasuble, sir,’ the Doctor beamed brightly at the seated figure on the other side of the room. The lighting was dark, heavy curtains closed against the descending evening sun. ‘Splendid to meet you at last.’

‘Is it, sir?’ The reverend was an older man, thin and with a moustache. He slipped off a pair of glasses as he stood up to cross the room and greet them properly. ‘I have never heard of you, so I wouldn’t know if it is a pleasure.’

Alf was immediately put off by the man. Yeah, she was already biased against him because of that pamphlet, but once again she got that… deadened vibe from him. His voice was flat, his eyes cold. The American girl had at least had some slight spark to her voice, had at least seemed fairly innocent. This man was all menace. She refused to offer him her hand. He gave her a cold look; she glared back.

‘What do you want, sir?’ The priest swung around to stare again at the Doctor, dismissing Alf completely. The Doctor glanced between her and Chasuble before replying.

‘We wanted to ask you about this pamphlet you wrote. About the playwright, Oscar Wilde?’ The Doctor held up the pamphlet that he’d just taken out of his inside coat pocket.

‘Oh, that,’ Chasuble replied dismissively, walking away from them to stand near the fireplace. ‘A simple thing, sir. I felt it my Christian duty to speak out against such outrageous practices, especially when I realised the man was in this very city.’

‘Oh yes?’ the Doctor replied quietly. ‘And how long have you been in Paris yourself, Dr Chasuble?’