Miss Tyler's Gentleman Correspondent (1/1)
Title: Miss Tyler's Gentleman Correspondent
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: ~3500
Summary: Just a silly Regency romance.
A/N: This is an expanded version of the fic I submitted for round 2.08 of writerinatardis . The prompt was: The TARDIS is damaged during a landing, stranding the Doctor and Rose somewhere until she's repaired.
"It's very nice of you to receive us, Lady Poole. I know it's unexpected." The Doctor perched on the edge of a sofa while Rose stationed herself on a nearby wooden chair. She could tell that he was most certainly Up To Something.
The plump, matronly woman sitting imperiously on a high-backed chair near the fire handed the Doctor a black wallet with a blank piece of paper in it, which he cast a sideways look at before inserting it into his inside pocket.
"Can't say that I remember meeting this Captain Tyler, but I met a lot of men in my youth and my memory fails me now sometimes. His letter of introduction speaks quite highly of you, my dear." Lady Poole gave Rose an appraising top-to-bottom look and then turned back to the Doctor. "The poor thing, raised so far from civilization and now an orphan. I wish these sea captains would take care to leave their families back home instead of traipsing all about among savages with them."
"Well, actually-" Rose began, but the Doctor raised a hand quickly.
"Now Miss Tyler," he said, trying hard to suppress a smile, "I'm sure Lady Poole doesn't want to hear any of your silly stories."
"You're back home with your own people now," Lady Poole said soothingly. "We'll find you a suitable husband by summer, you mark my words. Won't we... I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?"
"Just the Doctor, if you please."
***
"Would you mind telling me what that was all about?" Rose hissed as they walked side-by-side through chilly a November mist that seemed to be trying to decide if it wanted to become rain.
"It's a new experience! Does it have to be about something?"
"Go on, it's aliens isn't it?" Rose arched an eyebrow and waited for the expected answer. "Lady Poole's an alien! Or... no, it's the footman, right? I don't think he looks human."
"No aliens here but us chickens."
"If it's not aliens it's... what? Jane Austen? Are we going to meet Jane Austen?" She clapped her hands excitedly, but then pursed her lips. "Although, I haven't read any of her books. That'll be awkward."
The Doctor shook his head. "She's living nearly a hundred miles away by this point, and is on her death bed."
"It's not aliens, it's not Jane Austen, I reckon it isn't that Jane Austen is an alien... This is really it? You want to get me married off in 1816? If you wanted to get rid of me you could have just taken me back to mum, you know!" She smacked his arm and shot him a look so whithering that a gentleman passing them in the opposite direction did a double-take.
"Oi, relax!" the Doctor said, rubbing his arm where she'd hit him. "It's just a way of finding out where all the good parties are for a couple of weeks, and then we'll be off again, yeah? Besides, Lady Poole's lonely. Her husband passed a couple of years ago and her children are all married and gone away. She could use someone like you around the place, to dote on and spoil and feel useful again."
Rose looked sceptical. "And how do you know all that, then?"
"Psychic paper, when she handed it back to me. For all those feelings to be so close to the surface, she must be terribly sad. Think of it as being a good Samaritan for a lonely old lady." He knew an appeal to that side of her wouldn't fail, and he was correct. Her expression softened and he caught a little twinkle in her eye that told him she'd already begun to imagine the good times they'd have here. "Besides, apparently you come with a sizeable dowry, so it's no skin off her nose but a bit of room and board and a few new frocks. And I reckon we'll get to go to some brilliant parties! Put on your dancing shoes, Miss Rose Tyler! Who knows, maybe you'll meet your Mr Darcy!"
"There's only one tall, dark and handsome rake for me, I'm afraid," Rose smiled. "And he's been nothing but trouble since the day I met him."
***
Five days later, the Doctor disappeared.
Rose whirled through so many emotions when she saw the bare ground where the TARDIS had been, they all started to run together like the most horrid flip-book ever made. She got the dry heaves and had to lean against a nearby wall, not hearing the sound of hooves and a carriage behind her.
"I say, Miss Tyler!" called a posh, affected male voice.
She turned and wiped her eyes, making an extreme effort to control her rapid breathing. A man in a tall hat was leaning out of the open door of a closed carriage.
"I say, Miss Tyler, I've been looking all over for you." He stepped down onto the muddy street and removed his hat. "Are you ill?"
Rose sniffled and fumbled around for her handkerchief, at a loss for words. "I... you...?" she stammered as she dabbed at her eyes.
"Mr Winchester. We met earlier this evening?"
"Sorry," Rose replied, "I'm a little preoccupied."
"I can see. But if you're looking for your friend, the Doctor, that's why I've been sent to fetch you."
She couldn't help the relieved smile that spread across her face now, though she knew how the courtship-obsessed Regency gentleman would interpret this. "He's always getting in to trouble! And here I thought he'd run off without so much as a by-your-leave! Where is he, then? I'm going to kill him for scaring me like that!" She held out a hand so that Mr Winchester could help her into his carriage.
"You're going to-" Mr Winchester looked extremely alarmed as he settled into his seat across from her.
"Oh, I won't actually kill him. It's just an expression... where I'm from." Wherever that is, she added to herself.
"Well, I don't really know what to tell you. The thing is, I've only been sent to give you this." He reached into a pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a folded piece of heavy cream paper.
Rose felt all the blood drain from her extremities again. What was that daft old alien up to now that he was leaving her notes? She jammed herself into a corner of the carriage to try and read it by the light of the full moon:
Can you believe that thick Mr Cheswick actually tried to argue with me about whether the new shilling coins are being used in Scotland! He bet me his best hound that they aren't, and you know I can't allow this sort of ignorance to stand. I'll be back in a fortnight, with evidence of that man's extreme idiocy. I'm trying to work out just how long it'd reasonably take for someone on horseback to get from here to there, but I reckon I'll just fudge it. Try not to get married too many times while I'm away, okay?
Mr Winchester cast expectant glances at her as she folded the paper up again. "I trust nothing too bad," he said mildly.
"The Doctor has gone to Scotland on a bet," she sighed. "And he really should already know that those two things just don't mix well. If you don't mind, Mr Winchester, I'm ready to go home now."
***
The next letter arrived through more conventional means, on a Thursday morning two weeks later. Rather, Rose thought it might be a Thursday. The activity in Lady Poole's wainscotted drawing room was exactly the same, whether it was a Thursday or a Monday. The word torpid-which Rose learnt from one of the 'improving books for ladies' that were amply available-did not even begin to describe this life. She had been so unprepared to receive any post while a house-guest that when the maid tried to offer her the letter, centred crisply on a silver tray, Rose just stared at her, and then broke into a peel of nervous laughter.
She found the envelope comical, with just her name, the name of Lady Poole's townhome, and nothing more specific than simply Bath. No postcode, not even a street name.
Upon closer inspection, she recognised the Doctor's looping, old-fashioned handwriting, and felt a flush move over her chest and face, followed by a palpable sense of relief. She hoped that her hostess, bent over some needlework, would not notice.
"From your friend, Miss Tyler?" Lady Poole asked, placing the emphasis on friend.
Rose slide a finger under the wax seal and opened the letter to skim it for information. "It is," she said simply, aware that even the slightest misplaced word would cause scandal in the house, and more fretting on the part of Lady Poole that the omnipresence of this older friend of Captain Tyler's was beginning to frighten away the quality suitors. "He's been delayed, in Aberdeen."
Lady Poole made a tutting sound, but didn't look up from her work. "I never understood what he wanted to go all the way up there for. And at this time of year! The roads must have been impassable!"
Rose suppressed a smile. "He enjoys adventure," she said. "If you'll please excuse me, I'm feeling sort of... unwell."
If there was one thing Rose could get behind in this deadly dull, uncomfortable era, it was the all-purpose get-out-of-jail-free card of a lady feeling suddenly indisposed. It was almost expected, and Rose had to be careful not to over-use it so as to be thought truly sickly and signed up for a round of leeches.
Back in her bedroom, heavy drapery was drawn over the windows and there was a nearly irresistible soporific quality to the smoke emerging from the fireplace. She stretched out on the bed and read the letter carefully, hearing the Doctor's voice in her head as she did. She hadn't lied to Lady Poole: he had been delayed. The TARDIS had developed some sort of unpronounceable condition and needed considerable time to recover. Rose felt the immediate need to chide him for running off without her in the first place, even if he had thought he'd be right back. If he'd just waited until she was able to get away from the party she'd been dragged to, she'd be stuck with him. The two of them, together, in nineteenth century Aberdeen.
She sat at the writing table and made a very messy attempt at using the 19th century writing implements to compose a reply. "At least you stranded us in a time when the stays aren't so bad," she wrote. "But now I've been here long enough that I'm actually blushing over the fact that I've mentioned my underwear to you!"
She nearly forgot to blot the paper properly before folding it up and clumsily addressing it to James McCrimmon-care of a Mr. Angus Boyle, bookseller-as the Doctor had instructed her to do in his missive.
Over the next few weeks, the world of Christmastime Bath seemed to take on a new layer of colour. She started noting the various little minutiae of her daily life, so she wouldn't forget when it came time to write the Doctor again. She had a new frock made and saved a swatch of fabric from the tailor, so the Doctor would be able to see. Lady Poole suddenly found her young charge to be more amenable to attending parties, teas and balls. To herself, Rose composed a hundred little hypothetical letters in her head, as the bitters were poured out after dinner, or she sat in a carriage, still flushed from the last dance.
The Doctor's next letter arrived looking much more lengthy than the first. Lady Poole had been been hosting her maiden aunt for tea when the post came, and Rose had to slip the letter into the back pages of a nearby book, to save for later. Over her cup, Lady Poole gave her a cheeky, and quite uncharacteristic, little wink. Rose suspected she was beginning to consider the possibility that the best match for Rose was in fact this mysterious Doctor himself. Rose certainly wouldn't disagree with that, and it would be a lovely way to grant this woman a sense of accomplishment while at the same time allowing the two travellers to beat a hasty retreat, unattached to any nineteenth-century spouses.
The Doctor's letter contained the sort of details that told Rose he'd been engaging in the same sort of cataloguing of daily life for her sake as she was doing for his. His good friend, Mr. Angus Boyle, bookseller, seemed a capital chap and they frequently accompanied one another on adventures in the by-now frigid Scottish countryside. "The way of life of the people there hasn't changed in hundreds of years," he wrote. "Maybe even 900 years. In a strange way, it makes me feel young again. If I lived my life in linear time, they would have been boiling their porridge over open fires in this same way when I was born."
She sent him back her scrap of fabric, as well as a clumsy line drawing of the Royal Crescent in the snow, and many pages detailing her comings and goings: "It's funny, the thought of telling you about my life here makes me want to live it more. But, I still want you to come back as soon as possible, so don't take that as permission to go ditching me whenever you want. " She enquired, perhaps more passionately than she'd originally intended, into a time-frame for his return. She posted the letter quickly, before she could second-guess the tone of it.
Letters came and went, back and forth between Bath and Aberdeen, sometimes held up by foul weather, sometimes arriving quite quickly indeed, causing Rose to wonder at how she had grown accustomed to the slower pace of communication in 1817 (New Year's now having come and gone).
The Doctor revealed himself more to her in print than he ever had in person. Not so much the particulars of his personal chronology-the childhood of a man who'd lived for nearly a millennium already was quite literally ancient history-but the workings of his mind. Rose was even tempted to say that it was his soul that was revealed to her over the 500 miles separating them. In one letter he wrote, "I've been thinking a lot about why I always seem to want to return to Earth. It's been the one constant in my life, though I was afraid that after the war I'd never be able to look you lot in the eye again. And I couldn't really, at first, though I hung around like a bad smell anyway. You were the first human I could really look at without wanting to rip myself apart and declare myself a fraud."
She kept his letters tied with a silk ribbon, though she had plans to burn them once he returned, for fear that he'd be reminded of how bare he'd left himself to her through them, and perhaps feel resentful.
"You need to give me one good reason why I shouldn't hire a coach right now to come up and be with you," she wrote back. "It was fun playing the posh lady for a while, but it's getting a bit old now and these young men are killing me with their earnestness. How big of a dowry did you hoodwink Lady Poole into thinking I had, anyway? I can practically see the pound-signs ringing up in some of these bloke's eyes. And none of them are as good as you anyway. If you could see me now, I'm pouting obnoxiously."
His next letter arrived with giant capital letters across the top: "DO NOT HIRE A COACH AND TRAVEL UP HERE!" Rose felt quite put out that he was taking such a tone with her, even if it was only in print. She could do whatever she wanted, and sod him very much. She began reading the rest of the letter with a scowl on her face. "I know you're very modern and brilliant and all of that, but it's still 1817 and the roads aren't safe. The TARDIS is steadily improving, I'll be back soon, so please just wait for me." She couldn't maintain her sour feelings throughout the rest, as he repeatedly stressed how terrible it would be if she were hurt or killed so far from him, and with him powerless to do anything about it. She wished she could ring him up on the spot, he sounded so anxious and torn up about the very notion.
"I was really mostly joking before when I said I'd come up on my own," she replied, sitting down to write as soon as she finished reading his overwrought lines. "I'm sorry if I gave you a fright. I promise I'll stay right here, sitting pretty in my fashionable clothes and waiting for you with my little finger fully extended as I sip my tea. But I'm going to have to insist you take me back to mum's when this is over. I am dying for some chips and Strictly Come Dancing. Also there's this skinny alien that I sort of fancy, and I know how much he enjoys that take-away round the corner."
Mr Winchester was around for a call when the post arrived with the Doctor's reply. His eyes darted to the envelope on the silver tray as it was brought in, and then moved over to meet the worried gaze of Lady Poole. Rose smiled sheepishly, thanked the maid and set the letter to the side. All throughout the small talk that marked the rest of Mr Winchester's visit, it was as if that letter was a fourth guest in the room. Everyone kept stealing glances at it, as if it were going to get up and do a song and dance at any moment. Rose wished for x-ray vision so she could read it straight away without anyone being offended, and she reckoned Lady Poole was wishing that a marriage prospect hadn't actually been around when evidence of this rival had been delivered. The matron was, apparently, not yet willing to completely give up the game of finding Rose a suitable husband from amongst Bath society.
Rose finally had some time to herself after tea and before her evening schedule began. "I couldn't be sure how serious you were," the Doctor had written. "Maybe I over-reacted. But this skinny alien you mentioned, do you think he fancies you, as well? There might have to be a duel. Do they do duels in 1817?" There was an account of a trip he'd made to see the spring flowers in the countryside, and a pressed flower enclosed, as well as a silly story about a hunting party getting lost even though they were about twenty feet from the manor house they'd started out at. "I can tell from your letters that you're changing, that you're learning to live the role I forced on you. It's killing me that I can't be there to see what you've learnt since I left. Before we're off again, at least let's have a dance. Last I saw, you were, frankly, rubbish. I'm sure you're cutting up the floor now, with all those young men with their silly facial hair following you around like packs of dogs. And no, before you ask, I'm not at all jealous."
As she left her room for her evening engagement- the first dance of the summer season-she set aside a length of ribbon (left over from doing her hair) with the intent of enclosing it in her next letter north. She thought the Doctor might fancy the colour, which was a match for the blue of the TARDIS.
At the dance itself, she noticed that fewer young men offered her little crystal glasses of cordial or asked her for a turn on the floor. She was indeed beginning to get a reputation, and surely Mr Winchester had gossiped about the arrival of yet another letter from her gentleman correspondent that very afternoon. Even her few lady friends were beginning to grow a bit cold, thinking, perhaps, that her possible ill repute would rub off on them as well.
It was the most earnest and dull of her remaining suitors who was guiding her around the candlelit room in a waltz, when she saw his eyes lock on someone behind her. His face fell into a resigned but displeased expression and Rose could hear the Bath gossip machine already gearing up all around them.
"I've come an awful long way for this dance," came a warm, familiar voice from over her shoulder. The Doctor, eyes sparkling and a lopsided smile on his face, cut in smoothly and drew her far closer than was considered appropriate. "I think we've wasted quite enough time, don't you?"
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: ~3500
Summary: Just a silly Regency romance.
A/N: This is an expanded version of the fic I submitted for round 2.08 of writerinatardis . The prompt was: The TARDIS is damaged during a landing, stranding the Doctor and Rose somewhere until she's repaired.
"It's very nice of you to receive us, Lady Poole. I know it's unexpected." The Doctor perched on the edge of a sofa while Rose stationed herself on a nearby wooden chair. She could tell that he was most certainly Up To Something.
The plump, matronly woman sitting imperiously on a high-backed chair near the fire handed the Doctor a black wallet with a blank piece of paper in it, which he cast a sideways look at before inserting it into his inside pocket.
"Can't say that I remember meeting this Captain Tyler, but I met a lot of men in my youth and my memory fails me now sometimes. His letter of introduction speaks quite highly of you, my dear." Lady Poole gave Rose an appraising top-to-bottom look and then turned back to the Doctor. "The poor thing, raised so far from civilization and now an orphan. I wish these sea captains would take care to leave their families back home instead of traipsing all about among savages with them."
"Well, actually-" Rose began, but the Doctor raised a hand quickly.
"Now Miss Tyler," he said, trying hard to suppress a smile, "I'm sure Lady Poole doesn't want to hear any of your silly stories."
"You're back home with your own people now," Lady Poole said soothingly. "We'll find you a suitable husband by summer, you mark my words. Won't we... I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?"
"Just the Doctor, if you please."
***
"Would you mind telling me what that was all about?" Rose hissed as they walked side-by-side through chilly a November mist that seemed to be trying to decide if it wanted to become rain.
"It's a new experience! Does it have to be about something?"
"Go on, it's aliens isn't it?" Rose arched an eyebrow and waited for the expected answer. "Lady Poole's an alien! Or... no, it's the footman, right? I don't think he looks human."
"No aliens here but us chickens."
"If it's not aliens it's... what? Jane Austen? Are we going to meet Jane Austen?" She clapped her hands excitedly, but then pursed her lips. "Although, I haven't read any of her books. That'll be awkward."
The Doctor shook his head. "She's living nearly a hundred miles away by this point, and is on her death bed."
"It's not aliens, it's not Jane Austen, I reckon it isn't that Jane Austen is an alien... This is really it? You want to get me married off in 1816? If you wanted to get rid of me you could have just taken me back to mum, you know!" She smacked his arm and shot him a look so whithering that a gentleman passing them in the opposite direction did a double-take.
"Oi, relax!" the Doctor said, rubbing his arm where she'd hit him. "It's just a way of finding out where all the good parties are for a couple of weeks, and then we'll be off again, yeah? Besides, Lady Poole's lonely. Her husband passed a couple of years ago and her children are all married and gone away. She could use someone like you around the place, to dote on and spoil and feel useful again."
Rose looked sceptical. "And how do you know all that, then?"
"Psychic paper, when she handed it back to me. For all those feelings to be so close to the surface, she must be terribly sad. Think of it as being a good Samaritan for a lonely old lady." He knew an appeal to that side of her wouldn't fail, and he was correct. Her expression softened and he caught a little twinkle in her eye that told him she'd already begun to imagine the good times they'd have here. "Besides, apparently you come with a sizeable dowry, so it's no skin off her nose but a bit of room and board and a few new frocks. And I reckon we'll get to go to some brilliant parties! Put on your dancing shoes, Miss Rose Tyler! Who knows, maybe you'll meet your Mr Darcy!"
"There's only one tall, dark and handsome rake for me, I'm afraid," Rose smiled. "And he's been nothing but trouble since the day I met him."
***
Five days later, the Doctor disappeared.
Rose whirled through so many emotions when she saw the bare ground where the TARDIS had been, they all started to run together like the most horrid flip-book ever made. She got the dry heaves and had to lean against a nearby wall, not hearing the sound of hooves and a carriage behind her.
"I say, Miss Tyler!" called a posh, affected male voice.
She turned and wiped her eyes, making an extreme effort to control her rapid breathing. A man in a tall hat was leaning out of the open door of a closed carriage.
"I say, Miss Tyler, I've been looking all over for you." He stepped down onto the muddy street and removed his hat. "Are you ill?"
Rose sniffled and fumbled around for her handkerchief, at a loss for words. "I... you...?" she stammered as she dabbed at her eyes.
"Mr Winchester. We met earlier this evening?"
"Sorry," Rose replied, "I'm a little preoccupied."
"I can see. But if you're looking for your friend, the Doctor, that's why I've been sent to fetch you."
She couldn't help the relieved smile that spread across her face now, though she knew how the courtship-obsessed Regency gentleman would interpret this. "He's always getting in to trouble! And here I thought he'd run off without so much as a by-your-leave! Where is he, then? I'm going to kill him for scaring me like that!" She held out a hand so that Mr Winchester could help her into his carriage.
"You're going to-" Mr Winchester looked extremely alarmed as he settled into his seat across from her.
"Oh, I won't actually kill him. It's just an expression... where I'm from." Wherever that is, she added to herself.
"Well, I don't really know what to tell you. The thing is, I've only been sent to give you this." He reached into a pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a folded piece of heavy cream paper.
Rose felt all the blood drain from her extremities again. What was that daft old alien up to now that he was leaving her notes? She jammed herself into a corner of the carriage to try and read it by the light of the full moon:
Can you believe that thick Mr Cheswick actually tried to argue with me about whether the new shilling coins are being used in Scotland! He bet me his best hound that they aren't, and you know I can't allow this sort of ignorance to stand. I'll be back in a fortnight, with evidence of that man's extreme idiocy. I'm trying to work out just how long it'd reasonably take for someone on horseback to get from here to there, but I reckon I'll just fudge it. Try not to get married too many times while I'm away, okay?
Mr Winchester cast expectant glances at her as she folded the paper up again. "I trust nothing too bad," he said mildly.
"The Doctor has gone to Scotland on a bet," she sighed. "And he really should already know that those two things just don't mix well. If you don't mind, Mr Winchester, I'm ready to go home now."
***
The next letter arrived through more conventional means, on a Thursday morning two weeks later. Rather, Rose thought it might be a Thursday. The activity in Lady Poole's wainscotted drawing room was exactly the same, whether it was a Thursday or a Monday. The word torpid-which Rose learnt from one of the 'improving books for ladies' that were amply available-did not even begin to describe this life. She had been so unprepared to receive any post while a house-guest that when the maid tried to offer her the letter, centred crisply on a silver tray, Rose just stared at her, and then broke into a peel of nervous laughter.
She found the envelope comical, with just her name, the name of Lady Poole's townhome, and nothing more specific than simply Bath. No postcode, not even a street name.
Upon closer inspection, she recognised the Doctor's looping, old-fashioned handwriting, and felt a flush move over her chest and face, followed by a palpable sense of relief. She hoped that her hostess, bent over some needlework, would not notice.
"From your friend, Miss Tyler?" Lady Poole asked, placing the emphasis on friend.
Rose slide a finger under the wax seal and opened the letter to skim it for information. "It is," she said simply, aware that even the slightest misplaced word would cause scandal in the house, and more fretting on the part of Lady Poole that the omnipresence of this older friend of Captain Tyler's was beginning to frighten away the quality suitors. "He's been delayed, in Aberdeen."
Lady Poole made a tutting sound, but didn't look up from her work. "I never understood what he wanted to go all the way up there for. And at this time of year! The roads must have been impassable!"
Rose suppressed a smile. "He enjoys adventure," she said. "If you'll please excuse me, I'm feeling sort of... unwell."
If there was one thing Rose could get behind in this deadly dull, uncomfortable era, it was the all-purpose get-out-of-jail-free card of a lady feeling suddenly indisposed. It was almost expected, and Rose had to be careful not to over-use it so as to be thought truly sickly and signed up for a round of leeches.
Back in her bedroom, heavy drapery was drawn over the windows and there was a nearly irresistible soporific quality to the smoke emerging from the fireplace. She stretched out on the bed and read the letter carefully, hearing the Doctor's voice in her head as she did. She hadn't lied to Lady Poole: he had been delayed. The TARDIS had developed some sort of unpronounceable condition and needed considerable time to recover. Rose felt the immediate need to chide him for running off without her in the first place, even if he had thought he'd be right back. If he'd just waited until she was able to get away from the party she'd been dragged to, she'd be stuck with him. The two of them, together, in nineteenth century Aberdeen.
She sat at the writing table and made a very messy attempt at using the 19th century writing implements to compose a reply. "At least you stranded us in a time when the stays aren't so bad," she wrote. "But now I've been here long enough that I'm actually blushing over the fact that I've mentioned my underwear to you!"
She nearly forgot to blot the paper properly before folding it up and clumsily addressing it to James McCrimmon-care of a Mr. Angus Boyle, bookseller-as the Doctor had instructed her to do in his missive.
Over the next few weeks, the world of Christmastime Bath seemed to take on a new layer of colour. She started noting the various little minutiae of her daily life, so she wouldn't forget when it came time to write the Doctor again. She had a new frock made and saved a swatch of fabric from the tailor, so the Doctor would be able to see. Lady Poole suddenly found her young charge to be more amenable to attending parties, teas and balls. To herself, Rose composed a hundred little hypothetical letters in her head, as the bitters were poured out after dinner, or she sat in a carriage, still flushed from the last dance.
The Doctor's next letter arrived looking much more lengthy than the first. Lady Poole had been been hosting her maiden aunt for tea when the post came, and Rose had to slip the letter into the back pages of a nearby book, to save for later. Over her cup, Lady Poole gave her a cheeky, and quite uncharacteristic, little wink. Rose suspected she was beginning to consider the possibility that the best match for Rose was in fact this mysterious Doctor himself. Rose certainly wouldn't disagree with that, and it would be a lovely way to grant this woman a sense of accomplishment while at the same time allowing the two travellers to beat a hasty retreat, unattached to any nineteenth-century spouses.
The Doctor's letter contained the sort of details that told Rose he'd been engaging in the same sort of cataloguing of daily life for her sake as she was doing for his. His good friend, Mr. Angus Boyle, bookseller, seemed a capital chap and they frequently accompanied one another on adventures in the by-now frigid Scottish countryside. "The way of life of the people there hasn't changed in hundreds of years," he wrote. "Maybe even 900 years. In a strange way, it makes me feel young again. If I lived my life in linear time, they would have been boiling their porridge over open fires in this same way when I was born."
She sent him back her scrap of fabric, as well as a clumsy line drawing of the Royal Crescent in the snow, and many pages detailing her comings and goings: "It's funny, the thought of telling you about my life here makes me want to live it more. But, I still want you to come back as soon as possible, so don't take that as permission to go ditching me whenever you want. " She enquired, perhaps more passionately than she'd originally intended, into a time-frame for his return. She posted the letter quickly, before she could second-guess the tone of it.
Letters came and went, back and forth between Bath and Aberdeen, sometimes held up by foul weather, sometimes arriving quite quickly indeed, causing Rose to wonder at how she had grown accustomed to the slower pace of communication in 1817 (New Year's now having come and gone).
The Doctor revealed himself more to her in print than he ever had in person. Not so much the particulars of his personal chronology-the childhood of a man who'd lived for nearly a millennium already was quite literally ancient history-but the workings of his mind. Rose was even tempted to say that it was his soul that was revealed to her over the 500 miles separating them. In one letter he wrote, "I've been thinking a lot about why I always seem to want to return to Earth. It's been the one constant in my life, though I was afraid that after the war I'd never be able to look you lot in the eye again. And I couldn't really, at first, though I hung around like a bad smell anyway. You were the first human I could really look at without wanting to rip myself apart and declare myself a fraud."
She kept his letters tied with a silk ribbon, though she had plans to burn them once he returned, for fear that he'd be reminded of how bare he'd left himself to her through them, and perhaps feel resentful.
"You need to give me one good reason why I shouldn't hire a coach right now to come up and be with you," she wrote back. "It was fun playing the posh lady for a while, but it's getting a bit old now and these young men are killing me with their earnestness. How big of a dowry did you hoodwink Lady Poole into thinking I had, anyway? I can practically see the pound-signs ringing up in some of these bloke's eyes. And none of them are as good as you anyway. If you could see me now, I'm pouting obnoxiously."
His next letter arrived with giant capital letters across the top: "DO NOT HIRE A COACH AND TRAVEL UP HERE!" Rose felt quite put out that he was taking such a tone with her, even if it was only in print. She could do whatever she wanted, and sod him very much. She began reading the rest of the letter with a scowl on her face. "I know you're very modern and brilliant and all of that, but it's still 1817 and the roads aren't safe. The TARDIS is steadily improving, I'll be back soon, so please just wait for me." She couldn't maintain her sour feelings throughout the rest, as he repeatedly stressed how terrible it would be if she were hurt or killed so far from him, and with him powerless to do anything about it. She wished she could ring him up on the spot, he sounded so anxious and torn up about the very notion.
"I was really mostly joking before when I said I'd come up on my own," she replied, sitting down to write as soon as she finished reading his overwrought lines. "I'm sorry if I gave you a fright. I promise I'll stay right here, sitting pretty in my fashionable clothes and waiting for you with my little finger fully extended as I sip my tea. But I'm going to have to insist you take me back to mum's when this is over. I am dying for some chips and Strictly Come Dancing. Also there's this skinny alien that I sort of fancy, and I know how much he enjoys that take-away round the corner."
Mr Winchester was around for a call when the post arrived with the Doctor's reply. His eyes darted to the envelope on the silver tray as it was brought in, and then moved over to meet the worried gaze of Lady Poole. Rose smiled sheepishly, thanked the maid and set the letter to the side. All throughout the small talk that marked the rest of Mr Winchester's visit, it was as if that letter was a fourth guest in the room. Everyone kept stealing glances at it, as if it were going to get up and do a song and dance at any moment. Rose wished for x-ray vision so she could read it straight away without anyone being offended, and she reckoned Lady Poole was wishing that a marriage prospect hadn't actually been around when evidence of this rival had been delivered. The matron was, apparently, not yet willing to completely give up the game of finding Rose a suitable husband from amongst Bath society.
Rose finally had some time to herself after tea and before her evening schedule began. "I couldn't be sure how serious you were," the Doctor had written. "Maybe I over-reacted. But this skinny alien you mentioned, do you think he fancies you, as well? There might have to be a duel. Do they do duels in 1817?" There was an account of a trip he'd made to see the spring flowers in the countryside, and a pressed flower enclosed, as well as a silly story about a hunting party getting lost even though they were about twenty feet from the manor house they'd started out at. "I can tell from your letters that you're changing, that you're learning to live the role I forced on you. It's killing me that I can't be there to see what you've learnt since I left. Before we're off again, at least let's have a dance. Last I saw, you were, frankly, rubbish. I'm sure you're cutting up the floor now, with all those young men with their silly facial hair following you around like packs of dogs. And no, before you ask, I'm not at all jealous."
As she left her room for her evening engagement- the first dance of the summer season-she set aside a length of ribbon (left over from doing her hair) with the intent of enclosing it in her next letter north. She thought the Doctor might fancy the colour, which was a match for the blue of the TARDIS.
At the dance itself, she noticed that fewer young men offered her little crystal glasses of cordial or asked her for a turn on the floor. She was indeed beginning to get a reputation, and surely Mr Winchester had gossiped about the arrival of yet another letter from her gentleman correspondent that very afternoon. Even her few lady friends were beginning to grow a bit cold, thinking, perhaps, that her possible ill repute would rub off on them as well.
It was the most earnest and dull of her remaining suitors who was guiding her around the candlelit room in a waltz, when she saw his eyes lock on someone behind her. His face fell into a resigned but displeased expression and Rose could hear the Bath gossip machine already gearing up all around them.
"I've come an awful long way for this dance," came a warm, familiar voice from over her shoulder. The Doctor, eyes sparkling and a lopsided smile on his face, cut in smoothly and drew her far closer than was considered appropriate. "I think we've wasted quite enough time, don't you?"