The Envelope: King Me (2)
*~*~*~*
The article in the next day's morning news regarding the opening of Wonderland touts the Hatter's inventiveness and charm. With praise like this, Alice doesn't doubt that he'll have his first commission before the remains from the party have been dealt with. However, she is far too confused to be excited for him.
"Good morning, Alice!" he bids her, joining her at the breakfast table. Looking up over the edge of the penny paper in her grasp, she watches as he bows rather formally and holds out his hand, palm up and waits. The weight of expectation hangs in the air and slows Alice's response.
"Good morning, Hatter," she tentatively replies, setting the news rag aside and placing her hand in his.
He smiles grandly and brushes his lips against her fingers, knuckles, and wrist. "I missed ye, laddie," he murmurs with sudden urgency. "Has th' question come teh ye?"
In silence, she shakes her head.
"Ah," he observes sadly. Then he covers her hand with his and rubs her fingers between his palms, generating reassuring warmth from the friction. "But it will!" he declares with a brave smile. "Shall I pour your tea, your Majesty?"
"A rhyme," she points out with a weak smile.
He giggles. "Purely coincidental!"
"Those are the wittiest ones."
"They are, indeed," he agrees pleasantly as he dribbles cream and then sprinkles sugar into her cup before reaching for the teapot.
Remarkably, the Hatter is just as attentive and charming as he always is, despite having refused her the night before. Frankly, she is confounded by him and his strange request for her to "king" him… whatever that means!
Nothing will be gained by interrogating him or snubbing him, she knows. The most logical thing to do under these circumstances is to behave as normally as possible. She feels the rightness of this course of action deep in her very bones. She trusts the Hatter and that has not changed with this most recent conundrum. There is something he is trying to tell her. Something she must do. And she trusts him to lead her to the solution that he needs.
Although - as he bids her a good night that evening and shuts himself in the guest bedroom - Alice can't help but wish that he'd go about assisting her with a bit more haste.
She lies in her bed that night and tries not to notice how unfortunately large, still, and cool it is. She feels like a stranger in it without the Hatter beside her and she finds herself huddling under the blankets as if she expects to be evicted from it at any moment.
The week is rather long, frustrating, and sleepless.
It is also rather exhilarating. Despite the undefined obstacle between herself and the Hatter as well as its seemingly unidentifiable solution, she can't help but relish the pride she feels when she arrives at his shop at the end of her workday to see him bustling about as he gesticulates at his latest customer. Robert and Edgar translate when necessary but, as the week progresses, Alice notices an interesting trend: despite the Hatter's inability to speak Queen Victoria's English, his customers do understand the gist of what he means, more often than not.
How… interesting. She watches as, time and time again, the Hatter's direct questions and comments and suggestions seem to be understood, but his muttering and occasional rants only confuse his clients. That is when Robert and Edgar step in and assure the lord or lady, sir or madam, mister or miss that the Hatter rather enjoys the simple (if slightly mad) pastime of thinking aloud.
"Alice!" he greets her after she has closed the door behind yet another satisfied customer, pulled the shade over the display window, and turned the key in the lock. The shop is officially closed for the day.
"Hatter," she replies smiling. His joy is infectious and whatever troubles that exist between them cannot show themselves in the face of such energy and delight. He gathers her hands in his and brushes reverent kisses across her skin.
"How was your day, my Alice?"
"Two meetings were rescheduled, a visitor called unannounced, Sir Godfry continues to display the rather bad habit of undercounting zeros when it comes to paying for his order, and Mister Phelps had five distinct conniptions. I'm beginning to think I ought to arrange for the man's ears to be lengthened. Aren't they good for keeping one's equilibrium?"
The Hatter giggles.
"Show me what you've been up to, darling," she coaxes him and then winks to the boys who grin back. As the Hatter narrates his day, complete with a tour of partially completed projects, his assistants manage to finish cleaning and closing up the store. The three of them form a rather effective alliance, Alice thinks, when it comes to getting the Hatter to cross the threshold at the end of the day. And it is very important that the Hatter leave the shop on time, lest some particularly pushy and unforgivably late patron insist on being served.
Alice can't bring herself to resent the success that Wonderland is enjoying. She had hoped for this, after all. She had hoped that the Hatter would be seen as his own man, with intrinsic worth in the eyes of Society before they see him as Alice's. Inviting a reporter from the paper to the grand opening had been a good decision, she tells herself and hopes that business will slow down a bit once the novelty has worn off. She would rather prefer that he not spend all of his energies at work every day or else they could encounter a whole new and different set of technical difficulties once she has determined how to coax him back into her bed!
Three days after the article detailing the success of Wonderland's grand opening is circulated in town, it is delivered to residents in the country. It is the day following this that Alice receives yet another invitation to tea from her mother. Opening it, she is disappointed to find that this one is also addressed solely to her. She had been sure that the Hatter's success would open her mother's mind to the possibility of… Well, if her mother had been honest when she'd claimed to be worried about the association damaging Alice's hard-won reputation, but it seems as if… as if…
"Bugger all!" she hisses, slamming her open palm down on the card. Not only is she letting the Hatter down with her inability to "king" him, but she has let him down again with regards to her family's acceptance of him!
Suddenly, that rabbit hole of Hamish's is looking more appealing, despite it being a bubbling pit of muddy water.
"Alice?" the Hatter asks, peeking around the edge of the open door.
"Bloody hell, how did this all go so wrong!" She expounds, gesturing angrily, "That reception was supposed to… supposed to…!" Well, she had intended for it to accomplish two very great and necessary things: it was to be the public unveiling the Hatter's talent, which would have eventually led to their romantic relationship turning into something very permanent; the second (but not secondary!) goal of the reception had been to provide the reassurance her mother and sister require with regards to the Hatter's character and potential… But now something is mysteriously broken between her and the Hatter and her mother continues to be unsolicitous toward him! How had she managed to fail on both fronts?
"Another blasted invitation," she mutters, holding it up for him to see before tossing it aside and burying her hands in her hair. "I'm sorry, Hatter. Your name isn't on this one, either."
"That's fine," he cheerfully counters.
"No, it isn't!" she nearly roars with frustration. "This is not fine! Damnation, Hatter, what was the point of the reception - of triumphing so spectacularly - if I've only lost!"
The silence is so complete that Alice is afraid to look up and confirm her suspicion that her foul temper has managed to push him out of the room completely. That is the very last thing she wants and yet that seems to be her pattern recently: the things she wants most are twisting inside out and upside down and she feels utterly helpless to fix them!
But, thankfully, this one thing does not transmogrify. She breathes a sigh of relief when the Hatter settles into the chair next to hers and gently untangles her grasping fingers from her hair. "Alice, my love… Alice," he croons. "Ye are nae lost, laddie. I have ye."
She stares as his thimble-capped fingers wrapped around hers. Yes, it rather looks like he has her. Perhaps it is she who does not have him? Just as she'd feared?
"Are you lost?" she croaks, the tightness in her throat choking her voice. "Lost to me? Has London found you? Pocketed you and made off?"
Mute and wide-eyed, he shakes his head.
"Hatter…" She sighs, despairs, and confesses, "I'm afraid. What if I can't…? What if… my mother never…"
He presses a finger to her lips, shushing her. She blinks, startled, and into that moment of interruption, the Hatter speculates, "What if she sends an invitation addressed to me, asking me to join your family for tea on Sunday?"
"I… what?"
In silence, the Hatter removes a familiar-looking envelope from his coat pocket and lays it on the writing desk beside Alice's invitation. She stares at the identical Kingsleigh family watermarks, the shop address that had been penned in her mother's handwriting… and the Hatter's name above it. With trembling fingers, she opens the card and reads:
Mister Tarrant Hightopp is cordially invited to an afternoon of tea and assorted refreshments at the Kingsleigh estate this Sunday afternoon from 4 o'clock.
Alice hiccups on a laugh. Her eyes sting with heated joy.
"'Twill be fine, laddie," the Hatter sings softly, curling an arm around her shoulders. Alice presses her forehead to the patch of jacket fabric stretched over his shoulder and laughs from pure reaction. It is either laugh or cry and she will not cry if she can help it!
"Shall we reply to this one, my Alice?" he lisps softly. There is no trace of inquiry in his voice; he already knows what her answer will be. Faced with her mother's tentative approval of their association, there can be only one response.
"No," she informs him, "we shall reply to these."
Smiling, he holds her close and pets her hair for many minutes… until Alice stirs and reaches for a pair of pens and the stack of stationary.
*~*~*~*
"I'm considering things that begin with the letter M…"
Alice glances up at the Hatter, ignoring the usual rattle and creaking of the carriage as they clamor down the country lane toward their destination. She is startled out of her thoughts of Battenberg and mirror-wise-spoken words and March hares by the beseeching quality of his expression and the urgent tone of his tone. For a long moment, she merely stares at him in relative silence.
"A meeting?" she inquires, thinking of the afternoon tea they will be attending shortly with her mother and sister.
The Hatter simply shakes his head and brushes his thumb over her captured hand. Sighing, he says, "Mayhap a monumental meeting. Many marvelous matters might be mentioned. A merger, a man and a monarch who is also a miss and might even now be a mother-!"
Inexplicably, Alice's heart pounds at the words - so very many M-words! - and the pleading note in his voice.
He pulls himself up short and then performs a slight shake of his head to reorient himself. His gaze is bordering on frantic and his tone is strained as he requests, "King me, your Majesty."
"I don't know how," she protests, irritated with herself. "Tell me, please. What do you want, Tarrant? What do you need from me?"
"I-"
"Hold there!"
Alice and the Hatter both startle as a masculine shout goes up somewhere outside. The coachman reins in the horses and the carriage clatters to a sudden and swaying stop.
"Have you seen a boy along this road?" the man calls out to the coachman.
Alice shares an inquisitive look with the Hatter and then, leaning across him, peeks out the window.
"Marshall?" she sputters, staring at the Ascots' manservant astride a hastily tacked horse. "What on earth…?" And then, as she digests his frantic expression and sweaty brow, demands, "What has happened?"
"Miss Kingsleigh! It's young Master James. He's lost… or run off… or…!" The man pauses and forces himself to take a calming breath. "No one has seen him since he went off to play in the woods this morning!"
"What about William?"
"In bed, ill today. The poor fellow has caught a chill."
Alice glances over her shoulder at the Hatter, who places a steadying hand on her waist. Returning her attention of Marshall, she demands, "Tell us what we can do to assist."
Marshall directs her up to the main house and Mister Stilton, the driver, complies with haste, snapping the reins hard enough to startle the horse into an energetic trot.
"James is missing?" the Hatter confirms.
"Yes," Alice replies, twisting the fabric of her Hatter-made trouser skirt in her hands.
"We will find him," he counsels her, placing his hand atop hers and squeezing her fingers hard.
She lets out a sigh at the almost painful pressure; it distracts her very effectively from her building panic.
"Sooner rather than later," she agrees. They will be late for tea with her mother and sister but Alice dares to predict that - once her family hears of the situation - their tardiness will be forgiven.
The Hatter throws open the door of the carriage even before it has lurched to a halt on the drive. "Where is Lord Ascot?" Alice demands, only halfway out of the vehicle. The Hatter's strong hand on her upper arm keeps her from tumbling from the cab and landing squarely (or would it be roundly?) on her face in the gravel. "Lady Ascot!" she shouts, spying the woman standing on the steps of the grand house with the door gaping open behind her, wringing a handkerchief in her hands. Her greying red hair is frazzled and her mouth pinched with stress. She startles at the sound of her own name.
"Alice!" she exclaims, rushing to greet her.
"Have you found him yet?" she asks, placing her hands on the woman's shoulders to steady her.
The lady of the house shakes her head. "No! I've looked all through the house. We've checked the gardens and the lake and-and-!"
Alice suddenly finds herself with an armful of hysterical Lady Ascot.
"Where are they searching now? Where's Hamish?" Alice asks firmly, sure that the two locations are one in the same.
"Everyone is in the woods, checking along the riding trails," she manages through her hiccups. "Oh, if only I'd listened closer this morning! He told me… Oh, but it simply can't be right!"
"What did he tell you?" Alice insists.
Lady Ascot takes a deep, centering breath and says, "He wanted to visit some pit or other. Bubbling pit, I think he said, but we have no such feature on the estate! I must have heard incorrectly!"
But Alice doesn't think so. She glances to the Hatter, her eyes too-wide with fright and disbelief. He stares back, clearly frustrated by his inability to understand Lady Ascot's mumblings. There is no time for Alice to marvel why he seems to be able to impart his meaning to others, but is unable to comprehend theirs.
Alice signals a maid to step forward. "It'll be all right," she reassures James' grandmother. "Now, this is what I need you to do. Are you listening, madam?"
She nods.
"I need to take a deep breath… very good. Now, send someone for Marshall. There's no use searching the road. The Hatter and I will go down the Walnut Trail. You know the one? With the walnut grove at the end? Send Marshall after us. Do you understand?"
"Yes, yes, I… yes."
"Good." And with that, Alice hands the woman over to the hovering maid, grabs the Hatter's elbow and dashes across the lawn. As they enter the forest, Alice explains between panting breaths, "James. Bubbling pit."
"Underland…" he concludes incredulously.
"I know! How on earth-he thinks he can-through frothing mud-!" Truly, she is too incensed to bother forming a coherent sentence.
Oh, she should have known that one of the boys would find that blasted rabbit hole! And she should have guessed that James would be the one to investigate it! And if he has been missing since breakfast, hours ago…!
"Six hours," she says suddenly, drawing the Hatter's attention briefly as they race down the trail through the wood. "How much time is that in Underland?"
"That would depend," he replies, "on the mood he's in."
"He? Time?" she checks.
"Naturally."
Alice had spent three days in Underland when she'd returned as a young woman. Later, she had confessed to losing track of the time and had asked Margaret how long she'd been gone.
"About fifteen minutes," her sister had said. And now James has been missing for six hours!
"Panic later, Alice," she mutters. They race around the final bend in the path before the old rabbit hole and…
Alice digs her heels into the hard-packed dirt and forest windfall. Here, before her is no bubbling pit. Nor is there a rabbit hole. It is a very small and very deep well of perfectly black water. The surface is so still that it reflects the leafy canopy above in crystal clear definition.
"No bubbles," she murmurs.
"Not a one," the Hatter agrees, stepping toward the edge of the grassy bank. For a long moment, he considers the water, frowning mightily.
The tree on Alice's immediate left looks rather strong and sturdy. It invites her to lean on it as she loses her mind in despair and grief. Surely, the utter stillness of the pool means something! Something she does not want to acknowledge or even entertain the thought of!
"Tarrant…" she chokes out on a sob.
He does not look away from the water, but reaches out a hand to her. "Your Majesty," he replies, gesturing her closer. "I believe James requires your assistance."
Alice wastes an entire moment of her life - possibly of James' life! - gaping at him, struggling to comprehend his inappropriately optimistic tone. And then she forcibly swallows her gathering tears and stumbles forward, hardly daring to hope that the Hatter might be indicating the boy is still somehow alive…
… and he is!
Standing over the surface of the dark water, the first thing she sees is not her own reflection or the Hatter's but James'! Alice blinks at the sight of him and what she can see of a magnificently fine, white room around him. He is sitting at a very fine table laden with generous platters of sweets and a marvelously fine tea service.
"James!" she calls, but his reflection does not respond. Well, of course it doesn't! How silly of her to think it would! She gets down on her knees in the soggy grass and reaches out to the reflection on the water. "Just like a looking glass," she thinks and the observation tickles her memory. Had she once had an encounter with a looking glass? Yes, that seems correct somehow… and had there been chess pieces? A railroad? Ham sandwiches and the Hatter and…
"There is a solution, I believe," the Hatter remarks. "Through and through."
"Through the looking glass…" she mumbles, still caught in that moment between dream and memory. And then she huffs out a breath. Those impressions will have to wait. There is a boy in need of rescue!
"Through and through," Alice mutters, daringly pressing her hand against the surface of the water. She watches as - incredibly! - her hand emerges, perfectly dry, into the reflection itself. Tarrant takes her other hand, braces her safely on the bank as she stretches for James' collar and… yes, just a bit more…! A bit more…!
Just as he reaches for a tart and then sits back in his chair, her fingers curl around his jacket.
Suddenly, the sensation of freezing water engulfs her arm. The tea table and sweets and the entire, opalescent room vanishes as the water ripples and sloshes. But James remains! She can seem him now, just beneath the surface, flailing stupendously. Alice shoves aside her disbelief and struggles to pull him to safety. With a great heave from the Hatter, she lands on her back on the grass with a smaller but startlingly heavy, wet body slamming against her and knocking what breath she'd managed to hold onto out of her.
Despite the fact that her arms feel as if they may have been stretched halfway to the moon, she manages to throw them both around the coughing, sputtering, utterly drenched and shivering child.
"James!" she exhales, hardly daring to believe her eyes and increasingly soaked clothing.
"Aunt Alice?" he wheezes.
The pool itself seems to answer. It bubbles noisily.
"Oh! Oh my…!" She clutches James to her and scoots away from the water's edge. She manages only a few inches before the Hatter hooks his hands under her arms and half drags both her and her burden to a safe distance.
For a long moment, no one speaks. The Hatter sits down on his knees beside her and stares at James, who is still squirming and coughing. He looks up at Alice through his still-dripping hair and announces with delight: "Underland is real!"
Alice gawks at him for a moment before she manages to find her voice. "Yes, I know," she responds inanely.
"Underland is real!" he repeats to the Hatter, grinning with excitement. "All the stories are real and the people and the animals…! Aunt Alice!" he virtually screams. "Animals can TALK!"
"Yes… I know."
But having found his voice, it appears that it will take a great catastrophic occurrence for him to be parted with it again. He gushes words, bubbles over with excitement, gesticulates with more animation than the still-burbling pit of black water only a few feet away.
"At first, the Mock Turtle was really put out because he said I wasn't an Alice but I said I had an Aunt Alice and she's the best Alice there is and I've learned all about Underland from her and so he said he'd take me there and DID YOU KNOW THEY HAVE A CASTLE!"
Alice blinks. "Er, yes…"
"And the white rabbit said it was lucky I arrived when I did because it was brillig and brillig is when they start boiling things for dinner and I climbed out of this big stewpot and that was scary, but there was a hare with a wooden spoon and he was cooking and-!"
Alice blindly reaches for the Hatter's hand with her own, forgetting for the moment that he cannot understand a single one of James' rushed and slurred words.
"And then," James rambles on, his voice cracking under the strain, "I met Bayard and his family and they REALLY ARE BLOODHOUNDS, Aunt Alice! And they took me to see the White Queen but I had to be interviewed by the head of her guard who is THE DORMOUSE, Mallyumkun! And Chessur was there grinning and-!"
Alice can only clutch at Tarrant's hand in silence as James expounds on each of their friends, who are no longer lost but found!
"The Tweedles argue JUST LIKE IN YOUR STORIES! And I saw a DODO BIRD! And did you really slay the Jabberwocky? They have this biiiiiig picture of the battle in the throne room and-!"
Beside her, the Hatter seems to choke on his own breath.
"And they said you're a queen, Aunt Alice! Queen Alice! Just like the White Queen, only they said you don't have a color yet because you didn't go back to the first square to see what was waiting for you."
Alice has no response to that. She is rather busy remembering the Hatter's remark last week when she had protested not being able to king him. "You reached the eighth square, did you not? Over the last brook?"
A looking glass… No! Through a looking glass and then the Red Queen had… spoken to her? And Alice had been sent to find the second square and then… She squints, recalling a brief journey aboard on a train and then a horse and a knight and…! Oh… Oh!
James wiggles on her lap, calling her attention back to his diatribe. "So, does that mean you're gonna marry a prince or a king? Is that why you never married Father and-!"
Alice gapes at the waterlogged and mud-smeared child in front of her. He babbles on, but she cannot hear him. All of a sudden, it makes sense. It all makes sense!
"Tarrant?"
"Yes, your Majesty?"
King me, the instruction card had said. A businesswoman would never be able to accomplish such a thing, but a queen would!
"Is there anything I can do for you, Miss Kingsleigh?"
"Do not call me that."
"But it's what you are…"
Alice Kingsleigh - King's Lee! She looks up at the Hatter, stares. Yes, she has been protecting him since their arrival here, hasn't she? He has stood in her lee when necessary and she had guarded him from the bluster and howling of Society.
King me, he had begged (and urgently at that!) and the only way a queen can king a man here, in Upland, is… well… to marry him.
"I'm considering things that begin with the letter M…"
"M…" she mouths, understanding his most recent hint at last. And what's more, other things begin to make a strange sort of sense: their first intimacy, sharing a residence, hosting a reception throughout which he had held her hand tightly, the I-do-I-have-I-shall of their vows witnessed by Hamish and how the Hatter had been able to will others to understand him thereafter… and…!
The Hatter's hands twitch and she remembers that his right and left hands are reversed here: he is mirror-wise here. Backward! Suppose a wedding were also conducted backwards! The consummation would be first, in that case, and then the single residence, and the wedding reception, and-!
"The reception," she rasps, her hands tightening around James' soggy jacket sleeves. The boy babbles on, unaware of her blossoming epiphany.
The reception and the vows and then, that night at their home, the Hatter had expected her to ask… Because she is the queen, after all, and only a queen can do the asking in such a situation and-!
"Oh, dearest Underland," she mutters.
"Aunt Alice? Aunt ALICE!"
"Yes! Yes, yes, what is it?" she manages, forcing herself to focus, to listen to something other than the sound of the blood rushing through her veins and roaring in her ears.
"Did you pull me out of the White Queen's castle?" James asks rather severely.
"I'm afraid I did."
"That was very rude. We were in the middle of tea!"
Alice snorts with laughter that she fears is well on its way to becoming hysterical.
"MASTER JAMES!"
Marshall's bellow echoes through the forest, startling Alice who grasps the boy closer to her body. An instant later, the manservant rounds the bend in the trail and skids to a halt in the middle of the path. For a moment, he merely looks at Alice and the very drenched child on her lap, and then he lurches forward.
"Oh, praise be! Come along now, young sir!" There is a flurry of activity, of arms and legs and water droplets that fall rather predictably to the ground and then Alice finds herself looking up at Marshall who is clutching a very disgruntled boy in his arms.
"I can walk, Marshall!" James protests.
"Not as fast as I can carry you!" the servant argues back. "Your father is worrying himself into an early grave!"
"Aunt Alice!" James cries, reaching back for her as Marshall begins striding back the way he'd come, his charge clinging to him like a frog to a tree.
"We'll be right behind you!" she manages, lifting one of her rubbery arms to wave.
And then, suddenly, she and the Hatter are alone. The bubbling of the water and the fading conversation between Marshall and James infringe on the silence, but neither is loud enough to distract her from what the Hatter says next.
"He went to Underland…"
"Yes, I know, he… Wait, you…?"
The Hatter beams, "Could understand every word he said, Alice. He speaks the White Queen's English now, too. Just like you."
Impossibly, the Hatter's smile widens. "Underland is fine, Alice!" He reaches for her hands and pulls her tightly into his arms. "Perhaps a bit wetter than usual - the monsoons, you know. Terribly unpredictable. But everyone is fine! Mally and Thack and Chess and-!"
"They're all fine," she agrees, stupefied by the development.
"And the White Queen is… is… and you…!"
"Yes," she breathes, finally understanding what she is, finally understanding what it is the Hatter needs from her.
King me.
Yes, she can do that. And once she has done it, he will speak the King's English… and making oneself understood by any and all is one of the benefits of being a king, Alice suspects. As is being able to understand one's subjects. If Alice is indeed something of a queen here as well, that is. Well, there's really only one way to find out…
"A merger, a man and a monarch…"
This is the answer. The one obstacle that they have yet to overcome!
She lifts her hands to his face, stares into his wide eyes. His Adam's apple bobs as the tension between them builds.
"Hatter… Tarrant," she begins hesitantly.
"Yes, your Majesty?"
Alice draws in a steadying breath and then whispers, "Marry me?"
For a long moment, he simply studies her, his verdant green eyes moving this way and that, his dark lips twitching in counterpoint to his wild, orange brows.
"Have I found the question?" she whispers when the silence becomes too much.
"Aye," he rasps. "Aye, ye have, my Alice. And aye, I have."
"I am afraid," she begins, a smile tugging at her lips with increasing strength as relief swells within her, "that our process is rather backwards here…"
"The end is the beginning?" he deduces.
"Quite. Do you mind? Marrying me for a second time?"
"I would be a lucky man indeed," he burrs, his fingers tightening, curling and grasping her waist, "were I teh wed ye again and again, f'r th' rest o' auwr days."
He leans close, their lips brush, and then…!
"It's just ahead, my lord, just around that bend!"
Alice turns toward the commotion on the path. Oh, botheration. Of all the wretched timing!
With huff and a shared look, Alice struggles to stand up with the aid of the Hatter's lithe strength. Just as she gains her feet (but before she releases his arm from her grip) Hamish blusters into view.
And "bluster" is well and truly the Word for it. His hair has been mused and arranged in tufts - no doubt by his own frantically pulling fingers - and his cravat is askew, his trouser legs muddy and his shirt snagged. Alice cringes away from imagining the Episode the poor man must have endured as he'd searched for his wayward son.
"Alice!" he sighs-shouts-hiccups with relief. "You found James. I can never thank-!"
"How is he?" she asks softly, forestalling the utterly unnecessary and inadequate words of thanks.
Hamish takes a deep breath and nods. Alice is relieved that he doesn't seem all that furious with his son. Still, she makes a note to speak with the boy before they leave. Hamish will not understand his son's insistence about Underland. She will have to ask James to promise to keep his adventures a secret.
"James," Hamish replies, his tone thankful for the continued life and safety of his son, "is very filthy, rather excitable, but otherwise fine." He nods to the Hatter in greeting and in wordless thanks before turning his attention toward the bubbling pool. "This," he declares, his lip curling with disgust, "is the true culprit here. James fell into it from what I gather. Nearly drowned. If not for your timely intervention…" He pauses, shudders, shakes his head and proclaims, "This blasted hole will be filled with gravel by the end of the day tomorrow!"
There is nothing Alice can say to sway him. She does not even try. Were it her child who had fallen into such a portal… well, she cannot deny that her actions might mirror his, portal to Underland or no! All it would take is one instant when the gateway does not work and the traveler would perish. Now that she thinks about it, she realizes how much danger she had been in when she had fallen down the rabbit hole herself! If not for the magic of Underland, she might have died!
Alice reaches for the Hatter's hand and he clutches her fingers tightly. Once Hamish has finished cursing the pool and shouting orders for its eradication, the hullabaloo calms. Alice and the Hatter accept Hamish's invitation to get cleaned up at the house and as they meander their way in that direction, Alice leans close to her lover, her husband, and - amazingly enough - her king.
"The pool permitting, we could return now," she tells him, consoles him with her willingness to go back to Underland, even by a route as risky as the pool, if that is what he wants. "I do not know when the next chance will present itself…"
"I know," he replies softly, placing one hand over hers, which is being carried in the crook of his arm. And then, with a glance at her, he pauses on the trail. They are at the edge of the wood; the house and their friends and family and their life in Upland lies just beyond.
Very deliberately, he gathers her hand in his, and then places it over his heart. Beneath her palm, Alice feels the stiffness of paper on the other side of the fabric of his suit jacket. Slowly - and with a glance at his expression as she does so - she slides her hand beneath his lapel, dips her fingers into the inner pocket and removes the square of parchment within it. But no, it is not parchment, not exactly. It is an envelope. An envelope with a Kingsleigh watermark and she know what it contains: an invitation to join her family.
"We have a prior engagement," he murmurs softly.
Alice smiles as she replaces the card and its sheathe in his hidden pocket. "You're right," she answers, patting his suit jacket over his heart, concealing that vital piece of correspondence. "You are right." Underland, and their friends there, will have to wait a little while longer. And when she and the Hatter finally do return, it will not be via the bubbling pool-that-had-been-a-rabbit-hole on the Ascot estate. There must be another way and, one day, she and the Hatter will find it.
For a long moment, they stand in the shelter of the trees, ignoring the world beyond. And then the Hatter burrs, "Are ye ready, mae Alice?"
"Yes," she answers him, tightening her grip on his arm. "I am."
And thus it happens that Alice Kingsleigh, who had always assumed that she would choose Underland over Upland, finds herself rejoining the life that she has always known… only now - with this remarkable man at her side - it is qualitatively better.