Ever Evergreen
Title: Ever Evergreen
Series: On the Threshold of Christmas
Author: Manniness
Rating: T for implied sexual themes
Summary: Tarrant accompanies Alice on her trip to China the only way he can.
Notes: Ever Evergreen was written for the disney_advent 2011
Tarrant Hightopp’s favorite time of day is never the same from day to day despite the fact that he never deviates from the same ritual of preparation. When the tiny clipping of holly residing above the doorway between his workshop and storeroom twitches with merry excitement, Tarrant immediately lays aside whatever hat-in-making happens to be in his hands, straightens his top hat, adjusts his vest, tugs down his cuffs, thanks the little sprig of holly for its silent announcement, and then places first one foot and then the other on the threshold beneath it.
And then - finally - Tarrant’s very favorite and most treasured thing in all the world appears.
“Alice!” he exclaims gently, feeling his lips stretch into a wide smile. And then he inhales deeply as Alice herself steps into his arms, no doubt mussing his vest and even knocking his hat crooked with the exuberance of her welcome.
Yes, this is his very favorite thing in all the world.
When she leans back, she obligingly tilts her chin up for a kiss, and who is he - just a mad hatter - to deny her? After a moment, he gathers her hands in his own and carefully removes them from around his shoulders. It’s not that he wouldn’t like to continue feeling her - warm and welcoming - pressed against him thus, but he has already lost control of himself once upon her threshold. He would rather not repeat the experience. No matter Alice’s insistence otherwise.
“How are you faring today, fair Alice?” he asks, holding her hands in his own stained, scraped and bandaged ones. The ring of braided ribbon he had made for her a few short weeks ago - a Christmas present she’d called it - still sits with colorful brazenness upon her finger. Each time he sees it, his heart breaks a little at the sight, and then heals once more, becoming twice as large.
“I went to see the ship today!” she exclaims as loudly as she dares within her family home.
“The one you will sail to that China place upon?” he confirms with a twitch of his brows, wondering if the seas Above are as obliging to transporting travelers as those in Underland.
“The very one!” she whispers loudly through a delighted grin. “I’ve seen my quarters which are very small and I’ll have to share the room with the captain’s wife and now I’ll have to pack my things.”
Tarrant smiles, brushing his thumbs back and forth across her knuckles, loving how her fingers cling to his so tightly. “I have no doubt you’ll subdue even the most unruly of items.”
“I can’t take much with me on the voyage - space is ever so limited, you see, so I must prioritize my essentials and thank goodness I won’t have to wear a corset because if that were the case, I think I’d mutiny - that’s what they call it, did you know, when the crew rises up against the ship’s captain, but I don’t think I’ll have to worry about that, either, because I’ve met the captain and he’s a lovely gentleman-”
“Alice,” he gently prompts.
“Oh, yes. So sorry! Where was I?”
“Space is limited.”
“Yes, space is very limited.”
“And you’ll have to prioritize.”
She nods, her eyes glittering at the mention of the challenge before her.
Tarrant tries to resist looking up, toward the holly over their heads.
Somehow, Alice seems to guess the inquiry weighing on his mind.
“Of course I’m bringing the holly - you - with me. If you’d still like to come, that is. I won’t have many opportunities to visit with you as I’ll be sharing a room with someone and I may have to leave suddenly if I’m interrupted.”
How silly she is! Doesn’t she know that each and every visit she gives him is an incomparable treasure?
“In fact,” she continues, a frown creasing her brow, “I’m not sure if you’ll actually be able to see my cabin or the house in China, so I can’t even promise you a view of new places, but-”
“Alice,” he murmurs, delighted by her concern and forethought. It is true: he cannot see anything beyond Alice. In fact, to him, it appears as if she is standing on his threshold rather than he is standing on hers. But no matter. “Of course I would like to accompany you. Nothing could make me happier. Not even all the treacle in all the wells of Underland.” And he is a great lover of sweets, as the unfortunate condition of several of his tea-stained teeth can verify.
Tarrant shares the threshold with Alice for several days thereafter until she explains apologetically as she leans her cheek against his shoulder, “I shall have to take the holly down after this. We depart in the morning.”
“Then the next time I see you, you will be aboard and abroad.”
“Did you make a rhyme?” she asks as he gently pets her hair. She doesn’t even gasp when two strands become caught in his bandages.
He kisses the top of her head in apology. She snuggles into is collar in acceptance.
“I do not believe I did, but perhaps I rhymed in Uplandish custom?” he ventures.
“That must be it.”
Tarrant spends the next few days virtually glaring at the holly over his threshold, waiting for it to shiver with happiness and signal Alice’s presence upon his threshold. When at last the little plant twitches, Tarrant leaps to his feet, catches the toe of his boot on the edge of the bench and windmills his arms wildly to keep from planting his face squarely on his sewing machine platform. Regaining his balance, he stumbles toward the threshold, hat crooked, vest skewed, and cuffs untidy.
“Alice!” he announces with delight. “How have you-oh.”
He is given a glimpse of a pale face and tired Alice eyes a moment before her forehead lands on his shoulder and her lank hair obscures her expression from his view.
She mumbles something into his waistcoat that sounds like “seasick.”
“A dreadful ailment,” he commiserates, patting her shoulder gently, wondering if he ought to call for Thackery and his hare-brained remedies.
Alice gasps each breath softly. “I swear-”
“You mustn’t swear, dear Alice. The sailors would be quite discombobulated.”
She snorts. “Ugh… I’ve never felt so ill. If this boat is hit by one more wave-”
“I shall hold you tightly until it passes. That way, if you lose your feet, perhaps mine will be able to guide yours back to where they ought to be.”
“Your assistance is greatly appreciated, sir,” she whispers and her trembling arms wrap tightly around his waist.
Tarrant doesn’t object this time as she leans on him for support. He wishes with all his heart that he could tuck her into bed and brush her hair back for her, perhaps fetch her a cool cloth for her brow and a cup of chamomile tea for her stomach.
“It will pass,” Alice confides, perhaps sensing his misery. “In week, perhaps two… It will pass.”
“In the meantime, you may call upon both me and my waistcoat, dear Alice,” he assures her, noting her fondness for it as she rubs her cheek against the weave.
“I’ll have to go soon. When dinner is over, Mrs. Warren will be back to check on me…”
“Will you eat?”
“A little,” she promises and he doesn’t press for more.
Indeed, she is much improved the next time the holly over his storeroom door twitches.
Once again, Tarrant discovers a warm (and much restored) Alice embracing him tightly. “We’ve had horrible weather and Mrs. Warren was impossible to get away from but she’s finally agreed to give me an evening to myself and I missed you.”
“Hardly!” he declares, pressing a single finger to her lips when she rears back, her eyes sparking with fire, ready to argue with passionate vehemence. He informs her, “You are very much on target, my Alice.”
She relaxes as his fingertips dance along her spine, reminding her of her aim, which is very true, indeed. “Luckily for us both!” And then she takes a deep breath and asks a question that warms his heart, “What are you working on today, Tarrant?”
I’m working on our future, he wants to say but doesn’t. He would rather she not realize the depths of his destitution. He needs no recognition for his efforts if, in fact, he is successful. Alice’s comfort and happiness will be reward of more than sufficient quantity.
“I’ve decided to apply my skills to other markets,” he replies.
“Hats for cats?” she guesses after a moment of contemplation.
He giggles. “A certain Cheshire Cat with whom I believe you’re acquainted has very generously agreed to be my first customer.”
“And what an unbearably smug grin he must be wearing these days!” Alice’s smile is luminous. Tarrant cannot find it in himself to regret the lost sleep or the sore, pin-pricked fingers that making hats for Underland’s fashion-conscious creatures has caused him. True, they cannot pay him in coin, but with enough favors and barters perhaps… well, one never knows what might prove useful.
He does not see Alice as often as he would like over the following weeks, but they manage to cross paths beneath the holly (although sometimes only briefly) at least twice a week. Tarrant fills his time with hatting cats and dormice, monkeys and hedgehogs.
“Yah really think this suits me?” Mally inquires, striking a pose.
Tarrant smiles with delight and furnishes a small looking glass for her. “A hat for a dormouse of distinction,” he lisps happily.
“Maybe it is, but yah shouldn’ be workin’ so hard, Hatter. Ain’t Alice lookin’ after yah? Don’ she ever tell yah tah get some rest?”
In fact, she does.
“You look tired, Tarrant,” Alice whispers, caressing the shadows beneath his green eyes with gentle fingertips. “You ought to rest…”
“I am,” he replies, giving in to a moment of weakness, tightening his arms around her and leaning his cheek against her crown. “Now I am.”
But he refuses to lighten his workload, not so long as Alice still wears his ring upon her finger.
“Alice!” he exclaims one evening when he ducks beneath the holly and discovers Alice holding out an assortment of fabrics. “We stopped in port and I saw these and I thought of you and…”
She hesitates with endearing shyness, her arms drooping slightly. “Well, I don’t suppose you’d find a use for them?”
Smiling, he gently frames her face in his hands and kisses her softly and thoroughly until her fingers clench in the delicate fabrics and her breaths become shallow pants. “Thank you, Alice,” he lisps. “I shall make you something very fine with these, if you’ll permit me.”
Glassy-eyed and dazed, she nods helplessly. Somehow, Tarrant finds the strength to resist taking her measurements with only his bare hands. Another day, he promises himself, thinking (helplessly) of a time when he will be awarded that liberty.
Many hats, exotic gifts from Alice, long nights at the worktable, missed tea times, visits from his irritated friends, and bruised shins and throbbing toes from hasty, stumbling races toward the threshold later, Tarrant hears delightful news.
“We’ll be arriving in China soon!”
He giggles at Alice’s whisper, hoarse with excitement.
“No more rushed visits, Tarrant! No more waiting until Mrs. Warren is out.” She bites her lip and embraces him so tightly he actually feels the wind being knocked from him.
“That is marvelous news,” he agrees, wondering if knowing that he and Alice’s future visits beneath the threshold will be uninterrupted, unintruded upon, and uninvaded by others is truly the best thing for his self-control. He still remembers when he’d lost himself with Alice on the evening of her family’s Christmas festivities. Alice had forgiven him for that once. He’d rather not become a repeat offender.
As expected, several days pass before the holly announces Alice’s presence again. This time, knowing that their meeting will not be rushed or furtive, Tarrant calmly stands, makes himself presentable, and strides sedately toward the threshold. It is with some surprise that, rather than finding Alice waiting to step into his arms, he discovers her seated upon a cushion with a small tea service spread out upon a small, woven rug.
“What a delightful surprise!” he enthuses.
Alice agrees and educates him, “They take tea on the floor here in China! Isn’t that marvelous?”
He concurs and then holds up a single finger, begging for a moment during which he fetches a cushion for himself and makes himself comfortable opposite Alice.
He watches her pour their cups, enraptured by the sight of her hands so smooth yet so capable. “Low-altitude tea, delightful!”
“I’m afraid I don’t have any sugar or cream…”
“I take it you have successfully relocated to your new residence,” he surmises as he accepts a cup of an oddly green beverage from Alice.
“Yes. I’m in the captain’s house and I have two lovely rooms all to myself.”
“Wonderful!” And potentially disastrous to his resolve not to get carried away with Alice-flavored kisses and Alice-scented perfume and-
Oh, dear.
He clears his throat and takes a sip of the strange, steaming tea.
Alice fiddles with her own cup in silence. Very awkward silence.
Tarrant ventures hesitantly, “Would you like to hear a riddle?”
Alice smiles. “Yes, if you would like to hear an answer.”
He grins. “Very much so.”
Although it becomes increasingly difficult for Tarrant to keep himself from holding Alice too long, from kissing her lips too much, from lingering too late on her threshold, he manages to restrict his visits to the custom they had enjoyed before her voyage. It nearly tears him in two when he bids her good night each time, but he manages, thanks to firm reminders to himself (by Himself) of the work awaiting him, work that will lead to him being able to offer her perhaps not as much as she deserves but something More than he currently possesses.
At times, he happily obliges her. For instance, it is a simple - and gladly undertaken - task to listen to Alice confess her frustrations with language difficulties and the strange habit of bullheaded stubbornness and selective deafness that most English men seem to have in common.
“You might occasionally pose a riddle,” he suggests at one point.
“I might, if I wished them to become chronically confused.” After a moment of contemplation, during which Tarrant wiggles his brows meaningfully, Alice admits, “Which might prove useful…”
At other times, the things Alice asks of him are not so easy to indulge. In fact, there are many Alice requests he finds himself desperately refusing: a three-times-fourth kiss, a time-defying embrace, a whisper beneath his hat and in his ear. He refuses as gallantly as his frantically beating heart allows until one evening nearly three months following her arrival in China, Alice dares a bit too Muchly.
“Can’t you stay a little longer?” Alice murmurs into his collar. She lifts her chin and brazenly touches her lips to his neck. He grits his teeth and fights back the full-body shiver so that only his toes tingle and his ears heat.
Oh, how he wants to stay! How desperately he wishes he could. How tempted he is use the pair of Alice strands he’d stolen months ago to anchor himself to her so that he might go wherever she goes! But no. No! He mustn’t.
He mustn’t, but his inner strength is buckling. He is too exhausted to continue resisting her. Too worn - like a pair of shoes that have trodden all of Underland, thrice counterclockwise - to hold himself together. He recalls the feel of Alice against him, giving herself to him as she had in that brief moment of madness he’d experienced nearly a dozen months ago.
Cornered like a dormouse by a Jubjub, Tarrant does what any self-respecting Hatter would do: he panics.
He twitches backward, knocking the brim of his hat against the doorjamb. “I-I-I’m afraid I can’t.” His throat locks down, shutting away all the other words that are clamoring to burst free: his shout of acceptance and his myriad of excuses and the platitudes that might win him further liberties - a caress against her neck, a hand on her hip, his lips pressed to the soft space behind her ear…
“I must go. Good night, Alice.”
As he more or less lurches for the safety of his workroom, he dimly hears a quiet “Good night…” behind him.
The next time he meets Alice on the threshold, he does so only after he is absolutely sure that he is in control of himself. It pains him to make Alice wait the extra few minutes that it requires for him to give himself a stern talking-to, but really what other options does he have?
“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, dear Alice,” he says as he steps beneath the holly.
Alice smiles. “That’s all right. I can’t expect you to be available every time I call.”
“Have I not been?” he wonders aloud, concerned that he might have missed the holly’s warning once - and if it had happened once, then it is possible it might have occurred more than once! - while he’d rested his eyes and weary head upon the cloth-strewn worktable.
“Oh, of course you have. You’ve always come. It’s just… you seem so tired and… maybe it would better if you would call upon me when you have time. I’ve been very demanding and-”
He quite appreciates that about her! In fact, those very words are on the tip of his tongue, but Alice barrels onward.
“Is there some way to know when you’re here? Waiting for me?”
It is only after Tarrant has lectured her on how to request such a service from the sprig of holly over her own doorway and bids her a good night that he realizes something very important.
He hadn’t kissed Alice today. In fact, she hadn’t reached out to him.
Not once.
This disturbs him even as he breathes a sigh of relief. Perhaps it might not be so bad to have a few visits such as that one? Just until he is strong enough to withstand her undeniably wonderful affections again? Just until he feels he can trust himself once more?
Days pass, each one an exquisite torture: Alice had given him leave to call upon her next and oh how he would like nothing more but, perhaps if he finishes just one more hat, perhaps after he’s closed his eyes for a bit, washed up, had tea... When he next steps beneath the holly, he finds a note propped up against the wooden molding, a letter from Alice.
She apologizes for her absence; she has left for the office already and will be returning at dinnertime. Tarrant crushes his disappointment ruthlessly as he returns to his workbench and props the note up against his most recently completed hat. Turning away, he collects yet another order request and sets to work. If Alice is busy, then so should he be. Certainly, her note will remind him when it is time to call again. Only, when he looks up suddenly, having dozed off (the fault of the soothing and mesmerizing glow of candlelight, he’s sure!), he realizes that it is well past dinnertime and there had been no reminder. He glances toward the hat upon whose brim he had set the note and is surprised by what he does not see.
There is no note waiting there at all.
Of course there isn’t! Tarrant swears as he lurches up, wondering if Alice might still be awake, if she might still be waiting for his call. He should have remembered that things given from one threshold are only real so long as the recipient holds onto them when he leaves the doorway.
Foolish, brainless, thoughtless, mindless! Where is your head, Hatter? Did the Red Queen take it after all?
He braces himself to enter the threshold, steps forward and smacks squarely into Alice.
“Oh!” she startles. Her eyes meet his momentarily and then her gaze shifts past him, through him. “Yes, I’m coming Mrs. Warren. I merely tripped.”
And then she is gone.
Tarrant stands on the threshold for a long time, waiting for her return. He dares not look at the clock when he returns to his worktable. His aching back and upset stomach are evidence enough of a Very Long Wait.
The next day, however, luck is with him. Alice joins him there only a few moments after he’d stepped beneath the holly.
Many tumble-jumbled apologies later - from both he and she - and they are smiling bashfully at one another from opposite sides of the doorway. Tarrant wrestles with his tired thoughts, wondering what he might say.
Alice doesn’t wait for him to speak. She leans toward him, expression as solemn as he’s ever seen it, and informs him, “You’re still very tired. You should rest. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Day after day is more of the same. More of the same Alice non-touches and non-kisses and non-smiles. Day after day, he bids her good day or good night only to be met with an increasingly knotted stomach once he leaves the doorway until one day, he notices that Alice is clasping her hands behind her back, not meeting his gaze, only nodding absently to his greeting.
In this moment, he is gripped utterly by heart-stopping terror; Tarrant realizes that the very young woman opposite him isn’t Alice at all or even Almost Alice. In fact, she seems to be Not Hardly Alice.
“Alice,” he lisps, an apology so large swelling within him that he’s sure he’ll burst. He has done this, he knows. He hadn’t called enough or held her enough - though for a very good reason! - and now…
“Yes?” she asks, glancing up. It is only a glance, but it speaks volumes. An anthology’s worth of them.
“You are not well,” he observes.
“It’s nothing,” she continues and smiles. Or rather, she tries.
“Alice,” he whispers tremulously, reaching for her hands. Her fingers rest placidly in his grasp, not clutching, not even curling around his bandages.
“Tarrant? Are you all right? You look pale.”
He supposes he is.
“What has happened?” she presses, searching his expression.
“I fear I’ve lost something terribly important. Something vital.”
Alice’s concern eases and her smile is more ready this time. He is almost reassured. “Well, then, where did you last see it? Let’s start there and work our way out.”
“In,” he gently corrects.
“In,” she echoes agreeably. “Come now. Where did you last have it?”
“Here,” he replies, his thumbs moving restlessly over the back of her hands. “Alice.”
Her frown returns as she tries to puzzle out his meaning. He wishes he could explain further, but he simply can’t. Won’t. He wants to show her but that is too dangerous, too tempting.
In his solemn silence, she seems to find her answers. “Tarrant,” she sighs, closing her eyes briefly. The retreat alarms him. Alice has never hidden from him before.
Daringly and without permission, he steps closer and wraps his arms around her. “My fault, all my fault, Alice.”
“No, no,” she argues back tiredly. “It’s everything: my work, this place, the wretched Christmas season. Strange how I used to adore it and even last year it wasn’t so bad even though I missed my father terribly, but now, so far from home and family…”
“Family?” he whispers, startled and unsettled.
“Yes, that’s what Christmas is meant to be, a day with one’s family.” She sighs against his jacket lapel. “Never mind. It’s nothing. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. Put it out of your mind.”
“I am afraid that is not possible,” he grits out, his fingers curling into the spare fabric of her blouse’s ruched shoulders.
“I know. Underland doesn’t have Christmas. You told me.”
“No!” he snarls, shoving her away from him and locking his elbows. He can feel the rage rising within him at the very thought that Alice doesn’t consider him to be-“Family.” He voice is grating and harsh. Alice reaches for his face and he knows the heat he feels burning his eyes is real. Her arms are too short to bridge the distance between them, however. She clutches his elbows instead.
“Tarrant!” she calls softly.
He doesn’t hear her, doesn’t wish to hear her.
“I am not your family, Alice?” he rumbles in a guttural growl. Why has he been working so hard? “Day and night!” he hisses. Why has he been trying to control himself so strictly? “For you!” And after all he has done and hoped and dreamed, she says this? “Not family?!”
“Tarrant… I didn’t mean…” Her hands flutter towards him, her fingers gripping his shirtsleeves tightly. A few moments ago, he would have basked in her need for him, but not now. Now it is too little, too late. He shoves her out of the threshold and pivots smartly away. As he takes a step into his workroom, he feels a gentle tug on his top hat’s sash, as if hesitant fingers had reached for it but closed around it just a little too slowly.
Tarrant keeps walking. His anger is too wild for him to remain still. He thinks of nothing but Alice’s heartbreaking and infuriating claim - “Not family!” - and determinedly ignores both the gentle shivering of the holly above the door and what it signifies.
(To be continued…)
Series: On the Threshold of Christmas
Author: Manniness
Rating: T for implied sexual themes
Summary: Tarrant accompanies Alice on her trip to China the only way he can.
Notes: Ever Evergreen was written for the disney_advent 2011
Tarrant Hightopp’s favorite time of day is never the same from day to day despite the fact that he never deviates from the same ritual of preparation. When the tiny clipping of holly residing above the doorway between his workshop and storeroom twitches with merry excitement, Tarrant immediately lays aside whatever hat-in-making happens to be in his hands, straightens his top hat, adjusts his vest, tugs down his cuffs, thanks the little sprig of holly for its silent announcement, and then places first one foot and then the other on the threshold beneath it.
And then - finally - Tarrant’s very favorite and most treasured thing in all the world appears.
“Alice!” he exclaims gently, feeling his lips stretch into a wide smile. And then he inhales deeply as Alice herself steps into his arms, no doubt mussing his vest and even knocking his hat crooked with the exuberance of her welcome.
Yes, this is his very favorite thing in all the world.
When she leans back, she obligingly tilts her chin up for a kiss, and who is he - just a mad hatter - to deny her? After a moment, he gathers her hands in his own and carefully removes them from around his shoulders. It’s not that he wouldn’t like to continue feeling her - warm and welcoming - pressed against him thus, but he has already lost control of himself once upon her threshold. He would rather not repeat the experience. No matter Alice’s insistence otherwise.
“How are you faring today, fair Alice?” he asks, holding her hands in his own stained, scraped and bandaged ones. The ring of braided ribbon he had made for her a few short weeks ago - a Christmas present she’d called it - still sits with colorful brazenness upon her finger. Each time he sees it, his heart breaks a little at the sight, and then heals once more, becoming twice as large.
“I went to see the ship today!” she exclaims as loudly as she dares within her family home.
“The one you will sail to that China place upon?” he confirms with a twitch of his brows, wondering if the seas Above are as obliging to transporting travelers as those in Underland.
“The very one!” she whispers loudly through a delighted grin. “I’ve seen my quarters which are very small and I’ll have to share the room with the captain’s wife and now I’ll have to pack my things.”
Tarrant smiles, brushing his thumbs back and forth across her knuckles, loving how her fingers cling to his so tightly. “I have no doubt you’ll subdue even the most unruly of items.”
“I can’t take much with me on the voyage - space is ever so limited, you see, so I must prioritize my essentials and thank goodness I won’t have to wear a corset because if that were the case, I think I’d mutiny - that’s what they call it, did you know, when the crew rises up against the ship’s captain, but I don’t think I’ll have to worry about that, either, because I’ve met the captain and he’s a lovely gentleman-”
“Alice,” he gently prompts.
“Oh, yes. So sorry! Where was I?”
“Space is limited.”
“Yes, space is very limited.”
“And you’ll have to prioritize.”
She nods, her eyes glittering at the mention of the challenge before her.
Tarrant tries to resist looking up, toward the holly over their heads.
Somehow, Alice seems to guess the inquiry weighing on his mind.
“Of course I’m bringing the holly - you - with me. If you’d still like to come, that is. I won’t have many opportunities to visit with you as I’ll be sharing a room with someone and I may have to leave suddenly if I’m interrupted.”
How silly she is! Doesn’t she know that each and every visit she gives him is an incomparable treasure?
“In fact,” she continues, a frown creasing her brow, “I’m not sure if you’ll actually be able to see my cabin or the house in China, so I can’t even promise you a view of new places, but-”
“Alice,” he murmurs, delighted by her concern and forethought. It is true: he cannot see anything beyond Alice. In fact, to him, it appears as if she is standing on his threshold rather than he is standing on hers. But no matter. “Of course I would like to accompany you. Nothing could make me happier. Not even all the treacle in all the wells of Underland.” And he is a great lover of sweets, as the unfortunate condition of several of his tea-stained teeth can verify.
Tarrant shares the threshold with Alice for several days thereafter until she explains apologetically as she leans her cheek against his shoulder, “I shall have to take the holly down after this. We depart in the morning.”
“Then the next time I see you, you will be aboard and abroad.”
“Did you make a rhyme?” she asks as he gently pets her hair. She doesn’t even gasp when two strands become caught in his bandages.
He kisses the top of her head in apology. She snuggles into is collar in acceptance.
“I do not believe I did, but perhaps I rhymed in Uplandish custom?” he ventures.
“That must be it.”
Tarrant spends the next few days virtually glaring at the holly over his threshold, waiting for it to shiver with happiness and signal Alice’s presence upon his threshold. When at last the little plant twitches, Tarrant leaps to his feet, catches the toe of his boot on the edge of the bench and windmills his arms wildly to keep from planting his face squarely on his sewing machine platform. Regaining his balance, he stumbles toward the threshold, hat crooked, vest skewed, and cuffs untidy.
“Alice!” he announces with delight. “How have you-oh.”
He is given a glimpse of a pale face and tired Alice eyes a moment before her forehead lands on his shoulder and her lank hair obscures her expression from his view.
She mumbles something into his waistcoat that sounds like “seasick.”
“A dreadful ailment,” he commiserates, patting her shoulder gently, wondering if he ought to call for Thackery and his hare-brained remedies.
Alice gasps each breath softly. “I swear-”
“You mustn’t swear, dear Alice. The sailors would be quite discombobulated.”
She snorts. “Ugh… I’ve never felt so ill. If this boat is hit by one more wave-”
“I shall hold you tightly until it passes. That way, if you lose your feet, perhaps mine will be able to guide yours back to where they ought to be.”
“Your assistance is greatly appreciated, sir,” she whispers and her trembling arms wrap tightly around his waist.
Tarrant doesn’t object this time as she leans on him for support. He wishes with all his heart that he could tuck her into bed and brush her hair back for her, perhaps fetch her a cool cloth for her brow and a cup of chamomile tea for her stomach.
“It will pass,” Alice confides, perhaps sensing his misery. “In week, perhaps two… It will pass.”
“In the meantime, you may call upon both me and my waistcoat, dear Alice,” he assures her, noting her fondness for it as she rubs her cheek against the weave.
“I’ll have to go soon. When dinner is over, Mrs. Warren will be back to check on me…”
“Will you eat?”
“A little,” she promises and he doesn’t press for more.
Indeed, she is much improved the next time the holly over his storeroom door twitches.
Once again, Tarrant discovers a warm (and much restored) Alice embracing him tightly. “We’ve had horrible weather and Mrs. Warren was impossible to get away from but she’s finally agreed to give me an evening to myself and I missed you.”
“Hardly!” he declares, pressing a single finger to her lips when she rears back, her eyes sparking with fire, ready to argue with passionate vehemence. He informs her, “You are very much on target, my Alice.”
She relaxes as his fingertips dance along her spine, reminding her of her aim, which is very true, indeed. “Luckily for us both!” And then she takes a deep breath and asks a question that warms his heart, “What are you working on today, Tarrant?”
I’m working on our future, he wants to say but doesn’t. He would rather she not realize the depths of his destitution. He needs no recognition for his efforts if, in fact, he is successful. Alice’s comfort and happiness will be reward of more than sufficient quantity.
“I’ve decided to apply my skills to other markets,” he replies.
“Hats for cats?” she guesses after a moment of contemplation.
He giggles. “A certain Cheshire Cat with whom I believe you’re acquainted has very generously agreed to be my first customer.”
“And what an unbearably smug grin he must be wearing these days!” Alice’s smile is luminous. Tarrant cannot find it in himself to regret the lost sleep or the sore, pin-pricked fingers that making hats for Underland’s fashion-conscious creatures has caused him. True, they cannot pay him in coin, but with enough favors and barters perhaps… well, one never knows what might prove useful.
He does not see Alice as often as he would like over the following weeks, but they manage to cross paths beneath the holly (although sometimes only briefly) at least twice a week. Tarrant fills his time with hatting cats and dormice, monkeys and hedgehogs.
“Yah really think this suits me?” Mally inquires, striking a pose.
Tarrant smiles with delight and furnishes a small looking glass for her. “A hat for a dormouse of distinction,” he lisps happily.
“Maybe it is, but yah shouldn’ be workin’ so hard, Hatter. Ain’t Alice lookin’ after yah? Don’ she ever tell yah tah get some rest?”
In fact, she does.
“You look tired, Tarrant,” Alice whispers, caressing the shadows beneath his green eyes with gentle fingertips. “You ought to rest…”
“I am,” he replies, giving in to a moment of weakness, tightening his arms around her and leaning his cheek against her crown. “Now I am.”
But he refuses to lighten his workload, not so long as Alice still wears his ring upon her finger.
“Alice!” he exclaims one evening when he ducks beneath the holly and discovers Alice holding out an assortment of fabrics. “We stopped in port and I saw these and I thought of you and…”
She hesitates with endearing shyness, her arms drooping slightly. “Well, I don’t suppose you’d find a use for them?”
Smiling, he gently frames her face in his hands and kisses her softly and thoroughly until her fingers clench in the delicate fabrics and her breaths become shallow pants. “Thank you, Alice,” he lisps. “I shall make you something very fine with these, if you’ll permit me.”
Glassy-eyed and dazed, she nods helplessly. Somehow, Tarrant finds the strength to resist taking her measurements with only his bare hands. Another day, he promises himself, thinking (helplessly) of a time when he will be awarded that liberty.
Many hats, exotic gifts from Alice, long nights at the worktable, missed tea times, visits from his irritated friends, and bruised shins and throbbing toes from hasty, stumbling races toward the threshold later, Tarrant hears delightful news.
“We’ll be arriving in China soon!”
He giggles at Alice’s whisper, hoarse with excitement.
“No more rushed visits, Tarrant! No more waiting until Mrs. Warren is out.” She bites her lip and embraces him so tightly he actually feels the wind being knocked from him.
“That is marvelous news,” he agrees, wondering if knowing that he and Alice’s future visits beneath the threshold will be uninterrupted, unintruded upon, and uninvaded by others is truly the best thing for his self-control. He still remembers when he’d lost himself with Alice on the evening of her family’s Christmas festivities. Alice had forgiven him for that once. He’d rather not become a repeat offender.
As expected, several days pass before the holly announces Alice’s presence again. This time, knowing that their meeting will not be rushed or furtive, Tarrant calmly stands, makes himself presentable, and strides sedately toward the threshold. It is with some surprise that, rather than finding Alice waiting to step into his arms, he discovers her seated upon a cushion with a small tea service spread out upon a small, woven rug.
“What a delightful surprise!” he enthuses.
Alice agrees and educates him, “They take tea on the floor here in China! Isn’t that marvelous?”
He concurs and then holds up a single finger, begging for a moment during which he fetches a cushion for himself and makes himself comfortable opposite Alice.
He watches her pour their cups, enraptured by the sight of her hands so smooth yet so capable. “Low-altitude tea, delightful!”
“I’m afraid I don’t have any sugar or cream…”
“I take it you have successfully relocated to your new residence,” he surmises as he accepts a cup of an oddly green beverage from Alice.
“Yes. I’m in the captain’s house and I have two lovely rooms all to myself.”
“Wonderful!” And potentially disastrous to his resolve not to get carried away with Alice-flavored kisses and Alice-scented perfume and-
Oh, dear.
He clears his throat and takes a sip of the strange, steaming tea.
Alice fiddles with her own cup in silence. Very awkward silence.
Tarrant ventures hesitantly, “Would you like to hear a riddle?”
Alice smiles. “Yes, if you would like to hear an answer.”
He grins. “Very much so.”
Although it becomes increasingly difficult for Tarrant to keep himself from holding Alice too long, from kissing her lips too much, from lingering too late on her threshold, he manages to restrict his visits to the custom they had enjoyed before her voyage. It nearly tears him in two when he bids her good night each time, but he manages, thanks to firm reminders to himself (by Himself) of the work awaiting him, work that will lead to him being able to offer her perhaps not as much as she deserves but something More than he currently possesses.
At times, he happily obliges her. For instance, it is a simple - and gladly undertaken - task to listen to Alice confess her frustrations with language difficulties and the strange habit of bullheaded stubbornness and selective deafness that most English men seem to have in common.
“You might occasionally pose a riddle,” he suggests at one point.
“I might, if I wished them to become chronically confused.” After a moment of contemplation, during which Tarrant wiggles his brows meaningfully, Alice admits, “Which might prove useful…”
At other times, the things Alice asks of him are not so easy to indulge. In fact, there are many Alice requests he finds himself desperately refusing: a three-times-fourth kiss, a time-defying embrace, a whisper beneath his hat and in his ear. He refuses as gallantly as his frantically beating heart allows until one evening nearly three months following her arrival in China, Alice dares a bit too Muchly.
“Can’t you stay a little longer?” Alice murmurs into his collar. She lifts her chin and brazenly touches her lips to his neck. He grits his teeth and fights back the full-body shiver so that only his toes tingle and his ears heat.
Oh, how he wants to stay! How desperately he wishes he could. How tempted he is use the pair of Alice strands he’d stolen months ago to anchor himself to her so that he might go wherever she goes! But no. No! He mustn’t.
He mustn’t, but his inner strength is buckling. He is too exhausted to continue resisting her. Too worn - like a pair of shoes that have trodden all of Underland, thrice counterclockwise - to hold himself together. He recalls the feel of Alice against him, giving herself to him as she had in that brief moment of madness he’d experienced nearly a dozen months ago.
Cornered like a dormouse by a Jubjub, Tarrant does what any self-respecting Hatter would do: he panics.
He twitches backward, knocking the brim of his hat against the doorjamb. “I-I-I’m afraid I can’t.” His throat locks down, shutting away all the other words that are clamoring to burst free: his shout of acceptance and his myriad of excuses and the platitudes that might win him further liberties - a caress against her neck, a hand on her hip, his lips pressed to the soft space behind her ear…
“I must go. Good night, Alice.”
As he more or less lurches for the safety of his workroom, he dimly hears a quiet “Good night…” behind him.
The next time he meets Alice on the threshold, he does so only after he is absolutely sure that he is in control of himself. It pains him to make Alice wait the extra few minutes that it requires for him to give himself a stern talking-to, but really what other options does he have?
“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, dear Alice,” he says as he steps beneath the holly.
Alice smiles. “That’s all right. I can’t expect you to be available every time I call.”
“Have I not been?” he wonders aloud, concerned that he might have missed the holly’s warning once - and if it had happened once, then it is possible it might have occurred more than once! - while he’d rested his eyes and weary head upon the cloth-strewn worktable.
“Oh, of course you have. You’ve always come. It’s just… you seem so tired and… maybe it would better if you would call upon me when you have time. I’ve been very demanding and-”
He quite appreciates that about her! In fact, those very words are on the tip of his tongue, but Alice barrels onward.
“Is there some way to know when you’re here? Waiting for me?”
It is only after Tarrant has lectured her on how to request such a service from the sprig of holly over her own doorway and bids her a good night that he realizes something very important.
He hadn’t kissed Alice today. In fact, she hadn’t reached out to him.
Not once.
This disturbs him even as he breathes a sigh of relief. Perhaps it might not be so bad to have a few visits such as that one? Just until he is strong enough to withstand her undeniably wonderful affections again? Just until he feels he can trust himself once more?
Days pass, each one an exquisite torture: Alice had given him leave to call upon her next and oh how he would like nothing more but, perhaps if he finishes just one more hat, perhaps after he’s closed his eyes for a bit, washed up, had tea... When he next steps beneath the holly, he finds a note propped up against the wooden molding, a letter from Alice.
She apologizes for her absence; she has left for the office already and will be returning at dinnertime. Tarrant crushes his disappointment ruthlessly as he returns to his workbench and props the note up against his most recently completed hat. Turning away, he collects yet another order request and sets to work. If Alice is busy, then so should he be. Certainly, her note will remind him when it is time to call again. Only, when he looks up suddenly, having dozed off (the fault of the soothing and mesmerizing glow of candlelight, he’s sure!), he realizes that it is well past dinnertime and there had been no reminder. He glances toward the hat upon whose brim he had set the note and is surprised by what he does not see.
There is no note waiting there at all.
Of course there isn’t! Tarrant swears as he lurches up, wondering if Alice might still be awake, if she might still be waiting for his call. He should have remembered that things given from one threshold are only real so long as the recipient holds onto them when he leaves the doorway.
Foolish, brainless, thoughtless, mindless! Where is your head, Hatter? Did the Red Queen take it after all?
He braces himself to enter the threshold, steps forward and smacks squarely into Alice.
“Oh!” she startles. Her eyes meet his momentarily and then her gaze shifts past him, through him. “Yes, I’m coming Mrs. Warren. I merely tripped.”
And then she is gone.
Tarrant stands on the threshold for a long time, waiting for her return. He dares not look at the clock when he returns to his worktable. His aching back and upset stomach are evidence enough of a Very Long Wait.
The next day, however, luck is with him. Alice joins him there only a few moments after he’d stepped beneath the holly.
Many tumble-jumbled apologies later - from both he and she - and they are smiling bashfully at one another from opposite sides of the doorway. Tarrant wrestles with his tired thoughts, wondering what he might say.
Alice doesn’t wait for him to speak. She leans toward him, expression as solemn as he’s ever seen it, and informs him, “You’re still very tired. You should rest. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Day after day is more of the same. More of the same Alice non-touches and non-kisses and non-smiles. Day after day, he bids her good day or good night only to be met with an increasingly knotted stomach once he leaves the doorway until one day, he notices that Alice is clasping her hands behind her back, not meeting his gaze, only nodding absently to his greeting.
In this moment, he is gripped utterly by heart-stopping terror; Tarrant realizes that the very young woman opposite him isn’t Alice at all or even Almost Alice. In fact, she seems to be Not Hardly Alice.
“Alice,” he lisps, an apology so large swelling within him that he’s sure he’ll burst. He has done this, he knows. He hadn’t called enough or held her enough - though for a very good reason! - and now…
“Yes?” she asks, glancing up. It is only a glance, but it speaks volumes. An anthology’s worth of them.
“You are not well,” he observes.
“It’s nothing,” she continues and smiles. Or rather, she tries.
“Alice,” he whispers tremulously, reaching for her hands. Her fingers rest placidly in his grasp, not clutching, not even curling around his bandages.
“Tarrant? Are you all right? You look pale.”
He supposes he is.
“What has happened?” she presses, searching his expression.
“I fear I’ve lost something terribly important. Something vital.”
Alice’s concern eases and her smile is more ready this time. He is almost reassured. “Well, then, where did you last see it? Let’s start there and work our way out.”
“In,” he gently corrects.
“In,” she echoes agreeably. “Come now. Where did you last have it?”
“Here,” he replies, his thumbs moving restlessly over the back of her hands. “Alice.”
Her frown returns as she tries to puzzle out his meaning. He wishes he could explain further, but he simply can’t. Won’t. He wants to show her but that is too dangerous, too tempting.
In his solemn silence, she seems to find her answers. “Tarrant,” she sighs, closing her eyes briefly. The retreat alarms him. Alice has never hidden from him before.
Daringly and without permission, he steps closer and wraps his arms around her. “My fault, all my fault, Alice.”
“No, no,” she argues back tiredly. “It’s everything: my work, this place, the wretched Christmas season. Strange how I used to adore it and even last year it wasn’t so bad even though I missed my father terribly, but now, so far from home and family…”
“Family?” he whispers, startled and unsettled.
“Yes, that’s what Christmas is meant to be, a day with one’s family.” She sighs against his jacket lapel. “Never mind. It’s nothing. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. Put it out of your mind.”
“I am afraid that is not possible,” he grits out, his fingers curling into the spare fabric of her blouse’s ruched shoulders.
“I know. Underland doesn’t have Christmas. You told me.”
“No!” he snarls, shoving her away from him and locking his elbows. He can feel the rage rising within him at the very thought that Alice doesn’t consider him to be-“Family.” He voice is grating and harsh. Alice reaches for his face and he knows the heat he feels burning his eyes is real. Her arms are too short to bridge the distance between them, however. She clutches his elbows instead.
“Tarrant!” she calls softly.
He doesn’t hear her, doesn’t wish to hear her.
“I am not your family, Alice?” he rumbles in a guttural growl. Why has he been working so hard? “Day and night!” he hisses. Why has he been trying to control himself so strictly? “For you!” And after all he has done and hoped and dreamed, she says this? “Not family?!”
“Tarrant… I didn’t mean…” Her hands flutter towards him, her fingers gripping his shirtsleeves tightly. A few moments ago, he would have basked in her need for him, but not now. Now it is too little, too late. He shoves her out of the threshold and pivots smartly away. As he takes a step into his workroom, he feels a gentle tug on his top hat’s sash, as if hesitant fingers had reached for it but closed around it just a little too slowly.
Tarrant keeps walking. His anger is too wild for him to remain still. He thinks of nothing but Alice’s heartbreaking and infuriating claim - “Not family!” - and determinedly ignores both the gentle shivering of the holly above the door and what it signifies.
(To be continued…)