Heart and Sole, Chapter 4
“Alice…”
Recognizing that lisp instinctively, Alice flinches away from Hamish’s shoulder and struggles to pull her handkerchief out of her back pocket, but she seems to be sitting on it. Sniffling and swearing under her breath, she wrestles with the length of Marmoreal White cloth, pausing only when a familiar swatch of bright pink flutters in front of her nose.
Slowly, as if expecting it to be whipped out of range at any moment, Alice reaches for the Hatter’s offered handkerchief.
“Thank you,” she mumbles, her dirty fingers closing around it.
With a sigh, the Hatter sits down beside her on the wide step. The move is so startling that the half-formed thought she experiences of Hamish - who ought to still be sitting on her other side - vanishes completely.
As she scrubs at her cheeks and nose, she watches the Hatter warily. His shoulders are rounded with contrition and his green gaze flickers in her direction from beneath his hat. “You should be very welcome, Alice,” he lisps.
“I should be?” she echoes, confused.
His hands, shroud-free, rest on his thighs, his thimbled and bandaged fingertips tip-tapping against the taut fabric of his trousers. “Yes, I would very much like for you to feel welcome here. You ought to feel welcome here, in Underland, Alice. But, coming here… seeing this…” Gazing at the still-empty graves, he shakes his head and concludes unhappily, “Well, it’s no wonder you’re so leaky.”
“I’m not crying because of… that,” she informs him, her heart warming at his obvious concern and apologetic manner.
The Hatter looks up and studies her face. Without a word, he gently retrieves his handkerchief from her grasp and begins dabbing at her forehead, where she’s sure she must be very filthy. “As I suspected,” he replies, his lips trembling with sadness. “I am sorry we differed, but we are different, you and I.”
Alice feels her lips curl into a weak smile. “Yes, I know. But we are also alike, are we not?”
“In some respects,” he allows, collecting her nearest hand and delicately working on clearing the soil from her knuckles and the underside of her fingernails. “It’s unavoidable. Differing as well. I’d forgotten. It’s been so long since I had someone to differ with… I’m afraid I’m quite out of practice.”
“Must we make a habit of it?” Alice asks, seeking out his gaze.
His eyes, a lovely green, focus madly on her. She can’t help but smile wider at his lazy eye which is just slightly off kilter.
“Habits are dreadfully stubborn things, Alice. Once made, it’s very difficult to break them.”
“Which is why we must only make good habits,” she lectures.
He makes a happy noise of agreement in the back of his throat and gestures for her other hand. As Alice complies with his mute request, she glances over her shoulder to where Hamish should be sitting.
But isn’t.
She blinks.
“It looks as if he caught the breeze after all,” the Hatter observes, tending to Alice’s other hand. Turning back around, Alice meets his brief glance. “Back to where he came from.”
“Can a person leave Underland in such a manner?”
“Of course! It’s quite easy to do. Unless you have an invitation.”
“An invitation?”
“Yes, yes!” he replies turning her hand this way and that as he buffs her nails in the sunshine. “And you needn’t worry that yours has been withdrawn, Alice. I said you could stay and you may; stay as long as you like.” Giving her thumb a final - but gentle -scrubbing, he tilts his head to the side and nods with a hum of satisfaction.
“Thank you,” she murmurs as he holds out her hand reverently to her, as if offering her a hat.
“You are welcome, Alice.”
She hates to ruin the moment by causing another row, but… Sighing, she glances toward the garden and the graves she’d promised to help McTwisp and Thackery dig.
“Go on, then,” the Hatter tells her quietly.
Startled, she turns toward him and studies his expression: his kind eyes and fluffy eyebrows and gently smiling lips.
“But,” he continues merrily, gesturing eloquently as he stands, “we shall have to have tea when this is all done and over with.” He holds out a hand for her to take, which she does, and assists her to her feet. “That’s the only way to put truly unpleasant things back in the past from whence they’d come.”
Alice would have leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek for that except, well, the last time she’d tried such a maneuver, things hadn’t ended very well. For a moment, they simply face each other in the archway, her hands held in the Hatter’s. And then he nods again and moves toward the hallway, no doubt intending to see to the shrouds.
Feeling his warm, rough hands slip out from under hers, Alice calls out softly, “Hatter!”
“Yes, Alice?”
She smiles at his courteous lisp and attentive expression, marveling at how easily he can make her feel special and, well, welcome. Seeking to return the favor, and assuage the urging of her heart to Tell-him-tell-him-tell-him! how she feels, Alice confides, “I’m glad to be here, with you.”
“As am I,” he replies. “As am I.”
It’s with a smile that Alice returns to the significantly more holey garden and picks up her shovel. She regards the handle of the implement for a moment, letting the happy feeling inside her swell. Anywhere else, she might have wrapped her arms around herself and twirled - perhaps a time and a half! - but here, now, she merely sighs out the emotion and returns to squaring up the holes her friends had dug.
She works as pawns and knights begin carrying the shroud wrapped bodies - now united with their once-lost heads - and lowing them with meticulous care into each grave. Alice tries not to look too hard at the wrappings, tries not to imagine the Hatter’s hands quickly but delicately tucking in the ends around each body. Her chest tightens at the thought of him conducting such a terrible symphony all alone, but she doesn’t dare leave her post to go and find him, help him. He’d led the Resistance, or so McTwisp and Uilleam the Dodo Bird had educated her at the ball. These are his dead as much as they are Alice’s. Perhaps more so.
“How ironic,” she muses to the earth clinging to the edge of her shovel. “I thought I was fleeing responsibility when I decided to stay…” And yet she continually discovers more and more of it. As she returns to the task of hollowing out the graves, making their roundness square, she wonders - for the first time - what will be expected of her next, although she can guess.
Her smile and the warmth within her chest melts away as, one by one, the shroud-swathed dead are brought into the garden for burial. She does her best to work mindlessly, to not let the guilt catch up to her. But she can hear McTwisp announcing one officious-sounding eulogy after another over the sound of her spade and Thackery’s continued digging. As the afternoon wanes it begins to occur to her that this is not the end of the recovery which Underland requires. There are other places - homes and villages - and people’s lives that had been damaged by the Red Queen’s reign. As a champion, is it not her responsibility to see those restored wherever possible?
Her fingers go numb at the thought of that awesomely - frightfully! - large task. Clutching the handle of the shovel in her aching, raw, blistering hands, she chokes out to her companion. “That’s deep enough, Thackery. Start a new one now.”
Muttering about deep thoughts and fresh starts, he scrambles out of the round-ishly shaped grave, measures off three hare paces and starts ripping up the sod for a new hole.
She gazes across the garden, watching as another body is laid to rest. She listens as another eulogy is pronounced. No, this is not the end of the recovery. This is only the beginning.
*~*~*~*
The proposal reads logically, with a stately and refined tone. Fully satisfied with it, Hamish straightens himself in his office chair and, with a self-important flick of his wrist, signs his name at the conclusion of the document. Yes, he’d been right to take his time in drafting this formal proposal. Over the last week, the inquiries he’d made into China and its customs had helped him refine Alice’s mad idea into a concept that might truly be more profitable than bewildering.
“That’s fine work,” he assesses, regarding the lines of delicate calligraphy that he’d penned. Hamish relishes the accomplishment. This may not have been his original idea, but he has made it better, something Alice - wherever she is now - would not have been capable of. Perhaps it’s a bit petty to take so much pride in improving an idea not his own.
“This is progress,” he declares to himself firmly. Yes, progress, not pettiness.
At the thought of progress made and yet to be pursued, he recalls the garden of graves in that Underplace - or whatever it’s called! - and the purely nonsensical assumption he’d made that he’d actually seen Alice and spoken to her, that he’d actually met a mad hatter or been introduced to a talking rabbit or watched great, automated chess pieces at work.
“Impossible,” he insists, but he doesn’t glance at his now-clean shirt sleeve in memory. Nor does he dare a glance at the looking glass in the corner of his office. Impossible things ought to remain impossible, Hamish has decided. He’ll not go out of his way to indulge in such ludicrous fantasies. Why, if this sort of oddly vivid daydream happens again, he’ll make an appointment with a physician forthwith! It’s one thing for Alice to be capable of some sort of magic or other; it’s quite another for it to foist itself upon him!
Standing, Hamish shrugs into his jacket and then collects his folio case. According to his stomach, which is woefully empty, it’s the end of the workday. He strides from his small office and down the hall to the cavernous room which accommodates the apprentices’ workstations.
“Mr. Bailey,” he announces, startling a very droopy-eyed clerk.
“Yes, sir?” the young man squeaks, sitting upright so abruptly his plain, wooden chair squeaks.
Consulting the clock, Hamish says, “I’ve left a proposal on my desk concerning this new venture to China. I require that three copies be made.”
“Of course, sir.”
“And take special care with your penmanship, Mr. Bailey. These copies are meant for the investors.”
“I understand, sir.”
Satisfied with both the response and the attentiveness with which it had been delivered, Hamish collects his summer coat, hat, and walking stick from the employee coatrack. The sense of relief he feels upon having them once again in his possession is significant. Were his office but a little larger, he would have been able to keep them there. Well, perhaps this proposal and its successful implementation will lead him to being offered a larger office, one with a window, a coatrack, and a small stove for warmth. At the moment, only the latter luxury has been installed in his cramped work quarters.
As he departs the trade company offices, Hamish lectures himself not to build up his expectations. The venture to China may not be as lucrative as he hopes it will. Any number of disasters - natural or political - could interfere.
“Or the entire enterprise could be smooth sailing,” he acknowledges in silence. The anticipation and uncertainty is not beneficial for his aching stomach, however.
Resolutely turning his mind to other topics, Hamish strides past darkened shop windows. He listens to the sound of taxi cabs clattering past, drivers shouting to their horses. It’s a typical London evening, right down to the gas lanterns spitting and sputtering along the street. He allows himself to anticipate this evening’s dinner. Today is Friday, which means he can expect a very nice roast with a predictable assortment of boiled vegetables. His stomach gurgles in anticipation.
Indeed, he very nearly runs up the steps of his house-in-town, tosses his things at the butler, and splashes through his regular toilet routine. In fact, he’s still retying his cravat as he approaches the dining room door. Setting his elbow (rather than his hand) against the door - very improper but there’s no one looking on! - he pushes it open and-
Hamish stumbles to a halt on the threshold, wide-eyed and pulse racing.
Not this again!
His soft groan of dismay and the impatient growl of his stomach seem to echo in the dining room, but neither of its current occupants looks up.
Alice once again stands before him, only now she looks very tired and worn in a tunic that has, very clearly, been hastily washed and hard-worn too many times. She is not looking in his direction, however, but toward the head of the table. Helplessly, Hamish shifts his gaze in that direction and feels his lips compress as he confirms the identity of the figure he’d glimpsed out of the corner of his eye: the Hatter, who is very madly banging things about upon the white linen covered table.
Alice reaches out to him, her expression beseeching.
The Hatter dodges her grasp with a grand sweep of his arm and shakes his head so vigorously that his orange hair whips this way and that.
Alice straightens, fisting her hands, and Hamish suddenly wishes - very fervently - to hear her give that mad rotter a sound talking to!
“-well I can’t refuse!” Hamish suddenly hears Alice reply curtly.
“Why-ever not?” the Hatter counters. “Not even the White Queen gets everything she wants.”
“This isn’t about her wanting me to accompany her around Underland! This is my duty!”
“Duty!” he scoffs. “Ye’re a guest ‘ere in this land. Ye’ve nae duties a’tall!”
“Maybe I don’t want to be a guest! Maybe I want to belong here! Maybe I want to do something good that doesn’t involve fighting a monster and killing it!”
The Hatter slams his fist upon the table and a silver fork glints in the lamplight as it flips over the man’s arm and clatters to the floor. The Hatter growls, “This is not your responsibility.”
“It’s the responsibility of the queen’s champion.”
“You ought to disregard her royal ramblings! Meddling, manipulative monarch!”
“Why are you so angry?”
Hamish holds his breath as the Hatter stands stock-still, glaring at Alice. And then he storms toward the door at the other end of the room brushing past Alice in furious silence.
“Hatter…” she calls softly, but he doesn’t pause.
And then-!
The door separating the dining room and the kitchen, the very one that the Hatter is still a half dozen paces away from, swings open. Hamish blinks at the dour face of Mrs. Martin, his long-time cook of comfortingly predictable and mildly spiced recipes.
“Sir, dinner is served at your convenience.”
Hamish gapes at the woman for a moment and then glances around the room. Alice and the Hatter are gone. Struggling to calm his racing pulse and swallowing down his dismay - that inexplicable madness had invaded his life yet again! - Hamish clears his throat before replying in the blandest tone he can manage, “Now is convenient.”
Mrs. Martin disappears with a nod and Hamish warily moves toward the place setting at the head of the table, right where the Hatter had fumed and blustered at Alice who had rather spectacularly fumed and blustered back. He places his hand on the back of the chair, intending to seat himself, when something catches his eye.
There, in the corner of the room, lies a silver fork. Hamish tells himself there is another reason for why it is resting there. And surely there must be a different - sane! - reason for why its tines appear to be bent.
Recognizing that lisp instinctively, Alice flinches away from Hamish’s shoulder and struggles to pull her handkerchief out of her back pocket, but she seems to be sitting on it. Sniffling and swearing under her breath, she wrestles with the length of Marmoreal White cloth, pausing only when a familiar swatch of bright pink flutters in front of her nose.
Slowly, as if expecting it to be whipped out of range at any moment, Alice reaches for the Hatter’s offered handkerchief.
“Thank you,” she mumbles, her dirty fingers closing around it.
With a sigh, the Hatter sits down beside her on the wide step. The move is so startling that the half-formed thought she experiences of Hamish - who ought to still be sitting on her other side - vanishes completely.
As she scrubs at her cheeks and nose, she watches the Hatter warily. His shoulders are rounded with contrition and his green gaze flickers in her direction from beneath his hat. “You should be very welcome, Alice,” he lisps.
“I should be?” she echoes, confused.
His hands, shroud-free, rest on his thighs, his thimbled and bandaged fingertips tip-tapping against the taut fabric of his trousers. “Yes, I would very much like for you to feel welcome here. You ought to feel welcome here, in Underland, Alice. But, coming here… seeing this…” Gazing at the still-empty graves, he shakes his head and concludes unhappily, “Well, it’s no wonder you’re so leaky.”
“I’m not crying because of… that,” she informs him, her heart warming at his obvious concern and apologetic manner.
The Hatter looks up and studies her face. Without a word, he gently retrieves his handkerchief from her grasp and begins dabbing at her forehead, where she’s sure she must be very filthy. “As I suspected,” he replies, his lips trembling with sadness. “I am sorry we differed, but we are different, you and I.”
Alice feels her lips curl into a weak smile. “Yes, I know. But we are also alike, are we not?”
“In some respects,” he allows, collecting her nearest hand and delicately working on clearing the soil from her knuckles and the underside of her fingernails. “It’s unavoidable. Differing as well. I’d forgotten. It’s been so long since I had someone to differ with… I’m afraid I’m quite out of practice.”
“Must we make a habit of it?” Alice asks, seeking out his gaze.
His eyes, a lovely green, focus madly on her. She can’t help but smile wider at his lazy eye which is just slightly off kilter.
“Habits are dreadfully stubborn things, Alice. Once made, it’s very difficult to break them.”
“Which is why we must only make good habits,” she lectures.
He makes a happy noise of agreement in the back of his throat and gestures for her other hand. As Alice complies with his mute request, she glances over her shoulder to where Hamish should be sitting.
But isn’t.
She blinks.
“It looks as if he caught the breeze after all,” the Hatter observes, tending to Alice’s other hand. Turning back around, Alice meets his brief glance. “Back to where he came from.”
“Can a person leave Underland in such a manner?”
“Of course! It’s quite easy to do. Unless you have an invitation.”
“An invitation?”
“Yes, yes!” he replies turning her hand this way and that as he buffs her nails in the sunshine. “And you needn’t worry that yours has been withdrawn, Alice. I said you could stay and you may; stay as long as you like.” Giving her thumb a final - but gentle -scrubbing, he tilts his head to the side and nods with a hum of satisfaction.
“Thank you,” she murmurs as he holds out her hand reverently to her, as if offering her a hat.
“You are welcome, Alice.”
She hates to ruin the moment by causing another row, but… Sighing, she glances toward the garden and the graves she’d promised to help McTwisp and Thackery dig.
“Go on, then,” the Hatter tells her quietly.
Startled, she turns toward him and studies his expression: his kind eyes and fluffy eyebrows and gently smiling lips.
“But,” he continues merrily, gesturing eloquently as he stands, “we shall have to have tea when this is all done and over with.” He holds out a hand for her to take, which she does, and assists her to her feet. “That’s the only way to put truly unpleasant things back in the past from whence they’d come.”
Alice would have leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek for that except, well, the last time she’d tried such a maneuver, things hadn’t ended very well. For a moment, they simply face each other in the archway, her hands held in the Hatter’s. And then he nods again and moves toward the hallway, no doubt intending to see to the shrouds.
Feeling his warm, rough hands slip out from under hers, Alice calls out softly, “Hatter!”
“Yes, Alice?”
She smiles at his courteous lisp and attentive expression, marveling at how easily he can make her feel special and, well, welcome. Seeking to return the favor, and assuage the urging of her heart to Tell-him-tell-him-tell-him! how she feels, Alice confides, “I’m glad to be here, with you.”
“As am I,” he replies. “As am I.”
It’s with a smile that Alice returns to the significantly more holey garden and picks up her shovel. She regards the handle of the implement for a moment, letting the happy feeling inside her swell. Anywhere else, she might have wrapped her arms around herself and twirled - perhaps a time and a half! - but here, now, she merely sighs out the emotion and returns to squaring up the holes her friends had dug.
She works as pawns and knights begin carrying the shroud wrapped bodies - now united with their once-lost heads - and lowing them with meticulous care into each grave. Alice tries not to look too hard at the wrappings, tries not to imagine the Hatter’s hands quickly but delicately tucking in the ends around each body. Her chest tightens at the thought of him conducting such a terrible symphony all alone, but she doesn’t dare leave her post to go and find him, help him. He’d led the Resistance, or so McTwisp and Uilleam the Dodo Bird had educated her at the ball. These are his dead as much as they are Alice’s. Perhaps more so.
“How ironic,” she muses to the earth clinging to the edge of her shovel. “I thought I was fleeing responsibility when I decided to stay…” And yet she continually discovers more and more of it. As she returns to the task of hollowing out the graves, making their roundness square, she wonders - for the first time - what will be expected of her next, although she can guess.
Her smile and the warmth within her chest melts away as, one by one, the shroud-swathed dead are brought into the garden for burial. She does her best to work mindlessly, to not let the guilt catch up to her. But she can hear McTwisp announcing one officious-sounding eulogy after another over the sound of her spade and Thackery’s continued digging. As the afternoon wanes it begins to occur to her that this is not the end of the recovery which Underland requires. There are other places - homes and villages - and people’s lives that had been damaged by the Red Queen’s reign. As a champion, is it not her responsibility to see those restored wherever possible?
Her fingers go numb at the thought of that awesomely - frightfully! - large task. Clutching the handle of the shovel in her aching, raw, blistering hands, she chokes out to her companion. “That’s deep enough, Thackery. Start a new one now.”
Muttering about deep thoughts and fresh starts, he scrambles out of the round-ishly shaped grave, measures off three hare paces and starts ripping up the sod for a new hole.
She gazes across the garden, watching as another body is laid to rest. She listens as another eulogy is pronounced. No, this is not the end of the recovery. This is only the beginning.
*~*~*~*
The proposal reads logically, with a stately and refined tone. Fully satisfied with it, Hamish straightens himself in his office chair and, with a self-important flick of his wrist, signs his name at the conclusion of the document. Yes, he’d been right to take his time in drafting this formal proposal. Over the last week, the inquiries he’d made into China and its customs had helped him refine Alice’s mad idea into a concept that might truly be more profitable than bewildering.
“That’s fine work,” he assesses, regarding the lines of delicate calligraphy that he’d penned. Hamish relishes the accomplishment. This may not have been his original idea, but he has made it better, something Alice - wherever she is now - would not have been capable of. Perhaps it’s a bit petty to take so much pride in improving an idea not his own.
“This is progress,” he declares to himself firmly. Yes, progress, not pettiness.
At the thought of progress made and yet to be pursued, he recalls the garden of graves in that Underplace - or whatever it’s called! - and the purely nonsensical assumption he’d made that he’d actually seen Alice and spoken to her, that he’d actually met a mad hatter or been introduced to a talking rabbit or watched great, automated chess pieces at work.
“Impossible,” he insists, but he doesn’t glance at his now-clean shirt sleeve in memory. Nor does he dare a glance at the looking glass in the corner of his office. Impossible things ought to remain impossible, Hamish has decided. He’ll not go out of his way to indulge in such ludicrous fantasies. Why, if this sort of oddly vivid daydream happens again, he’ll make an appointment with a physician forthwith! It’s one thing for Alice to be capable of some sort of magic or other; it’s quite another for it to foist itself upon him!
Standing, Hamish shrugs into his jacket and then collects his folio case. According to his stomach, which is woefully empty, it’s the end of the workday. He strides from his small office and down the hall to the cavernous room which accommodates the apprentices’ workstations.
“Mr. Bailey,” he announces, startling a very droopy-eyed clerk.
“Yes, sir?” the young man squeaks, sitting upright so abruptly his plain, wooden chair squeaks.
Consulting the clock, Hamish says, “I’ve left a proposal on my desk concerning this new venture to China. I require that three copies be made.”
“Of course, sir.”
“And take special care with your penmanship, Mr. Bailey. These copies are meant for the investors.”
“I understand, sir.”
Satisfied with both the response and the attentiveness with which it had been delivered, Hamish collects his summer coat, hat, and walking stick from the employee coatrack. The sense of relief he feels upon having them once again in his possession is significant. Were his office but a little larger, he would have been able to keep them there. Well, perhaps this proposal and its successful implementation will lead him to being offered a larger office, one with a window, a coatrack, and a small stove for warmth. At the moment, only the latter luxury has been installed in his cramped work quarters.
As he departs the trade company offices, Hamish lectures himself not to build up his expectations. The venture to China may not be as lucrative as he hopes it will. Any number of disasters - natural or political - could interfere.
“Or the entire enterprise could be smooth sailing,” he acknowledges in silence. The anticipation and uncertainty is not beneficial for his aching stomach, however.
Resolutely turning his mind to other topics, Hamish strides past darkened shop windows. He listens to the sound of taxi cabs clattering past, drivers shouting to their horses. It’s a typical London evening, right down to the gas lanterns spitting and sputtering along the street. He allows himself to anticipate this evening’s dinner. Today is Friday, which means he can expect a very nice roast with a predictable assortment of boiled vegetables. His stomach gurgles in anticipation.
Indeed, he very nearly runs up the steps of his house-in-town, tosses his things at the butler, and splashes through his regular toilet routine. In fact, he’s still retying his cravat as he approaches the dining room door. Setting his elbow (rather than his hand) against the door - very improper but there’s no one looking on! - he pushes it open and-
Hamish stumbles to a halt on the threshold, wide-eyed and pulse racing.
Not this again!
His soft groan of dismay and the impatient growl of his stomach seem to echo in the dining room, but neither of its current occupants looks up.
Alice once again stands before him, only now she looks very tired and worn in a tunic that has, very clearly, been hastily washed and hard-worn too many times. She is not looking in his direction, however, but toward the head of the table. Helplessly, Hamish shifts his gaze in that direction and feels his lips compress as he confirms the identity of the figure he’d glimpsed out of the corner of his eye: the Hatter, who is very madly banging things about upon the white linen covered table.
Alice reaches out to him, her expression beseeching.
The Hatter dodges her grasp with a grand sweep of his arm and shakes his head so vigorously that his orange hair whips this way and that.
Alice straightens, fisting her hands, and Hamish suddenly wishes - very fervently - to hear her give that mad rotter a sound talking to!
“-well I can’t refuse!” Hamish suddenly hears Alice reply curtly.
“Why-ever not?” the Hatter counters. “Not even the White Queen gets everything she wants.”
“This isn’t about her wanting me to accompany her around Underland! This is my duty!”
“Duty!” he scoffs. “Ye’re a guest ‘ere in this land. Ye’ve nae duties a’tall!”
“Maybe I don’t want to be a guest! Maybe I want to belong here! Maybe I want to do something good that doesn’t involve fighting a monster and killing it!”
The Hatter slams his fist upon the table and a silver fork glints in the lamplight as it flips over the man’s arm and clatters to the floor. The Hatter growls, “This is not your responsibility.”
“It’s the responsibility of the queen’s champion.”
“You ought to disregard her royal ramblings! Meddling, manipulative monarch!”
“Why are you so angry?”
Hamish holds his breath as the Hatter stands stock-still, glaring at Alice. And then he storms toward the door at the other end of the room brushing past Alice in furious silence.
“Hatter…” she calls softly, but he doesn’t pause.
And then-!
The door separating the dining room and the kitchen, the very one that the Hatter is still a half dozen paces away from, swings open. Hamish blinks at the dour face of Mrs. Martin, his long-time cook of comfortingly predictable and mildly spiced recipes.
“Sir, dinner is served at your convenience.”
Hamish gapes at the woman for a moment and then glances around the room. Alice and the Hatter are gone. Struggling to calm his racing pulse and swallowing down his dismay - that inexplicable madness had invaded his life yet again! - Hamish clears his throat before replying in the blandest tone he can manage, “Now is convenient.”
Mrs. Martin disappears with a nod and Hamish warily moves toward the place setting at the head of the table, right where the Hatter had fumed and blustered at Alice who had rather spectacularly fumed and blustered back. He places his hand on the back of the chair, intending to seat himself, when something catches his eye.
There, in the corner of the room, lies a silver fork. Hamish tells himself there is another reason for why it is resting there. And surely there must be a different - sane! - reason for why its tines appear to be bent.