Heart and Sole, Chapter 18
It’s brillig when Alice and Tarrant galumph back into Iplam, which is rather more developed than it had been a half dozen hours earlier.
“This is too much,” Alice breathes, gazing from the new barn to the bathing house, then from the outhouse to the aviary.
“Don’ fret,” Mally replies. “We left yahs lots o’ paint-work t’ do.”
“Still…” she begins to protest, but seeing the proud, accomplished grins on her friends’ faces, she cannot bring herself to be ungracious about their help. “Thank you.”
Thackery then lurches forward and, grabbing her hand, insists on giving her a tour of the new cellar. A fully stocked cellar, as it turns out. There are shelves of cheese, sacks of potatoes and turnips, a salted ham, a pound of butter, a pot of cooking lard, and even a barrel of wine.
“F’r special occasions!” the March hare shouts urgently.
Nivens then takes over, directing Alice and Tarrant to their furnished home. There are candles and candle-making supplies in the kitchen beside a butter churn. A dining table and four chairs sit opposite a long counter-topped line of cupboards. There’s a butcher’s block with knives, a pot rack with copper-bottomed pans, and even curtains on the windows. Blue ones, with yellow and orange polka-dots.
The pantry has been filled with spices, sugar, flour, oats, a tiny jar of olive oil, and a bag of salt. The cupboard under their staircase now holds linens, soap, a mop and bucket, a broom, and a peppermill of all things.
“For intruders,” the white rabbit explains briefly before continuing the tour.
By the time she and Tarrant are introduced to their new aviary (in which a pair of pigeons are already nesting happily), barn, bath house and outhouse, the queen’s army has been assembled, the Bandersnatch hitched to the empty wagon, and everyone is simply waiting for one last thing.
“Thank ye,” Tarrant says, grasping Alice’s hand very tightly. “We thank ye from th’ bottom o’ auwr hearts.”
“You are very welcome, my champions,” the queen replies and then, with an aimless wave of her hand, signals their departure.
“You’ll come visit us for tea, won’t you?” Alice asks the dormouse, hare, and rabbit.
“No’ wi’out an invitation!” Thackery replies rudely and then marches off.
Mally gives Alice a sly wink. “I’ll second tha’. An invitation, if yah don’ mind.”
Nivens concurs. “Yes, given what the Tweedles said about, well…” he hesitates awkwardly, his pink eyes moving expressively from Alice to Tarrant and then back again. Alice blushes as she remembers the wrestling match that the boys had discovered upon their arrival. Although, to be fair, Tarrant had warned her that they were no longer alone and she can imagine what it must have looked like to the boys…
“Right,” she replies. “Invitations it is, then.”
“I believe you’ll find all the necessary implements in your new writing desk,” Nivens further volunteers. “A fine evening to you both.”
“And to you,” Alice says with a smile.
“Fairfarren,” Tarrant adds.
And then they’re alone again. Alice takes a deep breath, wondering what she’s supposed to do now. She knows very little about handfasting customs in general and almost nothing about Underland’s version of it. Will Tarrant carry her across the threshold now as she’d heard once in a tale Above? And once inside their home, would he… or, rather, would they…?
Alice swallows, noticing that her throat is suddenly very dry. “Would you…?” she begins but makes the mistake of glancing at Tarrant who is watching her with those dark, evergreen eyes of his.
“Would I…?”
She clears her throat and tries again. “Would you like to wash up first? Then we’ll have the soup Thackery left for us on the stove?”
Slowly, he shakes his head. Alice watches as he reaches up to her windblown hair and gently wraps a messy lock around his bandaged forefinger. “Ye’ll need launger f’r yer tresses teh dry,” he replies softly and logically. “Ye go first, Alice.”
With a nod and a fortifying breath, she does. Alice takes her time bathing and washing her clothes. She hangs her laundered tunic and breeches up in the breezeway and dresses in a simple, Marmoreal-style gown which she’d located in the new armoire in her bedroom.
But no, it’s not her bedroom, is it? It’s their bedroom.
Alice gives Tarrant a slightly stiff smile when she enters the kitchen. She fidgets with the bath linen draped over her shoulders instead of attempting to further dry her still-damp hair. He says nothing and the silence yawns between them.
“Your turn,” she rasps, accepting her hairbrush from his hand and seating herself on the kitchen’s brick hearth to brush out her hair beside the glowing embers.
He hesitates to stand up from his seat at their new kitchen table, his gaze moving over her. She tries not to feel self-conscious. Perhaps it’s merely the dress which makes him study her so intently, as if seeing her for the first time.
Eventually, however, he does stand. He collects his own bundle of clean clothes from the seat of the neighboring chair and strides toward the door. But, before reaching it, he pauses and, this time, their gazes meet and lock. His pale, stained, battered fingers clutch the garments rolled up beneath his arm tightly.
For a long moment, he merely looks at her, and she at him. Perhaps he is also marveling at the sudden awkwardness which has sprung up between them now that they have no construction projects of significant importance to focus their energies upon. No, now they are in a house which has too many bedrooms for just the two of them. Will they now see about filling those rooms?
Her heart pounds and her hands tremble. Although she wants that - she wants him - she is still so unsure of the future. He hasn’t yet healed; she hasn’t yet figured out how to heal him. Yesterday, when there’d still been so much to do, she’d had time to discover the cure to his broken heart. Now, it feels as if Underland itself is holding its breath, staring at her in blatant expectation for her to get on with her task. But she still doesn’t know what to do!
“Here,” Alice says, as the moment stretches so taut she fears she might explode. “Take the candle.” She offers it to him with a hand that’s nearly steady. “It may be dark when you come back.”
Taking it from her grasp, Tarrant lets out a long breath that is almost a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Alice,” he lisps quietly. He gazes into her eyes for a moment more before he clears his throat and heads out the kitchen doorway and crosses the short distance to the bath house.
Alice retakes her seat, still feeling shaky and uncertain. For a long time, she brushes her hair in silence and in thought, in speculation and in anticipation of whatever may happen next. Perhaps they will simply paint the house tomorrow. Perhaps nothing has changed.
But it has. She doesn’t even try to deny it. Setting the brush aside, Alice wanders the house. First, she ascends the stairs - still uncarpeted - and surveys the new second floor. There are rooms here now - four of them! - and each contains a trundle bed, wash stand, chest of drawers, and an armoire, all delightfully unmatched. The rooms are bare and the beds unmade, but that is not the case downstairs. She pads back down the steps, passes through the entryway, and pauses in the parlor. She tries to admire the rug, the armchairs, the bookcases and writing desk, but her attention is irrevocably snagged by and fixed upon the master bedroom beyond.
She stands on the threshold for a long time, studying the eclectic assortment of furniture, none of which are exactly the same variety of wood nor constructed and carved in the same style. Ignoring her own reflection in the free-standing looking glass (for she doubts her own dazed expression will be a comfort to her), she steps forward and runs a hand over the pink-and-orange striped curtains on the window. Only then does she turn and regard the large bed with its goose down mattress, crisp linens, and cheerful quilt sitting commandingly and with flagrant pride at the center of the room.
Alice leans back against the wall, bracing one hand on the nearby window sill as she acknowledges that she will be sharing this bed with Tarrant tonight. Yes, they’ve slept side by side for nearly two weeks now, but that arrangement had been more like two kittens huddling together in a ramshackle crate for warmth. It had, in fact, reminded her of the night she’d spent taking shelter beneath Tarrant’s abandoned top hat. She can still remember how his scent had comforted her despite the hard ground and oversized blades of grass beneath her twice-Pishalvered body. Now that comfort is gone, changed.
Until this evening, she and he had been bound together by their shared poverty and the work ahead of them. Now that the work is mostly done, however…
Again, Alice thinks of his still-unbeating heart. Again, she despairs of how to repair it. The bed seems to call out to her, making Alice’s heart pound and her breath quicken…!
A sound outside alerts her to Tarrant’s imminent return. She quickly dashes from the bedroom and out onto the front porch. Clutching the railing - just hours ago carved, assembled, and sanded with precision by dozens of soldiers’ hands - she listens to him moving about inside the house. The sun has long since set and Alice finds herself staring up at the full moon, wondering if she’s ready to go in there, to face him and the newness of their life together…
And then footsteps whisper toward her, over the threshold of the open front door and onto the planks of the porch. She turns slightly as Tarrant, clad in a clean shirt, trousers, waistcoat, and the boots she’d made for him with love, draws nearer and comes to a stop beside her.
“Alice,” he murmurs, “do you know why a raven is like a writing desk?”
She blinks at him for a moment before his words register properly, tugging at her memory. Recalling the last time they’d stood thus and pondered this riddle, a bubble of laughter erupts from her throat, carrying much of her tension with it. “Here we are again,” she acknowledges, still smiling. “On the eve of some great unknown.”
“In the light of the moon,” he contributes, answering her smile with one of his own.
She allows herself a moment to forget her tension and simply study him. His hair is still a little dark with dampness. She also notes the absence of his hat, which somehow seems significant. His expression shifts and his brows lift and fall.
Alice searches for something to say, but words cannot contain all that is swirling and churning within her. She wonders about his heart, wonders if he truly feels happy when he laughs and smiles. Surely his heart is in it, despite it being broken still. Perhaps they will not start their life together with mutual love, but joy…? Is that possible? And what if it isn’t? Does she even want to know if that is the case? Is it merely his faith in her as the one to whom he is perfectly matched which gives him the reason to continue with their handfasting?
All of these questions and more strain upon her tongue, do battle against her lips, but she cannot speak them. She says instead, “We have a writing desk… and perhaps one day we’ll have ravens, too. Would they nest beside the chimney, do you think?”
She glances at Tarrant when he inhales sharply. His expression is not one of pain, although she senses that her words have affected him strongly. “Alice,” he whispers, his fingers curling and uncurling again and again over the porch railing.
“What is it?” she asks as he restlessly sculpts the night air. “Are you all right?”
He doesn’t answer. Many moments pass before Tarrant takes a very deep breath and then turns to face her. She lets him gather her hands in his bandaged fingers and shifts to stand opposite him. For the first time, she is unsure of what to make of his expression.
His thumbs caress the backs of her hands and then, suddenly, he sinks down before her and kneels on bended knee.
Her heart leaps into her throat.
Tarrant looks up at her. Without his top hat, she can clearly see his eyes, which are quite wide, and feel the power of his gaze, which seeks and searches relentlessly.
“Alice,” he lisps, “I know naught of your world or its ways, but if you will… if you will stay with me always, I will be yours.”
His thumbs mover over her knuckles again and Alice glances at their joined hands. She stares blindly at the bandages on his fingers… and then she frowns. The bandage on his thumb appears to be darkening although it’s difficult to be sure in the moonlight…
“Alice,” he whispers, again drawing her attention back to his earnest, urgent, awed expression. “I’m askin’ ye, on bended knee, teh b’ mae-”
BANG!
Alice jerks. Her frown, which had fled only a moment earlier and been replaced by amazement at his words - “I’m asking ye, on bended knee” - now returns full force. A strange ache begins to throb in her chest. She shakes her head, feeling oddly muddled and confused, as if just waking up from a sound sleep.
“I’m sorry, Tarrant. Wh-what did you say?”
“Alice…” he rasps, horror widening his eyes and slackening his jaw.
She follows his gaze downward and blinks at a very strange sight. There appears to be a hole in her new dress, a hole and a dark, spreading stain upon her shoulder midway between the center of her chest and her arm. “I…” don’t understand…
Alice feels herself sway. She also feels Tarrant’s hands abandon hers to clutch her hips, steadying her. As she leans toward him, she looks up and out across the field of Iplam-
-and meets the utterly mad stare of Iracebeth of Crims.
The woman’s delighted giggle echoes in the windless silence, and then she lifts her arm. In her grasp, Alice recognizes a revolver. A single wisp of smoke dances from the end of the barrel in the moonlight.
Alice gasps, reaching protectively for her handfasted husband. “No… Tarrant-!”
As Alice’s knees buckle and her mind falls away into darkness, a second shot rings out and she knows no more.
*~*~*~*
Mahjong, Hamish decides, is not his game. He’d lost quite a few shillings to the good doctor and his associates.
With a sigh, he decides to chalk it up to an investment in the future; he’d learned quite a bit about the history of this port city, and he’d been educated far faster than appealing to the local printers for a copy of previous editions of the newspaper. In fact, he’d learned the city’s history prior to the opening of its printing press. Perhaps, one day, that will count for something.
On the front steps of the doctor’s house-cum-surgery, he bids Doctor Wellington and the others a good night before beginning the short walk back to his home. Behind him, he hears the livestock tradesman and the assistant mayor continue their argument on the value of the Mongolian yak.
It’s very dark tonight, but the moon is out and it is full, aiding him in his journey home. Beneath his left arm, he still carries the gun case. The gun itself, however, is in his right jacket pocket. Although he does not expect to encounter any trouble, this is the first time Hamish has dared to walk the streets after nightfall. While this neighborhood is mostly safe, it is also one of the wealthiest and Victoria City is not so large that a sailor down on his luck cannot make the trip from the wharf on a quest for a gentleman’s silver.
As he passes the local tailor’s, the large shop window gleams in the moonlight. He glances idly toward its reflective surface. Through the sheen provided by the moon, he thinks he sees himself standing in an overgrown field, but that can’t be right. There should be a row of houses directly across the street behind him. Frowning, he glances over his shoulder-
-and blinks at the front porch of a newly built but as yet unpainted house. A movement at the top of the wooden stairs draws his gaze. Alice sways on her feet, her face paling as he watches.
“Alice?” he calls, but she doesn’t answer.
Her eyes roll back into her head and she slumps into Tarrant Hightopp’s arms. Hamish stares at the man, evaluates his kneeling form and frantic expression.
And then he hears the laughter.
Turning, he finds himself face to face with the woman from the Black King’s tower: Iracebeth. No longer dressed in only a kimono and bloomers, no longer grief-stricken or harmless, she stands a half dozen paces away with a gun that Hamish unfortunately recognizes aimed at his chest. A moment passes as he marvels that the revolver had not only survived its fall but been found and put to use once again. However, that is not a matter of importance. What is important is that he is clearly being targeted by a mad woman holding a loaded handgun. And if she’d hit Alice at this distance, then she’s unlikely to miss him.
“I’ve a little metal ball for you, too,” she informs him playfully, her painted lips stretching into a gruesome smile in the moonlight.
Hamish tenses, his mind going blank for one, eternal moment.
Iracebeth’s small, slender finger tightens around the trigger.
Nothing happens.
Her smile falters and then melts into a scowl. “No!” she hisses, fumbling for the hammer with her too-small hands.
Hamish scrambles for his jacket pocket and loaded revolver within it. He hears the telltale snap of the other gun’s hammer being cocked into place as he draws out his own weapon. He steps to the side, presenting a smaller target as he fluidly thumbs the hammer back with a practiced motion.
Iracebeth lifts the gun in her hands.
Hamish takes aim and-
BANG!
For a moment, the only thing Hamish hears are the desperate whispers of the Hatter calling Alice’s name again and again. The only thing he smells is burnt gunpowder. The only thing he sees is Iracebeth’s terrible smile.
And then she drops to her knees.
“No…” she breathes wetly. “Stayne…”
She blinks once and then falls back, still clutching the gun in both hands, finger still on the trigger. Hamish hurriedly approaches her from an angle and plucks the gun from her grasp with extreme care. Uncocking the hammer, he stares at the bullet wound in her chest. The woman herself is deathly still. She stares up at the moon, her lips now painted with a smear of blood.
Swallowing an oath - damn it all, he hadn’t wanted to kill her; he’d simply wanted to stop her! - Hamish scrambles to his feet and dashes up the porch steps to where Alice lies limply in the Hatter’s arms. One of the man’s hands is pressed tightly to her shoulder as if he can somehow push the lost blood back into her body.
“Hightopp!” Hamish barks, drawing the man’s wild, frantic gaze.
“Where’s mae Alice?” the man whispers.
Frightened now, Hamish reaches for Alice’s wrist and presses his fingers to her pulse. It still beats, but far too weakly. “She’s been shot. Is there a doctor nearby?”
The Hatter shakes his head. “We’ve a pair of pigeons, but they cannae work by moonlight.”
“Pigeons? What…? Never mind.” Hamish places a hand on the man’s shoulder and gives him a slight shake. “Listen to me, Hightopp. I need you to do something for Alice.”
“Whot? Whot can I do?” he brogues in a rush, his syllables getting tangled up together.
“Send her Above with me.”
The man’s arms tighten around her. “Nay-!”
“She needs medicine! When I stepped into Underland this time, I was not two minutes from a doctor’s surgery!”
“Mae Alice-!”
“Yes, she’s your Alice,” he agrees in a moment of perfect clarity. How foolish he’d been to think (had it only been a fortnight ago?) that Alice would ever voluntarily leave this man, no matter the Hatter’s feelings for her! “She’ll always be your Alice, but you must let me help her.”
For a too-long moment, Hamish stares the man down before adding, “Please.”
The Hatter’s jaw muscles flex as he grits his teeth. “Promise me,” the man demands urgently, his bloody hand fisting in the stained fabric over Alice’s wound. “Promise me she’ll be all right.”
Hamish has no business making such a promise, but he does. “I swear it.” And then he holds out his arms.
With a sob, Tarrant Hightopp relinquishes his hold on Alice, settling her against Hamish’s chest. “Nauw,” the man growls through his tears, “ye ge’ yerself back teh where ye came from, an’ take Alice wi’ ye.”
Hamish spares a moment to nod in acknowledgement and then he moves to stand. Holding Alice cradled in his arms, he turns as if to descend the three steps to the field below.
“Alice…” he thinks he hears, but he can’t be sure. Hamish looks up from Alice’s pale face and sees only his own reflection in the tailor’s shop window.
He lets out a thankful breath at the familiar sight of his neighborhood in Victoria City. Wasting no time, he strides as fast as he can back to the doctor’s residence. Although he’d told Hightopp that the distance had been no more than a two-minute stroll, time seems to stretch and spiral with every step he takes. Hamish is utterly breathless by the time he staggers up the front steps and calls out, “Doctor Wellington! Doctor Wellington!”
Impatiently, he kicks the door.
“Good gracious, Lord Ascot, calm yourself!” a muffled male voice calls from within.
Hamish is too breathless to bother with a retort. Still, it seems to take ages for the doctor’s footsteps to reach the front door, a thousand years for the lock to be undone, and an entire era of human history for the portal to be swung open.
“What brings you-? Good gracious! Bring her inside!”
Complying gladly, Hamish maneuvers Alice into the narrow hall and then into the surgery just through the man’s office. He lays her down upon the examination pallet and hovers as the doctor washes up.
“Whatever happened? I didn’t even hear the gunshot,” the man muses aloud.
“It was all so confusing,” Hamish admits.
“Do you know her?” the doctor continues, now drying his hands and reaching for a pair of fabric scissors. “I can’t ever recall approving her medical quarantine.”
“Her name is Alice Kingsleigh,” Hamish informs him, and then, swearing at his stupidity, amends. “Was Alice Kingsleigh. Her husband’s name is Hightopp and I’m not surprised that she evaded your quarantine. She likely arrived from the mainland.”
“Where is her husband?” Doctor Wellington inquires, hesitating to cut open Alice’s dress with Hamish still in the room.
Likely going utterly and inescapably mad, Hamish doesn’t say. “I’ll have him notified of his wife’s condition just as soon as she’s been treated. Please allow me to assist, sir. I realize it’s unconventional, but I owe it to both Mister and Missus Hightopp to help in any way I can. Besides,” he beseeches, “Alice and I, we’re… family.”
Doctor Wellington clearly doesn’t like it, but acquiesces rather than argue the point. “Fine, fine. Go wash your hands thoroughly with hot water and the soap provided.”
As Hamish rushes toward the wash basin to comply, the full-length looking glass beside it catches his eye. He recalls the looking glass at his family’s country estate and the vision it had shown him as he’d endeavored to complete his morning shave. As he rolls up his shirtsleeves and scrubs his hands, fingers, and knuckles, Hamish wonders if this mirror might also be a window to Underland, if the Hatter is even now watching his wife undergo surgery in a strange place, being operated on by a strange man.
Toweling his hands dry with a clean square of linen, Hamish resolves to remain at Alice’s side until he has the chance to communicate with the Hatter, to tell him she is all right.
Alice, you must be all right!
“She’s lost a lot of blood,” Doctor Wellington observes, investigating the bullet hole in Alice’s bare, upper left chest. Thankfully, he’d only cut away a small portion of her dress. Although she’s not decent, per se, she is covered. “Keep a finger on her pulse and count the beats for thirty seconds. Tell me the number.”
As Hamish complies, the doctor muses aloud to his unconscious patient, “Whatever were you doing running about the streets at night without being properly dressed, madam?”
Alice, unsurprisingly, doesn’t answer. Hamish fancies that she wouldn’t have bothered to answer the question had she been conscious. Except perhaps to say that stockings and a corset are a kind of torture. A small smile curves his lips as he imagines the scenario. He then glances up at the looking glass and does his best to offer it - and whomever may be watching - an encouraging smile… just in case.
Hamish measures Alice’s pulse when requested. He holds the pan for the bullet which Doctor Wellington extracts from deep within Alice’s shoulder. He fetches hot water when it’s time to cleanse the wound, and morphine when Alice shifts restlessly, and then, once the doctor has washed his hands yet again, Hamish passes him the requested sewing kit for closing up the wound. When, some indeterminate time later, the doctor completes the final stitch, Hamish is utterly exhausted and rather nauseous but encouraged that Alice’s pulse had remained steady throughout the entirety of the procedure.
“We shall have to wait for my housekeeper and office nurse, who is of the same gender as Missus Hightopp here, to arrive before we can remove her soiled dress and put her to bed,” the doctor says, leaning back with a sigh. “Perhaps now would be a good time to alert her husband?”
“Yes,” Hamish agrees, daringly petting her limp hair away from her cheek and forehead. “Alice, I’m going to fetch your husband now.”
Of course, Alice says nothing. She doesn’t twitch or shift or sigh. Still, Hamish feels better for having made the promise.
The doctor doesn’t chide him for the sentimentality. “I’ll put on some tea. The poor fellow will need it when he gets here, I’m sure.”
With a nod, Hamish stands and departs the room with the doctor. When Doctor Wellington turns right and heads down the hall in the direction of the kitchen, Hamish turns left and marches noisily toward the front door. He checks over his shoulder to ensure that the doctor is out of sight before he opens and then closes the door without passing through it. He then tiptoes back to the surgery and ducks into the lantern-lit room. Alice still lies upon the pallet, unmoved. He checks her pulse once again, just to be sure, and lets out a sigh of relief when he feels the flutter of her heartbeat beneath her skin.
“How on earth am I going to get your hatter here?” he asks her, hoping for some sort of sign from her. Of course, the one time he’s asking for her input, she remains obstinately silent. He sifts through his memories regarding his previous trips to Underland before deciding that the best course of action would to simply announce an invitation and hope it works.
Course set, Hamish draws a fortifying breath. But then, just as he straightens up, something catches his eye. For a moment, he actually entertains the notion that he’d glimpsed movement from the full length mirror beside the wash basin. He glances over and blinks at it. A moment later, the frame inexplicably wobbles a second time as if someone on the other side of the glass is beating their fists against it.
“Damnation,” Hamish grouches, imagining an utterly frantic hatter pounding upon a similar looking glass in Underland. Well, he can hardly follow through with his plan now; how can he invite Hightopp to step into Doctor Wellington’s surgery if the man is in the midst of a fit? Approaching the mirror, Hamish informs the man he cannot see, “Your Alice is alive, Hightopp.”
The frame shakes again.
“She… is… fine!” Hamish repeats with exaggerated enunciation.
The looking glass rattles in response.
“Bloody… I just know I’m going to regret this,” he mutters to himself. He’s too exhausted to try pantomiming the details of Alice’s condition to the man through the mirror. He can see no other option than to revisit his original plan. Not that he’s even sure it will work…
Hamish hopes for the best as he draws a centering breath. The mirror remains still, as if the man on the other side is holding his breath as well, waiting.
Well, there’s really no sense in putting it off. Either the experiment will work or it won’t. And, given what little he knows of travel between Underland and the Above world, Hamish suspects that it cannot possibly be as simple as saying to the mirror: “Tarrant Hightopp, you may step through.”
Hamish nearly squeals with fright when, in the very next moment, a hatless and jacketless - but thankfully be-trouser-ed! - hatter falls into the surgery with a snarling sob.
“Hush!” Hamish tells him, pulling his booted feet over the edge of the mirror’s frame and into the room.
“Alice!” the man hisses urgently, scrambling to attain the vertical.
“She’s fine. She’s resting. Don’t try to wake her. Here, sit here. Hold her hand. Yes, just like that. You can feel her pulse just there. That means she’s all right.” Seeing the Hatter installed and mostly composed upon the doctor’s stool, Hamish presses his own handkerchief into one of the man’s hands. “Clean yourself up a bit,” he says, indicating the man’s tear streaked face. “You wouldn’t want Alice to become distraught upon seeing you like this.”
The last suggestion, however, seems to be a bit too much for Tarrant Hightopp to comprehend. He merely clutches the square of linen in his blood-soaked, bandaged hand. Well, if it keeps the man from clutching irreverently at Alice, it will have served at least some useful purpose after all.
With a sigh, Hamish offers, “I’ll announce your arrival.” He turns toward that door, expecting nothing but silence in response. However…
“Thank you, Hamish,” the man whispers, voice hoarse.
Pausing, Hamish studies Tarrant Hightopp’s tightly closed eyes, wondering if the man is actually attempting to commit each and every beat of Alice’s heart to memory. Hamish gives the Hatter’s shoulder a solid squeeze, and then he quietly returns himself to the front hall. From the sounds in the kitchen, the doctor is still preparing tea. Hamish takes a deep breath, readies himself for a series of necessary theatrics, and then brazenly opens the front door and slams it shut.
“Hightopp!” he calls, rushing with artificial urgency toward the surgery.
Just as Hamish draws level with the office door, the doctor pokes his head out of the kitchen and asks, “He’s arrived?”
“Yes, and he’s quite distraught. I tried to stop him from…” Hamish gestures toward the room beyond.
“Let him get it all out of his system while his wife is sedated. I’ll bring the tea.”
Hamish’s admiration of the doctor’s practicality redoubles. He steps into the office, although he doesn’t re-enter the surgery. Hamish has no desire to intrude upon Tarrant Hightopp’s silent reunion with his Alice, but he stays close by in the event that he’s needed once more.
NOTES:
+ Whenever I’ve written of Hamish obsessing over trousers (and scorning kilts) I think of “Yesterday I Was a Different Person” by broomclosetkink and Hamish’s legendary battle cry: “I demand trousers!” Epic. OMG, epic.
+ Please don’t ask me to explain how Underland-Above travel works. It has something to do with citizens of each respective land being able to issue and revoke invitations and then there’s Underland itself, which I suspect is sentient and intent on helping out certain people like Alice and Mirana although that doesn’t explain everything... Argh. It’s all muddled up in my head. ANYWAY! All of Hamish's trips have been leading up to this moment. He arrives in Underland just in time to make himself useful and be a proper hero, which he couldn't have done if this were only his first trip to Underland. Now that he knows it's real, he takes the threat to Alice seriously and (arguably) saves her life. See? There was a Plan all along... (^__~)