Heart and Sole, Chapter 22
It’s clear to Alice that Hamish is thinking about something. She has seen that consternated expression before and it does not bode well for his state of mind or temperament. Yes, whatever issue is currently nettling him must be quite serious.
Speaking up from her seat in the parlor’s floral patterned armchair, Alice announces, “We’d understand if you need to go to the office today to attend to business.”
Never mind that if Hamish were to cancel his part in their outing today, his departure would leave her completely alone with Tarrant, and what with her energy returning with startling force with each passing day (and she’s spent six of them as Hamish’s houseguest thus far), Alice is finding it more and more difficult to behave as a lady should Above.
Now that Tarrant’s heart is healed, she is more determined than ever before to win it through her merits. Unfortunately, she’s also rather impatient and wound tighter than McTwisp’s poor pocket watch. It is, Alice admits, a recipe for disaster; were she alone with Tarrant, were his twitchy hands and giggles at her disposal, were her restless energy given free reign… well, she’s positive of one thing: Hamish would not thank her for it should he walk in on an attempt at a romantic overture, either under his roof or in public.
Disturbingly, Alice has discovered that her inclination to make a lovesick fool of herself refuses to diminish one whit beyond these walls. In fact, it seems to redouble as if she is compelled to seek constant reassurance that, no matter the state of his affections, Tarrant still chooses her above all others.
Alice considers this trend with a small frown. She doesn’t like feeling so unbalanced. She shall have to make a concentrated effort to behave today as public is their destination. Just as soon as Tarrant finishes getting ready upstairs, he’ll join her and Hamish in the parlor and commence with the day’s itinerary (which she’s sure Hamish has a copy of in his jacket pocket).
“Hm?” he says, jerking his chin up as if just becoming aware of his surroundings. “What did you say, Cousin Alice?”
It’s a measure of her adaptability that she no longer feels the urge to roll her eyes at the fictitious familial title.
“I was saying: if you’d rather go into the office in order to wrestle with that monstrous conundrum which is clearly distracting you…”
“What? No,” he blusters. “I’m perfectly fine. Besides, there are no resources at the office which can assist me with this.”
Which means that the issue is private. Given the issues of late, she guesses that it likely concerns Iracebeth. She can understand his feelings of guilt and regret even as she’s thankful that the woman will not be troubling Underland ever again.
Alice considers repeating her assurances to him, but she doubts he’s truly ready to hear them.
She sighs.
“The issue at hand,” Hamish surprisingly volunteers, although with noticeable reluctance, “concerns…”
“Yes?” she prompts, her curiosity rising to the fore, eager to take part in the blossoming discussion.
But, just then, just as Hamish opens his mouth to speak, a door opens upstairs and booted feet quickly stride toward the steps. Hamish pauses in his explanation and gives Alice a droll grin instead.
She bites back an oath. Her smile is genuine, however, when Tarrant breezes into the room on an apology and offers his hands to Alice. Truly, she doesn’t need assistance with rising from a perfectly comfortable armchair, but she adores having an excuse to touch him, to lean against him, to breathe in his scent and feel his natural warmth.
It’s just as well that Hamish clears his throat or Alice might have gotten a bit carried away. She arranges her hand on Tarrant’s arm (while he watches, beaming with eyes that are nearly aglow) and then announces, “Yes, I believe we are ready.”
“We relinquish the lead to you, sir,” Tarrant informs him.
“Hm,” Hamish grunts a bit grouchily. “No fiddle-faddle while my back is turned or I shall denounce ever having known the two of you.”
“We’ve been warned,” Alice acknowledges, smothering a grin.
“Strenuously and thoroughly,” Tarrant concurs brightly.
Only then does Hamish consent to begin the day’s outing.
They stroll sedately along the tree-lined street of Hamish’s neighborhood and although Hamish does not offer his arm to Alice, he remains close by. Alice directs their pace, tugging on Tarrant’s arm and gesturing to something that has caught her eye when she needs a moment to rest. Tarrant takes his cue and makes some remark to Hamish about the object of her attention and continues prompting their conversation until Alice feels ready to proceed again. This technique is especially applicable to Victoria City’s downtown as there is quite a lot to comment on.
It’s too early to try one of the adventuresome-looking tea shops so they wander from store to store. At a fabric and notions emporium, Tarrant shows them how to test the integrity of a weave.
“Like so,” he demonstrates, stretching a length of fabric taut with one hand. He then flicks it smartly with his fingers and tilts his head to listen to vibrations. “Ah, not this one. It won’t hold a stitch for more than a week. Let’s try another. Alice? Here, ask this boisterous brocade.”
His arm brushes against hers as he reaches for a second bolt and the breeze which caresses her cheek smells like him and if it weren’t for Hamish’s boot scuffing against the toes of her shoes in the close quarters she might have forgotten herself.
Following Tarrant’s instructions and trying not to be distracted by his charming gestures and kissable smile, Alice thumps the taut fabric. Tarrant tilts his head toward the cloth in her hand and listens.
“Did you hear that?” he asks, straightening.
Alice shakes her head, more than a little embarrassed with herself for being far more interested in how his lashes fan out across his cheekbones when he closes his eyes in concentration than what the fabric has to say.
“A much sturdier weave, this,” Tarrant informs them both. “I don’t suppose textiles concern your business?” This question is aimed at Hamish who seems to startle a bit at being included. Alice tries not to feel the stinging of her conscience. “If so, I would recommend this one for table cloths and curtains.”
Hamish reaches out for the indicated cloth. “May I?” he inquires and Alice passes it to him. She knows she ought to study the fabric with her “cousin” instead of shamelessly basking in Tarrant’s obvious mastery of his craft. Ought she feel proud of him for something which comes naturally after so many years of work?
As they move along in the cluttered shop, Hamish begins quizzing Tarrant on a wide variety of textile-related topics until Alice, jokingly, remarks, “Are you genuinely curious or are you considering offering Tarrant a job?”
The calculating and victorious gleam in Hamish’s eyes is not reassuring. Nor is his patently engineered cry of discovery and inspiration upon spying a photographer’s studio only a quarter of an hour later.
“Marvelous! Mister and Missus Hightopp, let’s have a photograph done to commemorate your visit!”
Alice, having never met a photographer before, shamelessly quizzes the man on his science as he bustles about setting up the scene for them. It’s a bit hard keeping an eye on Hamish’s self-satisfied grin while letting her curiosity get the better of her, but she consoles herself: Hamish would be suspicious if she weren’t curious. Besides, the close quarters again give her an excuse to crowd Tarrant who, rather gallantly, insists on keeping one warm hand at the small of her back for support, should she need it.
“There!” the photographer announces with such enthusiasm that his week-old beard seems to ripple, reminding her of the way the light had played upon the fur of the platypus who had conducted the orchestra at the White Queen’s celebratory ball. She recalls that occasion - the good and the bad: her first dance with Tarrant and his heartwarming promise to follow her lead; her attempt at a single harmless kiss which had been so utterly mortifying.
Alice refrains from mentioning the photographer’s possible likeness to a platypus. If the memory is bittersweet for her, she can only imagine how much more so it must be for Tarrant. For once in her life, she’d been early; propositioning him before she’d grown up and into her Underlandian citizenship. Thank goodness for the twitterpation!
“Now,” the photographer continues, interrupting Alice’s woolgathering, “if you’ll have a seat here, madam. And you, sir, stand just to the side of her chair…”
“What about Cousin Hamish?” Alice asks in a chipper tone, noting the way he seems to be doing his best to camouflage himself behind a tall, plaster urn molded in the Grecian style.
He startles. “Oh, no. This is my wedding present to the both of you!” he insists indulgently.
Alice decides she’d like to indulge a bit more, in that case, and presses, “But it simply wouldn’t commemorate our visit here if you are absent.”
The photographer leaps to accommodate an additional male in the composition. Grumbling, Hamish relents, “Fine, fine. Let’s just get on with it so we can take tea.”
And now that there’s a grumpy Hamish in her “wedding” photo, everything is perfect!
The photograph itself only requires that they three hold still for twenty seconds so Alice dares to smile softly despite the photographer’s warning that any facial expression whatsoever may become tiresome to maintain. She can’t turn in her seat to check, but she’s relatively certain that Tarrant is beaming recklessly and Hamish is doing his best to look like the stuffy lord he pretends to be.
Once the camera lens is capped and the glass plate removed (and subsequently handed to an assistant for processing), Hamish blusters his way toward the shop counter to pay. As Tarrant helps Alice stand, she tries not to let the fact that, yet again, she cannot reimburse Hamish for their expenses ruin the fine mood. Still, etiquette dictates that she mention it, and she knows how important etiquette is to an Ascot.
“Thank you for the photography sitting. I’m very sorry we cannot repay you-”
“Well,” he cuts her off as deftly as Cordwain might have. “It wasn’t only for you.”
“Yes, you’ve requested a copy for yourself as well, haven’t you?”
“Hm,” he replies vaguely, gesturing them toward his favorite tea shop. “Hightopp, have you ever had Jasmine tea?”
Alice listens to Tarrant’s response to that with only half an ear. At the moment, she’s rather busy noticing how Hamish’s eyes glint with mysterious purpose, a purpose Alice does not discover until the following evening at which time she’s torn between kissing him and kicking him soundly in the shin.
*~*~*~*
Hamish has a plan, a rather good plan if he does say so himself. It would be nice to have Tarrant Hightopp’s cooperation but not necessary. He takes steps to investigate this when Alice has the surprisingly good sense to announce her intention to rest following their day in town.
“Hightopp, a word,” Hamish informs him once the door to the guestroom upstairs has shut.
The Hatter gives him a wry smile. “Another one? Just one?”
Hamish doesn’t even bother to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “Several, I’m afraid.”
“It bodes poorly if you’re already afraid at the onset of a conversation.”
Hamish snorts. Sometimes the man is almost amusing. He decides to get right to the point, otherwise Alice will be up and demanding dinner before Hightopp lets the conversation take a sensible course. “I need you to do something for Alice.”
“Name it,” the man replies with evident and admirable devotion.
Drawing in a steadying breath, Hamish asks, “What has she told you of her family?”
The Hatter stiffens, glances up, and - surprisingly - gasps out, “Alice has family?”
“Yes. A mother and a sister.” Hamish is sure he’s never seen Tarrant Hightopp look so utterly horrified. Even his renewed color fades a bit with his shock.
“She left them?”
“She chose you and Underland,” he corrects, startled by what Alice has clearly not spoken of with her future husband, “and recently, instances of abduction and vengeance exempted, I’ve begun to think that she made the right decision in leaving this dull world to make a new life in yours.”
The Hatter merely blinks, too stunned to speak. Hamish would have been entertained were they discussing any other topic.
“What I ask of you is to assist Alice with providing a measure of peace to her loved ones.”
“She… did not say goodbye to them?”
“Goodbyes, yes. Explanations? Not hardly.”
“What can I do?” the man inquires with reassuring determination and mental soundness.
“There is one thing, although you are under no obligation to comply.” Although, Hamish would be very surprised if the man does not leap at the opportunity he’s about to be offered. “I’d like to invite you to write a letter to Alice’s mother, Helen Kingsleigh, and Alice’s elder sister, Margaret Manchester, which I will happily post for you.”
Tarrant Hightopp frowns. “Write to them? Why not simply pay them a visit-?”
“Hightopp, you’ve no notion of geography, do you?” With a huff, Hamish informs him, “At present, we are a four-month journey by sea from Alice’s homeland and family.”
“Four months?”
“A hundred and twenty days.”
“Yes, yes, I know my sums,” the man barks hoarsely. He paces back and forth in the parlor, his outrageous brows drawn together in ferocious thought. After a long moment, the Hatter stops and declares, “I fully intend to ask Alice why she never mentioned her family to me.”
Hamish hopes the man will warn him beforehand; Hamish would rather not be present for that discussion as it’s bound to be terribly personal. “Best of luck.”
“And I will write those letters,” he additionally decides.
“Excellent. If you would like me to look them over for you, I’d be happy to do so. In any case, I shall also include a letter of my own. You’ll need an introduction and, in addition, an explanation for how I came to locate the both of you will be needful.”
“I am assuming,” Tarrant Hightopp says slowly, “that you will not be mentioning Underland in this note?”
“No. I am afraid some of the facts will have to be altered.”
“A pity. They lose their flavor rather quickly after that.”
Hamish simply has to ask: “What sort of flavor do unaltered facts have?”
“The ring of truth, of course!”
Hamish gives him a droll look. “That would be a sound.” If it were anything other than an abstract concept, that is.
“Tell that to the next bronze bell that crosses your path.”
In the interest of time and efficiency, Hamish concedes (for clearly there’s no winning a war of words against Tarrant Hightopp). He mutters, “I shall.”
The following afternoon, during his return home for the noontime meal, Hamish gives Tarrant Hightopp a copy of the promised letter. “Discuss it with Alice at your leisure,” he encourages the man and then retreats to his office in town. When he arrives home that evening, however - feeling quite accomplished with regards to the day’s work - he encounters a cacophony of cooking sounds coming from the kitchen down the hall and Alice waiting for him upon the stairs.
“You told Tarrant about my mother and sister.”
Closing the front door (and abandoning his briefly entertained thought of escape), Hamish sighs. “The question, Alice, is why didn’t you do so yourself earlier?”
“Because I didn’t know what to say,” she replies frankly. “This,” she continues holding up the copy of the letter he’d passed to her will-be husband only a few hours earlier, “is high-handed, presumptuous, and autocratic.”
Hamish refuses to back down in response to her glare. For a moment, they simply size each other up in the hallway like two lions eying the same fleet-footed gazelle.
And then Alice adds, a smile quirking the corners of her mouth upward, “It is also needful, inspired, and brilliant.”
“So you approve.”
“I notice that wasn’t a question.”
Of course not! Hamish is determined to send his letter off along with a copy of the photograph they’d had taken yesterday, approval given or no! “Your mother needs closure.”
“Yes, she does. You might have discussed this with me before orchestrating this story.” Again she indicates the letter, waving it to and fro this time.
“When have you ever been sensible on this topic?” he retorts. “I’ve lost count of the number of times I asked you to go home so that your mother’s mind might be put at ease, and every blasted time you-”
“If you’d proposed something sensible, I would have agreed! I’m not so petty as to turn aside a good solution out of spite.”
“No, you’re not. You’re quite right. I underestimated your ability to be reasoned with.”
“Hamish…!” She huffs out a laugh. “You make me mad enough to swear sometimes.”
“And yet you hold back.”
“Don’t ask me why.” Alice shakes her head ruefully. “So, in summary: according to you, I met Tarrant in London, fell in love, eloped, and ran away to China to start anew, where you ran into us one day by chance.”
Hamish doesn’t criticize the over-simplification of his letter to Helen. He asks instead, “Do you think she’ll believe it?”
“I think she’ll want to believe it. And, with the photograph included, there will be no reason for her not to. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
“I don’t doubt that it is. You look awfully pleased with yourself, Cousin Hamish.”
“And as you already know the cause, I won’t have to restrain myself,” he informs her, puffing up his own chest showily.
She barks out a laugh. “Be careful. Any more hot air and we’ll strap a carrier basket to you and go flying.”
“I recall you used to be curious about that very notion.”
“Using you as a hot-air balloon?”
“Flying.”
She blinks and then a warm smile curves her lips. “Ah, yes. You remember.”
“I never forget a quadrille.”
Alice casts her gaze heavenward. “I’ve been immortalized in a monotonous country dance. Wonderful.”
“How will you explain your disappearance?” Hamish inquires abruptly. He’d rather not let her maneuver him into defending a dance he’s always found quite invigorating. Sometimes, rules can be a comfort rather than a cage. The only way to get Alice to leave one topic is to dare her to be brilliant with regards to another.
She smiles wryly. “I don’t mention it, actually. Perhaps it’s cruel of me to let her think that her mind played a trick upon her, but…”
“Yes, explaining it would only invite criticism and unanswerable questions.”
“Exactly.”
“How is your shoulder?”
“Nearly ready for the looking glass.”
“The looking glass?”
“Yes, that’s how Tarrant says he arrived this time and he seems to think that’s how we’ll be returning.”
“I’ve never found myself in Underland through a looking glass,” he cautions her.
“So I’m to be surprised then? Well, I think I’m ready for that as well.” She stands and informs him, “Tarrant and I took the liberty of giving your butler the night off. Dinner should be ready by the time you’ve refreshed yourself and then we’ll see if you and I can beat Tarrant at dominoes.”
“I’m looking forward to it, Cousin Alice,” he informs her.
Smiling, she heads for the kitchen where Hamish hears someone - Hightopp he now realizes - banging about. As Hamish climbs the stairs to the second floor, his heart aches a bit with every step, but it also seems to grow stronger as well. Yes, he will miss Alice, his friend, and yes, he envies the life she will build and the companionship she will enjoy, but he consoles himself with knowing both where she is going and that it truly is a better place.