Heart and Sole, Chapter 6
Alice doubts she’ll ever cease to be surprised by Underland.
The White Carriage had made its first stop at a familiar garden where the White Queen had spoken to the primroses and conversed in strange, finger waggling silence with the rocking horse flies. Only when Alice had nearly tripped over a set of overgrown miniature stairs had she noticed the small door hovering over the scummy pond at the garden’s center.
“No one’s been by to prune us in ages,” Alice had overheard an orange rose complain. Glancing over her shoulder, Alice had watched the flower fidgeting with her multitude of thorny vines.
“That is a very serious issue,” the White Queen had allowed, selecting a bishop and gesturing him forward. “We shall take care of that immediately. Herald, I believe you have an interest in horticulture, do you not?”
“I do, your Majesty.” And then the bishop had bowed deeply to the primroses and intoned, “With your permission and expertise, ladies?”
“Small snips,” the White Queen had advised, gracefully passing him a pair of gardening shears.
As the queen had tended to the pond which had been bubbling and choking on overgrowth, Alice had shared a bored look with Mallyumkun who had plopped herself down on the steps of the stairs.
“Why are we here?” Alice had muttered.
“Because the queen said ‘halt’,” Mally had snarked back half-heartedly.
With a snort, Alice had corrected herself. “No, I meant, why are we accompanying her if she doesn’t even need our assistance?”
The mouse had shrugged. “Beats me.”
This very demoralizing trend had continued in the town of Quagmoor in Quest, where Alice had followed the queen’s example and bowed to the Town Bully (a bullfrog whose deep croak could cause any and all in the vicinity to hop to obey his commands). Neither Mally nor Alice had been needed to direct the White Queen’s soldiers in repair work once the queen had given the Town Bully permission to address her army escort directly.
Alice had wandered around the marshy settlement with Mally and tried to make herself useful. Mostly she’d just gotten in people’s way. The evening before they’d been set to leave, the town had hosted a very nice banquet in honor of the queen’s visit. The White Queen had sat beside the Bully who had croaked happily at her ladylike and queenly belch at the conclusion of the meal. Alice had been a bit too far away to hear it. Once again, she’d been keeping Mally company as they’d sat at the end of the table and out of the way.
It had been a relief to move on. After several dusty days on the road, they’d rolled into Snud’s sleepy hamlet of Snoggleton where a very lazy-looking badger with what must have been sticky droplets of honey clinging to his whiskers had greeted them warmly and then invited everyone for a noon-time nap. Just as Alice had laid her head down on the provided pillow, a clamor awakened her. Sitting up in her borrowed bed, she’d felt Mally pitter patter onto her knee for a look out the window.
“Night-dwellers,” she’d muttered on a yawn as Alice had watched the White Queen waving her arms with elegant purpose in the village square. Soldiers had trotted this way and that, hauling ladders and carrying buckets of pitch and bushels of thatch. “C’mon, Champion. Thar’s work needs doin’.”
Not that Alice had been very helpful in Snoggleton, either. In fact, she’d been so drowsy after days of poor rest and nights of dodging the thatch-mending army that she’d very nearly slept right through their passage beneath the archway of the Grampus Bluffs. If Mally hadn’t poked her with her hatpin-sized sword, Alice would have had to settle for second-hand descriptions! Which would have been a shame, indeed.
She’d gaped at the magnificent rocks and their shimmering peacock hues as they’d rolled along the dusty track.
“I shall have to re-commission the steam locomotive,” the White Queen had breezily murmured, gazing out the window at a set of overgrown tracks which disappeared into a tunnel some distance from the bluffs.
Alice had barely heard her, spellbound as she’d been by the glittering rocks and their ever-changing patterns which had immediately put her in mind of water currents and warm breezes.
Just on the other side of Grampus, the carriage had rolled to a halt yet again and this time, here in Whotchworks of Witzend, Alice had promised herself that her role would be different. She would no longer simply endure this venture as if it is another blasted engagement party!
“Well, this is a change o’ pace,” Mally declares with enthusiasm from where she’s standing on Alice’s shoulder. Behind them, sounds of nails being hammered and bricks being mason-ed create a symphony of productivity. Alice is very aware of the fact that she hadn’t been invited to participate in it.
“Hm,” Alice replies, eying the warped and rickety door in front of them. A shingle with the badly faded and peeling image of a boot painted upon it hangs on by a thread of twine next to a grimy window.
“Yer a grumpy one, eh?” the dormouse muses. “Thought yah’d be lookin’ f’rward tah this.”
“Looking forward to what, exactly?” Coaxing the town’s most cantankerous cobbler into letting the White Army fix up his shop while the White Queen and the town’s mayor - an upright-standing unicorn - make grand plans for renovation and renewal?
“At the moment, yah’re lookin’ forward at a door,” Mally informs her drolly.
Alice rolls her eyes.
“Stop bein’ such a bleedin’ ‘eart, eh? Yah’re ruinin’ all the fun.”
Alice supposes she is but, blast it, she misses the Hatter and she’s tired of being sent out and about on meaningless errands intended to keep her out of the way while the army does the actual rebuilding and repairs. Not for the first time, Alice wonders why she’d let her sense of duty override the Hatter’s very tempting plea for her to remain with him at Crims. Well, she certainly won’t be making that mistake twice!
Lifting a hand, she raps smartly on the door. “Mr. Earwicket!” she calls.
From within she hears a muffled crash then the sound of what might be a kettle being tossed into a metal basin.
“State yer b’s’ness!” a hoarse voice shouts through the still-closed door.
“My companion and I are here on behalf of the White Queen. We should like to offer our assistance with the repair of your shop, sir.”
There’s a slight pause. Alice dares a glance at Mally who meets her gaze with just as many questions swimming in her black eyes.
And then another bang and an odd thump precede Cordwain Earwicket’s reply, “We ain’t acceptin’ charity t’day! C’m back tah-marreh!”
“It’s not charity!” Alice insists. “It’s only a few repairs, sir!”
Thump! Clatter-clatter! Bang!
This time, Alice doesn’t have time to glance at Mally before the shoemaker shouts, “Repairs! Why di’n yah say so?!”
The shop door swings-screeches open and Alice resists the urge to back up a pace at the sight of the very scraggly, pot-bellied, googly-eyed hare who stands shivering on the threshold, bracing open the warped door. The White Queen had mentioned - off-handedly - that Cordwain Earwicket is Thackery’s uncle. Alice can believe it.
“Feel like a heel?” he barks.
Alice blinks at him.
“No? Tongue tied?”
“Um…” Before she can form a more coherent reply, the hare leans down and studies her Marmoreal-made, white leather boots.
“At th’ end o’ yer shoe string? Or ‘ave yah got a broken sole?”
Understanding washing through her like a salty, surf-kissed breeze from the Crimson Sea, Alice sighs and smiles. A protest dances on the tip of her tongue - closely followed by words of clarification - when Cordwain grasps her left foot by the heel and tugs.
“Up yah go, lass. Give us a look, nauw!”
Relenting - and hoping that acquiescing to his insistence on preforming shoe repairs will allow her to assist him with shop repairs - Alice obligingly shifts her weight.
Cordwain um’s and ah-ha’s over the booted foot in his hairy paws, muttering about scuffs and cheeses. When he turns his attention to the other shoe, Alice quickly sets down her left foot and lifts her right.
“Ar, I see th’ problem. Dreadful, right dreadful!” he insists, standing and then gesturing Alice and Mally into the shop.
Despite the ramshackle condition of the exterior of the shop, Alice is startled to discover how very well-kept the interior is. The walls of the room are clean, straight and whitewashed with well-placed shelving upon which an assortment of boots and other footwear the likes of which Alice has never seen before - each pair a different size, shape, and assortment of colors! - are lovingly displayed. Her gaze moves over the colored leather, bright stitching, and ornamental cutouts of the shoes which seem to beckon her nearer for a closer inspection.
“Inte th’ workshop, nauw!” Cordwain calls gruffly and Alice wrenches herself away from the wares, shelving her curiosity.
She steps around an assortment of benches huddled together in the center of the room and it’s apparent from the range of sizes of seats available that Cordwain Earwicket has quite a lot of experience with not only shoeing people, but Underland’s myriad of fashion-conscious creatures.
She follows him behind a service counter upon which sits a large, empty preserves jar with bits of string and whatnot tangled up within it. “Is this meant to resemble the Bluffs?” Alice asks, unwarranted, picking up the jar and turning it about. Whether or not Cordwain had intended to simulate the shifting colors of the Bluffs, that’s precisely what the swirl of colored cords, ribbons and strings puts her in mind of.
The hare cackles madly at her observation, gesturing her through a curtain and into the back of the shop. Ducking into the next room, Alice’s breath catches in her throat at the delightful chaos. Every inch of the walls is covered with shelving and hanging tools, strips of leather and various other mysterious items.
“Off wi’yer boots!” Cordwain demands.
Not taking her eyes off of the menagerie of shoemaker’s tools, Alice toes off her shoes as requested. In her stockings, she paces the length of the room and leans against a work table to get a better look at an odd collection of what appears to be worn-smooth fingers of ivory and well-oiled, carved sticks of various woods. “What are these called?” Alice asks.
Mally leaps from her shoulder onto the shelf and pokes around amongst the odd items.
“Bones ‘n’ sticks!” Cordwain trumpets, banging around at another work table. Mally wrinkles her nose at the objects and picks her way through them with as little physical contact as possible.
“Magnificent,” Alice murmurs as the sound of threads being slicked up, pulled taut and plucked fill the workshop. She takes a deep breath, smelling tanned leather, tallow, and elbow grease.
She spins around slowly, examining everything from the wooden shoe forms, rolls of leather, and assorted, wickedly sharp yet intriguingly curved cutting knives on the table to the stirrups and baskets hanging from the beams overhead. When her gaze at last comes to rest on the cobbler again, her heart nearly stops.
“Can all hares stitch so quickly?” Alice asks unthinkingly.
Cordwain ignores her, suddenly stabbing his needle through his sleeve, picking up a hammer and an iron stamp and banging away again at the top edge of her boots. As he’s clearly busy, Alice turns back to the strange knives, picking up and weighing the odd blades in her palm, one at a time. She’s just grown brave enough to dare unrolling the leathers in order to run her fingers over the smooth, dyed surface when Cordwain sets her boots down on the table with a sound smack!
“Done!” he announces proudly.
Alice turns, looks, and gawks. These exclamation points of bright, riotous color cannot possibly have been her plain, white boots. And certainly, their transformation shouldn’t have taken only a few minutes! Rather than reach out to collect them, Alice squats down so that her eyes are level with the tabletop. She examines the stitchwork, scrolling and starbursting over the sides of the boots until it joins the lattice-work of cutout shapes near the top edge. Cordwain hadn’t left the toes of the shoes bare, despite not putting holes in them. No, here he’d carefully but deliberately scratched grooves in the leather and inked them before sealing the whole boot in some sort of clear, fragrant wax. The colors swirl and blend, creating a work of art far too fine for a mere pair of boots.
She has no words. No words whatsoever for this service he’d done her boring footwear.
“What do I owe you for these?” Alice rasps, entranced by the colorful details now swirling over the white leather.
He hiccups. “Whot yah got?”
That brings Alice up short. Certainly a few mundane repairs could not possibly be valued as highly as this craftsmanship. “Not much I’m afraid…” She casts about for something he might find useful. “I could…”
“Coul’ ain’t nuthin’,” he interrupts impatiently. “Whot can yah do?”
Thinking of her lackluster skills at sketching, painting, singing, darning, and pianoforte, Alice realizes that there’s really only one thing she has any confidence in. “Tea,” she answers. “I could prepare a nice tea for you, sir.”
Mally snorts. “You? Brew a pot o’ drinkable tea?”
“I can.” She insists, a little startled by Mally’s blatant suspicion. “The Hatter taught me how.” He had. Late one evening, as he’d sat beside her at the Crims castle kitchen table, his slightly grubby shirtsleeve brushing hers, he’d lectured her on proper tea preparation and then watched as she’d followed his instructions precisely. His reaction to his first sip - green eyes glazing and unfocusing dreamily, his eyelids drifting shut, his breath sighing out, his lips smiling gently - had assured her of her success in mastering the art.
“Harrumph!” the ever-disbelieving dormouse objects.
“Tea i’tis, then!” Cordwain crows, banging out of the workshop, gesturing them to follow him into yet another ground floor room which turns out to be a rather cluttered kitchen. Alice rescues the kettle from a wash basin and sets to work.
It’s only much later, as Alice and Mally are bedding down for the night in their borrowed bed that Mally says softly, “Tha’ was good tea, Alice.”
Recalling the dormouse’s startled squeak of pleasure upon sampling it, Alice smiles. “Thank you, Mally.”
“Tea-makin’… tha’s a Hightopp family secret,” she explains wonderingly. “The ‘Atter don’ teach jus’ anyone ‘ow teh brew a pot, yah know.”
Alice hadn’t known that, but she does now. Smiling, Alice snuggles down into her borrowed, Witzend pillow and - for the first time since this trip had begun - dreams of pleasant things.
*~*~*~*
The instant his gloved hand had grasped the door handle, he’d known it was happening again.
It. That bizarre malady he cannot seem to shake, despite all the measures he has taken. Hamish stands on the front stoop of the post office, door swinging open with unstoppable momentum, and suddenly he’s no longer on a busy street in London, he’s no longer endeavoring to return this bizarre letter to its author, he’s no longer able to convince himself that he’s sane.
The door swings open and a man with bright, orange hair and a distracted frown pulling at his horridly wild brows looks up, blinks his green eyes, smiles - revealing terribly tea-stained teeth with an unfortunate gap between the front two - and declares, “Oh! The dodo has returned!”
Hamish closes his eyes and wishes himself back to the bustling clamor of Charing Cross at lunch time. He isn’t successful.
The Hatter sighs. “Do you know it took five days, a hatpin, and a pound of butter to sort those buttons?”
Hamish opens his eyes to glare at the man but ends up following his gaze down to the floor of what appears to be a very crowded closet upon which several jars, boxes, baskets, and pouches have been overturned, their contents - a startling variety of buttons - are scattered across the floor. Incriminatingly, a large, red button sits upon the toe of Hamish’s shoe.
“It was not my intention to upset your storeroom, sir,” Hamish replies, his sense of decorum coming to his rescue in the lengthening silence.
“A rather unfortunate side-effect nonetheless,” the Hatter replies, moving aside and gesturing Hamish out of the closet with a fluttering wave of his hand. Ignoring the mess on the floor, the Hatter slams the door shut and continues, “If you’re here to speak for Alice, then let’s get it over with.”
“Speak for…? Oh, yes, I did imply that Alice is spoken for, however I am not here to speak on her behalf.”
The Hatter’s eyes narrow in thought. “Which I’m sure she would object to. Alice is not in the habit of be-halving things, unless the things to be halved are weighty and borne by her friends, in which case she rather does halve things. Very neatly. A result of being a-Pishalvered too many times, I expect.”
Hamish can think of no qualitatively meaningful response to offer at the man’s conclusion. “Perhaps,” he allows instead.
This amuses the Hatter who giggles with startling suddenness. “I would appreciate it,” he sing-songs, rocking a bit on his heels, “if you would state your business, sir. I’ve hats to customer and muffins to marzipan.”
Hamish automatically raises a hand to his jacket pocket, pressing his palm against the thrice-damned letter that he’d set out to return to the post office. “I have no business with you, sir,” he replies shortly.
“Excellent!” And with that, the Hatter marches over to an arrangement of tables, piled high with all sorts of materials, hat stands - both occupied and bare - and sewing implements. Despite the unsettling nature of his current circumstances, Hamish can’t help but admire the craftsmanship of the displayed headwear. Of course some are outrageously bright and dramatic pieces, but overall-
“These hats are quite good,” he remarks, lifting one and inspecting the lining. “Well-made, even.”
“That’s the only way it’ll be well-worn,” the Hatter replies absently. “And while the compliment is appreciated, I’ll not be paying you for it, Alice’s fi-an-cé.”
Hamish frowns at the man’s odd and deliberate enunciation of the word.
The Hatter continues, “In fact, you might try seeking employment among the courtiers as Alice is still abroad with the White Queen and cannot pay your fee.”
“My fee?” Hamish echoes, utterly discombobulated.
“Yes, yes,” the Hatter replies, pinning and stitching with frightful speed. “For speaking on her behalf,” he explains.
What Hamish burns to say is strangled into submission behind a very deliberate and level-headed “I beg your pardon?”
The Hatter lifts up the hat he is currently tending and gives it a very quick examination. “You’ll have to see the White Queen about pardons, I’m afraid, but I daresay you’ll have better luck getting one from her rather than… well, anyway. It’s lucky you stumbled into the White Queen’s castle this time rather than the former Red Queen’s garden! Although I imagine either court would have quite a lot of work for a fi-an-cé.”
Hamish gives up on being polite. It’s time to get some answers. “What are you nattering on about? Courtiers and fees and fiancés!”
The Hatter looks up and frowns at him. “I regret to inform you, sir, that you are not minding your own business very well at all.”
“Minding my business?”
“Of collecting a fee in exchange for speaking on someone’s behalf,” the Hatter explains with clearly thinning patience and then enunciates very deliberately, “Fee On Say.”
“Oh, good God.”
“Good dog,” the Hatter corrects him. “And although I am not a member of that noble species, I can point you in the right direction of a very fine specimen.”
This is not a daydream or a bout of madness, Hamish realizes. This is a nightmare.
He thinks of the letter in his pocket, the return of which he had been intent on completing. Well, clearly, that’s not going to happen here. He wonders if there’s any use at all in correcting the Hatter’s misconception with regards to the role of a fiancé… Likely not. In addition, it’ll only further delay his return to London.
“How do I depart this place, sir?” Hamish asks abruptly, resenting the fact that he must ask for directions from this figment of his surprisingly colorful imagination.
The Hatter, his attention still trained upon the creation in his right hand, waves distractedly toward the far wall with his left. “The front door should suffice.”
“It had better,” Hamish growls, stalking toward it. He’s momentarily tempted to give his surroundings one more appraisal, but no. No, he will not entertain this madness. Suffering it is quite enough as it is!
His gloved hand grasps the door handle and, as he pulls it open, a very familiar cacophony of sound rushes into his ears. His heart leaps into his throat, choking him on hope and-
Yes! He is in London again! As Hamish pauses, still holding the door open, he takes stock of his surroundings. The busy street, the coal stains, the black carriages, the scent of horses and industry and fried onions, the solid masonry of the building in front of him and the lamp lit offices he can see within…!
London. Again. He is precisely where he’d been when he’d suddenly found himself in that wretched closet in that nonsensical Underplace.
He sighs, straightens his shoulders and takes a step toward the threshold.
Splat!
Hamish startles, leaping back as something very wet and heavy smacks onto the top of his hat from above. Whipping it off, he makes an affronted noise at the sight of rotted rain gutter filth splattered across the brown beaver pelt.
“Disgusting!” he declares, trying not to gag at the stench of it. Well, he can’t very well conduct the business he’d planned at the post office now! Now he’ll have to see about having this set to rights immediately!
And then movement above his head draws his gaze and Hamish watches, eyes narrowed as a grey tabby cat winks one bright green eye at him before trotting along the second story ledge of the building and disappearing around the corner.
NOTES:
+ “Cordwain” is a term used to refer to a specific type of leather that some European shoemakers used. In some cases, “cordwain” actually meant “a shoemaker”.
+ Soft shoe leather that’s easy to work with is said to be “cheesey”.
+ “Bones and sticks” are a selection of bone and/or wooden burnishing tools, used for smoothing out rough edges and tucking in corners and such along the seams in a leather shoe.
+ Dictionary of shoemaking terms
+ Victorian London had several post office branches in addition to the main post office.