All the best people are…
Hey, so I first started writing this just a few hours after seeing Tim Burton's 'Alice in Wonderland' although I did take a long break due to writer's block. If you get the chance to then see it because it's absolutely brilliant! The idea for this came from a feeling that I got while watching the film. Towards the end it seemed like the Hatter had some feelings for Alice, which is why he didn't want her to go, and I wondered what would have happened if those feeling were reciprocated.
I don't own 'Alice in Wonderland' and anything that you recognise is not mine.
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The Mad Hatter: Have I gone mad? [Alice checks Hatter's temperature] Alice Kingsley: I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.
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Chapter 1
Alice hadn't been feeling herself recently. It had been 5 years since she'd last been to Underland and as each day passed she missed it more and more. She'd done everything that she'd set out to do when she left Underland the last time; she'd told Hamish that she wouldn't marry him, helped get her sister's marriage back on track (even though her sister had no idea that there was anything wrong in the first place!) and she'd done something useful career-wise with her life. She'd done well as an apprentice with her father's old company and had quickly risen through the ranks to become second only to Lord Ascot, due to her creative approach to any problem. As she sat at her desk working on a report on her latest excursion to China for the company with the setting sun behind her, she had a vague sense of foreboding, like something bad was going to happen. Little did she know just how right she was.
At that moment Hamish Ascot, Lord Ascot's only child, burst into her office. Alice looked up from her work, surprised by the sudden intrusion.
"Hamish? What are you doing here?" She asked, her pen paused in its writing.
"I take it you haven't heard the news, my father died last night. I am now Lord Ascot." He said tersely. His relationship with his father had suffered greatly when he found out that Alice, the woman that he'd hoped to marry, was being employed by his father. Add to that the fact that his father had said that Hamish himself would be unsuitable to work for the company and you get the deep-seated resentment that Hamish felt for his father and also Alice.
"Oh I'm so sorry!" Alice exclaimed, tears filling her blue eyes. She'd looked on the late Lord Ascot as a father, especially as he'd been so kind to her when her own father had died.
"Yes, well, this means that I own the company. And with that I must attend to matters of concern about the company itself." Hamish sneered, silently congratulating himself on finally being able to, as he himself put it "put that damned Alice back in her place". It was almost as if he felt that he had done away with his father rather than the illness that actually claimed his father's life.
Alice looked surprised at Hamish's callous attitude to his father's death but decided not to comment on it.
"Well if there's anything I can do to help, please let me know." She nodded, hoping he'd leave her to get on with her work. He didn't leave but rather stood there looking at her.
"Actually one of my areas of concern is…you." He said, still sneering at her.
"Pardon? I don't understand. My work is exemplary, as is my record." She replied, confusion furrowing her brow.
"You have been working for the company for 5 years now, yes?" He said, Alice nodded.
"And you became second to my father," again, another nod.
"And yet, you are a woman!" Hamish said, as if that explained what the problem was.
"What has that got to do with anything?" Alice asked, feeling more than a little annoyed with Hamish.
"A woman's place is in the home, not in the workplace. Of course, I could be persuaded to overlook it, if you were to agree to be my wife." He smirked.
"And why would I marry you?" Alice asked quietly.
"Because if you don't then I will have to fire you." He said, his smirk only slightly smaller than his nose.
"How about I save you the trouble? I quit!" She snarled. She couldn't believe that only 5 years previously her sister had wanted her to marry such a pompous, bigoted, sexist twit.
She grabbed her bag and carefully placed all her personal items, such as photos of her mother and sister and the pen that the late Lord Ascot had given her last Christmas, into it before snatching up her coat and putting it on. She picked up her unfinished report and threw it onto the fire before stalking towards the door. As she was leaving she paused and turned to glare at Hamish.
"By the way Lord Ascot. What gender is the Queen?" She asked, sharply.
"Why, the Queen is a woman." Hamish replied in surprise.
"And are you suggesting that the Queen's place is in the home? Think on that Lord Ascot." Alice snarled before whirling around and swiftly leaving.
By the time she got home, Alice had worked herself up into a fury.
"How dare he suggest such a thing! It goes against the protocol that he loves so much!" She yelled, throwing various items in her room around. She managed to completely destroy her room and still felt no calmer, she then moved on to the library and began hurling the books around. It took her destroying the library and the sitting room before she had calmed down enough to think about the situation. Hamish was sure to ensure that she couldn't find employment anywhere else and she was far too proud to ask her sister for help. Even hours later she was nowhere nearer to solving her financial crisis.
"Perhaps it would have been better if I'd stayed in Underland." She grumbled from where she was flopped in a plush chair.
It was then that Alice got the feeling that she was being watched.
"Odd." She said softly as she looked around. She knew that she was the only one in the house; Bessie, the cook, was out at the market and Sara, the maid, was on her day off. Alice's mother, Helen, had died of Pneumonia two years previously, leaving the house and its contents to Alice except for a few items that went to Margaret, Alice's older sister. Alice slowly got up and walked past each window and looked out each one but she saw nothing. Well, almost nothing. As she looked out thee last one she could have sworn that she saw a white rabbit.
"It can't be, it must have been my imagination." She said, shaking her head.
It was three weeks later that Alice had to let Sara go as she couldn't afford to continue employing a maid with her loss of employment. Two weeks after that she had to let Bessie go as well.
"I don't know what to do mother, I can't find another job anywhere. It seems like everyone is in Hamish's pocket so they don't dare risk upsetting him by employing me. I've had to fire both Sara and Bessie as I can't afford to employ them anymore. All my old friends have deserted me, well except for Mrs Jenkins, she still is nice to me." Alice said at her mother's grave later that same day. A loud flash of lightning and a crash of thunder made Alice look up at the sky. There were huge billowing dark clouds signalling the approach of a storm. Just as Alice stood up to leave, the heavens opened and it started to rain. Even though she ran the 2 mile walk from the cemetery to her home, Alice ended up completely soaked to the skin. She ran into the house and slammed the door shut. She then ran up to her room and, using the last of her coal and firewood, light a fire in the fireplace.
Alice then walked through to her dressing room to get changed out of her wet clothes. The moment she walked in the door she froze. The window was wide open and the rain had been blown in by the wind. All her clothes were soaked and ruined except for one dress in the very back of her wardrobe. It was the dress that she'd worn to her mother's funeral two years ago; unfortunately it was slightly too short for her but, as she had no other dry clothes she had to put it on after she had closed the window. After that she went down to the kitchen and made a small meal of what food she had left in the house before taking it back up to her room to eat by the fire. No matter what she tried, Alice just couldn't seem to get warm. She kept shivering and sneezing, her lungs ached. By the time the fire was going out several hours later she felt chilled to the bone. She curled up in her chair and drifted off as there was nothing else she could do. Her hand was clenched tightly around the necklace that her mother had given her 5 years before.
"I wish I could go to Underland once more time." She whispered as her eyes closed. When Alice was asleep the sound of footsteps walking up the stairs sounded throughout the quiet house. A tall figure opened the door to the room where Alice was curled up and walked in. It crossed the room the stand beside Alice's chair.
"Oh Alice, what have they done to you?" The figure said, gently picking her up and leaving the room with her.