Half my life is in books' written pages
Lived and learned from fools and from sages
You know it's true
All the things come back to you
Aerosmith, "Dream On"
Quentin certainly liked his books. Alice was thinking on this, passing over the filled shelf-walls inside, a glass of lemonade in hand while the young man in question stood across the room, squinting out the window, careful not to draw too near her lest he make her feel put upon or untoward. He had one hand in his pocket, jingling some coins together ever so often. It smelled like honeysuckle even inside the cabin, but she could see no vases set out, nor any issuance of the climbing vine nearby that she could see.
"Have you read all of these?" she asked, shifting her weight off a squeaky floorboard. "You have so many books that I wonder how you have time for them."
"There's… plenty of time now. I'm still working through them," he replied. "Stopped about…" He crossed the room, placed his hand in a space between two of them about halfway down the northern wall, "…here," he said, and retreated to where he had been near the window. Alice folded her hands at the small of her back and tilted her head sideways to view the titles. Carefully arranged by genre and then author family name, just as she would have done. And lucky too that the books were relatively proportional to each other, there being no tomes overlapping or so tall as to be squeezed in atop the others.
"There's Emma," he said, and moved so suddenly to go onto the porch that by the time Alice turned her head, he was already gone and the door had shut once with a humid clack. She followed, and squinted in confusion, for he was still alone outside.
Approaching the house by way of the hazy sunlit field—Alice thought of the phrase coming through the rye—was a tall dark woman with features growing daintier and sweeter the closer she came. In her hand was a small novel, and she was singing to herself under her breath. Alice looked up at Quentin, half-expecting to find upon his face the expression of relief upon seeing love's fair face again, but he was in truth rather mixed on the subject, remaining stoic, peculiar at his haste in going out to meet the lady.
Emma stopped at the lowest stair to look up at them, and Alice read the spine of the book—Armance, it said.
"Good afternoon, Miss Emma," said Quentin evenly. "Nice day for a walk, isn't it?" He addressed her with such familiarity that it seemed almost a politesse in itself, eschewing the tradition of formal addresses. Neither of them reflected on it, nor seemed to think it odd.
"Mmm," said Emma with a bored, lofty air, not even looking about her at the admittedly lovely afternoon.
"And where have you been off to?" Alice looked over his profile; he was relieved at seeing Emma, but the feeling only went as far as having a third member of the party, a chaperone, to make things less awkward or unseemly. There was no sense of these two being frosty, but they certainly were not close friends—at least Quentin wasn't.
"That indefatigable man asked me to look over decorations for a soiree." The woman gave Quentin a sardonic and significant look. "'E is so clear, like a little glass bell, it is very strange to hear that others find him so… enigmatic." She turned, and seeing her there, was more interested in Alice now, and said to Quentin in her richly toned accent, « Qui est-ce ? »
"Oh, forgive me, I'm so rude, Emma—" said Quentin, introducing them, and Alice felt herself curtsey without really thinking about it; she simply seemed to deserve it, the curve of her ivory cheek, the darkness in her eye, her brows so clean and smooth.
"How do you do," said Alice. The lady tilted her head in turn, and her deep lips, clarity within the heart of the rose, smiled back at the blonde on the porch.
« Enchanté, » she murmured. "I am Emma, as you hear from Monsieur Quentin. Your dress is so lovely," continued the woman, stepping up to join them and taking Alice's arm in the kind way that a new friend does and apparently resisting the emotional urge to reach out and touch the girl's sausage curls, "And this ribbon in your hair! What a unique style, you must tell me where you buy them, I adore beautiful ribbons, all these petits accessoires."
"Oh," said Alice, glancing at Quentin, "Well-certainly."
"Why don't we all go inside," he said, already holding the door open. "Emma? Lemonade?"
"For all of us together!" she said, not looking away from her searching review of Alice's features, and what she found seemed quickly to cheer her, the feeling blossoming out like a flip-book of pictures, a sudden light pitching forth to obscure her earlier ennui.
"And so," continued Emma as they sipped, seated, "Where did you come from, may I ask?" The Frenchwoman had a queenly air, but was so curiously dressed now that Alice had a better look at her. A plain, though clean, dress, and a decently stitched little walking jacket over it, but such a fine watch pinned to her bodice that it must have been quite a gift from someone with taste and wealth—or simply wealth, and Emma possessed of a keen desire to show off her taste with such an object.
"Well, the capital, though I imagine I was quite far from it by the time I found the tunnel," said Alice upon clearing her throat. Emma turned her head to look at Quentin, perhaps in need of translation or interpretation.
"Sorry, we don't quite understand."
"The capital, the seat of the monarchy," said Alice, as though this were perfectly
obvious. "In the Wonderland?" Now Emma raised her beautiful eyebrows at Quentin rather insistently.
"Wait, the Wonderland? The place with the queens," the young man said, puzzled. He leaned forward urgently to look into Alice's face.
"I thought the hole was blocked," this grave statement from Emma.
"You're very far from the Wonderland," said Quentin, looking at Alice, "Quite far, actually." Alice leaned back in her chair and blinked a few times.
"It did seem odd that the snow had suddenly cleared up. I shouldn't be surprised, I really should never be surprised, and yet it never fails me…"
"Where in the Wonderland are you from?" this from Emma.
"I'm not really from there," said a distracted and detached Alice, "I was… sort of there by accident to begin with."
"No one from the Wonderland has been here in—"
"Ages." Emma's voice had become… not curt, perhaps, but brisk, concerned, all business.
"Ages," Quentin agreed, nodding. "The monarchy always seems to be in such an uproar, all those stories about usurpations and beheadings. Has it changed very much?"
"I'm sure I couldn't tell you." Quentin shifted in his chair, crossed one leg over the other so that his pockets made a jingling sound again, and Alice had a sudden thought. "Who did you say has been here?"
Quentin and Emma exchanged an interesting private look, and she heard a strange twang come into her voice when she said,
"Was it an odd man with white hair?"
-and then a curious bubble pop somewhere in the very middle of her chest when Emma declared raptuously,
"Ah! You know him! What was 'is name, it 'as been so long," this last part to Quentin, who opened his mouth to answer when Alice intoned,
"The Mad Hatter." Quentin turned to look at her with some surprise upon this rejoinder.
"Is that really what they call him there?"
"Everywhere I go, he's there," said Alice, more to herself than anyone, "He still manages to influence things from… a jail cell, or wherever he is now."
"Oh, did they lock him up?" said Emma with pathos, one hand over her heart.
"He was a bit of a radical," came Quentin's remark. "Brought that—" his eyes went to Alice, and he tilted his head, realizing. "That thing, I still have that box."
"Did you ever manage to get it open?"
"The Hatter gave you something?" The intrigue, Alice thought, was almost a comical set-up, but Emma flapped her hands at him urgently, her mood suddenly whipcracking back into energy and interest.
Quentin half-smiled at the Frenchwoman's display before he went to the only curio shelf in the parlor and removed a long black lacquer box with a pearl handle and a liquid shine, long, but shorter than how far he could stretch his arms. It had a slight burgundy twinge to the finish and a brass integrated lock at the outer lip between the halves.
"Not exactly a forgettable guy. He left this."
"What's inside of it?"
"We 'av been wondering ourselves," said Emma, her eyes wide. "'E was so memorable when 'e brought it."
"He left it on the shelf. Told us not to try to open it."
"He didn't give you a key? Just in case?"
"Nope. He said not to open it." Alice gave the shining box a strange look, as if it had offended her personally. How odd that the Hatter should go about leaving personal effects with other people—and yet how convenient, and then once again perplexing. This sat with her about as well as a sugar syrup; a rush of reassurance upon seeing something he had effected most curiously in the world, followed by a sick anxiety.
"What was he like, when he was here?"
Quentin wiggled his nose and looked up at the ceiling.
"Probably about what you remember, I'd guess."
"Manic," said Emma definitively. "But very distressed, 'e was worried about something, I think—"
"He was as odd as anyone with a name that starts with 'Mad' could be," Quentin said, glancing down at the seated Emma.
"Did he tell you anything else?" Alice asked. Quentin squintched his mouth up charmingly and the coins in his pocket jingled again. "Did he say why he was worried?"
"One day he was just here, and he asked if he could leave it with me as long as I didn't open it, and then he went away again. I haven't thought about it in so long."
"I do have some keys he left for me, perhaps it's on the ring," she thought aloud.
"You can open it?" cried Emma, who rose to come and watch Alice unlink the hoop of keys from within her skirts and go through them, remembering which opened this door and which she had never been able to mate to a lock.
"Such trust, giving you so many keys!" Emma spoke to Alice, but looked at Quentin over her shoulder.
"Temporary châtelaine; he does have so many keys that all seem to go to nothing, but I do wonder if it's in among these."
Quentin watched this, not saying a word, the light glinting white off his spectacles, and when Alice had the strange little silver skeleton key in hand, the one with the bitings all worn down, they three together stood over the black lacquered box, and Alice hesitated despite her intense curious need to know what was in it. She could not see them, staring as she was at the reflection off the box, but Emma and Quentin were looking at one another behind her back.
To open it, or not to open it? She had a vague feeling that perhaps this was the reason the Hatter had recommended she not come here, but Alice fitted the little sliver of metal inside, not letting herself hope that fitting meant a match, and then, then she turned the teeth and opened the lip, the lacquer making a crack and squeak as it pinched together over back on itself.
And just like that, it was open, almost without thought or a real decision from her, and the taste of the sugar syrup was back in Alice's mouth, the uncanny feeling that this was far too easy.
But it was empty, she saw. There in the black box was a long indention in the shape of a capital T, as if there had once been housed a croquet mallet within, resting on the black velvet cloth inside. Quentin was squinting again, she could tell. Alice frowned too as she felt the inner lining, ran her fingers up and down the indention-
"Empty box…" said the bemused Emma,
-and to her surprise found a small silver thing, not quite the length of her little finger, sitting now in the middle of the lines on her palm. It might have been a bell hammer, this thing made of smooth silver, a surface almost liquid like mercury, glinting in the parlor light. Alice held it up between they three.
"What is it?" Quentin said low and soft.
"I don't know," she murmured back. "I've never seen anything like it before." It was part of a bracelet, perhaps; there was a slim hooking chain that had come out with the charm, and Alice strung the tiny thing through the hookloop and then onto her slender wrist.
"All that box for a bracelet?" Quentin said with a bit of disbelief, "I mean, it isn't that we aren't glad to know you and all, but, ah—it's a long way to come for a piece of jewelry." Alice let the charm drop down and spin around on itself, catching the light.
"I don't think it's jewelry," said Alice.
There was a knocking sound, and a young woman with pale hair and striking eyes was standing on the porch looking in through the open window. Alice nearly jumped upon seeing this apparition, who somewhat pointedly did not come in through the door.
"Oh," said Quentin, sounding surprised. "Hi Catherine."
"Hello," she said, in an accent Alice recognized. "Are you going to that party? I'm only asking because I wouldn't go if nobody else were. I do hate to go to these things alone." Her voice had once been pretty and she had probably said many sweet and eloquent things in her life, but Catherine's voice was now one of permanent melancholy, it seemed, for just as water flows over the rocks underfoot, time flows into and past our lives, the result clarifying some into beautiful striated gems while wearing others down into flat and dull nothingness after too long. Her face was enough to match the voice. Once lovely, the waxy whiteness and deep indentations under the bold eyes—the only thing giving clues to her vitality—especially as she stood in the shadows on the porch, lent her the air of a diaphanous figure not quite bound to the realm of the living.
"Would you like to go?" Quentin said to Alice. "Everyone's always invited, these things are on all the time; I'm sure it'd be interesting to have someone new there, but of course that's up to you."
"You must go!" cried Emma, "A party is so boring without new people to talk to, and you won't be alone, Cathy, don't be so pessimistic all the time, and I can wear that new dress..."
Catherine, for her part, did not change her expression, which approached a state of moribundity.
"Very well," she spoke again her monotone, and drifted off to who knew where.
Emma was still in a digression upon the subject of her new gown when Alice managed to ask her if this party was the one she had mentioned earlier.
"Oui!" came the answer, followed by more meditations on the new dress, and Alice, with great knowledge and wisdom on these sort of things, politely refrained from mentioning the earlier, somewhat derisive attitude with which the Frenchwoman had spoken of this gathering, given her current zeal at the thought of being seen.
They approached the large mansion with the sprawling front garden lined by topiaries, Quentin having spent the walk quietly reassuring Alice that her frock was perfectly fine despite Emma's insistence on being given the chance to dress for dinner. The gown in question was a grand white tulle affair with a draping length of heavy silk flowers on the bias, flipping and floating around Emma's feet as she walked, busily arranging and re-arranging it, trying it this way, trying it that way, seven steps behind Quentin and Alice.
"Really, it is pretty informal," he said, "Sometimes I'm surprised by the way people show up out of the blue."
"What kind of person throws such a grand party all the time and invites everybody in the neighborhood?"
"The kind of person who has the… means to do so," he replied delicately.
Here was the front door, and they paused to let the woman behind them catch up. Emma took a deep breath and made an odd gesture with her chin, apparently readying herself for this moment as though she would have a crowd of admirers within, all ready to fill her engagements for the evening. Quentin smiled, but it was more of a tolerant look than an amused one. It was a large, handsome house, with quite a lot of mirrors and artwork and strong shapes Alice didn't find especially attractive—no gilt or curliquing, but bold contrast, black and white, almost sparse in its cleanliness.
People, whom Alice of course did not recognize, but gave her passing glances, milled about, talking quietly. She looked around; there was no one to receive them. Emma sailed off in her massive skirts like a ship returning to its harbor slip to go peek around a door frame nearby before disappearing entirely, the tulle flashing and twisting about her prettily. Now Quentin did look appalled.
"Are you ill?" said Alice, who felt subtlety might actually work in this situation.
"No, no," he replied.
"Worried about Miss Emma? You look concerned for her, I am sure she will find a friend to talk to." They walked together deliberately past the room into which Emma had gone, an open parlor of sorts, and Alice's eyes went wide upon seeing there the queenly young woman surrounded by gentlemen offering her wine and their hand in dance. She turned back to him, but he was pointedly looking in another room across the hall.
Catherine approached them as they found their way into the library.
"I get so lost around here," she said, trying out a quavering smile on Alice while Quentin went for punch. "I come here every week, and I still don't know my way around."
"Who is hosting?"
"I met him once," said the pale lady with a slight frown, "But I admit I don't remember what he looked like. Pale, with light hair, I'm sure—not particularly dark or striking. Oh! Come see Violetta, but don't stand too near her-" she leaned in conspiratorily—"She's got the worst cough, it's not contagious, but can be violent if she isn't careful."
Violetta the striking brunette in the diamond necklace, with a little glass of framboise in hand and a voice like a song but nothing much to say, and with her Victor, a brooding German who kept looking over his shoulder as though someone were constantly there. Quentin brought her a glass, and they filtered away from the discussion on something called galvanism.
A vaguely good-looking young man in a tuxedo sifting through glass decanters on a table in the hallway looked up at them, and Quentin said,
"Please, meet Jay." Alice held out her hand, but instead of bowing over it or squeezing it politely, the man took her palm in his and pumped it up and down, Alice allowing this somewhat stiffly, having never shook hands quite so. "This is his house." Alice blinked; she had rather thought the man a servant.
"It's a very fine one." She could not quite think of any other assessment for the huge place. It seemed so empty, though full of things and people. She wondered if Jay truly lived here, all by himself, hosting parties for people who simply showed up.
"She's from the Wonderland," said Quentin, and Jay appraised her up and down, smiling in a way that creased his eyelids but did not extend any layers of warmth to his mouth. He nodded slightly, looking over her blonde hair.
"Nice to have you, thanks for coming," he said in an accent a bit different than Quentin's. "Please, look around at your leisure, I don't stand on formalities here, and the servants are at your disposal."
"Such fair grounds," said Alice after a pause, "Do you keep a stocked lake for fishing?" Jay gave a short laugh, and pointed with his hand out a set of large glass doors.
"There's a swimming pool outside there, if you care to see, it hasn't been used in a while," he said, and Alice was halfway out the door before she realized neither of them were following her.
"No," said Quentin charmingly, but with a sharp sigh, waving a hand, "You go on ahead. I'm not… partial to water, myself." His mouth looked so awkward as he said it. Jay suddenly appeared to see someone he recognized, cleared his throat and excused himself in a murmur, leaving Alice alone to step out into the dusk and gaze down into the clear waters to the tiles. A private bathing pool; she had never seen one constructed out-of-doors before. Alice was near the diving board when she heard a bright and cheerful-
"'Alo!" and there was Emma, smoothing down her hair and looking happily flushed, Alice hoped from dancing or the punch.
"I'm all alone out here, I should wonder at Mr. Jay not wanting to accompany his guests," she said, but it was a kind tone of voice.
"Monsieur Je' does not like the bathing pool," crooned Emma, wise as ever. "I do not know why 'e still 'as it if it is so offensive to 'im. Still, it is a fine thing to 'ave when one is wealthy." Her eyes had a glossy shine as she said this.
"Quentin seemed not to like it either."
"Oh, Monsieur Quentin." Now her tone was not nearly so magnanimous or glowing. "So many problems, that one."
"But you are still friends, aren't you?"
"We are neighbors, and it is better to talk to one's neighbors than to sit about alone with no one, though sometimes I think he would rather not talk to anyone. It can be so difficult to get him out of that cottage."
They listened to the crickets and the little frogs making a pretty little sound for a moment.
« À ta santé, » murmured Emma, holding up her glass. They clinked and sipped.
"Perhaps he is a true academic devoted to studies," Alice said low.
"He is the obsessive type," and Alice thought she heard the woman say soeur or coeur under her breath, but it could have been either, and she supposed it was not for her to hear anyway. The door slid open, and Catherine leaned out.
"Jay is asking for you, Emma, he says you owe him a game of Blackjack, but he's going to win anyway, so—" her head disappeared inside to listen to someone repeat what they had told her to say. "So you might as well forfeit now."
This had the effect of igniting a light under Emma, so quickly did she stand and with a smile ready for a social battle stride into the hall, Alice come trotting to see, but straying a bit to avoid being drawn into their politics.
The haughty Frenchwoman was in the middle of the parlor, hands akimbo, speaking for all to hear.
"You 'sink that you are so fantastique," spat Emma passionately and disdainfully toward the door where stood the man in the tuxedo. "'Sinking that you are the only man who 'as seen me as I am," this in her most dramatic voice, "Wooing me with nylons and the chocolat bar. I see your ways, Monsieur Je'. Do not 'sink that you are so clever as all this, I 'av been there, there is no need for this tiresome charade." But there was a hint of charm to her surliness, just the tiniest ray of possibility backlighting her Francophonic sassmouthery, and the man in the pressed tuxedo apparently knew it very well, for he smiled smoothly, and he looked very mysterious and proud of himself.
Alice bid farewell to her host and the party not long after, and she was glad for Quentin's mannerly invite to escort her back to the tunnel between the trees.
"Goodbye, Quentin," said Alice, adjusting her handwarmer. "I hope we shall meet again someday."
"So do I," was his answer. "Goodbye. Have a safe return."
As she stepped back into the silent snowy forest, she stumbled, for the inside of the warmer had caught on the little chain. Alice drew her hand from with, uncaught the tangle, and turned the little hammer between her fingers, wondering how she had got out from under all that without any answers.