Mad Hatters and March Hares

by Ellen Datlow

  “Now add the nitric acid that’s in this pot.”

  Her father pulled her back. It made a gentle sound at first. Then it started to bubble and boil. She’d summoned this magic with the tipping of her wrist.

  When the mercury nitrate had ceased seething Theophilus passed her a brush and a pelt he’d been keeping back for her.

  “Brush it onto this like you’ve seen me do.”

  They watched as the fur was transformed from rich brown to orange.

  “This process makes the fur rougher so it felts better later on.”

  Once the pelt fried he taught her to shave the stiff fur off the hide. It unnerved her, this strange matted sheet of orange that kept the animal’s shape, long after it was parted from the skin, as if the essence of what it was could never be erased.

  * * *

  When Alice got back to the room Theophilus was out of bed.

  “Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.”

  There were times when the fog and confusion lifted and he was himself again.

  “To see Mrs Malfi. I couldn’t sleep.” It was a ridiculous thing to say but it was all she could think of.

  “At this time of night?”

  “She doesn’t sleep either.”

  “Come and sit here.”

  She did, knowing this spell of sanity would be short-lived. He took her hand and she felt like a child again. He was in charge and all would be well.

  “Alice, I should’ve done better by you. I still can. It’s not too late.”

  “No, of course not.” She kissed his cheek. It was far too late.

  Something glinted on his nightgown. Drops of quicksilver ran off him. She held up the lamp, brushing them off.

  “Oh, Daddy, what have you been doing?”

  “Oh, God, Alice, stop making such a fuss!”

  The sudden anger startled her. He turned away and then back abruptly.

  “How is a raven like a writing desk?”

  “I don’t know.” She dug her nails into her palms to keep from crying.

  “No,” he whispered. “Neither do I.”

  * * *

  Alice had never been in a public house before, never mind one like The Lion and Unicorn on Silent Street. It stank of men and beer. A loud whoop went up as she pushed through the crowd.

  “Come and sit on my knee,” called one man.

  “Let me stroke your petals,” said another, which received appreciative guffaws.

  “Are you looking for a unicorn, love?” Another thrust his hips at her, pointing at his crotch.

  The landlord thumped the bar and shouted, “Shut it! She’s not a flower.”

  “All women are flowers when you get them on their backs.”

  “I told you, Carstairs! Keep your hands to yourself or I’ll cut them off.” The landlord beckoned Alice over. “You shouldn’t be in here, sweetheart. What do you want?”

  “I’m here to see the Colonel, sir.”

  “Sir? Bless you.” He frowned at her. “You’re not looking for work, are you?”

  “I told you. She’s a pretty pansy awaiting plucking.”

  “One more word from you and I’ll crack your skull.”

  She beckoned to the landlord and whispered in his ear. “The Knave sent me.”

  The landlord’s face darkened. He ushered her through to the back of the bar. “That man will be the death of us all. You don’t want to get mixed up with him. He harms his friends more than his enemies in the long run. Up them stairs, girl. Go to the door right at the end of the corridor and mind you knock before you go in.”

  The men were banging their tankards. Alice took the stairs two steps at a time. The corridor was painted an oppressive dark shade of green. A woman in a silk wrap was framed by an open door.

  “Hello, pretty.”

  The woman’s cheeks and lips were rouged. The wrap gaped to reveal creamy-skinned cleavage.

  “Hello.” Alice realised she wasn’t a woman but a girl with a woman’s eyes.

  “Shy girl. Ain’t that lovely.”

  “Who is it, Rose?” The voice came from deep within the room.

  “A fresh bloom.” Rose stood aside.

  The woman lay on the bed. A fire roared in the hearth.

  “Run, little girl, while you can.”

  Rose made a face.

  “Ignore Daisy. Safer here than the street. Warmer too.”

  Alice knocked on the door at the end of the corridor.

  “Go away!” A man’s voice boomed.

  “I’ve brought a letter from the Knave.”

  “Oh, come in then.”

  The Colonel was perched, legs crossed, on a pile of cushions. He wore a burgundy jacket and paisley shawl, medals pinned to his chest. His hair was a grey mass and his skin tanned and leathered by foreign suns. A woman sat at a desk, her long black hair shining like lacquer, her eyes elongated by kohl.

  “Tiger-Lily, will you excuse us?”

  “Of course.” Her accent was pure Lancashire. “Remember what I said. You’re too harsh with your Rs.”

  Alice didn’t understand what she said as she swept from the room but the words sounded like tinkling bells.

  “Tiger-Lily is teaching me French. And she’s my accountant. Robs me blind and shares it with the other girls, but I don’t mind. She speaks five languages: English, Russian, French, Persian, and Urdu. Some men come here just to listen to her recite poetry.”

  Alice had never seen a man so besotted.

  “You judge her, don’t you? If she’d been born with the Knave’s opportunities she’d be prime minister by now.”

  “I don’t judge anyone. I’m only here to deliver a message.”

  He tore open the envelope and puffed on his hookah as he read the letter within.

  “Clever boy. He’s calling in all his debts.” He got up and went to the desk. She waited as his quill scratched paper. He blotted it and sealed the letter with wax. “Do you know why he’s called the Knave?”

  “No.”

  “Our boy, Arthur, is the younger brother of the Fourth Earl of Arlington. For such a posh lad to be bad, he must be truly badder than everyone else. He had an army commission and the chance at quite a career, but the turn of the Knave of Hearts was his downfall. Bad debts and bad business to repay them, including blackmail and kidnap. And I’ve seen him kill a man in cold blood, although the law’s clueless of that.”

  “I don’t care who he is.”

  “You should, dear. He says I’m to ask you to come back when I’m ready with all the arrangements. I shall need ten days. Can you do that, Alice Hargreaves?”

  “We didn’t agree on that.”

  “This is for today.” Metal clinked in his hand. “And there’ll be double that if you come back.”

  She gripped the coins so hard that they left imprints in her palm.

  * * *

  “Where did you get all this?”

  Theophilus had been busy while Alice had been at The Lion and Unicorn. The table was covered in white linen. It was cluttered with mismatched china laid with a feast: jellies, potted meats, sausage rolls, Banbury cake, Bath buns, and such.

  Her father poured a steaming arc of tea into a gold-painted cup. Dorian Hamley was slumped over, asleep, his cheek squashed against a willow pattern plate. Next to Dorian sat Johnny O’Hare.

  “Alice, join us.”

  There was the spark of her father. He seemed as much himself as he’d ever been. She wanted to believe it, but she knew it wouldn’t last.

  “Where did you get all this? The Duchess?”

  Dorian jerked upright, looking like he’d been awake all the time. Crumbs struck to his face. “We were hungry and Theo said he’d fetch us a treat. Try this treacle tart. It’s delicious.”

  “No, thank you.”

  He shrugged as he cut a generous wedge and shovelled it onto his plate. He smiled at nobody in particular as he chewed.

  “We can’t afford all this.” Alice slumped into an armchair at
the end of the table.

  “You need to eat something, darling.” Theophilus poured her a cup of tea and passed it to her, followed by a plate of bread and butter. “It’s tea time.”

  “No, it’s three o’clock. You’ve got the time all wrong.”

  Dorian fell forward again, landing on his sticky plate. He started snoring. Johnny leant on him, an elbow on his back.

  “Alice, you’re a good girl.” Johnny wiped his nose with the back of his hand and then on Dorian’s coat. “You’re always busy. You work far too hard, love. And you’re always so worried about time.”

  Alice picked up the bread and butter and took a bite. She was hungry. The bread was dense, spread thickly with creamy butter that tasted of the country. Her father frowned, fingers tapping the table.

  “Time time time. I can’t kill time but maybe I can change it.”

  There wasn’t any point in crying. She’d cried a pool of tears already, enough to drown in, and it had made no difference. Defeated, Alice finished her food.

  * * *

  Alice learnt the art of felting next.

  “It’s really just a fancy way for getting the fur to tangle together, so when it shrinks it’s a better material.”

  Theophilus did this work in the back room, which was free of draughts. He’d constructed a slotted table for this himself. He’d made Alice a bow too, a small version of her own that looked like something an archer would use.

  “Now follow me.”

  He worked across the table, plucking at the bow string as he passed it over the fur laid out on the table.

  “That’s it. A bit more gently, if you can. Perfect.”

  Afterwards he knelt down, showing her the dirt and tangles from the pelt that had dropped through the slots onto the floor.

  “What’s left on the table is called a batt. Look through this magnifying glass, the fur’s all going in different directions, all evenly spread.”

  Theophilus showed her how to wrap the batts in leather and then put them on the heated iron plate. She sprinkled it with water while he worked the batt into a loose cone shape that was the beginnings of a hat.

  “Let me do the next one.”

  “Are you sure you’re ready?”

  “Yes.”

  So Theophilus swapped places with her and Alice moulded the beginnings of her hat. All traces of the beaver that it had once been were gone. Such alchemy. She coughed and spluttered.

  “Heating releases the mercury vapours,” Theophilus winked. “You’ll get used to it.”

  * * *

  Alice worked close to the window, trying to use what was left of the light rather than a candle. Gloves would drive her to madness. She stitched them in her sleep. She could feel the needle pushing through the leather in her dreams.

  Theophilus was watching Dinah. Alice glanced up. Then she put the glove down on her knee.

  Dinah was playing with something on the floor. She pounced and batted at it in a sprightly manner, not at all like the sedate old lady that she was.

  “What’s she got there?”

  “A rocking-horse-fly. It followed me here.”

  “You mean a horsefly. And where did it follow you from?”

  “I said rocking-horse-fly.” Theophilus didn’t take his eyes off the cat. Alice put the glove onto the pile in her basket. Dinah’s head jerked up as she approached, her cool green eyes large with interest. Then she swatted at the fly but too late because it took flight and landed out of her reach. Theophilus chuckled.

  “It’s too fast and clever for her.”

  Alice squatted down to see it better. It was a tiny rocking horse, no bigger than a fly. It looked wooden, bright and sticky as if freshly painted.

  Dinah leapt at it again, but its wings were a blur and it was gone, up out the open window before she landed. All that remained to prove it had been there were the lines of red paint on the floor from its runners.

  * * *

  Alice woke to cold biting her toes. It was far colder in jail than a home. She missed the kitchen. There was a spot where she’d always sit when she was little. She’d forgotten her mother’s face but when she closed her eyes to enjoy the stove’s warmth, she could see the outline of her narrow shoulders as she reached to pick Alice up.

  She couldn’t recall her siblings, Edith, Lorina, and Harry either.

  Alice rolled over. Her father’s bed was empty. He’d been busy while she slept. He was crouched at the far side of the room. He was barefoot and shirtless. The thin morning light made him look grey. He was losing his hair. She saw him not as her father, but as a man worn down and worn out.

  The space between them was unintelligible. He’d refashioned it. The floorboards were covered in white marks. Theophilus’ hands were thick with chalk dust. He sat back, hands on his thighs, leaving hand prints on his trousers.

  x + 2y + z − u + 2v + 2 = 0

  x − y −2z u − v − 4 = 0

  “Daddy?”

  He didn’t look up.

  2x + y − z − 2u − v − 6 = 0

  x − 2y − z − u +2v + 4 = 0

  2x − y + 2z + u −3v − 8 = 0

  Numbers and letters ran across the floor, curved around furniture legs and climbed up walls. She pulled the blanket off her bed and started towards him.

  “Don’t. You’ll smudge it.”

  His writing was shaky. In places it grew to an epic sprawl. Elsewhere it was small and cramped.

  “Daddy, stop.”

  “I have to finish this while I can still remember it.”

  “What is it?”

  “Mathematics. Humpty Dumpty taught me.”

  He carried on writing.

  She tiptoed through the gaps to reach him, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders. What did a hatter know about mathematics?

  “It’s a problem of determinants. The bigger numbers you see…” He put his hands through the front of his hair, leaving white streaks. He tried again. “It’s the bigger numbers…”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “No! You don’t understand. I know this. It’s the problem with the bigger numbers. I can’t work out what x and y are.” He was drooling. “Humpty Dumpty and I were working it out. We did it with this very chalk, on his wall. He’s such an egg-head, although he is quite pompous sometimes.”

  “Why don’t you lie down and think on it and I’ll get you a drink. It’ll help you to remember.”

  “It’s all inside here.” He slapped the side of his own head, hard. “Somehow my head is filled with ideas, only I don’t know what they are.”

  She put her arms around him.

  “The further and longer I’m away from there, the harder it is to remember.”

  He wasn’t just cold, he was tired. She could feel his body sagging against hers. Within a few moments she could hear the change in his breath, feel the sonorous rise and fall of his chest. She laid him down and piled up the sheets and blankets over him to keep him warm, rather than try and move him and risk waking him.

  Alice washed down the floor and when he woke, he didn’t notice the writing had gone.

  * * *

  Alice used some of the money that the Colonel gave her to send for a doctor.

  “Who are you?” Theophilus shrank from him.

  “Mr Hargreaves, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Dr Pleasance, a physician.”

  “I’m not ill.”

  Alice started forward but the doctor knelt beside her father’s chair.

  “I know. I’ve been asked to see everyone here today. Just to make sure that everyone is well.”

  Alice was glad of the lie. Despite his youth, the doctor was earnest and reassuring.

  “May I, Mr Hargreaves?” He held out his hands. They were square-palmed with stocky fingers.

  Theophilus complied, putting his trembling hands into the doctor’s, who inspected one side and then the other. Theophilus’ fingertips were pink and peeling.

  “They burn,” he whimpered.

  Dr
Pleasance checked Theophilus’ pulse against his pocket watch.

  “Where were you born, Mr Hargreaves?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I was just making conversation. I myself was born and bred in High Wycombe.”

  “I was born in Daresbury.”

  Alice shook her head at the doctor. A quick, slight gesture that she didn’t want her father to see. Her family were Stockport through and through. She’d never heard of Daresbury.

  “I know Daresbury.” The doctor didn’t miss a beat. “A pleasant place.”

  “I’ve always thought so. I had seven sisters and two brothers.”

  Another bewildering story.

  “And how are your spirits? Does being here make you melancholy?”

  Theophilus looked around and a tear or two twinkled on his cheek. Dr Pleasance didn’t press him.

  “How do you spend your days?” he asked gently.

  “It’s so much nicer on the other side. There’s a tea party every day. And a Caucus-race.”

  The doctor shot Alice a look. She grimaced.

  “Now, Mr Hargreaves, may I see you walking?”

  Theophilus lurched about like an unsteady toddler.

  “Heart and chest now. Let’s help you out of that shirt.”

  Excoriation marks covered his arms and chest, despite Alice keeping his nails trimmed. The doctor listened to his heart and lungs with his stethoscope.

  “Cold,” Theophilus commented, looking put out.

  “Sorry. Can you manage to dress? I’ll wait with Alice by the door.”

  “Thank you, do-do. Do-do-do-do,” Theophilus stuttered. “Thank you, doctor. Oh, stupid buggering bastard!” He slapped his own forehead.

  Alice walked ahead of the doctor, her cheeks burning, trying not to cry.

  “I’m sorry, Dr Pleasance.”

  “No matter, Miss Hargreaves. Shall we sit here?”

  “Is it very bad news?”

  “Have you heard the term ‘hatters’ shakes’?”

  “Of course, all hatters get them in the end.”

  “Do you know what else they get?”

  “No.”

  “What was your father like before he became ill? I mean, what was he like as a person?”

  “He laughed a lot. He used to love company. Now he can’t stand it. And he doesn’t care about anything anymore.”