The Dark Forest: A Collection Of Erotic Fairytales(164)
In fact, he would only make my torment unbearable. Where before my days had been lonely, in the care of Sir Rothfield, sunlight hours would grow to hold a fresh agony.
The Hatter had been right. I would beg for his help. And he had also been honest. He would make me suffer.
Chapter Six
While standing before my parents, I was told that I should appreciate how gentle my care would be. I was told that modern medicine and carefully applied practice would cure me. But, all progress hinged on trust; Sir Rothfield said so. I was to trust him. I was to obey.
I promised faithfully, Mama and Papa as witness, to do just that.
Be a good girl; be faithful to the family name. Be quiet.
My banishment had all been prepared ahead of time, a new cloak of soft blue wool ready for my shoulders. It hid my sorry garments. It fell all the way past my stockinged ankles. My mother fastened it under my throat and would not meet my questioning gaze.
Sir Rothfield led me from my house; my parents did not even see me to the door.
My nanny, her shape I did see standing at my nursery window, looking down as I made my way. Whether it was because she would miss me, or because she longed to see me gone, I could not tell.
The whole arrangement stirred a nagging sense of betrayal in my breast: the cloak, a case prepared, a carriage waiting... their only child cast into the power of a stranger.
Soon my feelings were forgotten, for you see, the ride from London gave me a view of the world I’d never known before. I’d had only the nursery window overlooking our street. My universe had been dotted in gas lamps and cobblestones, brownstone houses and the random pedestrian. I could not even recall how long it had been since I’d seen a park. An hour in the carriage and the world became new. Outside the city limits there were green things, grass, cows, different smells. Glued to the window, I watched it all, my fingers clinging to the casement so the rocking of the coach might not upset the show.
There was little conversation. Sir Rothfield only spoke at me, not to me.
“That door is barred from the outside, Alice. It cannot be pried open.” He sounded more like my stern father and less like the contemplative stranger I had met only this morning. “Now, sit back in your seat like a lady.”
Unfolding from my awkward perch was harder to manage than I’d thought. My fingers rebelled, and it felt strange to make them uncurl. As always, I obeyed. Wrapped warmly in my cloak, I let the seat bounce me, and did my best to take in the now obstructed view.
For the next several hours, I sat still as one of the few unbroken china dolls on the highest shelf of my nursery. I am not even sure I blinked, as there was so much to see. In hindsight, I wish I had been disobedient and clung to that window. I wish I might have looked more at the world.
Soon enough it would all be taken from me.
Once we cleared the gates of Rothfield Asylum, there was no more green, no cows, no landscape. There was a yard of gravel and a manor larger by far than the house I had grown up in. A robust man dressed in white unbarred the door of the carriage and I was pulled out by my arm without so much as a hello.
Outside of my nightly visitors, I had never been handled with such roughness... not even by my father when he was in a temper. Yanked through the courtyard, Sir Rothfield at my heels, I was dragged inside that house, down halls, upstairs, around corners, and past muttering patients until standing in an office bright with electric lamps.
Polished mahogany dominated the room’s center position, a desk of huge proportions bearing stacks of books, papers, a tray of letters.
With the huge man still holding me above the elbow, Sir Rothfield circled, taking the desk’s overstuffed leather chair and scrutinizing me as if we had not previously met or spoken.
He looked less the grandfather with his brows drawn down and his mouth tight and more the cold academic. Setting a pipe between his teeth, he struck a match, puffed to ignite the tobacco, and blew out a great cloud of smoke. “What you have, Alice, is a disease of the mind. It is my sacred duty to cure it.”
I nodded, swallowing nervously, my arm aching where it hung trapped by the grip of a man Sir Rothfield introduced as head-orderly Calvin. He was to be mainly charged with my care. He was to be treated with the utmost respect.
“This is a hospital for the privileged, Alice. Our techniques are cutting edge. Aggressive treatment, medication, and practice, will end your mania. There will be no child’s indulgences, starting with your manner of dress. There will be no toys like those kept in your room. Should you show adequate progress, I may allow you to play the harp.”
I hated playing the harp and had long ago outgrown toys.
“I have yet to decide whether or not to cut your hair.” He glared at the freefalling locks, eyeing the golden waves with contempt. “Like all attractive young woman, you reek of a bloated sense of vanity.”
He could not touch my hair. My mother would never forgive me if it were shorn. Alarm made my eyes go wide, a chirp struck from my mouth when the orderly’s fingers went to the frogs of my cloak. “Please sir, you mustn’t. I’ll be good.”
“And I give you an opportunity to prove it now.” Leaning back in the chair, puffing on the pipe, Sir Rothfield explained, “It is best to conduct initial examination immediately upon arrival. Behave, and you may keep your locks.”
I had promised Mama and Papa devotedly to behave. There was nothing I could do but stand still, and quake while in full view of them both, head-orderly Calvin stripped me down to my shabby underthings. Left cold, trying to make myself smaller than a mouse, I cried silent tears but said nothing.