Читать книгу The Gruesome Adventures Of Alice In Undeadland - Sebastian Gregory - Страница 7

Chapter One

For most of her short life Alice had lived in an orphanage after her parents had succumbed to cholera. It was an unhappy place run by a cruel and crone-like mistress who wore ill-fitting black lace over old pale skin the colour of tripe. Her wrinkled face was coated in a thick powder and globs of red lipstick. She closely resembled an undernourished vampire” The mistress would dream up unusual and impossible chores for the children to undertake. Her favourite was having the orphans knit spider webs into scarves.

The trick was to catch the spiders first, a task not suited to children. The spiders were vicious and as Alice and the other orphans entered the dust-covered arachnid room the spiders would descend, biting, pinching, crawling in the girls’ hair, ears, under their rags and over their skin.

“Help me, Alice,” screeched Dinah, one of the smallest and youngest orphans, who Alice shared a close bond with. Being barely six years old, Dinah found life particularly hard in the orphanage and Alice had helped her through the trials of being there.

Alice shielded Dinah under her arms and sat her down. Around them other girls were in floods of tears and panic.

“Don’t fret, Dinah.” Alice smiled and held her hand; a fat, juicy spider climbed over tiny fingers trailing webs and spots of blood where the spider bit.

“Think of nicer days,” Alice explained. “I think of my parents and seeing their smiles.”

When the young ladies of “Miss Scrim’s Orphanage for Burdens” were unable to complete their tasks, the mistress created even more unusual punishments. Such as standing for hours — bare footed — in the leech bowl.

Miss Scrim had the girls in a line as she paraded in front of them.

“You,” creaked the mistress, pointing a finger that was more bone than anything towards the tiny Dinah. The other orphans sighed with a mixture of relief and terror at what was happening and what would happen next.

“You didn’t work as hard as you should. You must earn your keep if I am to keep a roof over your miserable head.”

“Please, miss,” she whimpered.

“To the leeches with you,” Miss Scrim hissed.

Dinah took a shuddering step forward before Alice caught her shoulder.

“Mistress.” Alice spoke. “It was I who didn’t work hard. I am sorry — Dinah was helping me,” she lied.

The mistress sneered and thought for a moment. “Then you feed my pets tonight,” she decided.

Alice stood in front of the bowl at her feet; the bloated leeches squirmed in anticipation. Alice placed her feet in one after the other. The feeling of the slime-riddled creatures feeding between her toes was not unlike putting one’s feet in a bowl of jelly laced with sewing needles. Once again Alice thought of her parents and let her mind wander to their arms.

Toys were prohibited at the orphanage; playtime was time away from work time, considered Miss Scrim. So the children made do with what they could, making themselves teddy bears of coal or dolls from nettles, sticks and mud. The girls of the orphanage slept in the damp and infested cellar. While in the lodgings above, Miss Scrim rented the rooms to unsavoury characters, leaving the orphans to huddle together in the dark. They slept amongst scraps with always one eye to the shadowy corners. Things of many limbs, things of many eyes crawled in those corners. There were stories of children sinking into the shadows. Upon the stone floor tiny nail marks were dragged and etched along.

“Where is Dinah?” Alice asked one evening. She had not seen her all day.

There was a moment’s silence before the reply came.

“Mistress sold her to a chimney sweep. Except…”

“Except what?” Alice asked.

“Except I saw the sweep come back demanding his money. He was mad at Dinah. He said she ruined a toff’s chimney with her corpse.”

So it was that sometime after her uncelebrated thirteenth birthday Alice decided to jump into the River Thames and forever end her misery. To that end, one freezing night Alice climbed from the cellar’s small window and made her way through gaslit cobbled streets to Tower Bridge. Horrible black steaming creatures snorted, pulling carriages as she passed by. No one paid her attention, except to sneer or stare with an unhealthy purpose. There were plenty of children on London’s streets and so another urchin in the night was paid little heed. She kept to the dark shades of London and her head to the street. Eventually after the dark walk through London’s slums, Alice stood on the bridge staring into the water. The wind was cutting and blew her long blonde hair with the sharpest of strokes. Alice looked out from the bridge; London was lit by a thousand dull lights. It reminded Alice of a demented beast.

To calm her nerves she sang a song under its gaze:

‘I often wondered what it would be like to die,

To jump into the river and sink deep inside,

Drink in the water and fill my lungs a while,

Floating along with a contented dead smile.

Did the dead sleep for ever so they could dream?

How I would dream such things, floating in that stream.’

Alice closed her eyes to the world, held her hands out and felt the edge of the bridge beneath her feet. She thought of her parents and how they had all loved each other. She thought of the orphanage and how love avoided the place. She wondered how much loss and heartbreak she could endure, was there ever to be an end. Her short life had been hard and tinged with sadness; however she had the comfort in memories of her parents. There were children living amongst the gutters who had never known their own parents at all. Yet here she was, still managing to live when others had not been so fortunate. There was something in those thoughts that calmed her and suddenly, with determination, she knew not to let adversity define her. She never had and even now at her lowest moment, she would not.

Feeling foolish at her plan, Alice began to climb from the edge of the bridge when a policeman, seeing the danger, ran towards her calling out, “Girl, girl, get down!” Alice, startled, turned to explain before slipping and plunging like a dead seagull into the waiting water. The frozen cold took her breath and the water rushed into the gap left in her lungs. She was welcomed to the oppressive water as her dress became as heavy as lead. Although Alice had no longer the intention of drowning, she did anyway.