Part 11
Codpiece
Lizzie had had to be up early to go to London and she had felt so tired. She had not wanted to go at all but her parents would not hear of her ducking out. It had proved a long and very busy day. The only bright spot being she had not seen Conrad at all.
Utterly exhausted from her day, all Lizzie wanted to do was sleep but she sat on her bed, knees drawn up to her chin in her pretty nightdress too scared to close her eyes. Last night's had not been a happy dream: it had been a nightmare. She had been so enjoying the sexy dreams of the last few weeks: so oddly different from her dreams before. She was sure Conrad was something to do with her dreams but how could he get inside her head, how could he control her mind? Why did he keep appearing in one guise or another, most awfully as Smee the night before? She shuddered at the memory of Jas. Hook. It had all been so real, even when she had woken the dreadful scene had still seemed almost more real than her bed and bedroom. She had nearly run in to see her father and mother in the middle of the night, which was something she had not done since she was nine years old when she used to drag her duvet in and sleep on the floor, night after night.
Perhaps she would dream of Friday, or the Scarecrow or her Sister in Oz but... what if it was Jas. Hook again or something worse? She thought back over what Conrad had said the day before but that gave no clue as to a book. But he always mentioned books. What did his remarks about journeying and choices mean?
She would read for a bit and settle her mind. Perhaps if Conrad hadn't mentioned a book she would not dream or maybe it would be a happy dream. She looked around and picked up 'Pride and Prejudice', now she would not mind at all meeting Mr Darcy! She began to read:
'IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
"My dear Mr. Bennet,'' said his lady to him one day, `"have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?''
Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.
"But it is,'' returned she; `"for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.''
Mr. Bennet made no answer.
"Do not you want to know who has taken it?'' cried his wife impatiently.
"You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.''
This was invitation enough.'
The book dropped from her fingers and Lizzie was fast asleep. It seemed to her only moments had gone by when she found she was walking in a mist, following a path, a path that was only just visible ahead of her. The path was wet and muddy and not very distinct. Lizzie could not see what was on either side of her because of the mist and its effect of dampening all sound. There was a silence, which seemed eerie. Lizzie paused and looked about her. She was so tired but there was no where to sit, it was all too wet, so she might as well keep walking, she was after all, she noticed, well shod in stout leather boots.
She decided, despite immediate appearances, that she was in Wonderland again when she saw, sitting on a bough of a gnarled and weather beaten tree a few yards off, the Cheshire Cat. It grinned when it saw Lizzie.
"Cheshire Puss," she began again and it only grinned a little wider. "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat predictably.
"I don't much care where—" said Lizzie.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"—so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Lizzie added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're most certainly sure to do that," said the Cat grinning even wider, "if you only walk long enough. You could go back the way you came or on the way you're going."
Lizzie felt that this could not be denied, but was singularly unhelpful; which was rather as she had expected from the Cat so she walked on leaving the Cat grinning behind her.
As she walked the mist cleared away and she found she was hiking across a rather featureless moor following a peaty track between the heather. She could see no trees here, just purple heather, not even a gnarled and bent by the wind hawthorn to relieve the monotony of the landscape. Overhead the clouds were moving fast, a storm either approaching or going away. She was not sure which. The light was bright but with a cold light rather than the warm light of the visible sun. Lizzie found it depressing but she trudged on, awfully tired and really wanting to be home in bed. "But I am home in bed," she thought, "it's just I'm in this rotten dream. I didn't want a rotten, horrible dream tonight. Why can't I dream of lying quietly in the shade of a coconut palm on Crusoe's Island with Friday or in the Tin Woodman's cottage rather than this desolation more reminiscent of the waste around the House of Usher than anywhere else?"
A patch of blue sky allowed a shaft of sunlight through, though not on Lizzie, illuminating something on the horizon, right where her path lead. Slowly she trudged towards what seemed to be a post in an otherwise featureless landscape. As she got nearer she decided it was a signpost and she was right. It was one of those old English white painted wooden signposts you still sometimes see at country crossroads, though too many have been replaced by stark metal signs. It would have had fingers pointing at the ends of the signs if they had not been so old, rotten and broken. It was a sad sight, rot had got into it due to lack of re-painting and the arms had wholly or in part broken off and, presumably, the pieces now lay amongst the heather. Mushrooms or fungi grew from the main post. Lizzie stood and looked at the sign. It pointed to left and right and, indeed, the path no longer went straight on but changed direction forking to left and right.
"Looking for something or someone?" said a small voice. She looked around but could see no one.
A wisp of smoke rising from a bright yellow bracket fungus on the signpost's side caught Lizzie's eye. She stepped into the bracken and looked closely. Sitting on the mushroom, only just visible due to its camouflage of yellow and black alternate segments, sat a large caterpillar with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah.