Alice: part 3: her own perspective

So, as promised, here’s the third and final part of the Alice trilogy – three scene participants each writing about it from their own perspective. I hope you’ve enjoyed our little mini–series over the past few days!

Today: perhaps the most important of the posts, Alice’s own. (Or, rather, Bambi’s!).

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Waiting in the bedroom I was finally grateful not to know Alice’s fate, having spent the last week or so trying to wheedle it out of the people in the know. It meant that when Mr Jenkins eventually came in I was genuinely terrified of events to come and Alice was surfacing rapidly.

She knew she was meeting Mr Murdstone and that, subject to her successful performance that evening, she would be moving to work in his household. An honour and a privilege as she had been repeatedly told, but a daunting prospect nonetheless.

When Mr Jenkins came in he was kind, reminding her of the importance of the evening and the unpleasant consequences of not doing well. Determined to heed his warning, she followed willingly to the bathroom to prepare for Mr Murdstone. The cold shower that followed was unpleasant, not to mention humiliating and the urge to resist a mouth full of carbolic soap was almost too much – but, despite a little hesitation, Alice made it back to the bedroom unscathed.

Once there Alice earned herself her first punishment of the evening, a relatively light but still unpleasant tawsing. With this, and a final hissed reminder of expectations and consequences, they finally moved downstairs to meet Mr Murdstone. It was, in actual fact, as traumatic as previously imagined, Alice was both horribly shy and reasonably terrified by this point, which meant (when she was actually being talked to rather than about) she could barely managed to answer the questions put to her.

The decision to move upstairs (to inspect Alice’s living quarters, and as it turned out, Alice) meant things went rapidly downhill for her. Being left alone with Mr Murdstone was not what she was expecting at all and the instruction to ‘make sure she did whatever was asked of her’ worried her somewhat. Sadly her fears turned out to be more than justified as Mr Murdstone proceeded to inspect her thoroughly and demanded she do something she truly wasn’t expecting. Mortified by the task set she clearly didn’t meet Mr Murdstone’s exacting standards, causing him to send her to fetch Mr Jenkins. Here, despite her desperation to do well, Alice battled with the unfairness of the situation. She hadn’t disobeyed, she was trying her best and yet it wasn’t good enough.

Mr Murdstone and Mr Jenkins briefly discussed her fate, canes were duly chosen and demonstrated by Mr Jenkins and applied hard by Mr Murdstone. The caning was horrible, designed to exploit her weaknesses – but the cold words of Mr Jenkins throughout made Alice’s thought of unfairness disappear rapidly, leaving her feeling guilty, ungrateful and determined that whatever unpleasant things happened she wouldn’t fail again.

Unfortunately for her the chance to prove herself came around very quickly, only this time, much to her shame, with Mr Jenkins in earshot to ensure things ran smoothly. Moving swiftly on, Mr  Murdstone seemed much more satisfied upon returning Alice to Mr Jenkins’ study a second time. Lest Alice imagine that her ordeal was over, Mr Jenkins insisted on questioning about her time with Mr Murdstone, questions that left her on the verge of tears, feeling trapped, broken and honestly grateful to be sent away to face the wall whilst the details of the deal were finalised. By the time they were, including reductions for problems that had arisen, Alice was thoroughly broken and the hugs that followed were very much needed.

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Thanks to The Hunter and, most especially, Bambi for a really fabulous scene. The plotting in advance was such fun, as was the scene itself! I hope you’ve all enjoyed reading about it!