Alice I Have Been: A Novel (22 page)

The way he said my name—simply Alice. No other words were necessary. I was not “Alice dear,” “Alice my pet,” “Miss Alice;” I was simply his.
His
Alice.

“I can’t go. I can’t leave you.” Leo tightened his arms about me. “I don’t have that strength.”

“Nor do I.” I began to weep, quietly now, tears of benediction. An almost peaceful sadness had overcome me, stealing over my limbs; I longed to linger, to sleep in his arms, until the moment I had to be wrenched from them.

“Here.” Still holding me against his shoulder, he reached into his breast pocket and then held out his hand; whatever was in it sparkled, catching the rays of the sun.

“What is it?”

“Your hair clip. It fell, the other night when—when we were—at any rate, I went back to get it for you.”

I took the small silver clip, decorated in a starburst of tiny diamonds, and closed my fingers over it; it was cool and surprisingly heavy.

“It’s Edith’s,” I whispered, shutting my eyes. “She lent it to me. I was so happy—she was so happy—”

Then I heard a cry from across the garden.

“Alice, come quickly! Oh, Alice—come before it’s too late!” It was Rhoda, standing at the garden gate, gesturing wildly.

I shot up, every nerve and muscle suddenly energized; my heart raced, and I knew what lay before me; I knew what I had to do.

I began to run. Leo held on to my hand until the very last moment, until my fingertips touched his, and then there was nothing between us; nothing but the truth. I heard him call out, “I’ll wait for you, oh, do hurry!”

“No!” I could not look back. I could only look ahead, my hand tightening about the diamond clip until I felt the sharp end bite into my palm, and even so, I clasped it tighter. The ground was skimming before me, the gate still banging in Rhoda’s wake. “No, don’t wait—for God’s sake, go now, while I can bear it!” For this instant, I could; as soon as I ran through the door of the Deanery—already I heard voices from inside the house, urgent, loud voices, doors slamming, a desperate wail—I knew I would not have the strength to watch him leave me, too.

And my heart, at that moment, split in two; I gave one half to Leo and one half to my sister and, saying good-bye to both, knew that I would never be whole again.

MY SISTER EDITH WAS
buried on a magnificent June day; the sun was so brilliant, the birds in such full-throated song, one felt either the cruelty of such a day or the comfort of it. She was laid to rest in the wedding dress that had arrived the day before. Rhoda, Violet, and I followed behind her casket, wearing the bridesmaids’ dresses she had chosen. A bridal bouquet rested on top of the casket instead of the usual wreath. Aubrey Harcourt was the chief mourner; his sobs could be heard throughout the service.

Among the pallbearers was Prince Leopold, the black silk armband on his left arm. Many of those present commented upon how pale and grave he looked, and remarked upon his touching devotion to the Dean’s family.

Only once did our eyes meet. After the pallbearers had placed the casket at the head of the cathedral, he walked back to take his seat. But before he did, he paused, turned to me, and gazed down into my face. I absorbed the sorrow in his beautiful blue eyes, the wordless grief upon his face, and knew for whom he was truly mourning; still gazing into his eyes, I raised my fingers to my lips, kissed them, and finally turned away, my eyes too full of hot tears to see anything but the glorious light shining in through the stained-glass windows.

My love walked down the aisle, away from me. And I knew I would never see him again.

Chapter 14
•  •  •
CUFFNELLS
, 1914

A
LICE, LISTEN TO THIS. CHAP HERE IS WRITING A BOOK
about the late King. Says that the poor old Queen allowed Mrs. Keppel to visit him on his deathbed. What do you think of that?”

Lowering the front page of the
Times
, I raised an eyebrow and stared across the table at my husband, who was hidden by his own copy, freshly ironed by his butler. I continued to stare at him until finally he lowered his paper and met my gaze with a sheepish grin. “The Queen was always most understanding about all that—business,” he said. Then he quickly hid his face from me once more.

“Yes. Isn’t that touching? The Queen was so very understanding about the King’s mistresses—all of them. A most gracious woman, Alexandra.”

“Would do some people good to emulate her,” my husband grumbled from behind his paper.

“What’s that, Regi?”

“Nothing. Always did admire the Queen, that’s all.”

“Yes.” I sniffed, remembering. “She is a saint, and Mamma was right. Bertie never was satisfied with a sweet little princess.”

“Your mother was correct about a great many things. Wise woman, she was.”

“Hmmm.”

“Always got along so well with her, I did.”

“Yes.”

“Not like your father, though.”

“No.”

“Listen to this! New Forest walloped Hampshire! Could really use a good off spinner, poor chaps!”

“Mmm-hmm.” I paid scant attention to him now that he was going on about cricket; still, I glanced over at his plate and saw that he had finished his kippers. Pressing my foot down upon the electric buzzer—neatly hidden by the Brussels carpet—I waited for a maid to appear.

“Mary Ann, Mr. Hargreaves would like more kippers. And I require more coffee.”

“Yes, madam.” With a short bob—not a proper curtsy; really, the cheekiness of servants these days!—she left the room, and I went back to the paper. Turning the page, another headline caught my eye; it caught my heart, also, in an icy grip.

Kaiser Threatens Czar
.

“Regi,” I said, interrupting him in the middle of a description of an especially exciting innings. “When is Alan home on leave?”

“Don’t know. Imagine later this month, don’t you think?”

“I have no idea. That is why I asked you.”

“Right. Well, sorry.”

“I was just reading this headline about the Kaiser and Russia. Do you—do you believe it will come to war, then?”

“Couldn’t say—oh.” Finally he lowered his paper and gaped at me; he was white of whiskers now, wrinkled of brow, with the ruddy face of the typical English country gentleman. Realization dawned as visibly as always—starting with his forehead, moving down to his arching eyebrows, slowly comprehending eyes, finally to his mouth, pulling it up in a simple, understanding grin. “Say, you’re worried, aren’t you? About Alan? Well, I imagine it won’t last long, regardless. And he’s a captain now, he’ll be tucked away somewhere safe and sound. After all, he’s no young lad anymore; he’s what? Nearly forty?”

“Thirty-three. Our eldest son will be thirty-three in October.”

“Right. Good God, has it been that long?”

“Yes, it has.” I couldn’t suppress a smile; his emotions may have been slow in coming, but they were always touchingly honest and transparent. He looked simply dumbstruck at the passage of time.

I resumed my perusal of the paper, but my thoughts did not follow. Good God, indeed. Yes, it had been that long.

I had been sitting across the breakfast table from Regi for thirty-four years, since 1880; four years after Edith died. Four years after I saw Leo for the last time, at her funeral.

In those four years, left behind by those I loved, I felt myself stagnate, mired helplessly not only in their shadows but in the shadows of the tall, graceful spires of Oxford itself. I also grew older while, around me, the undergraduates grew younger. I was no longer the beautiful princess of Christ Church, the belle of the Commemoration Ball; I saw the glances, heard the whispers. Bluestocking. Spinster. Old maid.

Mamma finally lost a tick or two of her phenomenal energy when Edith died. Or was it when Leo left? To be truthful, I wasn’t sure which was the precipitating factor; I know only that when I alone remained, Mamma stopped trying so hard. Ina was married, Edith was dead, and I was “disappointed”—for that was the proper term for a jilted lover in those days; the three little princesses were no more. Neither Rhoda nor Violet ever seemed inclined toward matrimony, for some reason.

Ultimately, those four years were a blessing. For during them, memories faded, people left, hearts mended. Mr. Ruskin finally broke down, shouting obscenities during a lecture, and had to be forcibly removed from the hall. No one cared about what had happened on a long-forgotten summer afternoon between a fussy mathematics don and the bluestocking daughter of the Dean. The Queen had no more princes left to educate at Christ Church.

Alice in Wonderland, however, lived on; new editions of the books, theatrical productions, toys and blocks and games. No one seemed to care—or even know—that the real Alice had grown up, was on the verge of growing old, alone.

Certainly Reginald Gervis Hargreaves, Esq., did not care. Regi Hargreaves did not care about books at all; in fact, he had such little regard for them that it took him six years to matriculate at Oxford, instead of the usual four.

When did I first meet Regi? I cannot recall, although he insisted it was at that fateful Commemoration Ball of 1876. He claimed he saw me on the Prince’s arm, and that he had never beheld a more beautiful creature in his life. He was in awe—but knew there was no way he could compete against a prince. So he bided his time, and did not seem to notice that I was a fruit rather past my ripeness. He simply hung around until I fell off the tree for good, and he was there to scoop me up.

Regi was a sportsman, a cricketer, the usual English country squire type; I admit that at first, I found this was refreshingly different and not a little thrilling. He had no title but enough property to impress even Mamma. His family had made money in trade; in textiles, only a generation previous, which of course was slightly scandalous. Rather, it would have been for anyone else but me; in my case, Mamma was willing to overlook this lapse.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, good-looking, with soft brown hair he parted carelessly in the middle, ruddy skin, a slight over-bite that he hid with a bristly mustache. I knew I would never love him the way I loved Leo; I knew I would never be able to converse with him in the same way, laugh with him, tease him. Regi did not, even then, display much of a sense of humor; I learned quickly to keep my more biting, sarcastic observations to myself, or else risk spending half an evening trying to explain them.

He proposed in July, after Commemoration, on a rowboat in the middle of the Isis; his proposal was typically Regi:

“I say, we row together awfully well, don’t we?”

“Yes, I suppose.”

“What say we row together always, then? Talking of marriage, I mean. You know.”

“Oh. Well, yes. I suppose we might as well.”

“Capital!”

Despite the comical brevity, I was touched; he had at least tried to be poetic, and given the number of times he repeated the exchange to friends, I could tell he was very proud of himself.

We were married in September, in Westminster Abbey at my insistence, instead of Christ Church Cathedral. Two days before my wedding—an elaborate affair that amused more than engaged me, but I viewed it as my farewell gift to Mamma—Leo sent me a brooch; a small diamond horseshoe, for luck. I wore it on my wedding dress of silver brocade and white satin; I wear it still, to this day.

Regi, far from being jealous, was proud that the Prince thought so highly of his bride that he would send her such an intimate gift. He was so awestruck by royalty that I do not think he would have minded if Leo—or better still, the Prince of Wales himself—had offered to deflower me on our wedding night. Indeed, I believe Regi might even have taken out an advertisement in the
Times
proclaiming the fact, and preserved the room in all its consummated glory, after.

Mr. Dodgson, too, sent me a wedding gift; a small watercolor of Tom Quad. It was a very accurate likeness that I could find no reason not to display, unlike many of my wedding gifts. While feebler artistic attempts grace the walls of the servants’ quarters, that particular watercolor resides now in my bedroom.

Over a year later, Leo married a rather plain princess from a minor European province. He named his first daughter Alice; I named my second son Leopold Reginald, although we called him Rex. Two months before his second child, a son, was born, Leo died from internal hemorrhaging after a fall while staying in France. Mr. Duckworth had the kindness of heart to telegraph me right away, before I could read of it in the newspapers.

When word of his death reached me, I had to retire to my bedroom and shut the door against Regi and the boys and their untroubled harmony; they had no idea that the sun had just fallen from the sky. For while I had known I would never see Leo again, still I rose every morning taking comfort that he was in the world, awakening to the same rosy dawn, sleeping under the same night sky. We rarely corresponded, and when we did it was always extremely polite and impersonal; but I felt as if he was in my life, and I in his. I felt it because I knew, when I looked at a painting, read a book, observed a rare bird or delicate flower, that he would have looked at it in exactly the way I did; our hearts, our minds, were so sympathetic. So that merely by going on and enjoying life, I was sharing it with him.

When he died, I was no longer whole. That was it, pure and simple. Regi might hold me, kiss me, claim his right as a husband, and he was not ungentle in that way, but he was never
of
me as Leo was. When he was gone from this world, I was less.

I don’t wish to indicate that I was not fond of Regi. I was. He was a consistent soul whose only fault was that he was not Leo; a gentle man who rarely gave me reason to quarrel. If he did occasionally indulge himself in the way most men of his class and generation did, at least he did it more or less discreetly, and always made up for it after with a trip to the jeweler, with whom I had an understanding. (Regi’s tastes tended to the gaudy, unfortunately—he once bought me a turquoise ring; imagine! Mr. Solomon, however, soon learned to steer him toward more understated gems, such as amethyst and emerald.)

I could not complain overmuch; God knows I was not the most affectionate wife, although I was, truly, grateful to him for rescuing me.

For finally, his were the hands that spirited me far away from Oxford, to a Wonderland where no one knew me except as Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves. Regi afforded me a fine country house, Cuffnells, in the village of Lyndhurst, right in the middle of the Hampshires; 160 acres belonged to us, and the house was situated in the middle of lush, fertile earth with a view of the Solent from the upper floor. We even had a small lake, fully stocked; the boys loved to camp out there during summer holidays and skin and fry the fish themselves for breakfast.

The house itself was grander than anything Mamma could have wished for, even if the first time she saw it, she merely sniffed and told me I had done fairly well for myself. I cannot deny that I gloated a bit when I showed her the two stories of pale stone, the balcony running along the upper floor; the huge orangery, impressively wide staircase, billiard room, library, and cavernous dining room; the drawing room decorated with a frieze of peacocks painted by an Italian artist. All of this was mine, simply for agreeing to marry a man I did not love but who was, in the end, the only man who had ever asked.

It seemed a fair exchange, on the whole.

I was in charge of a large household staff—finally I could boast of my own servant problems!—and it took a great deal of my time, for which I was secretly grateful. It was very quiet in Lyndhurst; the days seemed to pass more slowly here. There was no constant buzz in the air, like at Oxford; more like a somnam-bulant snore. There was too much time, if one was so inclined, to reflect—upon the past, the present, the future.

I was not so inclined. So I threw myself into entertaining, making Cuffnells a gay, vibrant center of culture and sophistication to rival Mamma’s efforts at Christ Church. She might have a string quartet playing on the landing of the Deanery; I arranged to have an orchestra perform in the orangery, musicians hidden among the illuminated trees like so many sprites. She might have entertained the Queen for tea; at Cuffnells, I took great delight in showing my guests a room, furnished entirely in gold—gilded furniture, gold brocade curtains, carpets—in which King George III stayed for one night, and which has remained untouched, to preserve the privilege for future generations.

While Mamma had to content herself with arranging rowing parties on the Isis, I once outfitted a schooner with fairy lights and had my guests dress as characters from Shakespeare for a Midsummer Night’s cruise across the Solent, culminating in a midnight picnic on the Isle of Wight. Even Ina was charmed by that evening, although she insisted upon dressing as Titania, resembling nothing more than a plump bumblebee instead of an ethereal Fairy Queen.

Regi, being so sociable, was happy to fund my extravagances even if he would have preferred quiet hunting weekends to Shakespearean fetes; he was, in his simple way, proud to have such a socially accomplished, intellectual wife.

Thirty-four years, gone in the blink of an eye, a blur. I could recall details of talks with Leo, walks we had shared, minute images that still appeared as vivid to me as the day I saw them—the odd stone path we discovered once that led away from the river, for instance; all the stones were of the same white color, the same circumference, and had been placed with great care, yet it ran for only about ten feet, ending abruptly in a ditch.

My life with Regi, by contrast—and despite our extravagant entertainments—seemed all of one color, one speed. At times, I wondered if I could even remember what he looked like if he didn’t happen to sit across the table from me day after day.