Alice I Have Been: A Novel (3 page)

Mr. Dodgson looked up at me, opened his mouth, and laughed. He was still laughing as he sat down on a bench to wait, after first taking care to pull his trousers up at the knees; men did this, I knew, to keep their trousers from creasing. I wasn’t altogether sure why I knew that; it was one of the many bits of useful information I was just now aware that I possessed. When I was six, I had known nothing. Now that I was seven, however, I couldn’t help but be impressed by how very wise I was growing.

“Come, girls!” Pricks clapped her wide brown hands. “Change quickly!” She bustled us out of the schoolroom, looking back at the blackboard with a sigh. “We really should get back to geography—it’s such a lovely afternoon, though. We’ll study botany instead. That will be a pleasant change.” And she smiled, violently, suddenly, to herself.

I wondered again at the ability of adults to turn every single pleasurable experience into a lesson. Did they do this only for our benefit? Or when they were alone, at the dining table or gathered for one of Mamma’s musical entertainments, did they, even then, stop to say, “This tea is very delicious. Are you aware that it comes from India, the subcontinent, which has been a part of the Crown since the rebellion of 1857?”

I believed I was on the cusp of discovering the answer, for I was starting to be included in some of the entertainments held here at the Deanery. Only a month ago, Mamma had allowed Ina, Edith, and me to perform “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” for her guests. Mr. Ruskin, in particular, had pronounced himself impressed; he reached out to pat my hair as I walked past him, after we had curtsied good night.

Although he patted my hair, he had actually gasped at Edith’s—“Look at those titian curls!” he exclaimed. I remembered to ask him what “titian” meant, during our last drawing lesson; he sucked in his breath and informed me my education was appalling but never did answer me. Not even after I pointed out that he had just missed an excellent opportunity to improve it.

“Alice, do hurry!” Ina grabbed my arm and pulled me down the wide gallery, lined on one side with the oil paintings of the English landscape that Papa so admired, on the other with an ornately carved banister crowned with ferocious lions at either end, as finials. “We mustn’t leave Mr. Dodgson waiting!”

“Why ever not? He doesn’t have anything else to do.” I fervently believed that; while I knew, vaguely, that he taught mathematics at the college, I understood that this was not his chief occupation. No, he was ours more than the students’. He was our playmate, our guide on many excursions, our galley slave (he often took us rowing on the Isis, where we loved to pretend that we were Nelson and his men, while Mr. Dodgson did his best to maneuver us about as if we were at the battle of Trafalgar).

It was only recently so. My brother, Harry, along with Ina, had been his favored companions since the day he first made our acquaintance by seeking permission to photograph the Deanery from the garden; Mamma was fond of saying Mr. Dodgson showed up one day with his infernal camera and never really left. Edith and I were only summoned occasionally from the nursery, most often to be photographed. Harry went away to school this year, however, and Mr. Dodgson appeared, finally, to notice Edith and me, and to ask for us, along with Ina, when he called.

Ina did not appreciate this development, I knew. There was nothing she could do about it, and she never let Mr. Dodgson notice her resentment; she was, I had to admit, absolutely brilliant at presenting a sweet, simple face to the world, no matter her true feelings. Just as a lady should, Pricks never wearied of reminding me.

“You silly little girl. Of course Mr. Dodgson has other things to do. Loads and loads of things. He’s a very important man.” Pulling me into the nursery, Ina started unbuttoning the back of my dress, while Phoebe, our nurse, flew about, opening up cupboards until she found three identical white frocks, flounced with pink satin ribbons, the buttons covered in the same pink satin.

“I don’t think so,” I replied, remembering how Mamma had referred to Mr. Dodgson as “that nuisance of a mathematics tutor, a more obtuse man I have never met.” Even though Papa corrected her—“Now, my dear, he is a
don”
—he had done it mildly. Papa was capable of standing up to Mamma, I knew, when he felt strongly about something. But evidently he did not feel strongly about Mr. Dodgson.

“Oh, Alice, why did you have to go and muddy your frock?” Ina was now stepping out of her own; her petticoats swayed to and fro as she crossed her arms over her chemise and glared at me. The way her eyebrows angled, high and disapproving, and the way her small mouth pursed, as if she was sucking on a lemon, made her almost always look cross, to be perfectly honest. “Those blue stripes on the bodice suit me so well! I despise the pink.”

“I’m sorry.” I genuinely was; I disliked getting dressed more than once a day. It was too much of an ordeal, what with all the buttoning and fastening and layer upon layer of stiff, scratchy underclothing. Chemise, pantalets, not one, not two, but
three
petticoats, stockings that I never could coax into staying smooth and high; my garters
always
came undone.

It would only get worse, I thought gloomily. One day I would have to wear a corset.

“C’mere, lamb,” Phoebe said to Edith, who was kneeling in front of her dollhouse, a headless rag doll in her hand. “Let’s get you into your fine feathers.”

“It’s so much fuss, simply to go outside.” I raised my arms; Mary Ann, one of the maids, dropped the beribboned dress over my head.

“Are we ready?”

I turned toward the door; Pricks was standing there, in her new blue silk dress with yellow piping down the bodice that did not go well with her brown complexion, not at all. Still, she looked quite pleased with herself; she had even managed to add a pouf of false hair to the back of her head, so that it stuck out from behind her straw hat like the fuzzy tail of a bumblebee.

“Yes, Pricks,” I said as Mary Ann buttoned up my last glove. Phoebe handed me a pink parasol. “Although what if Mr. Dodgson wants to take us to the Meadow? Perhaps to allow us to roll down a hill? I’ll only stain my dress again, in that case.”

“Mr. Dodgson won’t do any such thing. He’s a gentleman,” Pricks said with a sniff.

Again, I wondered just what part of him Pricks and Ina could see that I could not. It was almost as if we knew two different people, both with the name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. That was his full name; he had told it to me, after I confided that mine was Alice Pleasance Liddell, which I found rather a long name to write. However, he pointed out that his was longer by one letter, and that cheered me immensely.

I suspected, in a deep, serious part of me no one else knew I possessed, at least so far, which was somewhat worrisome, that Mr. Dodgson was the kind of person who
would
allow me to roll down a hill. I felt he was the only person on earth, actually, who would; he was my one chance to do this, to do other things that I desired, even things I did not yet know but somehow, I felt
he
did.

I felt it most when he looked at me as he stood behind his camera, holding the cap to the lens, counting slowly, his eyes never moving from mine as he exposed the plate. There was something about his eyes—the color of the periwinkle that grew at the base of the trees in the Meadow, such a deep blue—that made me feel as if he could see my dearest wishes, my darkest thoughts, before they made themselves known to me. And that simply by seeing them, he was also giving me permission to follow them. Perhaps he was even showing me the way. For I wasn’t very comfortable with the dark thoughts—muddled, nameless thoughts—that sometimes came to me when I relaxed my watchfulness.

I was always on guard, you see. One had to be vigilant; for what, I did not know.

“Alice, come!”

Pricks, Ina, and Edith—predictably clutching her parasol too high, in the middle of the handle; she was such a baby!—were already at the end of the gallery, descending the staircase; I ran after them and immediately felt my right stocking start to sag down my shin.

“Miss Prickett!”

The three of them froze; I took advantage of this moment to sneak into my rightful place, between Ina and Edith.

“Yes, madam?” Pricks turned, her eyes cast down. She curtsied as my mother walked slowly from the library down the front hall, confronting our little group at the bottom of the stairs.

“May I ask where you are taking my daughters?” Mamma smiled as she said this, but the smile did not make it up to her eyes; they were wide, wary—not inclined to believe what they saw, I knew from experience. Such as the time I broke the china shepherdess that always perched, much too nervously, near the edge of the library mantel. Even though I had the foresight to pick up a shard of china—the faded pink china bow of the shepherdess’s apron—and plant it in Ina’s shoe that night, hoping to incriminate her instead, I did not fool Mamma.

Perhaps there would be an advantage to having such a sharp mother someday; that’s what she said, after she punished me by making me take my meals alone in the schoolroom for a week. Still, even for a child so prone to daydreaming, I could not imagine the circumstances under which this could ever be true.

“We’re going out for an expedition, madam. A little botany expedition. It’s such a lovely day.” Pricks raised her gaze to meet my mother’s; she was always a trifle nervous around her but, unlike the rest of the household, had so far avoided being reduced to trembling tears. There was some hint of steel in her character, I had to admit, although she was careful to act completely obedient, always, to Mamma.

Mamma dabbed her upper lip with her handkerchief; it was warm for late May, and despite being tightly bound, a few strands of her black hair had escaped, lying damp and flat against her high forehead. She was fatter than usual because soon another baby would join us. I wasn’t precisely sure what her being fat had to do with a baby, but that was how it was explained to me, and when I asked what the one had to do with the other, she would not say. She told me only that young ladies weren’t supposed to ask such questions.

Still, I couldn’t help but suspect that one very important piece of information was being withheld; I vowed, someday, to discover just what it was. Perhaps Mr. Dodgson would tell me.

“I don’t suppose Mr. Dodgson has anything to do with this?”

I jumped; had Mamma read my mind? But no. She was talking to Pricks.

“Mr. Dodgson suggested it, yes,” Pricks said without apology.

“The girls already took their exercise this morning, did they not?” Now Mamma singled me out with her black-eyed gaze; I felt her look me over, head to toe, searching for stains and tears as evidence.

Pricks could have lied, given how neat I looked now, but she didn’t. “Yes,” was all she answered, choosing to leave the rest up to Mamma.

Suddenly Mamma looked so tired; she closed her eyes, pressed her handkerchief against her forehead. I felt sorry for her. Babies must be very trying to get ready for.

“Oh, do go ahead. Just don’t let the girls romp—and Alice, please try not to get dirty.”

“I’ll try, Mamma.”

She smiled then, her eyes still closed. “Good girl.” Then she slowly climbed the stairs, her wide skirts, in the jeweled red she favored, whispering as she brushed past us. As she went by me, she patted the top of my head.

“Now, girls.” Pricks pulled her left glove up as high as it would go; it was rather a habit of hers, as she was always anxious to conceal that wart. Personally, however, I would have been more concerned about the one with the hair growing out of it.

Mary Ann held the door open for us, and we walked outside. Adjusting my parasol, I blinked at the sudden brightness of the sun; inside the Deanery everything was so gloomy and muted, with heavy sculpted carpeting and oppressive flowered paper, dark wood paneling and banisters. It was always a shock to go outside.

“Miss P-Prickett, what a pleasure.” Mr. Dodgson had walked around from the garden and was waiting for us. He removed his tall black hat, revealing his long brown hair, plastered down on the top of his head but with ends as curly as Edith’s. He bowed; Pricks giggled, and I couldn’t help but be embarrassed for her.

Ina must have felt the same, for she bit her lip and stared down at her shoes. Edith was too distracted by a butterfly to notice.

“Miss Liddell, Miss Alice, Miss Edith.” Mr. Dodgson shook each of our hands, so solemnly that I had to laugh. As if the last time we’d seen him, he hadn’t been standing on a chair in his room, swatting a mechanical bat with a broom and pretending to be Phoebe, who was terrified of anything with wings.

“What are we going to do today? I don’t want to simply stroll about the Quad.” I flung myself at him; his arms, as always, were ready to catch me. He held me close as I wrapped my arms about his waist; he was slender, so that I could reach all the way around him. I couldn’t do that with Papa; I only got halfway around
him
.

Mr. Dodgson’s vest scratched against my cheek as he bent down to meet me; he paused a minute to smell the top of my head. He was fond of doing that, I’d noticed lately. While I could perceive no harm in it, as long as he didn’t have a cold, still I couldn’t prevent a little shiver from chasing itself up and down the back of my neck. It wasn’t a frightful shiver, such as the kind that stole over me whenever I had to walk down the gallery at night, past the ferocious carved lions, my candle weak and ineffective against the dark.

No, this shiver was more curious. As if it might lead me to some immense danger, or some immense delight, I couldn’t decide which. One day I might want to know; not today.

He released me and turned toward Ina, who had been glaring at us. Suddenly she blushed, took a step back, hung her head, and smiled one of her maddeningly
teasing
smiles, as if she knew a secret she wanted you to find out.

I would never, ever ask her what it was, however. That would only be giving in.

Mr. Dodgson shrugged, hugged Edith, who had toddled over, bored with the butterfly, and then he straightened up.