The Looking Glass House (15 page)

Mr Wilton’s face was a riot of conflicting colours and direc­tions. ‘The feelings that you gave every sign of having not two weeks ago. What has changed?’

‘Nothing has changed! Or – everything has changed. I have changed, Mr Wilton, not you. It is my fault.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I am sorry. I do not know what else to say.’

Mr Wilton stared into her face, his lips open and wet with spittle. She could smell his breath, the smell that had come up from the inside of him: red and sweet.

Then he took a step back with a grunt and turned on his heel. Mary watched his clothes creasing and uncreasing as he made his way heavily to the door, his hands hanging down at his sides like pink hams.

That was unfortunate, thought Mary later that night. Unfor ­tunate timing. Or perhaps, how fortunate! If Mr Wilton had proposed two weeks ago, she might have been inclined to accept him. Then she would be bound to him until the end of the world, or the end of her world, whichever came sooner.

She tried to turn her thoughts back to Mr Dodgson. But she could not recapture the rectory or its flagstones. She could only see the confusion and distress on Mr Wilton’s face.

Chapter 21

Shortly afterwards, Mr Dodgson sent Mary a note asking to see her alone. She waited for him up in the school­room, her heart battering in her ribcage.

She stood at the window, seeing nothing. She walked to the door, and back again. Movement eased the pounding a little but her limbs were too weak to walk. She sat down again but it was worse than before; her heart threatened to choke her.

This moment, and this moment, and this moment.

The future was rubbed into a white glare. She could not imagine the shape it might take. She would be completely dif­ferent in it, she knew that much. As different as an ape to a human – she would not recognize the form she would take.

It was inconceivable that the trees still stood, that Bultitude still strode across the lawn, that Dinah still lazed in the shade.

While she .  .  .

She!

Would he get down on one knee? He would clasp her to him – the texture of his jacket, his hair, seen from above. His face, bare and open and honest. He had once said, in so many words, that they thought alike, and they did. If she was not as linguis­tic as him – no matter! Their morality was the same.

A knock, at last, downstairs. But she was not ready! Her heart, again. Pale motes of midges jangled about over the lawn.

Mary shivered. She could hear his footsteps approaching, muffled as they walked up the carpet on the main staircase, then striking on the wood as they moved up on to the smaller staircase that led to the schoolroom, and her, her black bustle sticking back into the room, her shoulders tensed, her face set.

Escape, if she could hide somewhere from this appalling footfall!

She let the door be pushed open before she turned round.

‘Mr Dodgson!’

‘Miss Prickett. How kind of you to see me.’

Mary didn’t know how to respond. ‘Shall I call for tea?’

‘Oh no, no thank you.’

Mary was desperate for tea. Her tongue felt too big for the inside of her mouth; it stuck to the roof of it.

But tea, tea would not suit the solemnity of the occasion. Still, Mary kept envisaging the pot with its jocular sides and its pattern of pale blue dancing ladies, and wishing it might be brought to them.

‘It is chilly for the time of year,’ said Mr Dodgson.

‘Yes. I had to wear my shawl when I went out,’ said Mary. She wondered how the words came out so ordinarily. She noticed everything about him: his hair, long but contained; his soft jowls; his lips, which today seemed to blend with the rest of his face.

‘I don’t doubt it.’

‘The cows were lying down,’ said Mary. ‘In the fields as I went by. That signifies rain, I think. Or is it the other way round?’

‘The other way round?’

‘That it will rain if they are standing up. And the sun will shine if they lie down.’ She smiled, the insides of her lips catch­ing on her teeth, to stem the flow of words. But as soon as she pulled out her smile, her jaw felt too tight.

She might break. She longed to be back upstairs in the safety of her room.

‘Cows are you-you-usually to be found standing up and it you-you-sually rains,’ said Mr Dodgson. ‘The probability is thus on the side of standing up.’

‘Yes!’ Mary forced out a laugh. Too loud, it rattled off the glass. She had lost the sense of their conversation.

Mr Dodgson had sat down on the arm of a chair. The sun picked out the tiny white hairs that clung to his black jacket and black waistcoat and black bow tie. Hairs that belonged to what? A hairy white caterpillar, a whole legion of them, in every house but hidden from sight. Crawling over Mr Dodgson’s jackets in the darkness of his cupboard. Mary’s heart kept on, banging against its confines.

‘My uncle has a farm near Binsley.’ She thought of the cows there, lying down on their broad brown sides.

‘Ah, Binsley. The site of the treacle well.’

‘The treacle well.’ ‘Does its water have healing powers?’ Mary peered again into the damp mossy cool, looking for the black water. She had always imagined it smoothing thickly over boils and lesions. ‘They say so.’ ‘St Frideswide, the site of her first miracle, is that correct?’ She wanted him. She wanted to be away from him, sitting on the edge of the treacle well with a peaceful heart. ‘Yes.’ Mr Dodgson got up. ‘The reason I have come here, Miss

Prickett, is a particular one.’ Mary’s heart resumed its pounding, an unforgiving horse. ‘I wondered if I could ask .  .  .’ and did he pause here for a moment? The space between the words was long enough for Mary to teeter on the edge of nothing, to float .  .  . ‘.  .  .  for your help in getting the girls to come on a boat ride with me?’ Now he seemed to be talking so fast that she couldn’t follow. ‘If I applied to Mrs Liddell myself she may well think of a reason why we could not go, what with, what with .  .  .’ He smiled. ‘Well, you know everything, Miss Prickett! But a boat ride at this time of year, up to Godstow perhaps, would be the
perfect
way to spend an afternoon. Don’t you agree?’

A boat ride .  .  . That seemed to be what he was asking. ‘Yes.’ Mary swallowed. ‘What did you need my help for?’ ‘If you could mention it to Mrs Liddell, I would be most grateful.’ She smiled, waiting. ‘I will, of course. It’s unnecessary perhaps.’ Perhaps he had more to say. Perhaps this was the preamble to the question she hoped for. But he was getting up from his chair, moving towards the door. He was thanking her, saying he did not want to take up any more of her time.

My time?
she wanted to say to him.
You take it all up. Without you I have no time at all.

But he had gone. He would see her in a few days, he said.

Mary turned back to the window and pressed her forehead against the glass. His black figure came into view and walked diagonally up the pane until it disappeared from sight.

Chapter 22

In the end, Mary had no need to ask Mrs Liddell anything. The matter came up of its own accord, at breakfast.

The remains of a kipper lay crumbled in a pool of egg yolk on Mary’s plate; the spine she had pushed to the side but the tail end kept intruding, finding its way into the pool of juice that ex ­truded from her tomatoes, in a way that seemed insurmountable.

That the herring could ever have known that it would end up like this, pulled from its silvery world up on to a plate, shared with a tomato from a greenhouse and an egg laid by a chicken, impressed Mary with the force of what she might not know herself.

‘I don’t see why Mr Dodgson cannot come to my birthday party, when he is the only person I want there!’ said Alice.

Mrs Liddell brought a coffee cup slowly towards her mouth, pursing her lips and gently sucking in air when the cup was still as low as her bosom. ‘That is very rude to the rest of us, Alice.’

‘But I want Mr Dodgson. If
he
cannot come, I won’t have a party.’

‘But it is a family occasion!’ said Mrs Liddell. ‘As are all the children’s birthdays.’

‘Let him come. The Newry business is over—’ said the Dean.

‘Thanks to Mr Dodgson!’

‘The Newry business is over, and if we failed to let inside our house anyone who had disagreed with us we would see nobody! Oxford is a small place. But I am late.’

Mrs Liddell reached across and rubbed away a patina of dried yolk from her husband’s upper lip. ‘You are always late, Henry, always in a hurry, always looking at your pocket watch. People must expect it by now.’

Oxford was a small place. Had Mrs Liddell heard the gossip? Mary tried to divine the answer by looking at her eyes with their thick lashes, her eyelids with their thin purple veins criss­crossing them like ink, but they only looked at Alice.

If she had heard, she would have said something, surely.

‘What do you think, Miss Prickett?’ Mrs Liddell looked up and into Mary’s face.

Mary grew hot. All eyes were on her now. ‘I don’t see any harm in it, Mrs Liddell. Mr Dodgson is good company. For the children,’ she added.

‘Please, Mama!’ said Alice. ‘I want him there!’

Dinah twisted around the table leg, her fur rubbing and smoothing against the fabric of Mary’s ankle. The feel of it spread up her leg and through her waist and up to her chest, tightening round it until she felt she could hardly breathe.

‘Please, Mama!’

‘You know I want you to have a happy birthday, darling.’

Alice pouted. ‘Then let me ask Mr Dodgson. He has been at all my other birthdays.’

‘And I don’t wish to be difficult.’

‘Then don’t be!’

‘Alice, do not talk to me like that. But perhaps your father is right. We must have everyone here, good and bad, we who work together.’

‘Mr Dodgson is not bad.’

‘No, no, Alice, I am not saying he is. I am just saying .  .  . Ah well!’ Mrs Liddell turned up her hands to the ceiling. ‘He has been your friend for so long. You will grow out of him soon.’

‘Grow
out
of him? That sounds like something Mr Dodgson would say!’

‘I only want the best for you, darling.’ Mrs Liddell pushed herself up out of her seat and came to kiss Alice on the forehead. ‘Eleven years old. How fast the time goes. If you want Mr Dodgson here, you may have him, I suppose. He is not impor­tant to me either way. I don’t want to fight about it!’

Mary pressed down on her tomato with the back of her fork. The seeds that squeezed out looked like miniature rafts. If Mr Dodgson was coming to Alice’s party there was no need to ask about the boat ride. He would be allowed to take them; he could ask her himself.

They gathered in the drawing room for Alice’s birthday; a room Mary did not often come into. Every surface was cluttered by some thing of Mrs Liddell’s. The occasional table had two tortoiseshell boxes in the shape of hearts, which flanked a clock with a doleful face. The larger table held up a ferret under a bell jar with its teeth bared, front paw up, on a woodland floor it would never more walk on. The two side tables by the sofa were clustered with enamel boxes, glass bowls, an ivory letter opener and a miniature of Arthur, the child who had resembled the Dean the most closely, on his deathbed. He looked as if he was sleep­ing, his cheeks rosy from scarlet fever, his golden hair tousled.

‘I have bought you something, Mrs Liddell, a small gift,’ said Mr Dodgson.

‘Me? It is not
my
birthday!’

He bowed. Ever since he had arrived at the Deanery, Mr Dodgson had been more himself, if that were possible. His skin was whiter, his eyes bluer; he was both more playful and more restrained. Courteous, charming, wily.

‘Nevertheless, I should like to present it!’ he said, bringing out a photograph album, a presentation album, half green leather, half ochre cloth board.

‘Ah, more photographs. You are quite generous with them, I see,’ said Mrs Liddell.

Mr Dodgson looked over at Mary for the first time since he had arrived, his eyebrows raised. She smiled, or half smiled, back at him. She did not know whether
he
knew that the family knew about his gift to her. Whether it was supposed to be a secret.

Her jaw tightened in confusion.

But he looked away and said in an even voice, to Mrs Liddell: ‘I would like you to have the album as a symbol of our friendship.’

Mrs Liddell smiled a little and took it over to the table and opened it. The first photograph was a portrait of Alice that he had sent to a professional artist on Broad Street to be coloured. Mary leaned in to have a look. The artist had brought out the blush on Alice’s cheek and the velvety animal quality of her eyes.

‘It is lovely,’ Mrs Liddell said at last. ‘You are kind to think of me. Ah well, perhaps there is something in photography after all! This certainly captures something of Alice that I thought only a mother could see.’

Mr Dodgson inclined his head. Mary could see by the faint tinge of colour to his cheeks that he was pleased.

There were more prints of Ina, Edith, of men of the college, but mostly they were of Alice.

Alice sitting on a sofa, Alice dressed as the beggar maid, Alice as Queen of the May.

Mary turned away. There was no reason on earth why Alice should be the one who was doted on. Ina was the prettier girl, neater and more presentable.

‘They are very fine, Mr Dodgson, very fine,’ said the Dean.

They turned to a portrait of Alice sitting sideways on a chair. Her hair was shorter, her cheeks rounder than they were now.

‘Ah, she was so young!’ said Mrs Liddell, leaning forward on the table with one arm.

‘That is the first portrait I took of her. She was four, I believe.’

‘How her face has changed!’ Mrs Liddell turned to him; the flare of her nostril was translucent in the sudden piercing sun. ‘I think you must understand children as well as I, Mr Dodgson.

I am so glad to be given a memorial of them all. Who knows, perhaps Alice’s great-grandchildren will one day look at these pictures and know her as we know her ourselves.’

The flush on Mr Dodgson’s face increased. ‘I think each photograph tells a story, entire and true.’

Mrs Liddell put a hand on his arm as she turned away, and smiled. ‘Well, Mr Dodgson, you are very kind. What a thought­ful gift. I am sure we shall treasure it.’

The real Alice went back and sat on the arm of Mr Dodgson’s chair, one leg hanging into space. She swung it from side to side, side to side.

‘Can I have my presents now?’ she asked.

Her mother indicated the largest box.

Alice opened the wrapping paper with the excess of glee, thought Mary, that comes from being watched, tearing gobbets of paper off and throwing them aside. At last a doll’s house was revealed, carved in wood and painted a bright green. Everything in the Deanery was replicated in the house: a sofa, a dining-room table, beds in bedrooms, miniature servants and four children. The boy had his own top hat; the girls each had a cape and fur muff.

‘Oh thank you, Mama!’

Mrs Liddell held out her cheek to be kissed. ‘You are not quite grown up yet, darling, and even when you are, you will have a miniature Deanery to remember us all by.’

‘Except Mr Dodgson, he is not there.’

Mrs Liddell laughed. ‘Neither is Miss Prickett. I thought it best to stick to family.’

‘Thank you, Mama, it is beautiful.’ She turned to Mr Dodgson. ‘May I unwrap your present now?’

‘You may.’

Mr Dodgson’s present was a doll, with two round black eyes and a fringe.

‘I thought she looked like you,’ he said.

‘I am prettier,’ said Alice.

‘Alice!’ said Mary.

Mrs Liddell laughed.

The Dean said: ‘It is no laughing matter. Humility is far more important than beauty. Whatever beauty means.’

‘Even if it
were
true, it is not good manners to admit it,’ said Mr Dodgson. ‘If society was made up of people speaking the truth, civilization might come to an end. We need manners.’

Mary leaned in closer to Mr Dodgson. Manners were the film with which she, every day, tried to overlay the uncivilized, brutal and petty natures of the children. Manners were what society relied upon to operate, otherwise the world would be made up of people following their desires and the streets would be full of thieves, and husbands would leave wives, and they would all be no better than monkeys defecating where they sat. ‘That is right. Manners are very important. I tell the children that every day.’

‘I am sorry for being boastful,’ Alice said. ‘Sometimes my words just tumble out without my being able to do anything about them.’

‘Now that you are eleven, you will have to invent some kind of blockage for that,’ said Mr Dodgson. ‘I suggest a sta-sta-sta-stammer.’

‘I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ said Mrs Liddell.

‘How about a heh-heh-hesitation?’

‘Not that either!’ said Alice. ‘I shouldn’t like to speak like you.’

‘Alice!’ said Mary again.

‘Sorry, Mr Do-Do-Dodgson. He doesn’t mind, do you, Mr Dodgson?’

Mr Dodgson’s face was unreadable.

‘Thank you for my doll,’ said Alice. ‘I shall give her a kiss every night.’

‘Give her a kiss every night and pretend it is me,’ said Mr Dodgson. ‘For I do love to be kissed, you know, especially by little girls. Here.’ He leant down and pointed to his cheek. Alice kissed it. ‘And here,’ he said, pointing to the other.

Alice kissed his cheek with a smacking sound.

‘I hope you will forgive me, Mrs Liddell. The airy touch of a child’s lips is worth more to me than almost anything in the world. A kiss given in innocence, and received in the same way.’

Mr Dodgson’s head was cocked slightly as he spoke. His face was a perfect oval, his skin very even, almost waxy. His lips were turned up. If Mary reached out her hand to touch his cheek, it would be cool and supple.

The thought of Mr Wilton assailed her then, his hot face, his bristles. Was his proposal known all over Oxford? She wished it had not come about like that. She wished she had not caused his face to crumple and sag, or his shoulders to slump.

But she had been right to reject him! He ought not to have assumed that she would have been glad of him. She had led him to believe that she might, perhaps, if viewed from a certain angle. But had she not always had her doubts? And now her course of action had been righted. She had been saved. By Mr Dodgson.

Who now cleared his throat and said awkwardly: ‘I .  .  . I don’t know if Miss Prickett has asked you already .  .  .’ He looked at Mary and Mary shook her head minutely. ‘Whether you would lend me the children for an afternoon? I had an idea to take a boat up to Godstow and make a picnic there.’

Mrs Liddell said: ‘A boat ride? What a lovely idea. Perhaps you can take them in June.’

Geniality and good will radiated from him: ‘Thank you, Mrs Liddell, thank you.’

Mary smiled too. Now that Mrs Liddell had forgiven Mr Dodgson, his path would be clear. He would come to her now.