Alice I Have Been: A Novel (9 page)

“The story—my story. It is mine, isn’t it?”

“If you want it to be.”

“Oh, I do! I do!” Just like that, I reached out and took it, so bold, so sure that it was meant for me, as sure as I had been when he told me that only I could be his gypsy girl. And no matter how much older Ina was, she could never, ever be so confident, so certain with him; I knew she hated this about herself.

“Then it’s yours,” Mr. Dodgson said. “So you’ll never have to grow up, in a way.”

“But that’s what I mean!” I could scarcely believe he understood so well what was in my heart; it was only later that I realized all he had to do was look in my eyes, to see. “If you write it down, I won’t grow up—ever! Of course, not truly, but in the story. I’ll always be a little girl, at least there, if you write it down. Could you?”

“I don’t know—I’ll try, Alice. But I’m not sure I can remember it all.”

“Oh yes, you can! I know you can—and if you can’t, I’ll help!”

“Alice,” Ina interrupted, taking Edith’s hand. “We must go. It’s late. You and Edith ought to be in bed, although naturally I’ll be up for hours—simply hours!”

“Indeed,” Mr. Duckworth said, knocking on the front door. “It’s been lovely, ladies. A most enjoyable day. I do hope to see you again soon.”

One of the Mary Anns opened the door as both Mr. Duckworth and Mr. Dodgson raised their straw boaters—somewhat limp after the long day in the sun—in farewell.

“Don’t forget!” I twisted around to catch one last glimpse of Mr. Dodgson.

“I won’t,” he said, cocking his head and looking at me with a puzzled expression, before turning to leave with Mr. Duckworth. It was an odd request, I knew; one I’d never made before. I wasn’t sure if he completely understood my urgency.

The door closed behind me before I could say anything else; I felt a rising bubble of panic burble up in my chest, but I tried to swallow it. I would see Mr. Dodgson again soon, I knew. I’d remind him then.

“He won’t write that silly story down,” Ina grumbled as we went up the stairs—Mary Ann gave us each a candle, as it was dark already. “What a rude request. He has much better things to do with his time.”

“You’re simply cross because he didn’t tell a story about you,” I retorted, sure of that, at least.

“What do you mean? I was the sister reading the book!”

“Perhaps.” I also thought she was someone else: the dreadful queen at the end, who wanted to behead everyone, although I didn’t dare tell her that. “Still, he named the girl after me, not you. He’ll write it down, I’m sure of it.”

“And if he doesn’t? What? What will happen then?” Ina turned to confront me; her face loomed large and mysterious, the candle flickering and throwing off ominous shadows. “You’ll have to grow up all the same. And then you’ll be too old for him, too.” Her mouth quivered while her eyes grew bright—with tears, I realized; wounded tears, spilling onto her hand as she clutched the pewter candleholder.

“No, I won’t. I’ll never be too old for him,” I said, even though I knew it would hurt her. I tried to put my arm around my sister anyway. For even if I didn’t completely comprehend what she was saying—how could any of us be too old for Mr. Dodgson, when he was always going to be so very much older than us?—still, I didn’t want to see her weep. Ina never wept. I couldn’t recall the last time I had seen her with tears rolling down her cheeks, smudged and dusty and pink from the sun.

“Yes, you will. You’ll see—you will.” Ina shook my arm off and stomped up the stairs. Edith had gone on up ahead, too tired to listen to us any longer.

I shook my head. Ina couldn’t possibly understand that it was different with me. I was his gypsy girl—his Alice, brave enough to stand up to queens and kings and an assortment of odd, talkative creatures.

I did hope he remembered to write it all down. For I feared it was the kind of story one could easily forget, otherwise. Already, I was having trouble remembering exactly what the tale of the mouse had been about.

Chapter 5
•  •  •

H
E DID NOT WRITE IT ALL DOWN
.

Not the first time I asked, at any rate. Nor the second. I asked every time I saw him—and as our boat trip had taken place just prior to us leaving for Wales and our new house that Papa had built right on the rocky shore, I had to content myself with asking him in the letters I wrote, every week, during the holiday. Then the term started, and life became an endless round of lessons and manners, and Mamma got fat again. (I did wish, this time, it would be a boy.)

Finally, Mr. Dodgson told me that he had started to write it down. He said that he had been thinking about it all the time, fortunately, so he hadn’t forgotten any of the particulars. He said that writing it down was quite different; he had published a few poems and short, silly stories before, under a different name—Lewis Carroll—but nothing like this. Even though it was supposed to be just for me, not for anyone else, he thought it would take some time. When you write things down, he explained, they sometimes take you places you hadn’t planned.

His meaning wasn’t clear to me, but as long as he was writing it down, I didn’t bother trying to puzzle it all out. I assumed I would understand what he was talking about once I read it again; once I saw my name on a page, as a little girl having adventures in a fantastic place underground. I knew I would keep the story with me, always. I thought perhaps I might put it in my mahogany box decorated with bits of sea glass, where I kept all my favorite things—the pearl bracelet Grandmother gave me when I was born; the perfectly black, round pebble I discovered in the Meadow one day; the pink silk thread I found wound through a bird’s nest that had fallen from a tree in the garden; the teaspoon the Queen had used when she and Prince Albert came to the Deanery to visit the Prince of Wales. (To be perfectly truthful, I wasn’t certain it was the actual teaspoon, but I found it on the tray that had been used to clear away the tea things after she left, so it
might
be.)

They take you places you hadn’t planned
.

If it was true in stories, it was also true in life, and it was exactly how I felt that winter; unmoored, discontent, waiting for something to happen, without knowing exactly what it might possibly be. Everyone—
everything
—seemed to be waiting, too distracted to act properly; fires never behaved in their grates, servants walked out the door during meals, letters were posted but never received.

My family was not exempt from the general restlessness. Ina was now fourteen, established in her own boudoir with her own maid. She was tall for her age and extremely pale; when Harry came home for the Christmas holiday he acted very uneasy around her, as if he had no idea how to treat this strange creature who once had been his little sister. Harry generally had little use for us anyway—we couldn’t play cricket and weren’t interested in his stories about the “fine chaps” at school—but that year the divide appeared sharper. He stayed more with Papa, because Pricks had no idea what to do with him; she acted frightened of him, now that he was taller than she.

On the surface I felt as much like myself as ever, to my great relief. For I studied myself every morning in the looking glass, anxious to see signs that I was turning into a lady, and happy to find none there. My hair was, finally, just a little bit longer, and fluffier on the ends, but still I wore the same straight black fringe across my forehead, framing my dark blue eyes. My chin remained as pointed as ever, and while I was slenderer, I was not very tall. I did not fill out my frocks like Ina did, and I was very happy about that, for it meant I was spared having to wear a corset, at least for a while longer. (Although Ina never complained about hers, for she felt the tight lacing made her face even more pale, as was the fashion.)

Yet sometimes, lying at night in the nursery, listening to Edith’s steady breathing, Rhoda’s soft snores, Phoebe’s gentle murmurings, I did envy Ina her own room. I longed for some privacy so that I might continue to study myself, not just my physical appearance but how I reacted to certain ideas, unfamiliar longings—and I did wonder, then, if that was what it meant to be growing up.

Edith, at nearly nine, was almost as tall as I was. She was becoming the acknowledged beauty with her thick russet hair and fair complexion. But unlike Ina, she didn’t seem to care about how she looked; she wore her prettiness with ease; it fell upon her with the grace of a butterfly perched on her shoulder. She was as easygoing as ever.

Mr. Dodgson never did appear to change. I was conscious of that, more than before; conscious of his age, too. I would do silly sums about it, such as: If I was five the first time we met, that meant he must have been twenty-five. But now I was ten, almost eleven, and he was just thirty-one. For some reason, the difference between thirty-one and eleven seemed much less than the difference between twenty-five and five; I wondered why that was.

Physically, though, he was as ever—perhaps he walked a bit more stiffly, but that was it. As I made special note of his age, I also made special note of his appearance, constantly measuring it against other men of my acquaintance, as if they were all in some sort of competition. Mr. Dodgson’s hair, for example, stayed long and curling and softly brown; comparing him to Mr. Duckworth, whose hair had started to be a bit thin on top, I couldn’t help but think that Mr. Dodgson most resembled a hero of a romance novel.

Mr. Dodgson was also as thin as ever, but no more so;
slender
was actually the word I found myself using to compare him to Mr. Ruskin, who seemed to grow stouter each time I saw him. Mr. Dodgson, I could imagine upon a white horse—an idealistic Don Quixote on Rocinante, his slender torso leaning forward as he rode bravely toward ferocious giants. Mr. Ruskin, on the other hand, I could only see as Sancho Panza, his stubby legs dangling as he sat astride a flea-bitten mule.

Mr. Dodgson’s dress, as well, remained the same—recently, I had decided that his constant glove-wearing was the sign of a true, refined character—but then gentlemen’s dress usually did. It was only ladies who were forever changing fashions—that winter of 1863, skirts that had been merely bell-shaped a few years before were now positively pyramid-like; so wide that only one or two ladies might easily fit in a carriage, much to the disgust of Bultitude, who had been promoted from the stable to coachman. He had to make many trips in order to fetch ladies to and from parties.

Still, what I most remember about that winter was that Mamma was not at all well; I knew by now that babies somehow came from their mothers’ bodies, which was why with every one she got so fat. Usually, though, she continued her activities almost until the very moment the baby arrived. Not this time; she stayed in her room for days, reclining on a chaise longue near the fire, very ashen, her hair dull and flat. While this naturally cast a pall over the household—it was surprising how much we relied upon her energy and decisiveness; without them, we appeared simply to list about, waiting to be told what to do—there was one benefit.

Mamma suddenly wanted to spend time with me.

I don’t know why she singled me out. Of course she watched Ina carefully, as best she could from her dressing room; Ina was entering into the “dangerous years,” Mamma told me: the years that would decide her future, for better or for worse, and Mamma was determined that it be the former.

While Edith was always a steadying, calming presence, needing nothing more than to be loved and cared for, it was, surprisingly, to me that Mamma turned whenever she wanted to talk, which was quite often. It occurred to me even then that there was a shadow across her thoughts about the coming confinement. She had already borne six children; did she feel the odds were no longer on her side?

At any rate, she often asked Pricks to send me down—even in the middle of lessons—to sit with her. I generally brought a book with me, although she had so many in her room, which was very unusual for the time. We had a great library, naturally, but Mamma said she liked to keep her favorite books near her. They comforted her, she said. I had never before imagined that Mamma might need comfort.

On one of these afternoons—it was gray, and sleet pounded the windows with a dull percussion—we talked of the future. The fire was burning brightly—Mamma was proud of the fact that the Deanery was always warm, no matter the season; she did not skimp on coal—and she reclined heavily beneath a red wool afghan, scarcely stirring, as it made her ill to move her head. She stared moodily into the fire as sparks danced on the hearth, and I wondered what she saw in them.

“Mamma?”

“Yes?”

“What are you thinking of?”

“Oh, so many things. There seem to be so many things left to do.”

“Like what? Didn’t Ina order dinner, as you told her to? I could go talk to Cook, if you wish.”

“No.” She smiled, a gentle smile, the smile she showed only to the family, and then rarely. “I didn’t mean practical things. I forgot how literal you sometimes are.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, dear. Don’t worry so much about all of us. You’ll get a permanent frown—see how you look right now?” She motioned for me to go look in the mirror on her rosewood dressing table; I did, and saw that, indeed, I did have a faint V between my eyes.

I returned to the low velvet stool where I always sat, next to her. There was also a small marble-topped table that was full of the things she needed and wanted—a white etched-glass table lamp burning bright with oil, handkerchiefs, a carafe full of water, a magnifying glass keeping her place in a book (she said her eyes hurt sometimes), a silver bell to summon her maid, a smoky brown bottle of medicine drops.

“No, Alice.” Mamma motioned toward the carafe; I poured her a small glass of water, careful not to spill. “I was thinking about the future. Yours, and Ina’s, and Edith’s, particularly. You’re getting to be young ladies now—Ina already is. But so will you be, soon.”

“Not too soon,” said I, thinking—hoping—that if I kept saying it, it would be true.

“Before you know it,” Mamma insisted, sipping the water, placing the glass on the table. She leaned back against her pillows and closed her eyes for a moment. “Oh, this one is different.”

“This one what?”

“This child.” She indicated her swollen stomach; the rest of her was so thin, while her stomach continued to grow. It seemed unnatural to me, as if there were a monster inside her, feeding off her flesh.

“I’m sorry, Mamma.”

“Alice,” she said with a drowsy smile. Then she opened her eyes, fixing me with a surprisingly fierce gaze. “You’ll marry well,” she whispered. “You will. It’s your right—I’ve worked so hard for you girls.”

“Please don’t worry yourself—shall I ring for Yvonne?” Yvonne was her maid.

“No, no.” She waved her hand impatiently, fretfully, as Rhoda sometimes did when she was too stubborn to nap. “You need to hear this, Alice. I’m relying on you—you have sense, child. I can see that. Despite your faults, you have a fine mind. You don’t get distracted, like Edith, and you don’t convince yourself that there are hidden meanings behind every single word, like Ina.”

I was flattered but troubled. Normally I would have longed to hear Mamma praise me—but not in this fevered, desperate way.

“Perhaps you should wait until you’re better, and then you can tell me—”

“No, there may not be—there’s no point in procrastinating, Alice. You always are one for that.”

“I know.” I sighed, happy to have her find fault with me again, wondering at the topsy-turvy nature of a world in which I would find my mother’s disapproval to be a comfort.

“You need to ensure your sisters and you marry well. Good men, from fine families—but don’t settle. You’re worth something, all three of you. Never forget that. I’ve brought you up to be at home with kings and queens. I don’t want you wasting yourselves on common men.”

“Good men—like Papa?”

“Well, yes.” She smiled. “Your father is a good man, and see what he has accomplished? There’s none his superior at Oxford.”

“What—what makes a man good, like Papa? Why did you—what made you want to marry him?”

“His excellent family, his established academic credentials, his unlimited potential.” Mamma rattled the answer off so quickly, I wondered if she’d been made to memorize it. Then she smiled again, her eyes soft and thoughtful. “Of course, I loved him.”

“He is older than you.” I was very much concerned with age lately. For example, I knew that the Prince of Wales was only three years older than his betrothed.

“Yes, he’s fifteen years my senior. Almost old enough.” Mamma raised an ironic eyebrow.

“What do you mean?”

“Men need more time, Alice. They don’t mature as fast as we do. An older man is an excellent match.”

“Really? Perhaps—perhaps someone twenty years older?”

“Perhaps.”

“How did you know you loved Papa? Did he tell you?”

“Merciful heavens, no! Men never know their own mind—we have to make it up for them. No, child,
I
told
him
, although of course, not until we were properly engaged. But I let him know, before. There are ways; you’ll see. Pray remember, Alice—love isn’t all. There is family, and education, and potential. Also property, of course.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what she meant; everyone I knew had some sort of property. Except servants, naturally.

“As well, there must be a—a mutual feeling, I suppose. That’s the proper way to put it, a mutual feeling of respect, and kindness, and sympathy.”

“Kindness and sympathy?”

“Yes. You’ll know it—you’ll see it in his eyes.”

My heart beat fast, my face felt warm as I remembered eyes. Deep blue eyes, eyes that followed me wherever I went; I felt them on me even when I was alone. Especially—especially at night, while my sisters slept and I lay awake, on my back. In the nothingness of my cotton nightgown, not unlike a thin gypsy girl’s frock.

I shook my head. I was not so watchful these days; thoughts could surprise me, shock me. I had no idea where they even came from, yet I felt perfectly capable of following them on my own.