Alice I Have Been: A Novel Page 12

  “Nonsense.” Mamma raised her formidable eyebrows, and Rhoda subsided with a pout.

  “It will be my p-p-pleasure.” Mr. Dodgson bowed in that stiff way of his. “I’m happy to b-b-be of assistance.”

  “Yes,” was all Mamma said, already forgetting about him as she glided off to find Lord Newry, her long black skirt trailing in the dry grass, leaving a circular pattern in the flattened stalks.

  The four of us—Ina, Edith, Mr. Dodgson, and I—grinned at one another; suddenly the sun took on a happy glow, and the air blew soft with the perfume of wildflowers and new grass. We bade farewell to Papa with affectionate hugs, then trooped our way across the fields, to the narrow lane that led down to Abingdon Road station, a journey of almost two miles. We did not hasten, even though we didn’t possess a timetable; I don’t believe we would have minded if we’d missed the last train altogether. For the day was ours at last; earlier, we’d been only borrowing it.

  Did Mr. Dodgson tell us another story that lovely, last day as we strolled along a dusty country lane picking flowers, blowing dandelion fluff, chancing upon nests of rabbits and mice? He did, although it frustrates me that I can’t recall what it was about. It did prompt me, though, to remind him of another story.

  “Have you written it down yet?” Breaking a branch off a tree, I dragged it along behind me; it made a satisfying swishing sound in the fine pebbles of the road.

  “Written what down?” Mr. Dodgson removed his straw hat, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. It was rather hot, particularly in my mourning clothes; even though it was late afternoon now—the sun had drifted behind the trees—it felt as if the accumulated heat of the day was trapped within the folds of my black frock, which persisted in sticking to my skin, weighing down my petticoats. Rivulets of perspiration snaked down the front and back of my bodice, my pulse pounded, and my skin felt baked. Looking at my sisters, I knew they were as hot as I; Ina’s curls had lost their spring, while Edith’s had taken on new life, frizzing about her head like lightning.

  “I imagine that it’s cooler on the river,” Edith said without envy.

  “Have you written my story down?” I persisted. “The Alice story?”

  “It’s not the Alice story,” Ina hissed. “It’s just a story. Any old story.”

  “I am working very hard on it.” Mr. Dodgson acted as if he had not heard Ina; he had such proper manners! I was very taken with them all of a sudden, given the events of the afternoon. “I assure you, my Alice, it will be done, and you shall have a nice little memento of a lovely day.”

  “I told you he would,” I taunted my sister.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” my sister taunted me.

  “Girls,” Mr. Dodgson interposed, automatically. “Let’s play Grandmother’s Trunk. I’ll begin. I went to my grandmother’s trunk and I found an—antipodean aardvark. Now, Edith, your turn.”

  “I went to my grandmother’s trunk and I found an antipodean aardvark.” Edith couldn’t stop herself from giggling at the thought. “And a bumblebee,” she added, as one had just alighted upon her hat.

  “I went to my grandmother’s trunk and I found an antipodean aardvark, a bumblebee, and a catapult,” Ina continued.

  “I went to my grandmother’s trunk and I found an antipodean aardvark, a bumblebee, a catapult, and a dragonfly,” I replied, choosing another stick from the side of the lane, as the one I had been using snapped in two.

  I was so content in that moment; those horrible men were gone, I was with my sisters, and with the person who loved me and knew me best in the entire world, I was sure of it. After the tumult of the last few months, swinging so wildly from exquisite highs—the night of the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales—to heartbreaking lows—Albert’s death—it was good to have this; this sweet, unhurried reminder that there would be, still, simple days in the sun for us all.

  So we trudged along the road playing word games, telling stories; soon enough we rejoiced at the sight of the little white clapboard station, where we knew we could get a cool drink from a bucket and wait for the train in the shade.

  After about a quarter of an hour, it slid up with a gentle hiss and a clang, wheels groaning in protest as the brakeman performed his duties; Mr. Dodgson paid our fares, and we climbed aboard a first-class carriage.

  “Shall I put the window up or down?” he asked.

  “Oh, up! I do hate to get cinders in my eye,” cried Edith.

  We settled in on the stiff horsehair-covered seats, Mr. Dodgson sliding in next to me, even though Ina had purposely sat opposite, forcing him to choose. While the journey to Oxford wasn’t long—only five miles or so, less than an hour’s time—almost as soon as the train pulled away, I felt my head nodding, heavy with heat and sleep, gently rocked by the rhythm of the steady train. Ba-dump-ba-dump-ba-dump! it went, over the railroad ties.

  My eyes would close, despite my best efforts; I blinked and attempted to focus on Ina, who shifted in her seat and turned toward the window so that her clean, perfect profile was in view, should anyone wish to admire it. Soon, very soon, I did not see her, for my eyes had shut for good, and I was falling, falling—down a rabbit hole? I giggled, murmured an answer to Mr. Dodgson’s gentle inquiry, which I could not quite understand.

  I continued falling, falling, finally landing, ever so softly, in a dream. A dream of happiness, a dream of sunshine; of drifting waters and babies snuggled into tiny blankets, rows and rows of them, perched on stalks just like sunflowers, nodding and sleeping with happy smiles on their faces. Soon a great man, gray of hair and short of leg, holding a watch just like Papa’s, was walking along a curving lane, touching each and every one, whispering that it was too soon, too soon for them to go.

  Then another man, a slender man with a tall black silk hat, gray gloves, a stiff way about him, was walking along that same lane. It was night now; the babies were gone, replaced by shops and darkened doorways, and there were fireworks splashing the sky with color. “May they be happy,” he said over and over. I thought he meant the babies—until he turned and looked down, his blue eyes sad and brimming over with tears, and in that instant, I knew he meant me. Glancing over his shoulder, I saw a couple in a doorway. She arched her arm, gracefully, about his neck, bringing him closer and closer to her upturned lips.

  “Alice,” the man in the hat said, tenderly. “Alice, be happy. Be happy with me.”

  “Of course,” I said with a happy sigh. “Of course.”

  “Alice?” I felt warm breath upon my forehead, scratchy fabric pillowing my cheek. “Alice, dear? Alice, wake up.” An arm was about my shoulders, gently shaking me.

  Did I feel lips in my hair? I nestled my face deeper and deeper, trying to hold on to my dream.

  “Alice, wake up,” he said. Reluctantly, my eyes opened; looking up, I saw his face, large and pink and near, so near; soft brown hairs curled over his ear, eyelashes brushed cheeks that were red from the sun, a faint line of perspiration dotted his upper lip. His breath was warm and a little sour, yet it did not repulse me. On the contrary, it made him real—too real for a dream; real enough for a man.

  As I searched his face, his lips asked a question, or said my name—either way, the answer was the same; my ears felt hot, full of a sound like the pounding of waves, the roar of a mighty current, or a riptide; my eyes were full, too full to see anything but his eyes, his nose, the down on his cheek.

  Arms reaching, gracefully; lips moving, to seek and give the only answer possible.

  A man who fancied himself a child and a child who thought she was a woman turned to each other on a hot summer day, mindful of nothing, no one, but each other—not even the sister who sat opposite, watching; the sister who sat silently, remembering.

  Meanwhile, time did not stand still for any of them; the train pulled into the station where other people were waiting, too; where other people were watching.

  As with a jolt, a clang, a final high, lonesome whistle that pierced the air, sending
shivers down everyone’s spines, the train reached the end of its journey.

  OVER A YEAR LATER, I received, in the morning post, a green leather-bound copy of a story. Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. I opened it to see the dedication—“A Christmas Gift to a Dear Child, in Memory of a Summer Day,” printed in very ornate script. Chapter one began, Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank.…

  I turned to the last page; after the final paragraph of the text, framed by flowers and curlicues, was a photograph of me, cut out from a larger photograph and pasted in. Not a photograph of me as I was, nor even as I had been—Alice, his Alice, his wild gypsy girl.

  Simply a portrait of myself in a high-collared white dress, taken when I was seven. I looked at this child with dark circles under her innocent eyes, a decided chin, scraggly hair like a boy’s, and I did not recognize her at all.

  I shut the book, took it upstairs to my bedroom, and put it in a drawer.

  I did not open it again for a very long time.

  Chapter 7

  • • •

  OXFORD, 1875

  IS IT TRUE THAT YOU’RE ALICE IN WONDERLAND?”

  “I believe you know the answer to that, Your Royal Highness.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “I believe you know the answer to that, then, Leopold.”

  “No. Say it. Say what I want to hear.”

  “I believe you know the answer to that.” I stopped, blushing; I had to look down at my gloved hands, folded gracefully in my lap, as I whispered, “Leo.”

  “That’s better.” He placed his hand over mine; his hand was white, as soft as a child’s, with jeweled and crested rings on the long, slender fingers. Yet there was a strength in it; the strength of possession.

  From the front of the room, Mr. Ruskin paused in his lecture to give us a look from beneath his bushy eyebrows. He stroked his chin, and then continued. “The gospel of the insolent and idle became the gospel of the painters of England.”

  I hastily retrieved my hand from the one who had possessed it; His Royal Highness, Prince Leopold, who looked at me with round, sensitive blue eyes framed with long golden lashes, and frowned.

  We sat in feigned attention to Mr. Ruskin for several minutes. Mr. Ruskin—who was now more or less permanently installed at Oxford as the first Slade Professor of Art—was giving one of his famous lectures, this one the first in a series of studies of the twelve discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds.

  Mr. Ruskin’s lectures drew enormous crowds, and often were given in the vast expanses of the Sheldonian Theatre or the Museum. As this series was supposed to be for students only, it was held in a large lecture hall in the University Galleries instead: rows and rows of hard oak benches, gaslights flickering on the walls. I was seated near the back of the crowded room. It seemed to me that every year Oxford welcomed more and more students; Great Britain was in the midst of an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity, as we hadn’t been at war since the end of the Crimean conflict in 1856. I suspected many young men who might have sought a military career felt there was really no future in it.

  Naturally, there were no female students. More and more ladies did, however, attend lectures, particularly Mr. Ruskin’s lectures. Despite Mr. Ruskin’s public grumblings concerning this new practice—“I cannot bear to look out and observe the ridiculous costumes in that revolting green and purple plaid so many ladies are fond of, not to mention hats with dead birds upon them”—privately, he did not mind in the least, and was known to boast about it at parties. Still, I knew he did not countenance disruptions from either sex; his lectures were more like theatrical performances as he gesticulated and paced about.

  Dutifully, I attempted to follow his words; as the daughter of Dean Liddell, my presence at any lecture was always noted and, I felt, appreciated. Yet how could I pay attention with Leo—my heart sang, to call him that!—by my side? I lowered my head to gaze at my lap—no revolting green and purple there; instead, a scalloped sky-blue taffeta, pulled tightly back into a bustle, which provided a welcome cushion to the hard lecture chair—and attempted to look at Leo with a sidelong glance. He sat easily, his plain black robe, identical to all the other students’, concealing a perfectly tailored coat and trousers, a rich gray vest, in which, I knew, resided a gold pocket watch with miniatures of his sister, the Princess Louise, and his dear dead papa. One graceful white hand rested on a simple ebony walking stick. The other hung lazily—tauntingly—over the arm of his chair, just within reach. While he appeared to be extremely interested in Mr. Ruskin, somehow he managed to convey his attention to me as well. It was in the way he reclined, leaning ever so slightly in my direction, his head tilted my way, while his body remained turned to the front of the room. I was aware of his soft, steady breathing, his occasional, gentle clearing of the throat, the way his Adam’s apple moved up and down as he swallowed; the blinking of his eyes, even. For the room was tightly packed, and we were by necessity seated more closely together than we had ever been.

  Resolutely, I gazed back at Mr. Ruskin, who now appeared to have thrown away his prepared notes and was pacing about the front of the room. “English society has fallen lower and lower, and therefore, now its nobles are gradually abdicating their ancient seats and leaving them to manufacturers.”

  “I’m afraid I am unable to understand what Mr. Ruskin’s opinions of the decline of English society have to do with the teachings of Sir Joshua. Perhaps this lecture should be called ‘The Rambling and Egotistical Discourses of Mr. John Ruskin,’ instead,” I whispered to Leopold.

  “I wager half a crown you would never say that to him in person,” Leopold replied, stroking his neat mustache.

  “Sir, I am scandalized! Wagering with a lady?”

  “It’s entirely your fault; you’re corrupting me. I was a wide-eyed innocent before I made your acquaintance.”

  “Naturally. It’s only women who have the power to corrupt,” I murmured slyly, as Mr. Ruskin cleared his throat and looked our way, this time more pointedly. Naturally, all other heads turned to see who he was looking at; I suppressed a giggle and looked down at my lap, while Leopold merely nodded, a true Royal, and smiled at Mr. Ruskin, who bowed and continued.

  At long last, the lecture ended to thunderous applause, to which I did not contribute. Looking at the admiring faces around me, I couldn’t help but believe that were Mr. Ruskin merely to stand in front of a lectern and belch the alphabet, he would be so rewarded—and likely asked to repeat the performance later.

  Prince Leopold rose and helped me to my feet; we followed the crowd out the back door to the anteroom, where my maid and his valet were waiting to hand us our cloaks. The back of Sophie ’s hair was flat and unruly; I wondered if she ’d been napping while she passed the time. I would have to speak to her about this later.

  “Miss,” she said with a curtsy, handing me an umbrella. “I believe it’s raining now.”

  “Oh, bother,” I said, turning to Leo. “We’ll not be able to have our stroll.”

  “Sir, I was going to venture that perhaps you should go back to Wyckeham House and rest,” his valet—an older military man who had served Prince Albert—said firmly.

  Leo sighed, a look of frustration mingled with resignation crossing his face, even as he could not disguise the bitterness in his voice. “I must be the only undergraduate at Oxford who has to have a lie-down every afternoon.”

  “You know you have to conserve your energy,” I consoled him. “You’re so dear to all of us, to Mamma and Papa; it would be unkind of you not to rest. Whatever would we do if you were to take ill? You’re being very selfish, you know.” I smiled, trying to coax him out of his mood before it began. A lifetime of being a semi-invalid had not encouraged him to bear his cross without some complaint. Matters were not helped by the Queen, who wrote daily expressing her suffocating concern for her youngest son, who had been born with hemophilia. Leopold considered it a miracle of Papist proportions that he h
ad been allowed to attend Oxford at all; it was due only to the influence of Mr. Duckworth, his former tutor, that the Queen had consented to let him live beyond her protection.

  The stories he had told me about his childhood—the servants whose only tasks were to constantly follow him, ready to catch him if he fell; the loneliness he suffered as the only boy among a household of women, as his brothers all went off to school and military careers; the stifling atmosphere of the Queen’s continual mourning, a strange world where Prince Albert’s clothes were laid out every morning, brushed and pressed, only to be put away again at night—broke my heart. I could not imagine how he had emerged so cheerful, really; I knew I must allow him his small complaints.

  “I’m dear to your parents? Am I not dear to you as well?” Now Leo did smile, taking my arm and trying to tuck it under his. I persisted in retrieving it, uneasy at his public boldness. We walked out into the hall properly, a respectable space between us; the hall was full of students hoping to talk to Mr. Ruskin. As we passed, a narrow path opened up before us as students murmured and bowed quickly and respectfully to the Prince.

  He did not appear to notice, however; he gazed at me with a steady, expectant expression, until I was forced to answer.

  “Of course you are,” I murmured, not wishing anyone to hear.

  “You never did answer my other question.” Now there was a mischievous glint in those light blue eyes, a twitch of the soft yellow mustache.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Earlier. You never did confirm that you are the real Alice in Wonderland.”

  “Oh, Prince—Leo, you know very well all about that.” I sighed, impatient—perhaps even irritated.

  “So it’s true, then? Duckworth told me, before I came down, that I’d meet the real Alice. You realize it is one of Mamma’s favorite books? She is not one for reading, but she is exceedingly fond of your story.”

  “That’s very flattering,” I said automatically, with that polite detachment I had practiced for so long to cultivate concerning the subject. Had I ever been proud to call it “my” story? Once, long ago. But so much had happened since then.