Alice I Have Been: A Novel Page 3

“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.

  “Any suggestions? I’ve the entire afternoon to be at your disposal.”

  “Can we go rowing?” I asked. “It’s awfully hot!”

  “No, I promised Mr. Duckworth we wouldn’t go again until he could join us, as he’s heard me talk so much about our fun times,” Mr. Dodgson said. “You wouldn’t want me to break that promise, would you?”

  “Oh, no!” I shook my head so vigorously that the ends of my hair tickled my ears. I did like Mr. Duckworth, who had a splendid singing voice; we had recently met him at tea in Mr. Dodgson’s rooms, where he sang bits from an Italian opera for us. To be honest, I was surprised to meet him there, even if he was another fellow at college. I wasn’t accustomed to seeing Mr. Dodgson with other adults, except on the rare occasions Mamma invited him to parties at the Deanery. “No, we mustn’t break a promise to him!”

  “I did tell Mrs. Liddell that I was taking the girls out for a botany expedition,” Pricks said.

  “Ah, b-b-botany. A fine excuse for an outing. Especially when accompanied by a mathematics professor.”

  Pricks laughed and took Mr. Dodgson’s arm, which he offered to her after first stifling a small sigh, I noticed. I don’t believe, though, that Pricks did.

  “Would you like to go to the Meadow, my ladies?” he called over his shoulder.

  “Oh, yes!” I jumped up and down, and I’m afraid I did shout, causing more than a few students, heads together in earnest discussion, to look my way. Mr. Dodgson only laughed, even while Ina and Pricks stiffened. “Might we roll down a hill?”

  “I’m not sure what that has to do with botany, Alice,” Mr. Dodgson said. “D-d-do enlighten me.”

  “Well.” Frowning, I tried not to step on grasshoppers as I walked, as I knew from experience they made a mess when squished. “We would be rolling on grass, which is a plant. We could study the grass after, to see if it got flat or not. That would be scientific.”

  Ina laughed at me, and I resisted the urge to poke her with my parasol, but only because we were still in the Quad and Mamma might be watching from the window.

  Mr. Dodgson did not laugh. He released Pricks’s arm—she did not appear to like that, as she let out a sigh she didn’t bother to stifle—and clasped his gloved hands behind his back. I wondered why he always wore gloves, inside and out, even when it was hot; I had to, of course, because I was a girl. Men, however, did not have so many requirements, so it made no sense to me.

  Mr. Dodgson nodded slowly, giving my answer thoughtful consideration, which was one reason why I liked him so. He was the only adult who ever did.

  “That is an interesting answer. I do wonder if the weight of a little girl would be enough, but then we must consider the f-force of the roll itself, as a factor.”

  “Exactly!” I was excited now, and pleased with myself for coming up with such a brilliant experiment; I couldn’t prevent myself from skipping a step or two, to Ina’s great annoyance.

  “Then again, there’s another factor we must consider. Can you tell me what it is?”

  “Bugs,” crowed Edith happily. She loved bugs of all types and longed to have an ant farm in the nursery. Phoebe wouldn’t hear of it, though, despite my many attempts to explain to her that ants did not have wings.

  “No, not bugs.”

  “The wind?” Ina asked, in spite of herself; I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at her.

  We had crossed the hot, treeless Quad, passing the great fountain in the middle with its bronze statue of Mercury, and were now under the towering stone arch that marked the entrance. Turning left, we proceeded down the narrow, noisy street of St. Aldate ’s, with all its lovely shops. I did hope we would stop to buy sweets; I patted the tuppence in my pocket, just in case.

  “No, the wind would not be a factor.” Mr. Dodgson raised his voice in an effort to be heard over the clatter of carts and horses on cobblestones, the clang of bells on shop doors, the steady hum of conversation tickling my ears.

  “The rain from yesterday?” I asked.

  “No, not the rain—although, yes, I suppose on another day that could be a mi-mitigating factor. Not today, though; the sun is too bright.”

  “Then what? What is the other factor?” Despite my belief that lessons should never interfere with play, I was curious. So curious, in fact, that I didn’t even notice we’d passed the sweet shop until we were two doors past, when a lady carrying a basket containing a large fish bumped into me. She apologized with a curtsy—the fish merely stared sadly up at the sky—and hurried away.

  “No one has stopped to consider the effect of grass stains upon white—what is it? Cotton? Linen?” Stopping, he bent down and fingered the hem of Ina’s dress; she stiffened, and I saw her shoulders tremble slightly.

  “It is muslin,” Pricks said with a patient smile. “Gentlemen never can tell the difference.”

  “Which is only as it should be. At any rate, grass stains plus little girls’ white dresses equal a very—agitated—mother
.”

  “True,” I had to admit with a sigh. “Very true. Mamma did ask me, particularly, not to get dirty. And I did just get dirty this morning.”

  “As I’m sure you’ll get dirty tomorrow. However, I do not wish to hasten the inevitable. So we shall not roll down the hill. Not today, at any rate,” Mr. Dodgson said with a sad smile; all his smiles were just a little sad around the edges, as if he knew happiness never could last very long. Whenever he smiled, I wanted to pat his hand or lean my head against his shoulder to cheer him up.

  “But perhaps someday?” I slid my hand in his and was grateful for his sympathetic squeeze.

  “Perhaps.” There was a sudden commotion; the lady with the fish dropped it in the middle of the street with a cry, and Edith ran toward it, eager to aid in its capture. I would have followed, but just as I started to go—right behind Ina and Pricks, who called out, “Edith, it’s not proper to play with someone’s dinner!”—Mr. Dodgson bent down and caught my elbow.

  “But cheer up, my Alice. I do have a lovely surprise for you.”

  I stopped, my heart racing, both at the excitement of the fish, now flopping weakly in a gutter while a raggedy man poked at it with a stick, and at the tempting words Mr. Dodgson had uttered. His hand still caressed my elbow and I felt, at that moment, that I would go anywhere, do anything he asked, as long as it remained only the two of us, no one else allowed.

  “Is it a secret just for me?” I whispered, unable to look in his eyes for fear I was wrong.

  “Just for you,” he whispered back. So I found that I could look in his eyes, his kind, loving eyes that picked me, out of three identically dressed little girls, and saw only me, despite all my many failings as recited daily by Pricks and Ina and Mamma. My heart was glad, so glad; it wanted to leap out of my chest and tell him so, but it had to content itself with my words.

  “Oh, that sounds so nice! What is it? When will I know?”

  “Soon. I’ll send you a note soon, when the perfect day presents itself.”

  “But how will you know it’s perfect?”

  “It shall say to me, ‘Mr. Do-Do-Dodgson, I command you to go fetch Alice, because this day belongs to her, it cannot belong to another, and the three of us—you, Alice, and myself—must spend it together, in order to remember it always.’”

  “How can a day spend itself?” My head spun with the notion of Mr. Dodgson talking to the day; would he be addressing the sun, the clouds, the air itself? Just what did a day look like? Did it have a very deep voice? Or a merry voice, like the laughing tinkle of the little clock on Mamma’s desk, the one with the ballerinas that spun around in a circle?

  “Days are very mysterious things, of course. Sometimes they fly by, and other times they seem to last forever, yet they are all exactly twenty-four hours. There’s quite a lot we don’t know about them.”

  I did so want to know how a day spent itself, but I decided to leave it for another—day. Then I laughed, thinking I had made a pun, although I wasn’t exactly sure; when Mr. Dodgson inquired as to why I was laughing, I shook my head, not wanting to explain.

  He didn’t appear to mind; he smiled and stood up straight, still holding my hand, as we waited for Pricks and Ina to retrieve Edith.

  “Oh, did she get anything on her dress?” I studied her anxiously; with Mamma’s request weighing upon my conscience, I felt somehow responsible for the spotlessness of the entire party.

  “Not a thing, thank heavens!” Pricks studied the bottom of her own skirt, which was now damp and muddy. “Oh, these streets! Mud and water and horses and fish and who knows what else!”

  “Then let us hasten to the Meadow, where the fresh air will dry your skirt, Edith can chase butterflies and not fish, Alice can look at the hill but not roll down it, and Ina can sit prettily under a tree and look thoughtful.”

  Edith clapped her hands; Ina blushed and smiled; Pricks pulled her glove up high over her wrist and touched the false knot of hair sticking out from her bonnet.

  I tugged on Mr. Dodgson’s jacket. “What will you do?”

  “I’ll tell stories, I suppose. Don’t I always?”

  I nodded, happy. Yes, he did tell stories; intricate stories about us, about Oxford, about the people we knew, the places we saw every day, but somehow he managed to arrange them all into faraway places, lands we’d never seen before yet recognized all the same.

  “Isn’t that a sweet family?” I heard a lady say as we crossed St. Aldate’s—Pricks raising her skirts with much exaggeration as she stepped over piles of fresh horse manure, as the dairy wagon had just passed—to get to the wide, tree-lined Broad Walk, which bordered the Meadow.

  The lady was obviously not from Oxford; everyone here knew that we were the three Liddell girls. I laughed, even as Pricks gave a sudden start. She raised her chin, surprising me by looking very soft and almost pretty, with glistening eyes, a smile not quite so sudden and terrible; not all her teeth were showing. I wondered why she didn’t correct the lady; I supposed it was one of those instinctive manners she was always going on about.

  Ina almost said something; I could see her struggle as her face reddened, her mouth opened, and she looked at Pricks and Mr. Dodgson, as if seeking their permission. However, Pricks chose that moment to stumble and lean more heavily upon Mr. Dodgson’s arm. I held my breath; she certainly was bigger than he, even without her swaying skirt, and I feared he might topple over. By some miracle he didn’t; he grimaced a bit, but held on bravely.

  Ina’s eyes narrowed. I could see her storing this picture away, as she sometimes did; I knew my sister hoarded information the way squirrels hoarded nuts. Not useful information, either, such as why Phoebe always dipped her food into tea before she ate it (she said she had soft teeth and didn’t want to lose them before she got too old to catch a husband).

  No, Ina was more interested in quiet things, looks and sighs and passing touches. The way a man sat on a sofa next to a lady; the distance between them; the silence. She could find meaning in such things, and she sometimes talked about them with me, but mainly—as I never could understand what they meant, and didn’t feel like trying very hard to learn—she stored them away. For some future use that I could not help but fear, as little as I understood it.

  So we passed our afternoon companionably, doing precisely what Mr. Dodgson had predicted. Sheltered by the tall chestnut trees, Ina posed on a low stone bench, patted her curls a lot, and looked dreamy; Edith tried to catch every insect she saw; Pricks fanned her skirts out in a very energetic attempt to dry that one damp splotch. I looked longingly at a pretty slope, just the right height, with no dangerous tree roots sticking out; the grass was so very green and tempting, but somehow, I remembered my promise to Mamma. So I contented myself with picking buttercups for her, although I still ended up losing one glove and soiling the other.

  Mr. Dodgson reclined on the grass—gentlemen did not mind stains as much as ladies; this was another important piece of information I now possessed—and told stories. Some silly tales, I soon forgot what they were; they were the same as all the other stories he told, long and winding and full of talking animals and people behaving strangely, although somehow recognizably. I felt I might know whom he was talking about really—the lecturing fish certainly sounded familiar, the way he droned on and on about heaven and the narrow path that leads to it—but in the end, I had to give up. It was too warm to think. I was too drowsy.

  He did make me sit up straight, once, with just a look, a sudden, intense look, almost as if he were afraid I might disappear and he wanted to remember me. When I felt myself blush, wondering why I felt so strangely, he blinked, and I relaxed. With a smile, he put a finger to his lips, and I knew he was referring to our secret; my insides bubbled over with happiness, making me giggle out loud.

  Immediately, however, I stopped. Ina’s face pinched up; her small mouth set itself in a tight, disapproving line. Her eyes grew cold and still. They reminded me of Mr. Dodgson’s camera lens, unblinking, unemotion
al.

  Those eyes remembered, recorded everything, including things like secrets; including things like sympathetic hearts that were, as yet, barely noticeable even to those who possessed them.

  Chapter 2

  • • •

  I WAITED AND WAITED FOR THE PERFECT DAY. I WORRIED I wouldn’t recognize it when it appeared. So I was anxious, always on guard, and wore on Pricks’s nerves even more than usual.

  “Alice, if you cannot sit quietly for five minutes, I will bind you to your chair with—with—butcher’s string!” She looked around the schoolroom for some. Naturally, all she found were books and slates and papers, the huge globe that sat on a half bookshelf, a stuffed owl looming in a low, sloping corner. She scarcely bothered to look on her own desk, with its neat stacks of blotters in every kind of fabric, her favorite pen lying next to the inkwell, a sheaf of ruled paper full of lists written out in her neat, uninspiring hand.

  “No, you won’t,” I explained, shaking my head once more; how could someone responsible for teaching me everything I was supposed to learn in order to be an educated lady be so very stupid at times? “You’d have to go all the way down to the kitchen to ask Cook for some, and meanwhile I’d escape. It wouldn’t be difficult. I could climb out the window and shimmy down the drainpipe.”

  “I shan’t resort to physical force, however tempted.” With a sigh, Pricks turned to the blackboard. “But do try to act like Ina. She’s behaving beautifully.”

  Ina simpered, adjusting her hands into another graceful pose, placing her left hand flat on her desk, folding the right one upon it, with a slight fluttering of her fingertips.

  I wouldn’t do that; I wouldn’t act so sickeningly fake. I did try to sit quietly, though, for I truly did not want to be a nuisance to Pricks. She had not been feeling well lately; she was pale (as pale as someone with a nut-brown complexion could be), her hair was dull, and she had even stopped putting creams and lotions on her warts.

  Ina, too, was acting strangely; noisy sighs and reclining poses, quick starts whenever there was a knock on the door.