Alice I Have Been: A Novel (7 page)

Mr. Dodgson returned, forcing the plate holder into the camera. Instead of hurrying to expose it, however, he walked over to me, moving my hands up, pulling one side of the dress down. He smoothed my hair, plucked another leaf out of it, then walked backward—very slowly—toward the camera. He did not take his eyes off me.

“Lower your head a trifle, Alice, then look up. Look up at me.”

I did so.

“No, only your eyes—look at me with your eyes, Alice. Look only at me.”

His voice sounded strange, thick and unsure. I looked up, keeping my head lowered, using only my eyes, waiting for him to remove the lens cover and count.

Only he did not.

“I dr-dreamed of you, Alice,” he said, standing next to the camera, his arms hanging stiffly by his sides, his white shirt rumpled, his face flushed with strange emotion. “I dreamed of you this way. Do you dream, Alice?”

I looked at him, unsure what to do. Did he desire me to move or answer? If I did, I’d spoil the photograph. Yet he looked so strange, so lost, as if he had forgotten the camera was even there.

“Y-yes, I do,” I answered slowly, trying to keep my head from moving.

“What do you dream?”

“I don’t remember, not usually. Sometimes I dream of animals, or birthdays. I don’t really remember.”

“I dream when I’m awake sometimes,” he continued, still not moving toward the camera; holding me upright through the power of his gaze. “I rarely dream at night. But during the day, sometimes—I get headaches, Alice. I d-don’t tell people that. But I do.”

“I’m terribly sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not, because of the dreams I get, beforehand. Do you know what I dream of?”

“No,” I whispered. I was afraid to move; I was afraid not to.

“I dream of you,” Mr. Dodgson whispered back. “Of Alice. Wild and charming and ever young, yet also old. I dream of you as you are—and you as you would like to be. As I would like you to be.”

“Which am I now?” I tried very hard to understand what he meant, but his words
would
turn and twist, allowing me no clear path to follow.

“You’re who you want to be. You always are.”

“Mayn’t I just be the gypsy girl now, please?” My legs were on the verge of trembling from holding the same position for so long; my shoulders wanted to twitch; every part of me desired to move. It was getting colder by the minute, and there was nothing between me and the brisk autumn air.

Finally Mr. Dodgson remembered the camera. He gave a little start, shook his head—which worried me, because I didn’t want him to get one of his headaches—and looked at me again, but he only looked at the
outside
me. The position of my hands, the turn of my head. He did not, this time, see something else;
someone
else.

“Good, good. Look at me.”

I did, and was relieved to see that he looked as usual. He removed the lens cover, made an amusing face at me, daring me not to laugh, and began to count, although just in the regular way.

“Forty-three, forty-four, forty-five. There!” He replaced the cover, removed the holder, and darted back under the tent without even a backward glance.

I slid off the ledge—the arch of my foot ached—and looked around. After the strange closeness of the last few minutes—it was almost as if Mr. Dodgson and I had been the only two people alive in the entire world—I felt abandoned. A sad little gypsy girl, left behind to fend for herself—how tragic! How unfair life was to wretched little girls forced to beg in the streets, at the mercy of gentlemen, kind gentlemen, but perhaps not so kind ones; for the first time, I wondered if some gentlemen might not be as understanding as Mr. Dodgson, which only made me miss him more. Even though he was merely a few feet away, I felt something gigantic, like an ocean or a universe, separated us. I wondered if we’d ever be that close again.

So bereft did I feel that when he emerged with the plate holder in his hand to pose me once more, I laughed out loud, a laugh of pure happiness. It must have been contagious, for he began to giggle as well; he threw his head back and laughed at the sky, a hearty laugh I’d never heard from him before. It sounded full and satisfied, as if it originated from someplace deep inside. We were both laughing, although neither of us could have voiced just why, when all of a sudden Ina was before us. Face pinched, hands trembling, eyes ablaze.

“Where have you been, Alice?” Her voice was high and strained; it sounded as if she was trying not to cry. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“I stole her,” Mr. Dodgson said with a smile for Ina, a conspiratorial wink for me. “I kidnapped her.”

“You?” Now I believed she
was
going to cry; she blinked her eyes, over and over, and took a step back, just as Mr. Dodgson turned to greet her.

“I’m afraid so. It was such a lovely day, I sent round a note this morning.”

“Just for Alice?” Ina managed to smooth her face, turning a deceptively placid gaze toward him.

“Yes, you see—I knew you would be such a help to your mother today, so I couldn’t possibly have been so selfish as to send for you. How is she, may I ask?” He smiled at her, so unruffled; I had to admire him. I knew I couldn’t have manufactured such a smashing lie on such short notice. I hadn’t imagined him to be capable of deception; today had been a revelation, in so many ways.

“She—she’s doing well, and we have a baby sister named Rhoda, which is why I was looking for Alice.”

Another sister! I already had two; I couldn’t begin to think what I would do with another one. I didn’t mind brothers so much; I hardly ever saw Harry anymore, but when he was home, Mamma and Papa were always so happy it was like having a holiday every day. Another sister was tremendously disappointing; I couldn’t suppress a sigh.

“That’s wonderful,” Mr. Dodgson said. Ina simply shrugged, then turned back to me, snub little nose in the air, as if I smelled as distasteful as I must have looked to her.

“Alice, what on earth are you wearing?”

“Doesn’t she look marvelous?” Mr. Dodgson said, before I could open my mouth. “I had an idea for an unusual photograph, as you can see, and Alice has been most cooperative.”

They stood side by side, close but not together, and looked at me. Almost naked in my torn dress, I felt exposed, betrayed—and then, suddenly, alarmingly, powerful. It was I they were looking for; it was I they were looking at; it was I, clad in nothing but rags, whom Mr. Dodgson had dreamed of.

Not Ina.

Suddenly I was proud, I was defiant, I was
sure
. Sure that it was I who drew Mr. Dodgson to our house, time and time again, causing people to gossip, Mamma to fret, Pricks to sigh and be ridiculous—Ina to pale and quiver and act so maddeningly.

Ina was sure, too. Perhaps I should have been afraid of that, but right then, wild and powerful and
victorious
, I was not. I placed my hand on my hip, held my hand out—the little gypsy girl who wasn’t to be pitied, after all.

“Hold it,” Mr. Dodgson breathed, as he ran to the camera and shoved in the plate holder. “Don’t move—that’s perfect!”

I wouldn’t; I couldn’t. For I was looking right at Ina, standing next to Mr. Dodgson. Looking at her face, mouth open, face pale, eyes red-rimmed, entire body quivering. She stared at him; she stared at me. Storing it all away, she didn’t utter a word.

Neither did I. I didn’t have to. I had won.

“Forty-five,” Mr. Dodgson said, and replaced the lens cover with a loud snap—happily unaware that he was the prize.

“I won’t forget this, Alice,” Ina hissed, blinking her eyes furiously, as he disappeared inside the dark tent. “I’m still older than you. You’re only a child, after all. I’ll make him see.”

“He already does see,” I shot back, understanding more than Ina, for once.

I held my breath as Mr. Dodgson packed away the glass plates, for they were fragile; I did not want the evidence of this day to crack or break or vanish in any way. I wanted to live on, always, as the beggar girl,
his
gypsy child, wild and knowing and triumphant.

What I did not understand, despite all my newly acquired wisdom, was that others might not see me—might not
want
to see me—that way, too.

Chapter 4
•  •  •

A
S WISE AS I WAS AT AGE SEVEN, IT WAS NOTHING COMPARED
to how very much I knew as I passed eight, then nine; ten, then eleven.

At eight, I began dancing lessons, organized by Mamma with a few other Oxford children whom we weren’t encouraged to otherwise befriend. However, learning to dance a quadrille would have been impossible with just the three of us.

At that age I also realized that even though spinsters were supposed to be treated kindly, in actuality everyone talked about them behind their backs and complained about how much money it cost to support them.

At nine, I began to learn French, courtesy of a plump don of languages who favored mauve vests and insisted upon kissing us on both cheeks, even though he always reeked of sardines.

It was around this age, too, when I discovered that it was useless to try to convince governesses that even if “little girls can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” the truth is one can catch the most flies with horse manure. Governesses, I was learning, were not concerned with practicalities.

At ten, I was started on Latin, taught by a don who was as musty and ancient as the language he taught; when he opened his mouth, I always expected to see cobwebs and dust come flying out.

I also realized, at ten, that somehow there was always a “servant problem.” If only to provide ladies of a certain class a topic of conversation on which to agree.

At eleven—the age at which I started to learn domestic arts so that someday I might have a “servant problem” of my very own—I finally understood what Mr. Ruskin had meant that day in Mamma’s parlor, when he said “perception is reality.”

For Ina’s perception became my reality. The one thing I had still to learn was that it could become other people’s as well.

Yet before there was reality, there was Wonderland.

Those years, those growing, learning years, I was blossoming and blooming under the sunshine of Mr. Dodgson’s faithful presence. What had happened that day in the garden was always with me; it was always with us. In his letters, occasionally he referred to me as his “wild gypsy girl.” He also sometimes asked if I remembered how it felt to roll about on the grass.

I did remember, but I could not talk about it with anyone, and I did not know how to discuss it in letters. Every time I tried, it always sounded too ridiculous—
Dear Mr. Dodgson, Of course I remember the feel of the grass against my back, while you watched
.

Then I would become confused. Why had he been watching? At the time, it seemed perfectly natural. The words on the page, however—there was nothing natural about them. They were unsettling, and had nothing to do with the Mr. Dodgson I knew or the happy, carefree moment we had shared.

Nervously would I cross the words out, crumple the notepaper, finally toss it in the fire, for I didn’t want anyone to see. Because if I didn’t quite understand what had happened, how could anyone else? So I would compose another—less candid—letter, merely asking how his headaches were, feeling as if I were letting him down.

I did not ask him if he continued to dream.

Even though he referred, often, to that day in his letters, he did not show me the photograph. I longed to see it; I longed to have evidence that once, I truly was a wild child. As time went on and my garments grew more confining, my skirts longer, I knew there would come a day when I would not be able to remember how the air felt on my bare shoulders, the grass between my tender toes. I felt that if I could only see it—see me—I would never lose those memories.

He neglected to show it to me; I do not know if it was because he assumed I might not be interested, or if there was some other, more complicated reason. Although I told myself there was nothing to fear—it was silly old Mr. Dodgson, for heaven’s sake—I could not bring myself to ask.

It would be years before I saw it. By then, it was in someone else’s possession.

Ina never once referred to that day. She simply waited, with a patience I had to admire, then pity—and finally fear. For I could sense her resentment simmering, like an ominous teakettle. I tried, so many times, to cause it to boil over, but it simmered on, until I was in danger of forgetting it altogether.

Meanwhile our outings continued, whenever we weren’t needed in the schoolroom or he in the lecture hall. It is strange to recall how little we knew—or cared—about Mr. Dodgson’s life away from us. It’s as if it simply didn’t exist. Naturally, we would see him at ceremonies and at chapel, in his black robes like all the other dons; spying him in a crowd never ceased to give me a little thrill of possession. He may have been part of the greater world, but he didn’t quite belong. He only belonged—he only made sense—with us; with me.

For while Mr. Dodgson did not again single me out as he did that day in the garden—on the contrary, he was very careful to include Ina and Edith, always, in our fun—I knew that I remained the reason he showed up, time and time again, at the front door of the Deanery. I knew by the way he smiled at me—or rather by the way, sometimes, that he did not smile when he looked at me. Moments when he appeared almost to be too sad in my presence; moments when he would pause in the middle of a story, Ina and Edith frowning up at him with impatience, and look at me, and lose the thread of the tale, stammering more than usual, his odd, uneven eyes clouded over with a dream, I knew. A dream of me.

No one else ever made him forget a story. No one else ever inspired one, either. It was on one of our rowing expeditions that he first told us the story of a little girl named Alice.

That day began like so many others; really, there was no reason to hold it special in my memory, except for all that came after. So I have often wondered if I do remember that one particular day or if my memory has conjured up a composite of all of them. I suppose I’ll never know for sure. At any rate, if the day that comes to mind is indeed the “golden afternoon” so often remarked upon, it began in this way:

Mr. Dodgson sent Mamma a note asking if the three of us could accompany him and Mr. Duckworth on a boating excursion up the Isis to one of our favorite picnic spots, Godstow.

Godstow was a favorite because it was within easy distance for two men who endeavored to teach three little girls the finer points of rowing. (Although Mr. Duckworth, who had proven to be great fun, a tireless singer, and a welcome, if infrequent, addition to our little group, was rather less patient than Mr. Dodgson. He tended to sigh a lot whenever one of us lost an oar.)

Godstow also had a lovely, wild low meadow full of all sorts of animals—cows and ponies and swans and geese—and gently sloping riverbanks dotted with haystacks. Nearby were the falling stone ruins of an old nunnery, where we girls liked to play even though Pricks always insisted it was haunted. Naturally, this only enhanced its appeal.

“Not again,” Mamma said, frowning at the note. She was thinner than ever, for we hadn’t had a baby in quite some time. And Mamma did look very handsome when she wasn’t fat; she had lovely high coloring with shiny black hair and very strong features, almost like a painting of a Spanish empress. “Didn’t you girls go rowing with him just a fortnight ago?”

“It was a month ago, Mamma,” Ina said sweetly, if not entirely truthfully. It had been a fortnight, but fortunately when it came to unofficially sanctioned amusements, Mamma could be vague. She could remember the date and time of every party, every dinner or dance, as well as every single wardrobe detail, not just for herself but for all of us. Yet she sometimes paid only the haziest attention to what we children did out of the public eye. I understood. She was awfully busy, and what else had Pricks to do but be in charge of us? I couldn’t see that she had any useful purpose, otherwise.

“A month, you say?” Mamma raised an eyebrow at Ina, who simply nodded, her eyes wide and innocent. I sucked in my breath and bit my lip, but however tempted, I was not about to tattle on her. Not this time, anyway.

“Well,” Mamma continued, walking over to the drawing room window, which looked out upon the garden. Even so, the heavy brown velvet drapes scarcely admitted any sun. “The weather is lovely, and I do approve of Mr. Duckworth, even if he is at Trinity instead of Christ Church. Dean Liddell says he has excellent prospects, and may recommend him for a position in the Royal household; one of the princes needs a tutor.” She gave the tasseled cord that summoned the servants a decisive tug.

“Yes, madam?” A Mary Ann appeared in the doorway with a curtsy.

“Bring me Miss Prickett,” Mamma commanded.

“Mamma, does she have to go?” Ina ran her finger along the top of a polished mahogany armchair, her eyes downcast, a pretty smile playing upon her lips.

“Why do you ask?”

“It’s simply that she hasn’t looked very well lately, and I don’t suppose a day in the hot sun would be the best thing for her, do you?”

“What do you mean, she hasn’t looked well?” Mamma turned to me. While I had little desire to aid my sister in her deception, I had even less to defend Pricks.

“Ina’s right, Mamma. Pricks looks poorly, and I—I think she fainted after dinner the other evening.”

“Fainted? Governesses do not faint. I’ll not hear of it. Miss Prickett!”

Pricks, who was standing in the doorway in another one of her ugly dresses—even at ten, I knew that mustard yellow plaid didn’t flatter a mottled complexion—looked startled. “Yes, madam?”

“Did you or did you not faint after dinner the other evening?”

“What—no, no, madam, not at all. I’ve never fainted!”

“Alice said you did.”

“I said I thought she did,” I corrected her. “I didn’t say I saw her.”

“All the same, the prevailing wisdom is that you fainted. May I ask why?”

“Madam, I did not.” Pricks looked my mother in the eye firmly but politely.

“Hmmph.” Mamma walked over to her, looking her up and down, almost sniffing her, like a hunting dog. “I do think you look frightful. So it’s settled. The girls are going out rowing with Mr. Dodgson and Mr. Duckworth—the note specifically said there was room for only five in the boat, in any event. So be grateful that you have the afternoon off. I’ll ask Cook to send you up a tray for dinner, so you shan’t be disturbed.”

“But I—”

“Thank you, Miss Prickett.” Mamma turned her back on her. Pricks had no choice but to curtsy, her face flushed, her nostrils wide and quivering; in that moment she resembled, alarmingly, Tommy, my speckled pony. She turned to go, but not without one last, lingering glare at me, which I was happy to return.

I did despise servants so. Except for Cook, and Bultitude, the stableboy, and Phoebe. Also, the Mary Ann from the kitchen, as she sometimes snuck us up sugar cubes from the tea table, the ones with the candied flower petals on them that Mamma saved for only her special guests.

“All right, girls, do run up and get your parasols. And have Phoebe find you fresh gloves. Edith, remember to bring a pocket handkerchief—you tend to sniffle when out of doors.”

Edith—who did sniffle, quite a lot during the summer and early fall, especially—merely nodded, obediently following Ina and me upstairs.

“Why didn’t you want Pricks to come with us?” I asked Ina. We were united, for once, in a shared emotion, and I was more happy than I would have predicted; it had been so long since she had acted like one of us. To be quite honest, there were times lately when I missed her, even though physically, she was never far away.

“What do you mean?” Ina held her skirts up as she ascended the stairs, which was absurd; while they were longer, her skirts still did not touch the ground.

“Well,
I
didn’t want her to spoil our fun by acting silly and making Mr. Dodgson wait on her hand and foot. That’s why I said she fainted. Why did you?”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Alice. I was truly worried, for I don’t think she looks at all well.” Ina shook her head with one of her new world-weary sighs. (I had caught her practicing them one afternoon in front of a looking glass, along with an entire repertoire of ladylike attitudes and poses.)

“But you don’t give a fig about Pricks!”

“Alice, my dear child. When will you realize that I’m no longer interested in your infantile dislike of poor Pricks?”

My hand itched to reach out and yank one of her long curls. I told myself, sternly, that it wouldn’t do any good, she would only yelp, and I’d most certainly get in trouble and not be able to go rowing.

I did it anyway. It was as if my hand had a mind of its own, for it raced out, grabbed one of her brown curls, and tugged, quite hard; her head snapped back.

“Ow! Alice! What the devil?” She spun around, eyes blazing, cheeks red.

“You stuck-up! That’s not why you didn’t want Pricks to go, and you know it. Why do you have to be so fake all the time? And make me feel so—so—stupid, for thinking that we were playing the same game—”

“What game, Alice? Unlike you, I’m too old for games. I have no idea what you’re talking about, except for the fact that it’s nonsense, as usual.” Infuriatingly, she turned and calmly proceeded upstairs, pausing, just once, to slowly, dramatically massage the back of her head.

Why wouldn’t she say anything? Why wouldn’t she fight with me; why did she no longer
recognize
me as a worthy opponent? I knew she didn’t want to share Mr. Dodgson with Pricks any more than I did, but she refused to acknowledge that we had any mutual feeling, any ideas at all, concerning him, concerning anything. I was too young to understand. That’s what she thought; that’s what she said all the time.

Didn’t she remember I had already won, that day in the garden? It had been almost three years ago; did I need to remind her?

When I was thirteen, I vowed, seething as I stomped up the stairs—Edith trailing along, sniffling already—I would not be so cruel. I would not tell Edith she was too young to understand anything. I wasn’t certain, however, about Rhoda. I suspected she might always be too young for me, as she still took naps.

We received our parasols and gloves from Phoebe; Rhoda trailed along in her short dress, with her fat little legs and arms, clutching at Phoebe’s skirts whenever she stood still.