Alice I Have Been: A Novel

by Melanie Benjamin

  I suppose I could have demanded an end to the custom of port and cigars, and become a suffragette in my old age—although as a whole, I had little use for Mrs. Pankhurst and her kind. What coarse, vulgar women they were, always trying to get their photographs in the newspapers! Still, the thought, while fleeting, did cross my mind. However, considering it further, I knew that I had absolutely no desire to talk about ponies and cricket and motorcars, the usual things men discussed.

  When they were not discussing war, that is.

  I walked about the room, adjusting lampshades, wondering if I should play the gramophone but deciding against it because the only discs I could find were Wagner arias, which I despised; so very indulgent, with all those histrionics! Caryl must have left them out after his last visit home. I then ran my finger along the bookshelves, as was my habit (the upper shelves could use a dusting; I must speak to Mary Ann in the morning). We had an impressive collection of books, some from Papa’s library in Oxford. Many were my gifts to Regi, in the hope that he would perhaps open one up and actually read it. The hope had been in vain, although he was quite proud of his library and enjoyed showing it off to guests on the way to the billiard room.

  After selecting an old favorite—Mr. Twain’s The Innocents Abroad, for I was in the mood for a laugh—I settled into a chintz chair by the fire, yet long moments passed before I could turn to the book, and when I did, I couldn’t open it.

  Instead, I found myself tossing it aside and skimming across the room, to a low glass-enclosed bookcase tucked under a window; I fell to my knees beside it, opened the glass doors, and took out a book.

  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I held the small, old-fashioned book in my hands—the leather, while still stiff and hard, not worn with use, had turned a dark, purplish red. The pages were yellowing as well; they were heavier than the pages of modern books, and had the ragged edges signifying they had been cut by hand. I supposed I must have done so, although I had no memory of it.

  All my editions of the Alice books were stored in this cupboard; Mr. Dodgson had faithfully sent me each and every one, specially bound and inscribed: foreign editions, nursery editions, reissues. At first I simply stored them away in a drawer in my room, eager to keep them out of sight; as the years went on, and I grew more aware of their value as family heirlooms, I had this small cabinet made, as it kept the dust out.

  I had never intended to read the books to my sons when they were small; I could not see the point of it, as they had a nursery full of books, which more than satisfied them, especially as they grew and fell more under Regi’s influence. I had not shared with them much of my childhood; had never told them of that afternoon on the river when Mr. Dodgson first told the story—my story. I don’t believe it was a conscious decision. It simply never came up.

  However, one summer afternoon when the boys were on holiday from school—it was the end of Caryl’s first year, I remember; he looked so small yet dapper in his uniform, even though he was still in short pants—I went into the library to check on the flowers. Mary Ann was always quite lazy about refilling the vases.

  “Leopold Reginald! What on earth are you doing now?” For Rex was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the open cabinet, a book in his lap, other books scattered about him, crumbs crushed into the carpet as he casually munched on a chocolate biscuit.

  “Reading,” he replied calmly, not even pausing to look up. “What else would I be doing with a book?”

  I twisted my lips up, fighting an inconvenient desire to laugh at his ridiculously reasonable response. “You know very well what I mean. Why aren’t you outside? It’s a lovely day, and you know I don’t approve of little boys staying indoors when it’s not raining.”

  He shrugged. “I decided I might as well improve my mind. You said I ought to, after my report last half-term.”

  “Well, you’ve made quite a mess in the process,” I said, drawing up a low stool. “As usual.”

  “Yes,” he said with an understanding sigh. “I’m sure I have.”

  “What are you reading?”

  “This.” He held up the first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. “I’ve heard of it before. At school. Some of the chaps have it.”

  “Oh.”

  “Mamma,” he said, his little face all wrinkled up, as if pondering a great and profound matter. “I need to ask you a most unusual question.”

  “Yes?” I tried not to smile, but he looked so very serious.

  “Is this the same thing?” He held up the green notebook-bound, hand-drawn copy Mr. Dodgson had first sent me: Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.

  “Well, it is, in a way.” I sat perfectly still, studying him, waiting. My heart beat fast with excitement and fear. It was as if we had been playing hide-and-seek in the garden and I was about to be discovered.

  He paged through the smaller book to the very last; he studied the pasted picture of me at age seven, and then he looked up. His soft boy’s hair—wispy brown, with two cowlicks on either side of his forehead—was all rumpled, as if he’d been scratching his head. His eyes were big and dark, as solemn as only children’s eyes can be. “The thing is, Mamma, I believe this is you!”

  Although more laughter bubbled up at the deadly serious tone of his voice—almost as if he was scolding me—I did not laugh. I managed to keep my face as solemn as his, and I nodded.

  “Yes, I’m afraid it is.”

  “I thought so. There is a picture like it at Grandmamma’s. However did you get to be in a book?” Now he seemed relieved; I wondered, later, if he had thought himself quite mad, to believe that his mother could ever be in something as important as a book.

  “Well, you see—” I hesitated, looking at my son, who was waiting, so patiently, for an answer. Was it right to share this with him? Would it become a burden for him as it had been, so long, for me? But there was no going back; he knew that the little girl in the book was me, and I could not undo that knowledge. “I was quite a little girl—slightly younger than you—and I knew a gentleman who loved to tell stories. One day he took me, and your aunt Ina, and your aunt Edith—remember, I told you about her?—out on a river, near where Grandpapa and Grandmamma live. And he rowed us up the river and told us a story, and the story was about a little girl named Alice, just like me. Afterwards, I begged him to write it down, and he did, and that’s the small book you’re holding. But later other people read it and asked him to make it so every little girl and boy could read it, too, and that became the other book you’re holding. The one the chaps have at school.”

  As I spoke, Rex inched closer and closer to me until he was in my lap, which was a startling sensation; I couldn’t recall holding him so closely before, not since he was an infant. He snuggled further against me until he was heavy and warm against my chest. For a fleeting second I bent my head to his and inhaled; he smelled of earth and flannel and warm milk.

  Then he opened the book—the actual book, not the hand-drawn notebook—and pointed to the first word. He sat so very still, almost as if he was afraid to breathe. Almost as if he was afraid I wouldn’t understand what he wanted.

  But I did. And suddenly I was the one who was afraid to breathe.

  “Chapter one,” I began in a whisper; I hadn’t heard these words in years. Not since—I cleared my throat, which was suddenly parched; licked my lips, which were suddenly dry. My heart was racing again, and this time I knew it was from fear: fear of hearing these words, hearing this story, and finding out the truth. The truth of my childhood, of who I was and who I was not, for if I wasn’t the little girl in the story, then who was I? Yet what was most frightening was my suspicion that I was the little girl in the story. And that the entire world—all those foreign editions Mr. Dodgson had sent to me!—knew it, knew of all my desires, my wants, my actions that had led to so much confusion and, yes, destruction.

  All my actions—for they were mine, and mine alone; Mr. Dodgson had been only the recorder of them—that had led me to t
his place, so very far from Oxford, so very far from where I had loved and been loved; that had led me to this house, this child, seated on my lap, innocently wanting to be read a story.

  My story.

  Rex shifted in my lap, his chubby forefinger—dirty under the nails, I thought with odd detachment; I must speak to Nanny about that—still pointing to the words, written by Mr. Dodgson, on the page. “Down the Rabbit Hole,” I tried again, but my entire body was shaking, causing my voice to wobble, catching in my throat.

  Rex knew my fear; how could he not, since he was trembling, too, from the force of it? So he tried to be helpful, this child; my child. He gently put his hand to my mouth to silence me, and began to read himself.

  “Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank.…”

  “No,” I said suddenly—firmly, my voice finally steady and clear. I shut the book so decidedly that the sound startled Rex, who jumped. “No, I—I’m afraid I don’t have time today, perhaps another time—” Abruptly, I pushed Rex from my lap. He turned around and gazed at me with such a confused, hurt expression, his dark eyes bright with tears, his round little chin trembling; my heart felt pierced as if by arrows of my own design, shot with my own hands. Mercifully, the sudden onslaught of my own tears obscured my vision, so that I could no longer see my son’s disappointment.

  Although nothing could prevent me from understanding it, far too well; I remembered standing outside my mother’s bedroom door, wondering why she would not open it to me.

  “Mamma, I was looking all over for you!” Suddenly Caryl was in the room, panting, face red and shiny with exertion. “Did you know that Rex knocked over the new shrubbery with his velocipede?”

  Rex inhaled sharply and moved farther away from me; I realized then what he had been doing indoors. I also realized, with a sick flutter of my heart, that he was not only disappointed in me but afraid of me.

  I was silent for a moment, staring at the closed book in my hand. I then looked up at Caryl, whose eyes glittered with triumph.

  “Don’t tattle, Caryl. It’s not gentlemanly. Do go along and make yourself useful elsewhere.”

  Rex looked up at me, his eyes wide with wonder, his hair standing up all over his head, and while I did not smile at him, I did not frown, either. I simply started to gather up the books, while he quietly began to pick up the biscuit crumbs; we worked together to clean up the mess while Caryl ran from the room, his face scarlet.

  Not a word was said between the two of us afterward, regarding that afternoon. Although I do know that he somehow informed his brothers that I was Alice in Wonderland, and that they took the news gravely, as if this bestowed some enormous, almost royal, responsibility upon our family. Caryl, in particular, was fond of informing all his playmates, and total strangers, also—I had to cure him of that !—of the fact that his mamma was Alice in Wonderland, “all growed up.”

  Just when each read the book on his own, I did not know, although over the years enough was said in reference to certain details of the story that it was obvious that they had. But I never asked, and none of them ever volunteered the information.

  My sons may have thought they knew who Alice was, but they never knew the Mr. Dodgson of her childhood. After my marriage I received a few letters from him—letters that were, finally, mine to keep, although now I did not want them. For the most part, they were merely polite descriptions of the newest editions of Alice. Then in 1891, prior to leaving for Oxford for Papa’s retirement ceremonies, I received the following letter:

  My Dear Mrs. Hargreaves,

  I should be so glad if you could, quite conveniently to yourself, look in for tea any day. You would probably prefer to bring a companion: but I must leave the choice to you, only remarking that if your husband is here, he would be most very welcome. (I crossed out most because it’s ambiguous; most words are, I fear.) I met him in our Common Room not long ago. It was hard to realize that he was the husband of one I can scarcely picture to myself, even now, as more than 7 years old!

  Always sincerely yours,

  Charles Dodgson

  Your adventures have had a marvelous success. I have now sold well over 100,000 copies.

  I pondered the invitation; Regi had indeed met him a few years previous. He said that Mr. Dodgson had been quite odd and could not stop from staring at him, in Regi’s words, “As if I had my drawers on my head!”

  I put off responding to his letter. When we arrived in Oxford, the entire family under the Deanery’s roof for the last time, I found that I could not bring myself to go to tea, with all the polite formality and length of time that would entail. However, one morning I did take the boys out, on the pretext of visiting Edith’s grave—but first, we made a stop across the Quad, climbing that narrow staircase.

  Before I knocked on the door, the words “The Rev. C. L. Dodgson” now chipped and faded, I turned and faced my sons, fidgeting in identical sailor suits; Rex’s scarf was already undone, and I bent down to tie it. “I think it might be best if we don’t tell Grandmamma about our visit here,” I said in a carefully unconcerned voice.

  “Why ever not? Doesn’t she like Mr. Dodgson?” Caryl asked, pulling at the waistband of his pants, as if they were too snug; had he grown overnight?

  “Don’t tug so. And no, Grandmamma isn’t particularly fond of Mr. Dodgson.” I decided, at that very moment, that perhaps honesty in the face of dishonesty was the best policy.

  “You want us to deceive Grandmamma?” Alan was genuinely alarmed; two scarlet patches appeared in his cheeks as his dark eyes studied me intently.

  “Not deceive, exactly—simply don’t bring it up. That way you—we—won’t have to deceive her,” I said, suddenly nervous—and extremely irritated at myself. What did it matter, after all these years, if I did decide to take my sons to meet an old friend? Still, once under the Deanery’s roof—so crowded now, with all the children and grandchildren gathered for Papa’s farewell festivities—I could not help but revert to long-held habits. The day before, I had found myself quarreling with Ina over who got the largest biscuit at tea.

  “I won’t tell, Mamma,” Rex said with a conspiratorial grin. “I understand perfectly. After all, there are a great many things I don’t tell you.”

  “Thank you—what? What kinds of things?”

  Rex’s answer was to reach past me and knock on the door; I fixed him with a glare, then tried to plaster down his cowlicks, but the parlor maid opened the door before I could do anything but pat him, rather vigorously, on the head.

  I had sent round a note the day before, so Mr. Dodgson was right behind her, very flustered as he led us to the parlor. Dressed in black as always—in the old-fashioned frock coat of his youth—he had white hair now; his voice was quite high-pitched, and I thought that he seemed much deafer than before.

  “Well, well, this is a wo-wo-wonderful thing, to see you again. Do-do make yourself at home. Oh—and what a treat to make the acquaintance of your chi-chi-children!”

  I stepped into his rooms once more as an adult, my sons—not my sisters—following behind. It seemed like a lifetime ago, yet if I closed my eyes I could still see us, Ina, Edith, and me, dressed exactly alike in those short, wide skirts—how absurd they seemed now!—lace pantalets, quaint, old-fashioned parasols.

  If I closed my eyes I could still see him, as he was—but no. I did not need further remembrances of my childhood with this man, for I did not know what to do with the ones I already had. So I kept my eyes open and observed him now.

  Instead of bending down to shake hands with my boys, he stood stock-still, his gloved hands behind his back, and nodded warily at each one as I introduced him. Caryl bowed formally when he was presented, as if at court.

  “So, you’re the man who put Mamma in a book,” Rex said pleasantly; Mr. Dodgson nodded but didn’t elaborate.

  “I imagine it’s quite a good book, even though I don’t usually like to read,” Alan said as he put his hands in his pockets and
thrust his nose in the air—in perfect imitation of his father. “There weren’t really any games in it, other than croquet. You might have put a polo match in; that might have helped.”

  “I—that is, polo?” Mr. Dodgson looked at me, blinking his eyes, obviously confused; was he no longer used to the frank conversation of children?

  “Alan,” I said sharply. “That’s not very polite.”

  “Well, I did say it was a good book.” He colored as he realized what he had said. “I’m very sorry, sir. Please accept my apology.”

  Mr. Dodgson did not reply; he simply stood there, staring at my son until Alan turned away, still bright red, and pretended to be interested in a jade plant perched upon a table. Mr. Dodgson then walked over to the window, fumbling to pull up the shade. (The room was exceedingly dark and dusty; I had a good mind to talk to the parlor maid on my way out.) Motioning for the boys to take a seat, I walked over to him and placed my hand upon his arm as he struggled with the cord; I was surprised to find he was trembling, and in that moment I knew that he was afraid. As afraid as I had been that day in the library with Rex.

  What were we so fearful of discovering, the two of us?

  “Please,” I said impatiently, as he continued to fumble with the cord. “Do not trouble yourself so for us. We can’t stay long. Sit down.” I’m afraid I rather commanded him to do so, but he seemed happy to obey; he plopped down in a high-backed chair with a sigh.

  “We can’t stay because Grandmamma doesn’t know we’re here,” Rex explained. Mr. Dodgson looked at me, a question in those uneven, watery eyes; I decided not to answer it, choosing instead to congratulate him on the 100,000 copies of Alice sold.

  “Does that mean you’re very rich?” Caryl asked.

  “Caryl,” I said, but Mr. Dodgson did not appear to have heard; he cocked his head and put his hand up to his right ear. One look from me convinced Caryl not to repeat his question.