Alice I Have Been: A Novel

by Melanie Benjamin

  “Five thousand pounds,” said a gentleman at the table, raising his finger.

  “Six thousand,” said another.

  “Seven thousand,” said still another.

  And so it went, the bidding rising by a thousand pounds each time, the only bidders four very distinct gentlemen (I gathered one was bidding on behalf of the British Museum), one of whom was, it was whispered rather sensationally, an American. I could not help myself; I found myself leaning forward eagerly—as eagerly as I had that afternoon, long ago, straining to hear every word Mr. Dodgson said as he spun the story out. Now I was straining just as hard to hear the sum of money that story would fetch.

  Curiouser and curiouser, indeed.

  The bidding reached fourteen thousand pounds, fifteen thousand—Caryl was gripping my hand so tightly, I could no longer feel my fingertips—and two of the gentlemen dropped out. Finally the American (his accent was obvious)—who was rather square and wore an absurd pince-nez that was far too small for his face—offered fifteen thousand, four hundred pounds; and the gavel came down amid a general uproar.

  The crowd was very excited, although obviously disturbed that an American had won; I rather feared for the square little man, based upon the numerous angry looks cast his way. The auctioneer was wiping his face with a handkerchief, but he stopped when the American walked over to him; the two men put their heads together for a moment in deep discussion. Caryl had jumped to his feet, about to let out a whoop of delight, before he looked down and caught my disapproving frown; he sat back down again but couldn’t refrain from saying, over and over, “How about that, Mamma? How about that?”

  Naturally, I was pleased; smiling for the crowd, a sense of contentment came over me as I knew, for the first time in a very long time, what I would do on the morrow. Before I could rise and talk to the young lady about the particulars, the auctioneer banged his gavel once more.

  “Dr. Rosenbach”—he indicated the gentleman who had won—“would like me to announce that he is prepared to sell the book back to the nation at the price for which he just bought it.”

  There was a murmur, as people clustered about the gentleman from the British Museum, but no further announcements.

  “Will that have an effect on when I receive the check?” I could not refrain from whispering to Caryl as he helped me out of my chair.

  “I don’t suppose so,” he replied. “But I’ll make sure.”

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Hargreaves, would you care to comment upon the extraordinary sum? I believe it’s the largest amount ever paid for a book in Britain.” A reporter was at my elbow, his notebook in hand.

  “Oh, is it?” I managed to hide my pleasure with a dignified nod. “That’s quite nice. Well, I am very pleased with the price. It is a large sum of money, and I do not yet know what I shall do with it. Caryl, let’s go home.” I rapped him on the shoulder with the end of my walking stick, and he helped me through the crowd, which parted before me as if I were Royalty. I smiled and nodded at them all, remembering how, back at Oxford, crowds had done the same for Leo.

  Before we left, the young woman asked me if I wanted one last look at the manuscript. I thanked her but said no; there was nothing more I needed from it. It had given me enough.

  “Mamma, I do believe there are many opportunities still to come,” Caryl said once we were settled into the backseat of the car. He tucked a blanket around my lap; it was a long drive back to Cuffnells.

  “I’m not sure what you mean, dear.” I gazed at the crowded, dirty streets of London; so many wounded men, taken to begging or sitting on overturned fruit crates instead of finding honest work. I could not wait to get back home.

  “There’s such an interest in you now. I believe we could make something of it. I’ve been jotting some ideas down, as to how we could perhaps benefit even more than we have. Would you like to hear them—I was thinking about a tearoom, for instance. The Real Alice’s tearoom—you wouldn’t have to do a thing other than make an appearance every afternoon.” He reached inside his breast pocket and removed a small notebook.

  “In a white pinafore, I suppose?” I raised an eyebrow. “No, I’m afraid I’m not interested in hearing about all that now.”

  Caryl frowned, his lower lip thrust out in a pout that looked ridiculous, framed by his gray mustache. “But Mamma,” he began in that high, wheedling tone, which was annoying when he was six but now that he was forty nearly drove me to profanity. I tightened my grip on the handle of my walking stick; the boy simply refused to act his age! As for his infernal schemes, he always had one, and it always required money, and it never turned out the way he planned. My youngest boy, so unfocused, so—well, weak. Not at all like his brothers—

  I relaxed my grip, took a deep breath, and found a way to smile at my surviving son. “You may tell me about your little plan later,” I said, patting him on the arm, remembering how much he needed my approval still. “I’m rather tired, as you can imagine. I believe I’d like to sit quietly, and think about what to do first with the money—I’m quite leaning toward putting in new carpets. We can talk later.”

  “But the time to act is now, while you’re in the news—”

  “I said later.” I shut my eyes, leaning back against the red cushioned upholstery, slightly moth-eaten; perhaps I should get a new car, as well. We lurched over the rough London pavement, stopping and starting with the traffic; I would be very glad once we reached the open roads of the country.

  I would be very glad once we reached home. For it was home, now and forever; I would be able to call my boys’ home my own for as long as I drew breath, and it would remain in my family. Caryl had been making feeble noises about marrying some war widow, rather long in the tooth, I gathered; while I could not pretend to approve—widows, in my opinion, should never remarry—at least he was acting like someone who intended to procreate legally, which was somewhat of a relief, if not an outright surprise.

  Yawning, I felt quite drowsy from all the rocking about, but then I envisioned re-laying the cricket pitch so it would be just as it had been when the boys and Regi had played on it. I could do that now; I could do so very many things to our home.

  I smiled, not burdened by anything other than a plethora of choices, all quite nice to contemplate. I realized, after a long moment spent trying to understand just why I could not find something to worry about, that I was, to my great surprise, happy.

  May we be happy. Somewhere, I did hope that Mr. Dodgson was, too.

  Chapter 18

  • • •

  I suppose you don’t remember when Mr. Dodgson ceased coming to the Deanery? How old were you? I said his manner became too affectionate toward you as you grew older and that mother spoke to him about it, and that offended him so that he ceased coming to see us, as one had to give some reason for all intercourse ceasing—

  OH, INA.

  I had warned her not to talk to any of the hordes of biographers—really, it was as if they were dropping out of the trees, like monkeys!—that had suddenly decided, with the centenary celebration of Mr. Dodgson’s birth approaching, to write books about him.

  I had received letter after letter, all saying the same thing: Dear Mrs. Hargreaves, I am writing to request an interview, as I am researching the papers of Charles L. Dodgson, or Lewis Carroll, my goal to be publication of a book about his life. As your life was obviously so very intertwined with his, I’m certain you will wish to aid me in my quest to find the real man behind the myth. Your recollections, in particular, of the creation of the Alice story will be most interesting and valuable, as well as any further insight you can provide as to the nature of your relationship with Mr. Dodgson.

  The nature of your relationship with Mr. Dodgson.

  Really, the impertinence of these people! They made my whole life sound like a cheap novel. What business was it of theirs?

  I did not protest being trotted out as Alice in Wonderland now and then, if it was for a good cause; usually a charitable organization
or some such thing. At these events—requests for my presence at which had started up after the auction—people only wanted to look at me, pose for photographs with me—generally with a stuffed rabbit, or a man in a silly top hat, holding a teacup—and ask a few benign questions: Did he really tell you the story while out rowing? Did you pose for the illustrations? Was there really a kitten named Dinah? But that was the extent of it; they simply wanted to be assured that my life was exactly like the little girl’s on the pages, and I was content to give them that. It wasn’t truthful, but there was no harm in it, even if it did get to be tiresome after a while.

  There are only so many things one can say about rabbits, no matter how cuddly, after all.

  These biographers—I was loath to use the word; sensationalists was more like it—were quite different. They came armed with information—naming names from Oxford, citing specific incidents I had thought I had forgotten but, once prompted, remembered, not always to my pleasure. Some had even inquired, boldly, as to the origin of the break in our relations. One in particular—a Mrs. Lennon, whom Ina actually allowed into her home, and whose inquiries prompted this odd letter to me; she had been very forward in her questioning, which was why I had refused to speak with her.

  Yet Ina had not been so discreet and now, in somewhat of a panic, was offering either a garbled explanation—of course, dear Ina was getting rather senile in her dotage—or was seeking some sort of reassurance or forgiveness. Or was she trying to warn me?

  I had no idea, and while I attempted to answer it—Dear Ina, I received your kind letter of Tuesday last—I could get no further; my pen froze, as did my mind, unable to direct me one way or the other. What else had Ina told the woman? What had Ina wanted her to believe; what had Ina wanted me to believe all these years?

  What did I believe, after all?

  It was too exhausting, and I could not find a reason to try to muddle through it today. So I folded the unfinished letter, opened my desk drawer, removed another stack of letters, some yellowed and faded, others stained with more recent tears, all bound with a simple black silk ribbon; I added both Ina’s letter and my unfinished one to the group, slipped them back inside my drawer, and shut it. I would answer it another day.

  However, the memories it stirred—memories I had quite forgotten these past few years, since the boys died—haunted me for days, weeks, and before I could make any sense of them, Ina passed on. The dear soul lived to be eighty-one; a good, long age, longer than she deserved and I’m not ashamed to say it. When I thought of all who had died so young; Edith, Leopold, Alan, Rex—but that is uncharitable of me. It is not my will be done, after all, but God’s.

  There are many questions I believe I’ll ask Him about this, however, when my time comes.

  With Ina’s passing, it no longer seemed necessary to sort through my thoughts, try to piece together the scattered pieces of the past. There was simply no one left to whom any of it mattered; no one, of course, but me. The biographers had even stopped pestering me, although I suppose I shouldn’t have taken this to mean they were no longer interested; I was sure they’d make up their own minds, regardless of what I had to say.

  Still the letter nagged at me; I was drawn to it, time and again, taking it out, picking up my pen, and then putting it away. It seemed as if I would never rest until I answered it.

  Then came the invitation to America.

  I sailed with Caryl, who insisted upon having a new wardrobe made up for the occasion; I received the honorary degree—I did not think I looked very nice at all in the academic robe and mortarboard cap, although I had no say whatsoever in the matter—I spoke fondly of Mr. Dodgson, as was expected of me; I put up with the endless questions and photographs and staged tea parties.

  Then, mere days before I was to leave, I met a young man who looked barely thirty; no older than Alan and Rex had been when they died. He was introduced to me by the officials at Columbia—all graying, serious professors suddenly beaming like little boys at Christmas—as Peter Llewelyn-Davies, the inspiration for Mr. Barrie’s Peter Pan.

  “Ah,” I said, instantly understanding. “How very delightful! The real Peter Pan!”

  “And the real Alice—I suppose they couldn’t pass up the opportunity; I was in America on business when I was contacted.” Peter shook my hand, and we engaged in small talk while the photographers snapped away with their awful noisy flashbulbs; photography had changed so very much since Mr. Dodgson’s days.

  There was something about Peter that arrested me—a very old look about his dark eyes, a look I instantly recognized. I wore it myself, of course; but then, I was eighty. He was a young man.

  “I do get tired of being Peter Pan,” he confessed, after the photographers were shooed away by the Columbia contingent, and we were left alone with Caryl in the hall—so very much like the great halls of learning from my childhood, with portraits of grim, ancient professors whom no one could name. “I wasn’t, really—the family thought my brother Michael was the model. And Uncle Jim wasn’t quite the person people believe him to be, either. But people like to think life is a fairy tale, and it seems that I’m quite unable to shake it. However have you managed to put up with Alice for such a long time?”

  I smiled, and did not take offense at the impolite reference to my age. He looked so very curious, touchingly hopeful; hopeful that somehow, I would be able to help him with merely a word or a handshake or a kiss on the cheek.

  “My dear boy, I’m sure I don’t know.” For to tell the truth, I was tired of being Alice in Wonderland; my bones ached for the simplicity of life at Cuffnells, where no one expected anything of me other than that I pay the bills and order dinner—and where, I vowed, I would not drink another cup of tea for a very long time.

  Yet the lad looked so disappointed and lost—his eyes were such a peculiarly melting shade of brown; I was quite inclined to take him home with me and install him in one of the boys’ bedrooms—that I forced myself to ramble on. “I suppose, at some point, we all have to decide which memories—real or otherwise—to hold on to, and which ones to let go. I’m sure I haven’t quite gotten the knack of it myself. But soon, perhaps. Perhaps, soon.”

  “But you’re—well, you’re rather—well.” The poor lad blushed, but I merely laughed in sympathy.

  “You mean, I’m rather old, don’t you?”

  “Yes, well. I do apologize, but—rather.”

  “Perhaps it’s best to look at it this way—we may be the only two people in the world who know, absolutely, what it will say on our headstones. Here lies Alice in Wonderland. Naturally I’ve had a great many other things happen to me in my life—a great many. But Alice is what people will want to remember. Not all the rest.” Shaking my head, I tried to hold all the suddenly surging memories at bay. “All the rest belongs to us. Only to us. Remember that—and allow the public to believe what they want. We’ll know the truth, after all. I hope.” I whispered this last, for remembering Ina’s letter, I knew that I did not.

  “I suppose.” He did not look as if he was really listening; he looked as if he was trying to be polite to a doddering old lady who was spouting nonsense. I decided to forgive him anyway, and kissed him on the cheek in farewell.

  “I didn’t ask for this, you know,” Peter suddenly blurted, grabbing my hand.

  “I did.” The words flew out of my mouth before I could think; surprised, I pulled my hand away. What was it about this poor young man, seemingly alone, that prompted such honest confession? “I suppose that’s the difference between us, then. I most certainly did ask for this—as I did a great many things, when I was young.”

  “Oh. Yes, I suppose that must be the difference.” He smiled politely, but his soft brown eyes—like the eyes of a doe—glistened with sadness. I worried about him, for he did not appear to have the strength of character I believed myself to possess.

  “Dear boy, do you have much family?” I asked, even though I knew it was not polite. Still, he seemed so alone.

&
nbsp; “No, not much living,” he said.

  “Neither do I—except, of course, for Caryl.” I looked round, suddenly aware that I had not included Caryl in this conversation and ashamed of myself. “Caryl, do let me present Peter Llewelyn-Davies.”

  Caryl stepped forward eagerly. “So delighted to meet you. I have a marvelous idea for a business venture, Peter—you do know the airline industry is going to grow by leaps and bounds. Who better to be a spokesman than the real Peter Pan, eh? What do you think of that?”

  “Caryl, for heaven’s sake, please—”

  “I think it sounds rather enticing,” Peter interrupted, genuine interest upon his face. “I would be happy to discuss it further—airlines, you say? I’ll be in London next month.”

  “My card, then.” Caryl gave it to him, and the two shook hands eagerly.

  “I must be going. It’s been a pleasure.” Peter turned to me, and although he was smiling, I could not shake the feeling that he was not Peter Pan but rather one of the Lost Boys. I had the oddest impulse to embrace him, and shield him from what lay ahead; just what it was, I could not tell, other than that I feared for him.

  “Take care, my lad,” I said, settling for a handshake instead, as unexpected tears pricked my eyes. Goodness, I was becoming rather dotty! I blinked my eyes furiously and sniffed. “Oh dear, I must be catching a cold. Good-bye, Peter!”

  “Good-bye, Alice!”

  We looked at each other and laughed; it was so very theatrical. I watched him walk away, so alone; then I turned to my own son.

  “So, tell me all about this airline venture.” I hooked my arm through his as we walked down the corridor.

  “It’s the most amazing coincidence, but I talked to a chap just before we sailed.…” Caryl beamed, his face shining just like a little boy’s; he talked nonstop for a quarter of an hour, and while I did not understand most of it, I knew it made him happy to share his plans with me, and it made me happy to be able to give him that.

  Days later, full of tea and pomp and circumstance, we finally left for home, for—