The Looking Glass House

by Vanessa Tait

  Mary straightened her coat. She turned to face the High Street. Ahead of them a panorama of people streamed by; none of them turned their heads to look down at them.

  Mary’s mouth was dry. She found herself longing to be in her mother’s parlour, in possession of a cup of tea.

  Chapter 13

  God had seen fit to test her in strange and unusual ways. To pour out His grace so liberally in one church, only to torture one of his creatures in another – but this time by withholding His grace, or stopping it up like a cork in the wine at Cana – did not seem fair.

  Mr Dodgson had ascended the pulpit of Christ Church Cathedral in a white surplice, and started to speak. Mary, who was sitting in the front row with the children, had not seen Mr Dodgson in a surplice before. Chapel was as full of people, packed into every pew, as the game the children played: Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, turning over their fingers to represent the people stacked in the pews.

  He had been talking for a few minutes, his hands gripped on either side of the lectern, his eyes staring down seriously at the Bible, when he embarked on the phrase from St Matthew that Mary knew by heart: Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction.

  Only he got stuck on the first straight.

  Stah-stah-stah-staaaah-staaaahhh . . .

  The congregation grew still.

  He tried again. But it was worse: ssssssaaaaah-ssssssaaaaahh. He had dropped a letter. Mary could see his cheeks quivering on either side of his open mouth with the effort of trying to reclaim it.

  He closed his mouth. His smile seemed to be trying to signify his own stupidity. Mary leaned forward and gripped the pew in front of her with both hands.

  Straight!

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ a child asked in a clear voice.

  Shhhhhh!

  Mr Dodgson closed his eyes. He opened his mouth again. He opened his eyes and looked straight at Mary. His gaze had got hooked on her face. She was all eyes; she hardly noticed that she was mouthing the word straight for him.

  Sahhhhh-shahhhh.

  A red rash mottled his exposed neck. Because of the acoustics of the place, she was sure she could hear the bones of his jaw clicking.

  Sssaahh-sssahh-staaa-staaa!

  Mary’s face burned – for him. She had heard him mock his own affliction, but he would never mock the Bible in this parody of tongues. Perhaps this was why she had never heard him preach before.

  Mr Dodgson swallowed again and then, from deep within himself he spat out: STRA.

  He paused, keeping his head down. EIGHT.

  Mary sat back in her pew, struck by the force of it.

  As soon as the service ended, Edith ran up to him. ‘You’ve got your white gown on and you read in chapel!’

  Mr Dodgson’s neck was still mottled. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t do it particularly well.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Mary quickly. ‘I thought you read admirably.’

  She saw that he could not look at her now. His eyes, when he had held her gaze, had been full of terror.

  ‘My stammer is my mortal enemy. Most of us Dodgsons stammer. It drives my father mad. It is a curse of the family.’

  ‘I enjoyed the subject of your reading! We must all be on guard, very well chosen. It is so easy to stray from the path.’

  ‘My doctor, whom I visit every week in his consulting room at Hastings, tells me that stammering can be cured by appealing to the reason and the will. Oh, we are so full of sin, are we not?’ He looked, abruptly, as if he might cry. ‘All of us except children. Alice, what did you think of my lesson? Could you understand it at all?’

  ‘Not really, I’m afraid, Mr Dodgson.’

  ‘It was about how hard it is to be good,’ said Mary.

  ‘That is right. But I don’t think God minds childish naughtiness – at least He won’t keep you out of heaven for it. It is rather adult sins that He cares about, I think.’

  When the time came to say goodbye, the children clung to Mr Dodgson and would not let him go. They made him promise to write every day during the vacation, even though Mary told them he would not have the time.

  ‘Twice a day!’ said Alice. She hung round his neck and kissed him on the cheek, on her tiptoes. She clung on so long that she was obviously causing Mr Dodgson discomfort, and Mary step ped forward to rescue him.

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Dodgson.’

  ‘Goodbye, Miss Prickett!’

  He was flustered, she could see, which made her flustered, so she bade him goodbye still without looking him in the eye. Although as she walked home she reflected that she had never met a person – man or woman, mother or father – who had such a way with children.

  The vacation began tomorrow. Mary was to spend it with the Liddells in North Wales, at Penmorfa, their holiday home, which the Dean had built just below the Great Orme. The people were bound to be different up in Wales. Shorter, stouter. Strangely shaped heads. The suitcases were even now stacked downstairs in the hall. Mrs Liddell demanded new shoes, new hats, new shawls, a walking outfit and a new bathing costume, just in case it was warm enough to swim. Mr Liddell demanded his volumes of Aristotle, Xenophon, Kant, Locke and Hutcheson; they sat in brown paper next to Mrs Liddell’s luggage.

  Mary’s own suitcase was small and still in her room. Two dresses, and literature consisting of the latest copy of Aunt Judy’s Magazine and a book by Mary Braddon called Lady Audley’s Secret. The Welsh were all low-browed, she had heard tell, though she had never been there. She would have to consult her phrenology chart – she had a feeling it was base instincts.

  It was not early enough to go to bed. There was nothing to do now except read, and she was not in the mood for reading; or write a letter, and she was not in the mood for writing either.

  She gazed at the little picture of Jesus hanging on his Cross, his head falling to one side. Mr Dodgson’s stutter, the sound of it as clear as music with its rhythm and staccato crochets falling down the scale, sang its way into her head. Crew-crewcrucified! The thorns that dug into Jesus’s head were very clearly painted. She could see his hair matted with blood, and a drop of blood on his forehead, round and lascivious, as if juice was being squeezed from a very pale and large berry.

  The back of her thighs were numb. She pushed herself up from her chair and went to the small cupboard in the corner. She moved the books aside and took out the bottle she kept behind them, half full of liquid, which had, she reflected, the same depth to it as the berry juice on Christ’s forehead. She swallowed it quickly – she had not poured herself enough. Outside it was still light. A walk, a respite from her room; that was what she needed. Although it might be chilly out there – just a little more, to warm her. She went back to her cupboard, opened it again, and poured herself a larger measure, waiting until she could feel the warmth begin to curl upwards from her stomach.

  Outside the air was cold and crepuscular. A thrush still sang its complicated trill; it sounded grating, unknowable. She walked across the Quadrangle and into Christ Church Meadow. Her nose itched, as it often did on spring evenings. Perhaps she ought to turn back, else she would start to sneeze and her eyes water. But it was peaceful in the meadows, the trees overcome with heavy stillness, nearly empty of people, the light diffuse and darkening.

  She walked for a while along the path. She thought at one moment she heard footsteps behind her, but when she turned round she could not see anybody. Mr Wilton’s moustache floated in front of her, though she could not bring the rest of his face to mind. His hands she would always see: broad-knuckled, kneading. She closed her eyes. She felt again the railings against her spine, the rhythm of his hand, in and out, up and down, as if it were the only rhythm in the world. The sickening pulling at the tips of her and the sudden strange connection to her groin.

  But there were footsteps behind, growing closer now. Her chest writhed as if she had a living thing behind her breastbone. She quickened her pace. There was a bench, just over
there, within sight of the river, but not too near. She would sit down and let the man pass her by.

  The branches snapped alongside the path on which Mary had just trodden – whoever he was, he was in a hurry. Mary stared in the opposite direction, trying to calm her breathing. She was not afraid; she had no interest in the man and his movements at all.

  He was upon her now. She heard the voice first, and then saw the man. ‘Miss Prickett, what a surprise!’

  It was Mr Dodgson, leaning over her in the half-light. ‘I often take a walk here in the evening, but I have never seen you.’

  ‘Oh!’ Now that she was called on to talk, her tongue was thick in her mouth. ‘I wondered who it was. Whom it was.’

  He was even paler than usual, his eyes pinpricks in the dimness. ‘It was I.’ He smiled; his lips were dry and had white specks at the corners.

  ‘I thought I would catch a last breath of air before my journey tomorrow.’

  ‘Quite.’ Mr Dodgson stood back up, his hands in his pockets, a scarf bound tightly round his neck. ‘But when you arrive, North Wales will be invigorating, I have no doubt. The country is so different up there. It’s strange, isn’t it, how nature, when revealed at her wildest, should be the most soothing to behold.

  ‘Though the torrents from their fountains

  Roar down many a craggy steep,

  Yet they find among the mountains

  Resting-places calm and deep.’

  His words came out easily, as swiftly as the river.

  ‘Did you write that yourself, Mr Dodgson?’

  ‘Oh no! That is Wordsworth,’ he said.

  She was glad it was nearly dark so that he could not see her face. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Do you mind if I sit for a moment? I have a back complaint.’

  He sat down carefully, his hands poised just above his waistband.

  ‘My father had a similar problem. He found laudanum the only cure,’ said Mary.

  ‘I am taking it. It certainly numbs the pain, but the only cure is time, I think. It helps me sleep, too, at least in the earlier part of the night. Otherwise I am afraid my sleepless nights are becoming a recurring theme. I thought I might write out some of the mathematical problems I devise whilst I am tossing from one side to another. I might call it something like Pillow Problems.’

  He stared at the tree ahead of them for so long that Mary began to feel uncomfortable. But Mr Dodgson seemed not to feel it.

  ‘That is a good name,’ said Mary.

  At last he started up again. ‘There are sceptical thoughts, which seem to uproot the firmest faith; there are blasphemous thoughts, which dart unbidden into the most reverent souls; there are unholy thoughts, which torture, with their hateful presence, the fancy that would fain be pure.’

  He lapsed into silence. A thrush grated out its noisy night-time song.

  It was Mary’s fault. She had nothing to say now that Mr Dodgson was here beside her, though plenty to say to him when he was not. ‘Will you publish these one day?’

  ‘I hope to, yes.’ He leant back on the bench. Without looking at her he asked: ‘Do you have trouble sleeping?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘You are lucky indeed. If I could drop off quickly every night I would be very grateful.’

  Mary thought of the picture of Jesus hanging in her room. ‘Sometimes perhaps I struggle,’ she added.

  ‘My early childhood was very happy. It started at school, I think, at Rugby.’

  Mr Dodgson made no move to go, even though the evening had lost all light. Mary remembered his open mouth, a tap from which no water came, the rabbit-in-a-snare look of his eyes. She wondered whether to say something, to commiserate and comfort, though perhaps to remind him would be worse. But he spoke again; he had no problems in that direction now. In fact he seemed particularly garrulous.

  ‘I do not look back on my life at a public school with any pleasure. Three years, but an eternity to me.’ The edges of his face blurred in the dimness. He looked straight ahead, at the branches fast turning into skeletons in the dark, but he seemed to see only that of which he spoke.

  Mary shivered. She had not expected his confidence, especially here, especially now, but now that she had it, she was glad. ‘Was it so terrible, then?’ she asked him softly.

  ‘Terrible . . . yes. It was terrible to leave the loving arms of my mother to go to that place.’

  Mary had always thought public school a privileged place. No man had ever confided otherwise.

  ‘I was always hungry. Always cold. There was never enough food to go round. I remember coming into my den once to find everything turned upside down. Everything! Table and chairs hung from the ceiling, my books were turned the wrong way up, my bed had been turned over and my clothes pressed in a heap under it. My tormentors even glued my pen and inkpot to the roof!’ His face was full of still new astonishment. ‘If they could have just put the thought into their studies that they put into tormenting me! They hid behind the door to watch my face as I discovered it.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ was all Mary said, but she did not mean it in the normal way.

  Mr Dodgson’s voice dropped very low. ‘But if I could have been secure from annoyance at night, the hardships of the daily life would have been comparative trifles to bear.’ His face crumpled. He looked like a child again.

  What had happened to him at night? Was that why he could not now sleep?

  The back of Mary’s neck tingled and she felt tears at her eyes. She blinked them away. That he should be confiding this to her!

  ‘I too had an unhappy childhood,’ she said. She was surprised to hear the words coming out of her mouth. She had never said it, even to herself. ‘My school was nothing like Rugby, of course, but the teacher was cruel. In the winter she would beat our knuckles with a ruler for a wrong answer, and we were freezing. On cold days now I still feel it, here.’ She stuck out her two longest fingers, which were without gloves – she had not thought to meet anyone.

  Mr Dodgson took one of her fingers up in his gloved hand and looked. Mary felt a freezing heat running up her hands.

  ‘It does not look bad,’ said Mr Dodgson, ‘but then we all carry scars that no one can see.’

  Still holding her finger he added: ‘I should like to make you a small gift, before you go.’

  ‘A gift?’ Mary said in confusion. ‘Why?’

  ‘I thought you might like it. I think it is too late to collect from my rooms now, but I will leave it for you at the Deanery tomorrow morning.’

  He released her finger and Mary made a fist with her hand and hurried it back into her pocket.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Let it be a surprise, Miss Prickett. Gifts are better that way.’ She could see his smile gleaming through the darkness.

  When they parted at the door of the Deanery, he bowed and thanked her. For what? Mary almost asked, but didn’t. She thought she knew – but if she asked him, it might signal that she thought that nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  Chapter 14

  What gifts did men give to women? What did an Oxford tutor give to a governess? A pen-wiper, a fan perhaps, or a pincushion? Mary had seen a pincushion in the shape of a strawberry last time she had been in town, and had wanted it. Or a needle case, embroidered perhaps, though Mr Dodgson would not himself have done the embroidery, but perhaps they had the cases in Elliston & Cavell. Perhaps he had gone to Mr Wilton for something! But they did not know each other, Mary was sure.

  But Mr Dodgson had carried her in his mind. He had left his rooms, walked purposefully to the stationer’s, or the haberdasher, or the bookshop, thinking of her. He had retrieved his wallet from his pocket and taken out his coins, still thinking of her, and carried the parcel wrapped in its brown paper home, his fingers pushed underneath its string.

  Or perhaps he had gone to the jeweller’s. Mary had seen a pair of emerald earrings in the window, just small, nothing like Mrs Liddell’s, but she had experienced a sharp pang of
covetousness for their blaze of colour, their promise of life.

  She must not think of jewellery, though. But of the intimacy that a gift suggested, she could not help but think. Mr Dodgson had said the word gift with such tenderness, had he not, there in the darkness?

  Mary’s school friends had provided intimacy of a general kind, but up till now she had only had real access to her own inner life. She had always assumed other people were generally as they told her they were. Even her own mother gave no indication of having an inner life, unless feelings of irritation and impatience could be counted. But even the revelation that another human being struggled, as she did, experienced unhappiness, as she did, would not bring forth emeralds. But it was so unexpected, and one unexpected thing could easily lead to another . . .

  She would get up. A little light was edging round the curtains, enough to go downstairs. The maids had been up for some time and would have been able to answer the door, if he had come.

  She pulled on her dressing gown and trod carefully out of her room. The wooden stairs under her bare feet gave way to carpets below, and below that, the cold flagstones of the hall. Mary saw long before she got down that he had not brought jewellery, but she would not be disappointed. There was still a package, flat and regular-shaped, on the table by the door.

  She snatched it up and shoved it under her arm, the sharp corners of it poking into her skin. She did not open it until she was back in the safety of her room, tearing off the three sheets of brown paper.

  It was revealed to be a photograph of the Deanery, taken from the garden. The three miniature girls were seated in front of an open window. Mary had not remembered Mr Dodgson taking it; perhaps it had been done before she arrived.

  She brought the photograph close to her face. It smelt of nothing. The girls each held croquet mallets. They had tiny balls at their feet. The Deanery was covered in ivy; it looked massive, its great windows bulging. She could read no expression on the girls’ faces. She would need to study the photograph further to try to extract a meaning from it.