listen to us any longer.
I shook my head. Ina couldn’t possibly understand that it was different with me. I was his gypsy girl—his Alice, brave enough to stand up to queens and kings and an assortment of odd, talkative creatures.
I did hope he remembered to write it all down. For I feared it was the kind of story one could easily forget, otherwise. Already, I was having trouble remembering exactly what the tale of the mouse had been about.
Chapter 5
• • •
H E DID NOT WRITE IT ALL DOWN .
Not the first time I asked, at any rate. Nor the second. I asked every time I saw him—and as our boat trip had taken place just prior to us leaving for Wales and our new house that Papa had built right on the rocky shore, I had to content myself with asking him in the letters I wrote, every week, during the holiday. Then the term started, and life became an endless round of lessons and manners, and Mamma got fat again. (I did wish, this time, it would be a boy.)
Finally, Mr. Dodgson told me that he had started to write it down. He said that he had been thinking about it all the time, fortunately, so he hadn’t forgotten any of the particulars. He said that writing it down was quite different; he had published a few poems and short, silly stories before, under a different name—Lewis Carroll—but nothing like this. Even though it was supposed to be just for me, not for anyone else, he thought it would take some time. When you write things down, he explained, they sometimes take you places you hadn’t planned.
His meaning wasn’t clear to me, but as long as he was writing it down, I didn’t bother trying to puzzle it all out. I assumed I would understand what he was talking about once I read it again; once I saw my name on a page, as a little girl having adventures in a fantastic place underground. I knew I would keep the story with me, always. I thought perhaps I might put it in my mahogany box decorated with bits of sea glass, where I kept all my favorite things—the pearl bracelet Grandmother gave me when I was born; the perfectly black, round pebble I discovered in the Meadow one day; the pink silk thread I found wound through a bird’s nest that had fallen from a tree in the garden; the teaspoon the Queen had used when she and Prince Albert came to the Deanery to visit the Prince of Wales. (To be perfectly truthful, I wasn’t certain it was the actual teaspoon, but I found it on the tray that had been used to clear away the tea things after she left, so it might be.)
They take you places you hadn’t planned .
If it was true in stories, it was also true in life, and it was exactly how I felt that winter; unmoored, discontent, waiting for something to happen, without knowing exactly what it might possibly be. Everyone— everything —seemed to be waiting, too distracted to act properly; fires never behaved in their grates, servants walked out the door during meals, letters were posted but never received.
My family was not exempt from the general restlessness. Ina was now fourteen, established in her own boudoir with her own maid. She was tall for her age and extremely pale; when Harry came home for the Christmas holiday he acted very uneasy around her, as if he had no idea how to treat this strange creature who once had been his little sister. Harry generally had little use for us anyway—we couldn’t play cricket and weren’t interested in his stories about the “fine chaps” at school—but that year the divide appeared sharper. He stayed more with Papa, because Pricks had no idea what to do with him; she acted frightened of him, now that he was taller than she.
On the surface I felt as much like myself as ever, to my great relief. For I studied myself every morning in the looking glass, anxious to see signs that I was turning into a lady, and happy to find none there. My hair was, finally, just a little bit longer, and fluffier on the ends, but still I wore the same straight black fringe across
I shook my head. Ina couldn’t possibly understand that it was different with me. I was his gypsy girl—his Alice, brave enough to stand up to queens and kings and an assortment of odd, talkative creatures.
I did hope he remembered to write it all down. For I feared it was the kind of story one could easily forget, otherwise. Already, I was having trouble remembering exactly what the tale of the mouse had been about.
Chapter 5
• • •
H E DID NOT WRITE IT ALL DOWN .
Not the first time I asked, at any rate. Nor the second. I asked every time I saw him—and as our boat trip had taken place just prior to us leaving for Wales and our new house that Papa had built right on the rocky shore, I had to content myself with asking him in the letters I wrote, every week, during the holiday. Then the term started, and life became an endless round of lessons and manners, and Mamma got fat again. (I did wish, this time, it would be a boy.)
Finally, Mr. Dodgson told me that he had started to write it down. He said that he had been thinking about it all the time, fortunately, so he hadn’t forgotten any of the particulars. He said that writing it down was quite different; he had published a few poems and short, silly stories before, under a different name—Lewis Carroll—but nothing like this. Even though it was supposed to be just for me, not for anyone else, he thought it would take some time. When you write things down, he explained, they sometimes take you places you hadn’t planned.
His meaning wasn’t clear to me, but as long as he was writing it down, I didn’t bother trying to puzzle it all out. I assumed I would understand what he was talking about once I read it again; once I saw my name on a page, as a little girl having adventures in a fantastic place underground. I knew I would keep the story with me, always. I thought perhaps I might put it in my mahogany box decorated with bits of sea glass, where I kept all my favorite things—the pearl bracelet Grandmother gave me when I was born; the perfectly black, round pebble I discovered in the Meadow one day; the pink silk thread I found wound through a bird’s nest that had fallen from a tree in the garden; the teaspoon the Queen had used when she and Prince Albert came to the Deanery to visit the Prince of Wales. (To be perfectly truthful, I wasn’t certain it was the actual teaspoon, but I found it on the tray that had been used to clear away the tea things after she left, so it might be.)
They take you places you hadn’t planned .
If it was true in stories, it was also true in life, and it was exactly how I felt that winter; unmoored, discontent, waiting for something to happen, without knowing exactly what it might possibly be. Everyone— everything —seemed to be waiting, too distracted to act properly; fires never behaved in their grates, servants walked out the door during meals, letters were posted but never received.
My family was not exempt from the general restlessness. Ina was now fourteen, established in her own boudoir with her own maid. She was tall for her age and extremely pale; when Harry came home for the Christmas holiday he acted very uneasy around her, as if he had no idea how to treat this strange creature who once had been his little sister. Harry generally had little use for us anyway—we couldn’t play cricket and weren’t interested in his stories about the “fine chaps” at school—but that year the divide appeared sharper. He stayed more with Papa, because Pricks had no idea what to do with him; she acted frightened of him, now that he was taller than she.
On the surface I felt as much like myself as ever, to my great relief. For I studied myself every morning in the looking glass, anxious to see signs that I was turning into a lady, and happy to find none there. My hair was, finally, just a little bit longer, and fluffier on the ends, but still I wore the same straight black fringe across
Similar Books
