Chapter 14
CUFFNELLS, 1914
ALICE, LISTEN TO THIS. CHAP HERE IS WRITING A BOOK about the late King. Says that the poor old Queen allowed Mrs. Keppel to visit him on his deathbed. What do you think of that?”
Lowering the front page of the Times, I raised an eyebrow and stared across the table at my husband, who was hidden by his own copy, freshly ironed by his butler. I continued to stare at him until finally he lowered his paper and met my gaze with a sheepish grin. “The Queen was always most understanding about all that—business,” he said. Then he quickly hid his face from me once more.
“Yes. Isn’t that touching? The Queen was so very understanding about the King’s mistresses—all of them. A most gracious woman, Alexandra.”
“Would do some people good to emulate her,” my husband grumbled from behind his paper.
“What’s that, Regi?”
“Nothing. Always did admire the Queen, that’s all.”
“Yes.” I sniffed, remembering. “She is a saint, and Mamma was right. Bertie never was satisfied with a sweet little princess.”
“Your mother was correct about a great many things. Wise woman, she was.”
“Hmmm.”
“Always got along so well with her, I did.”
“Yes.”
“Not like your father, though.”
“No.”
“Listen to this! New Forest walloped Hampshire! Could really use a good off spinner, poor chaps!”
“Mmm-hmm.” I paid scant attention to him now that he was going on about cricket; still, I glanced over at his plate and saw that he had finished his kippers. Pressing my foot down upon the electric buzzer—neatly hidden by the Brussels carpet—I waited for a maid to appear.
“Mary Ann, Mr. Hargreaves would like more kippers. And I require more coffee.”
“Yes, madam.” With a short bob—not a proper curtsy; really, the cheekiness of servants these days!—she left the room, and I went back to the paper. Turning the page, another headline caught my eye; it caught my heart, also, in an icy grip.
Kaiser Threatens Czar.
“Regi,” I said, interrupting him in the middle of a description of an especially exciting innings. “When is Alan home on leave?”
“Don’t know. Imagine later this month, don’t you think?”
“I have no idea. That is why I asked you.”
“Right. Well, sorry.”
“I was just reading this headline about the Kaiser and Russia. Do you—do you believe it will come to war, then?”
“Couldn’t say—oh.” Finally he lowered his paper and gaped at me; he was white of whiskers now, wrinkled of brow, with the ruddy face of the typical English country gentleman. Realization dawned as visibly as always—starting with his forehead, moving down to his arching eyebrows, slowly comprehending eyes, finally to his mouth, pulling it up in a simple, understanding grin. “Say, you’re worried, aren’t you? About Alan? Well, I imagine it won’t last long, regardless. And he’s a captain now, he’ll be tucked away somewhere safe and sound. After all, he’s no young lad anymore; he’s what? Nearly forty?”
“Thirty-three. Our eldest son will be thirty-three in October.”
“Right. Good God, has it been that long?”
“Yes, it has.” I couldn’t suppress a smile; his emotions may have been slow in coming, but they were always touchingly honest and transparent. He looked simply dumbstruck at the passage of time.
I resumed my perusal of the paper, but my thoughts did not follow. Good God, indeed. Yes, it had been that long.
I had been sitting across the breakfast table from Regi for thirty-four years, since 1880; four years after Edith died. Four years after I saw Leo for the last time, at her funeral.
In those four years, left behind by those I loved, I felt myself stagnate, mired helplessly not only in their shadows but in the shadows of the tall, graceful spires of Oxford itself. I also grew older while, around me, the undergraduates grew younger. I was no longer the beautiful princess of Christ Church, the belle of the Commemoration Ball; I saw the glances, heard the whispers. Bluestocking. Spinster. Old maid.
Mamma finally lost a tick or two of her phenomenal energy when Edith died. Or was it when Leo left? To be truthful, I wasn’t sure which was the precipitating factor; I know only that when I alone remained, Mamma stopped trying so hard. Ina was married, Edith was dead, and I was “disappointed”—for that was the proper term for a jilted lover in those days; the three little princesses were no more. Neither Rhoda nor Violet ever seemed inclined toward matrimony, for some reason.
Ultimately, those four years were a blessing. For during them, memories faded, people left, hearts mended. Mr. Ruskin finally broke down, shouting obscenities during a lecture, and had to be forcibly removed from the hall. No one cared about what had happened on a long-forgotten summer afternoon between a fussy mathematics don and the bluestocking daughter of the Dean. The Queen had no more princes left to educate at Christ Church.
Alice in Wonderland, however, lived on; new editions of the books, theatrical productions, toys and blocks and games. No one seemed to care—or even know—that the real Alice had grown up, was on the verge of growing old, alone.
Certainly Reginald Gervis Hargreaves, Esq., did not care. Regi Hargreaves did not care about books at all; in fact, he had such little regard for them that it took him six years to matriculate at Oxford, instead of the usual four.
When did I first meet Regi? I cannot recall, although he insisted it was at that fateful Commemoration Ball of 1876. He claimed he saw me on the Prince’s arm, and that he had never beheld a more beautiful creature in his life. He was in awe—but knew there was no way he could compete against a prince. So he bided his time, and did not seem to notice that I was a fruit rather past my ripeness. He simply hung around until I fell off the tree for good, and he was there to scoop me up.
Regi was a sportsman, a cricketer, the usual English country squire type; I admit that at first, I found this was refreshingly different and not a little thrilling. He had no title but enough property to impress even Mamma. His family had made money in trade; in textiles, only a generation previous, which of course was slightly scandalous. Rather, it would have been for anyone else but me; in my case, Mamma was willing to overlook this lapse.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, good-looking, with soft brown hair he parted carelessly in the middle, ruddy skin, a slight over-bite that he hid with a bristly mustache. I knew I would never love him the way I loved Leo; I knew I would never be able to converse with him in the same way, laugh with him, tease him. Regi did not, even then, display much of a sense of humor; I learned quickly to keep my more biting, sarcastic observations to myself, or else risk spending half an evening trying to explain them.
He proposed in July, after Commemoration, on a rowboat in the middle of the Isis; his proposal was typically Regi:
“I say, we row together awfully well, don’t we?”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“What say we row together always, then? Talking of marriage, I mean. You know.”
“Oh. Well, yes. I suppose we might as well.”
“Capital!”
Despite the comical brevity, I was touched; he had at least tried to be poetic, and given the number of times he repeated the exchange to friends, I could tell he was very proud of himself.
We were married in September, in Westminster Abbey at my insistence, instead of Christ Church Cathedral. Two days before my wedding—an elaborate affair that amused more than engaged me, but I viewed it as my farewell gift to Mamma—Leo sent me a brooch; a small diamond horseshoe, for luck. I wore it on my wedding dress of silver brocade and white satin; I wear it still, to this day.
Regi, far from being jealous, was proud that the Prince thought so highly of his bride that he would send her such an intimate gift. He was so awestruck by royalty that I do not think he would have minded if Leo—or better still, the Prince of Wales himself—had offered to deflower me on our wedding night. Indeed, I believe Regi might even have taken out an advertisement in the Times proclaiming the fact, and preserved the room in all its consummated glory, after.
Mr. Dodgson, too, sent me a wedding gift; a small watercolor of Tom Quad. It was a very accurate likeness that I could find no reason not to display, unlike many of my wedding gifts. While feebler artistic attempts grace the walls of the servants’ quarters, that particular watercolor resides now in my bedroom.
Over a year later, Leo married a rather plain princess from a minor European province. He named his first daughter Alice; I named my second son Leopold Reginald, although we called him Rex. Two months before his second child, a son, was born, Leo died from internal hemorrhaging after a fall while staying in France. Mr. Duckworth had the kindness of heart to telegraph me right away, before I could read of it in the newspapers.
When word of his death reached me, I had to retire to my bedroom and shut the door against Regi and the boys and their untroubled harmony; they had no idea that the sun had just fallen from the sky. For while I had known I would never see Leo again, still I rose every morning taking comfort that he was in the world, awakening to the same rosy dawn, sleeping under the same night sky. We rarely corresponded, and when we did it was always extremely polite and impersonal; but I felt as if he was in my life, and I in his. I felt it because I knew, when I looked at a painting, read a book, observed a rare bird or delicate flower, that he would have looked at it in exactly the way I did; our hearts, our minds, were so sympathetic. So that merely by going on and enjoying life, I was sharing it with him.
When he died, I was no longer whole. That was it, pure and simple. Regi might hold me, kiss me, claim his right as a husband, and he was not ungentle in that way, but he was never of me as Leo was. When he was gone from this world, I was less.
I don’t wish to indicate that I was not fond of Regi. I was. He was a consistent soul whose only fault was that he was not Leo; a gentle man who rarely gave me reason to quarrel. If he did occasionally indulge himself in the way most men of his class and generation did, at least he did it more or less discreetly, and always made up for it after with a trip to the jeweler, with whom I had an understanding. (Regi’s tastes tended to the gaudy, unfortunately—he once bought me a turquoise ring; imagine! Mr. Solomon, however, soon learned to steer him toward more understated gems, such as amethyst and emerald.)
I could not complain overmuch; God knows I was not the most affectionate wife, although I was, truly, grateful to him for rescuing me.
For finally, his were the hands that spirited me far away from Oxford, to a Wonderland where no one knew me except as Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves. Regi afforded me a fine country house, Cuffnells, in the village of Lyndhurst, right in the middle of the Hampshires; 160 acres belonged to us, and the house was situated in the middle of lush, fertile earth with a view of the Solent from the upper floor. We even had a small lake, fully stocked; the boys loved to camp out there during summer holidays and skin and fry the fish themselves for breakfast.
The house itself was grander than anything Mamma could have wished for, even if the first time she saw it, she merely sniffed and told me I had done fairly well for myself. I cannot deny that I gloated a bit when I showed her the two stories of pale stone, the balcony running along the upper floor; the huge orangery, impressively wide staircase, billiard room, library, and cavernous dining room; the drawing room decorated with a frieze of peacocks painted by an Italian artist. All of this was mine, simply for agreeing to marry a man I did not love but who was, in the end, the only man who had ever asked.
It seemed a fair exchange, on the whole.
I was in charge of a large household staff—finally I could boast of my own servant problems!—and it took a great deal of my time, for which I was secretly grateful. It was very quiet in Lyndhurst; the days seemed to pass more slowly here. There was no constant buzz in the air, like at Oxford; more like a somnam-bulant snore. There was too much time, if one was so inclined, to reflect—upon the past, the present, the future.
I was not so inclined. So I threw myself into entertaining, making Cuffnells a gay, vibrant center of culture and sophistication to rival Mamma’s efforts at Christ Church. She might have a string quartet playing on the landing of the Deanery; I arranged to have an orchestra perform in the orangery, musicians hidden among the illuminated trees like so many sprites. She might have entertained the Queen for tea; at Cuffnells, I took great delight in showing my guests a room, furnished entirely in gold—gilded furniture, gold brocade curtains, carpets—in which King George III stayed for one night, and which has remained untouched, to preserve the privilege for future generations.
While Mamma had to content herself with arranging rowing parties on the Isis, I once outfitted a schooner with fairy lights and had my guests dress as characters from Shakespeare for a Midsummer Night’s cruise across the Solent, culminating in a midnight picnic on the Isle of Wight. Even Ina was charmed by that evening, although she insisted upon dressing as Titania, resembling nothing more than a plump bumblebee instead of an ethereal Fairy Queen.
Regi, being so sociable, was happy to fund my extravagances even if he would have preferred quiet hunting weekends to Shakespearean fetes; he was, in his simple way, proud to have such a socially accomplished, intellectual wife.
Thirty-four years, gone in the blink of an eye, a blur. I could recall details of talks with Leo, walks we had shared, minute images that still appeared as vivid to me as the day I saw them—the odd stone path we discovered once that led away from the river, for instance; all the stones were of the same white color, the same circumference, and had been placed with great care, yet it ran for only about ten feet, ending abruptly in a ditch.
My life with Regi, by contrast—and despite our extravagant entertainments—seemed all of one color, one speed. At times, I wondered if I could even remember what he looked like if he didn’t happen to sit across the table from me day after day.
With a sigh, I folded up the newspaper and placed it neatly beside my plate, for I could not focus on anything other than the distressing number of headlines related to the chances of war. Moodily, I sipped my coffee. “Regi, will Alan come home for leave, then? If there is talk of war, I would hope that he would, instead of going off doing some reckless, foolish thing like racing pigs in India or whatever he did last time. Don’t you agree?”
“My dear, you’re really worried, aren’t you?” Again, he looked so childishly surprised, yet that did not prevent him from throwing down his paper and attacking his fresh kippers with gusto.
“I am, rather. We already went through the Boer War with him; I thought we had reached an age where we would not have to worry about our sons anymore, and then this comes along. Of course if Alan is mobilized, what will happen to the other boys? It would be entirely like Rex to join up just to vex me.” I stirred my coffee with such force it nearly splashed onto the saucer; Rex had been doing his level best to vex me ever since his birth.
I sometimes reflected how ironic it was that one of the three little princesses of Christ Church had borne three little princes of her own. Alan, Rex, Caryl; three little men, all in a row. So used to the company of my sisters, I wondered, at first, what on earth I would do with boys? Sportsmen, hunters, reluctant scholars, just like their father?
Yet Alan, the eldest, the sturdy leader, gave me little trouble; Caryl, the youngest, was so anxious to please as to be slightly irritating, but he was easily placated with a smile or a look. But Rex! Oh, Rex; the middle child, the one of whom my father had said with a fond chuckle, “God Himself broke the mold when it came to that one.”
The child who was, to my mother’s everlasting amusement, as she never wearied of pointing out the resemblance, exactly as I had been at his age.
“Whatever can I do with your cowlick? It simply won’t stay down,” I found myself saying nearly every Sunday when he was small, as we stood waiting for the carriage to take us to church. “I should cut it all off and be done with it.”
“Go ahead,” he would reply with an unconcerned shrug. “It’s only hair. Although I’ll look like a convict, which I’m sure I wouldn’t mind a bit. In fact, I think it might be quite interesting. So go ahead, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course I mind! Only hair? A convict? I think not! Go inside and wet it as you should have done. This instant!” And Rex would do so—after first giving me a look of such ill-concealed amusement, I had to ball my hands into fists so as not to run after him.
Or another time—
“Rex, how on earth did you manage to get plaster in your shoes?” I stared at him, aghast, as he calmly sat upon my best Chippendale side chair and removed a sodden, heavy shoe with a triumphant smile, watching as the gooey bits of plaster rained down upon my Aubusson carpet. “How does this even happen to a child?”
“I don’t wonder that you wouldn’t know,” he said with a small, worldly shake of his head. “I can’t imagine you ever were a child yourself.”
“That’s a very impudent thing to say, young man, and I assure you I most certainly was—but do not change the subject! Answer me!”
“He was trying to jump over the new wall that the men are building in the garden, and got stuck,” Caryl, who had been watching the scene with interest, piped up helpfully.
“Rat,” Rex retorted with a sneer.
“Rex! Apologize at once, and go up to the nursery and change—and for heaven’s sake, don’t take off your other shoe until you’re upstairs!” Whereupon he slid off the chair—leaving mud stains—and grinned like a little devil, saluting me sharply and running off before I could sputter anything further; running off before I could give in to a sudden, wild desire to laugh out loud. The child always prompted such conflicting emotions in me! Why couldn’t he simply behave like his brothers, Alan in particular, who always managed to keep his clothes so neat and clean—
Pressing my lips together, clutching the folds of my skirt as if to physically restrain myself from chasing Rex up the stairs, I would survey the ruined chair—or broken vase, or torn drape, or whatever havoc he had managed to wreak this time—and ring for Mary Ann to clean it up. Then I would flee to the refuge of the drawing room, where I would attack a petit point pillowcase with my needle until I nearly shredded the fabric, not entirely sure with whom I was angrier—Rex, or myself.
I nearly shredded my breakfast napkin now, remembering. Try as I might to fill my life with activity, I found that lately, with the boys all grown, I could not always keep the past at bay. Nor the future; it suddenly occurred to me that if Rex enlisted, wouldn’t Caryl surely do the same, just to keep up?
Then I would have three little soldier boys, all in a row.
Sensing my anxiety—I must have sighed—Regi actually set aside his fork and knife to reach across the table and grab my hand with his rough, dry mitts. “But they’re not young men, remember—not as young as the military likes them. Don’t imagine they’ll see much of the show.”
“You don’t?” Rarely did I need my husband to reassure me of anything, but I did at that moment.
“I don’t. Also, it can’t last long! Feller down at the club tells me that the Germans all hate the Kaiser and there’ll most likely be a civil war, instead.”
“Really?” I didn’t believe that; it sounded exactly like the kind of preposterous hope a man would offer to a woman just to keep her calm. But I so wanted to believe it that I nodded anyway, trying to convince myself.
“Really. Now, why don’t you go order a new dress or hat or something? That’ll perk you right up.” He beamed at me, so pleased to have come up with a remedy for my distress.
I did not quite manage to stifle a sigh. “I don’t believe the purchase of a new frock will prevent the Kaiser from invading Russia, unfortunately.”
“Never said it would,” Regi grumbled, his face falling. I felt an irritating little prick of guilt. He was being very kind; he was trying, in his own uninspiring, typically Regi way, to distract me from my worries.
“But I do thank you, nonetheless. Now I must talk to Cook about dinner, and then I’m to meet the committee about the flower show. You don’t imagine anything will happen by then, do you? I would hate to have to cancel it; the villagers do so look forward to spending an afternoon here at Cuffnells and viewing the grounds. It’s such a treat for them.”
“Well, I’ll be damned if I’ll let the old Kraut cancel my flower show! No, go on. We’ll have it, no matter what. But I don’t think anything will come of this, after all. Don’t fret so—you’re getting that little pucker between your eyes again. Can’t have my girl looking worried now, can I?”
“No, you can’t. Shall I order lamb for dinner?”
“Capital!”
Rising from the table, I started toward the door. I paused, however—that little prick of guilt was still lingering, as if looking for a more permanent residence—and turned around. Swiftly I walked back to my husband and kissed him on the cheek. He looked up; surprise, then delight filled his cloudless brown eyes. “Well, what’s the occasion, Mrs. Hargreaves?”
“I do not require an occasion to kiss my husband,” I huffed—but smiled down at him, unaccountably touched at how happy this little gesture made him.
“Not going to complain, I’m not,” he mumbled, reaching for the paper, a satisfied grin upon his face.
Turning to leave, I considered making a vow—perhaps a bargain with God?—to be nicer to my husband. It did not take much to make him happy, after all; nothing that was not already within my power to bestow.
But then I recalled that God had not been very good at keeping His end of bargains in the past. And surely the Kaiser would stop his ridiculous posturing; he and the Czar and King George were cousins, for heaven’s sake. Bargains and vows were for the weak and unfocused; not for me.
I pushed through the dining room door without a backward glance; as I strode down the hall with a sure step, servants flattened themselves against the wall, well out of my way. I could scarcely wait to hear Cook’s excuse for last night’s venison; it was ghastly—as dry and tough as an old straw hat. If she was planning on doing the same with the lamb tonight, perhaps she should start advertising for a new position.
“REX, I DO WISH YOU wouldn’t wolf your soup so. There are many courses left, you know. Or don’t they dine as well as we do in Canada?”
“Mamma, please. Can we not go one day without you finding fault with that poor dominion? I might add you are the one person at this table who has never traveled there.”
“I do not need to see a place in order to know whether or not I approve of it. Red Indians and trees and bears—I do not see what the appeal is, or why you should have to spend so much time there.”
“Mamma is getting on her high horse,” Alan teased, looking quite like my boy again now that he was out of his intimidating military uniform and in an ordinary suit and tie, his hair soft and loose, flopping into his eyes.
“Queen Alice has joined us for dinner,” added Caryl, absently reaching into his breast pocket for a packet of cigarettes—and catching my disapproving eye before sheepishly putting them back.
All three boys were home for the flower show; a rare event these days. Alan’s career in the Rifle Brigade kept him so far away from us that his leaves could not always be spent traveling back to England. So to have him back home—my tall, dark-haired boy; he was the one who most resembled me physically, I could see myself in his eyes—was a special treat.
Rex, the spitting image of his father, was in business, and had offices in Canada, where he spent a great deal of time. Yet he, too, made a point of being home this late July; I was delighted to see him, although I managed to mask it in my disapproval over the rough beard he was growing, and the coarseness of his clothes (it appeared there was no decent tailor in all of Canada). I knew, naturally, why he had made the effort; it was the talk of war that brought him back, not the prospect of sitting beside me on the dais as I presented Best in Show to old Smithson of the Post for his lovely azaleas.
As for what Caryl did when he was away, I could not say with any confidence. My youngest son dabbled in a great many things and mastered none of them. He lived in London, coming home for weekends, often with undesirable friends, such as artists and musicians, in tow. Smaller, slighter than his brothers—his hair neither golden brown like Rex’s, nor black like Alan’s, only some mousy color in between—it was almost as if he was a poor copy of them, down to his valiant little mustache; the resemblance was there, but the hand that had created him was not so steady and accomplished. I could allow that, even as I acknowledged that it was my hand that was responsible.
I did not linger on such feelings tonight; the dining table was full again, and I was far too content to eat, which was a blessing. I had quite forgotten what quantities young men in their prime could put away!
“Oh, do stop it, all of you,” I said, but I was not upset about their teasing; I enjoyed being the center of attention, the sole female. Unlike Regi, I did not fret about the lack of daughters-in-law and grandchildren. There was still plenty of time for that.
“Boys, you are irritating your mother, and I’m the one who always pays that price. Do stop. Alan, tell me about the last polo match. How’s your pony holding up?”
“Fine, sir!” Alan’s face lit up, and he looked so young; my heart suddenly ached with an unbidden memory—the day he brought home a tiny owl that he found on a fallen branch in the woods, begging to be allowed to keep it. His face looked the same now as it did then; shining and earnest with good intent. “Mamma,” he had said, so worried and serious, his voice very husky for such a little man. “Can’t I keep him in my room? I promise I won’t neglect him, and I’ll make Rex help me catch mice and things for his meals, so you won’t have to.”
Had I allowed him to keep it? I couldn’t recall, although for some reason, it suddenly seemed very important to me to know. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask—for surely he would remember? But I did not; I swallowed the question, knowing how ridiculous I would sound for asking it. What on earth did it matter? It was twenty-five years ago, at least. The poor owl was long gone by now, regardless.
Sternly, I gave my head a little shake, sipped some wine, and forced myself to join in the general conversation. It was about nothing, really—Rex’s latest business deal involving some innovative method of pulping trees for paper; Alan’s new sublieutenant, who had a wife who insisted he write her three times a day and enclose a lock of hair with each letter, so that now the poor chap was looking quite bald; the dinner party a friend of Caryl’s had thrown at Simpson’s, although the host managed to leave before the bill arrived, prompting Caryl to magnanimously take care of things—Regi’s eyebrows popped up to his receding hairline when he heard that.
All in all, we were determinedly, frightfully, gay and lively, avoiding the one topic that was upon everyone’s mind. Until Regi rose, praised me for the meal, then proposed port and cigars in the billiard room; my boys followed him, abruptly quiet and somber, each one stopping to kiss my cheek on his way out of the dining room.
It was then, alone, drifting through my quiet home—the only sounds those of the servants clearing up dinner—finally settling in the library, where I summoned a footman to light a fire, that I did wish I had daughters-in-law, after all. It would be a comfort to have someone to share this quiet time with; it would be nice to have someone to distract me from my thoughts. It was times such as this when I missed my sisters; I missed Edith, in particular, although at that moment I wouldn’t have minded Rhoda or Violet or even Ina, who was in a London flat now that William had died and her son had taken over the estate in Scotland.
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 this 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.
Mr. Dodgson looked from boy to boy, shaking his head as if he was quite unable—or unwilling—to acknowledge that I could be a mother. “No, it will not register. My Alice with children of her own? How strange the world has grown! Oh—they simply won’t sit still, will they?”
“Neither did I, when I was a child.” I smiled but felt myself growing irritated as he continued to gape at my sons, shaking his head; it wasn’t as if he’d never been around children before. Why was he behaving so strangely with mine?
“No, you little girls were very well behaved, always sitting together so pleasantly, I have such fond memories of those afternoons—oh dear! The boisterous one is going to upset that table!”
Rex wasn’t even close to the table, but I grabbed him by the arm anyway; this gesture seemed to placate Mr. Dodgson. “Do tell me what you’ve been up to lately,” I said, determined to have a pleasant conversation.
“Not very much, except of course for your adventures. As I mentioned in my letter, they keep me tolerably busy, which is a blessing, for I’m so alone otherwise.”
“They’re not—they’re not really my adventures, of course. They’re yours, now. I’m simply a country wife and mother, with no time to chase after rabbits—although chasing after boys is rather the same thing!”
“You don’t chase after us—you never! You’re much too old,” Rex said with a resigned shake of his head. “Although if you did, I’d most likely let you catch me, just to be nice.”
“That’s very gentlemanly of you,” I replied, smiling wryly at Mr. Dodgson, trying to draw him into my world. But he continued to stare at my sons as if they were noisy apparitions, and when he looked at me, his eyes clouded over, his mouth slightly open, I knew he was seeing a ghost as well; the ghost of a little brown-haired girl in a crisp white dress. A little gypsy girl. A long-forgotten dream.
Stirring in my seat—he was quite mistaken, for I was rather a squirmy child, I suddenly recalled, remembering how tight and itchy all those layers of clothing had felt upon my tender skin—I was unable to meet his gaze as I once had been able to. So I looked around the room, instead. It even smelled like a haunted place: stale, musty, airless, old. Even the toys were ancient; Caryl picked up a threadbare stuffed animal and tossed it aside with a sigh; Rex shook an old china doll, and dust filled the air as her head nearly came off her unfashionable body. I had told them of all the treasures Mr. Dodgson used to keep in his room for children, but now I saw that these were no treasures. Not for modern children, anyway.
Not for little boys used to cast-iron soldiers and merry-go-rounds and fire pumpers.
Mr. Dodson suddenly snapped at Rex to put the doll down, and while this angered me—had he ever told me or my sisters to stop playing with a toy?—at least he had stopped staring at me so mournfully. As I watched him fuss and flutter about, I tried very hard to keep a pleasant smile upon my face but could not succeed. When had he become such a nervous old man? He implored Caryl to pick up the stuffed animal, and continued to fret over the passage of time. “What a sad, sad thing it is to grow old! I’ve grown too old, too old for my friends now. Too old even for you, I’m afraid—or am I? No, don’t tell me! Instead, let’s remember more pleasant times. Don’t you recall when you—”
“And how are your sisters? Well, I hope?”
“As well as can be expected, for we’ve all become such a feeble lot. Alice, my dear, do you remember how nice and neat you and your sisters used to be? Do you remember?”
I did not want to remember; that was not why I had come. Because if I were to remember, there were other things that might come to mind.
So, why had I come back to these rooms, then, if I did not wish to reminisce? If I couldn’t even read the book, why had I brought my sons to meet the author?
I could not say. I knew only, as I watched Mr. Dodgson rush to straighten a lampshade that Caryl had scarcely even touched, that it had been a mistake. I was angry at him; angry at myself, for coming here in the first place, for tempting the past.
I was not, for once, angry at my sons; they were behaving admirably, and I was proud of them. That was why I had come here, I suddenly realized: to show off my boys. To show Mr. Dodgson—and perhaps, remind myself—that my life was full, that I had moved on. But he refused to see, and worse—he was determined that I see that he had not.
“I don’t wish to detain you any longer,” I said, rising. Far from looking relieved, as I had expected, Mr. Dodgson’s face fell.
“Oh, but do you have to go so soon?”
“I’m afraid we do.”
“But—all my child friends grow up and leave. You were the first to do so, and I despise it. Bu-but we’re different, aren’t we?” He leaned down to look at me—he was not nearly as tall as he once was, nor was I so small; our eyes were almost level. Still, I had to look up—as I had done when I was a child.
“Different?”
“We’ll always have your story. You’ll never have to grow up, then.”
“I’m afraid that’s not entirely true.” I wished he could see me, truly see me, as he had once been able to do better than anyone else—or so I had thought. Now, however, I wasn’t sure; had he ever seen me as I was? Or had he always been this blind?
“Oh, but it is. We’ll always have Wonderland.” His dark blue eyes were dreamy now, almost filmy, as he gazed down some distant path I had no desire to follow. I wanted to shake him, shake the cobwebs out of his mind, the dust from his shoulders, the clouds from his eyes. I had no patience for such a man; it was a wonder that I ever had.
For so long, all my dreams had begun and ended with him; even my dreams of Leo. I could not imagine these feeble, trembling hands—still clad in gray gloves—holding anything so precious of mine, now.
“Yes, well, that’s a nice thought, isn’t it? Wonderland? I’m glad it gives you comfort, at least. Now we really must go.” I reached out to shake his hand in farewell, although I did not want to touch him; his grip was weak, and I could feel the clamminess of his skin through the fabric of his glove. I quickly withdrew my hand, fighting a childish impulse to wipe it on the back of my skirt.
As I turned to go, I heard him ask, in a voice I remembered, a soft voice thick with longing, “Will you remember me, Alice?”
“Pardon?”
“Will you? Do you?”
“Oh, Mr. Dodgson, I—”
“Come, Mamma,” Rex said impatiently, tugging on my hand.
“Just a moment, Rex.”
“My name is Leopold! Leopold Reginald!” he shouted, stamping his foot; I stared at him, for he disliked his given name, and never before had I heard him claim it.
Mr. Dodgson gasped when he heard the name; I could not meet his gaze. My cheeks grew hot, and I felt as if my most secret thoughts were suddenly on display for all—the boys included—to see.
“Oh, Alice—I—I’ve never been able to f-f-forgive myself, all those years ago, you must understand why I—”
“Don’t,” I said, warning him. My head snapped up, and I met his gaze full-on. “Don’t try to rewrite the past. Leave it be. My life is very full now, as I wish you were able to see.” Once I had questions—so many questions! Now all I wanted was to get on with my life; we were expected back at the Deanery for a faculty tea, and we hadn’t yet been to Edith’s grave. “We must be going. Thank you very much for your hospitality.”
“You see why I’m not so fond of little boys, my Alice?”
“I am not—” I struggled to control my voice, my anger; I was not his. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Because they have to grow up to be men. Men like me,” he said with that sad, sad smile that used to tug so at my heart. Now, however, it only enraged me. He was older than I was. Why, then, did I always feel as if his happiness was my responsibility? It wasn’t fair for him to burden me with that. It had never been fair.
“No, they don’t. Not all of them,” I snapped, my voice low, for I did not want the boys to hear. “Not mine.”
Three small, sticky pairs of hands clutched at my skirts, eager to drag me out of the past, into fresh air, into my life. I was eager to follow them. I turned to go before he could say anything further; I never saw him again.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson died in 1898; I could not attend his funeral, for my father was dying as well. He passed away four days later. And with their passing, I had no reason ever to return to Oxford.
“MAMMA?”
I looked up; for a moment I was startled to see a tall man with brown hair—still sporting those twin cowlicks—and a mustache. So caught up in my memories, I had expected to see the little boy with the dirty face, instead.
“Yes, Rex?”
“We thought we’d find you here.” Caryl and Alan were standing behind him. I allowed my son to reach down and help me rise; I’m afraid I did not bend quite as well as I used to.
I straightened my narrow skirt, ending just above my ankles, as was the fashion these days. I smoothed my hair, patted the brooch—Leo’s brooch—fastened at my throat, and looked at my sons. Not one of them could meet my gaze, and in that moment I knew.
“So. You’re enlisting, then, are you not? Caryl and Rex?”
“Yes, Mamma.” Alan, the leader, spoke for them all, even though his future in uniform was not in question.
“I thought as much. I assumed that was what you were sneaking off to the billiard room to discuss. Really, the impertinence of you men! As if I were too delicate for the conversation?”
“I’d never think you were too delicate for anything, Mamma,” Caryl was quick to say.
“Nor would any of us. It was Father—he wanted to talk some things over, and he didn’t want you to have to worry yourself,” Rex explained.
I surveyed my sons, all standing tall and sturdy; in that moment I wished Mr. Dodgson could see for himself what fine men they were, how brave. Alan was more assured—for he had the military experience, after all; Rex more eager, for he was the most adventurous; Caryl more unconcerned, as if it was simply another jolly party or prank cooked up by one of his friends.
They were not asking my permission to go; they were far too British for that. Yet they did appear to be seeking my blessing, and I knew I had to bestow it in the only way that would allow them to do what they had to do without regret. I would not burden my sons, as I had been burdened myself.
“Worry?” Frowning, I shook my head, as if they had been caught in a minor infraction, such as raiding the biscuit tin. “That was sweet, if misguided, of your father. I’m perfectly capable of talking about all this—I suppose you were going over wills and such? Entirely sensible; it’s something we should all do now and then. I would hope you’d do it even if there wasn’t any war. I should go over my own, now that I think of it. Well, do you have any idea what regiment you’ll join, Caryl, Rex? Not the Rifles?”
“No,” Alan said hastily, as Caryl opened his mouth to speak. “I’ve learned a few things in my career, and I do not believe it’s wise for brothers to be in the same regiment. It gets rather—complicated, if you will. A bit risky, too.”
“Naturally—that’s very wise of you. Well, then?” I faced Rex. I was so rigid my jaw ached, but I would not fall apart; I would not act as if I was asking for anything more important than if they wanted kippers for breakfast, or kidneys.
“I think I might give the Irish Guards a whirl,” he said casually, as if he was talking about a dance.
“Very good. Caryl?”
“I rather fancy the Scots Guards,” Caryl replied, in earnest imitation of his brother’s easier, breezier attitude.
“Yes, I think that’s a good choice.” I nodded approvingly; Caryl needed that more than his brothers did. “Quite a busy day, then, hasn’t it been? And tomorrow’s the flower show. If you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll retire, as there’s so very much to do. You’ll all be up early to help?”
“Of course, Mamma.” Alan smiled very indulgently, as if he knew how desperately I needed to get to my room just then—and he broke my heart. When did he become such a wise, understanding man? It was not right; he should not have to comfort me.
“Lovely. I’ll see you all in the morning, then.” I walked quickly past, afraid to touch any of my sons; afraid that if I did, I would not be able to let go. I managed to leave the library, walk down the hall, attain the stairs, speak to one of the Mary Anns about breakfast—I decided on kidneys—and climb the long, wide staircase without touching the banisters, even as with every step I climbed, my eyes filled with more tears. Finally I reached my bedroom—I heard Regi across the hall in his, with his door open, calling out my name, but I could not come to him just then—and closed my door, reaching my bed before the first tears fell; I sat silently, feeling the tears upon my cheeks but not really thinking, not seeing anything—
Until I looked down at my lap, surprised. For in my hand was the copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; I had been holding it all this time.
“Oh!” I clutched it to my chest, holding it tight, as if I could keep it safe in this way—knowing that I could not do the same for my own sons. Why hadn’t I read it to him? I thought wildly, remembering that moment in the library so long ago. What had I been afraid of? What did I even know of fear, then?
Now war had come. The little boy was a soldier now. And it was too late for us both.
I opened the book and turned to the first chapter. Blinking, I studied the page through swimming eyes; I focused and focused until the words finally were clear enough for me to read them.
“Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank,” I read aloud. When my voice caught in my throat, I stopped, took a breath, blinked again, and continued. “And of having nothing to do; once or twice she peeped into the book her sister was reading.…”
I shut the book again. I waited until my eyes were dry.
I’ll read it to them later, I told myself. When they come home. I’ll read it to them when they’re all home safe and gathered around the dinner table, teasing me, irritating their father. After dinner I’ll insist that they join me in the library and I’ll read it to them, and I won’t mind that it’s foolish, absurd, for a mother to read to her grown sons. They won’t mind, either; they’ll understand. Somehow, they’ll understand.
I nodded to myself, at the faded book in my hand with my own name on the cover, and I repeated the words, softly, almost like a prayer—
I’ll read it to them when they come home.