Chapter 17
Lot 319—THE AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT OF
“ALICE’S ADVENTURES UNDER GROUND,”
BY C. L. DODGSON,
The Property of “Alice” (Mrs. A. P. Hargreaves)
ADJUSTING MY SPECTACLES, I PERUSED THE CATALOG IN my hand; it was nicely done, sturdily bound, a nice, clean font. Sotheby’s reputation was certainly deserved, and I felt I had chosen well. There had been other interested auction houses, of course, but none of the stature of Sotheby’s.
“Mamma, this crowd is simply astonishing!” Caryl was almost beside himself with excitement, entirely too ridiculous for a man of his age. He was nearly forty, after all, and his hair, as well as his mustache, was turning steel gray. It was difficult to realize that this distinguished-looking middle-aged gentleman with the slight pouch around the middle was my youngest son.
But then I supposed it was difficult to realize that this elderly woman sitting next to him on the dais, clad in a smart black suit, the very thing, the salesgirl told me, for 1928—although I could not quite give up my corset, as one felt so very loose without it—was “Alice.” There had been quite a bit of interest in me once the auction was advertised, particularly in my reasons for giving up the manuscript. The crowded room—apparently, there were people who viewed these auctions as a spectator sport; didn’t they have better things to do with their time?—reflected that interest; the young lady in charge had said, rather breathlessly, “We’ve never had such a lot simply for a book!” upon greeting me at the door.
“Well, it’s not simply any book, is it?” I inquired. “It’s my book.” Then I allowed her to lead me through the throng—and as I did, I had a very curious sensation. “Curiouser and curiouser,” I murmured to myself, but Caryl heard, and chuckled.
For I felt as if I were finally stepping through the looking glass, into a world where everything was backward, yet now it made sense. After so many years spent being Miss Liddell, then Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves, mother of three sons, dowager of Cuffnells, I was suddenly, once again and possibly forever—simply Alice.
That was what they called me—complete strangers; as if they actually knew me! “There she is, that’s Alice,” I heard someone whisper, and it caught on, like flame to a paper, and spread about, more and more murmurs. “That’s Alice in Wonderland! The real Alice—can you believe it?” While my initial reaction was to comment upon their rudeness, for there were very few people living whom I would allow to call me by my Christian name, it then stole upon me that they were all so very happy to see me. (Although, yes, this was when I first observed the shock that I was not a little girl with yellow hair.)
For the first time, my public association with my namesake was not a complicated one. These strangers were delighted merely to meet me, to shake my hand, to ask innocent questions about my childhood and Mr. Carroll. No one spoke of him as Mr. Dodgson, and I suppose that made it easier for me to talk of him and tell them what I knew they wanted to hear: that he was a kindly man, a cherished friend, who provided me with many happy memories.
Yet that was the truth, I realized. Part of the truth, at any rate.
There were, to be sure, uncomfortable questions about why I was selling the manuscript, and I was happy to allow Caryl to speak for me on this subject, at least. (He was more than eager to speak for me on every subject, but I was no shrinking violet, to his obvious disappointment.) “My mother, upon my father’s death, finds herself in the unique position of being able to plan for her future while also sharing the joy of her childhood memories with the world at large.”
I had to bite my tongue the first time I heard this, but I also had to admit Caryl had a bit of his aunt’s blood in him; he was so very good at rearranging the truth. Well, we all were, at that; perhaps that was the most lasting lesson I had learned from Mr. Dodgson.
“How much do you think it will fetch?” I heard Caryl ask the auctioneer as he approached the podium, and I stifled the urge to yank him by the ear and banish him from the room.
“Caryl, do be quiet,” I hissed. I sat straight, dignified—my back not touching my chair; my back had not touched a chair since I was twelve—and observed the crowd. We were in a large gallery, the walls hung with various pictures. Directly in front of the dais was an odd, U-shaped table at which sat the bidders; behind them were rows of chairs, upon which a crowd of nearly three hundred—or so the breathless girl had told me—were perched, eagerly watching. I was not sure what they were watching, exactly; it did not appear to me that auctions were very interesting, unless it was your own possession being auctioned off. Yet the crowd seemed breathless with anticipation—and I realized, finally, that they were anticipating me. My reaction, I supposed; I wondered why it mattered to them?
“Number three nineteen,” the auctioneer—a slim man in a nicely tailored suit—said, rather softly, I felt. I had assumed auctions were much louder.
“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.