by Vanessa Tait
Chapter 16
Mary ran into the garden, on to the emerald carpet of the lawn. She had heard Edith scream; she dreaded something happening to the children, especially after Penmorfa.
But it was Villikens who lay on the grass in the brightness of the day, his white and tan fur ruffling in the breeze, his lips frozen in a final snarl, blood crusted round his mouth.
Alice exploded into tears, as if she had been waiting her entire life for this moment.
The cat, whose bony spine Mary had run her hand over so often, was unnaturally stiffened and arched.
Ina started to cry in gulps. ‘Oh, Miss Prickett! What happened to him? Why is he dead?’
‘It looks like poison,’ said Mary. She had seen the gardener putting it down in the shed.
‘We all loved him so much, I don’t understand why he had to die!’
Ina wrapped her arms around herself and rocked. Mary started to go to her, holding back her own tears; she wanted to comfort her in her loneliness. But she had never got close to the girl like that before – Ina was almost grown up and she had something contained about her, unlike Alice, who seemed to sprawl. Even as Mary went towards her, Ina put her arms back by her sides. Mary wished that she could have more of Mr Dodgson’s easy familiarity with the children. When she got to Ina, she rested one hand on her starched shoulder and palpated it. She could feel the bones beneath her dress.
‘We still have Dinah,’ she said.
‘But we have lost Villikens! Oh dear!’ said Alice. She stared down, tears falling off her chin, her face swollen and red and not inviting comfort.
‘We should come away. The gardener will bury him at the bottom of the graveyard.’ Mary thought of the swan, the maggots, Mr Dodgson.
‘Will he be in heaven by now?’
There was no provision in the scriptures for cats. ‘I don’t know.’
Mr Dodgson would know what to do. He had a limitless supply of knowledge about animals, dead or alive. She wanted to see his face with its clear skin; she wanted to rest in his cool eyes. And she wanted to thank him for her photograph and to tell him she had found a place for it, just above her bed. ‘Let’s pay a visit to Mr Dodgson’s rooms,’ she said. ‘He will cheer us up.’
Mary let the children run ahead; she had not had time to send him a note, but children could traverse social barriers usefully.
When she came into his room, he was still standing at his writing desk, silhouetted against the window. She had an impression of movement even so, of wavy hair and lips curled up. He was different from the man she had seen in her mind all through the holidays and it took a few moments to readjust the images, to see that his features were just as pleasant as she had thought.
‘I missed you all! How was your vacation?’ he said.
Alice ran into his arms and started to cry again.
‘Something is wrong. What is it?’
‘Villikens is dead,’ said Ina.
‘Who is dead?’ said Mr Dodgson
‘Villikens. The gardener found him poisoned,’ said Ina.
The children started to cry again.
‘Oh, I don’t know why he went into the shed in the first place! Silly cat!’
Mr Dodgson sat down and motioned for all three children to sit within the boundaries of his arms. ‘Poor dear cat. I do so hate pain and suffering.’
Mary remembered the bench in the darkness, Mr Dodgson’s grief.
‘But why, why did he die, Mr Dodgson?’ said Alice.
‘Well, we must all die some time, and it just happened that today was Villikens’ day. And Dinah, are you sure she did not eat the poison?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Alice. ‘Only Villikens was in the shed.’
‘But why today?’ said Ina.
‘Because God wanted him to come to heaven today. But lucky Villikens, who will never know the pain of growing old and grey and stiff with every friend gone. He will always be a kitten, full of play, up in cat heaven.’
‘Is there such a place?’ asked Alice.
‘There is. Each cat has its own enormous ball of wool, never taken away by a human for their knitting. Sardines for breakfast, salmon for tea and any number of mice in between.’
Alice looked at him. ‘I shouldn’t think mice are happy in cat heaven.’
‘No, indeed they are not. But they are quite happy if they think they are somewhere else. Swan heaven, for example. They are in no danger there.’
Alice said: ‘I don’t think Dinah would eat mice for fun, although I have seen her with a dead mouse, I’m sure.’
‘It is in their nature to eat mice for fun. Just as it is in your nature to like bread and jam. A cat cannot change that,’ said Mr Dodgson.
‘Oh, poor Villikens, I will miss him.’
‘Did you get my note I wrote to you all? I wrote it on your first day back.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Ina. ‘Mama did not mention it.’
‘Perhaps she has been too busy unpacking,’ said Mr Dodgson, turning to look out of the window. ‘But come, we need something to cheer us up. I have an idea: what do you say to a play?’
‘A play?’ said Mary. ‘At the theatre?’
‘No, no, perhaps the children are too young for that. I meant the performance of a play, here in my rooms. Away With Melancholy is my favourite. It is a sort of farce. The title seems particularly apt today. If Mrs Liddell can spare you.’
‘Mama likes plays. She often goes to the theatre,’ said Edith.
Mrs Liddell could not mind if it was to enliven the children, and if it was to be performed in Mr Dodgson’s rooms. She knew the children still saw him, and he had been a part of the Liddells’ life for so long.
‘Who will put it on?’ said Mary.
‘I will, I have performed it quite often.’
‘What is it about?’
‘About love lost and gained.’
‘Oh, will you not perform it for us?’ asked Alice.
Mr Dodgson looked at Mary.
‘I don’t see the harm in it,’ she said.
‘Of course . . .’ said Mr Dodgson. He smiled at her with such charm, his head slightly at an angle, his eyes gazing at her, that she could not meet it.
‘Of course?’
‘It would go off so much better if you could take one of the roles.’
‘One of the roles?’ said Mary stupidly.
‘Otherwise, you see, I have to run back and forth across the stage pretending to be everyone, male and female, and I get quite exhausted.’
‘But I am no good at that sort of thing.’
‘I am sure you are better than you think.’
‘I am not!’ said Mary, colouring.
‘Miss Prickett, it would not make you an actress if you were to put on a performance for the children.’ She glanced at him. He was still smiling. Had not stopped looking at her.
Her cheeks were hotter, as if his gaze was some kind of grill.
‘Oh do, please say you will, Miss Prickett,’ said Ina.
‘There is a role, Mrs Maynard, that would suit you very well. The last time I read the play I thought of it for you.’
Thought of it for her. How did he see her, through what prism?
‘In London I went to see The Tempest. The scenic effects surpassed anything I had seen before: the shipwreck of the first scene seemed to feature a real ship heaving about on huge waves, finally ruined, to my delight, under a cliff that reached up into the roof. Shakespeare reminds me of my nobler aspirations.’
‘Shakespeare,’ Mary repeated.
‘And as I sat there in the darkness of the stalls it seemed to me to be the embodiment of the place between waking and dreaming, a fantastical world made real. Theatre can be a force for the good, I think. Shakespeare and, to a lesser extent, the modern plays are uplifting and educational. But I am afraid to say that my favourite type of play is a modern farce, just like Away With Melancholy, because they have no moral at all! I could bring over a copy of the play this
evening. Perhaps you could look at it before you refuse absolutely.’
Later that evening, Mary crept downstairs to the hall. There on the table was the volume of the play, as Mr Dodgson had promised. Nothing on the cover to suggest impropriety. It was a slim book; there could not be too much harm in reading it, surely. She clamped it under her arm and made her way quietly back upstairs. It would be hard to explain if one of the servants should see her. The book grew hotter with every step until she felt sure that the print had come off on her dress.
But no, when she reached her room, Mary had the same colourless dress on as ever. She unhooked her bodice and slipped off her shoes and sat down heavily on her bed. Her arms were thin and pale; her bones moved sharply about underneath her skin as she reached up and took out her hairpins.
Mary’s hair was thick, though nobody but her own reflection ever saw it brushed out in its auburn mass. Usually she sat brushing it until she was hypnotized, one hundred strokes, as her mother had taught her. But tonight she did not sit in front of the looking glass. Her two heavy plaits fell down on her shoulders and she let them lie there.
While they had been visiting, Alice had asked Mr Dodgson about the photograph. She had not even thought to ask in a low voice, but kept to her usual insolent tone, while Mary’s face burned away nearby. Mr Dodgson had replied quite calmly and openly that it was a gift. Then he had turned to her and smiled.
Mary opened the book.
Mrs Maynard, Mr Dodgson had said. She began to skim the text.
She saw at once that Mrs Maynard had a large speaking part. At first she was supposed to be droll but melancholy. Then there was a verse she was to sing.
But she, Mary Prickett, could not sing. If she took part, she would make a fool of herself. The children would laugh at her.
After the singing, she was supposed to be happy. Because she was in love with Mr Windsor. Mr Windsor – that must be Mr Dodgson’s part.
Mary closed the book quickly, and shut her eyes. A pulse beat behind her eyelids.
A love story. Had he chosen the play specially? Was it a message to her? He had never asked her to put on a play with him before. It must be a message, then. A glow began in Mary’s chest. She could not do it, of course, but the fact that he had chosen it for them to do together was enough.
She opened the book again and let her eyes roam across the pages. They had no scenes together at the start, it was true. But eventually Mrs Maynard was reunited with her lost love and they had plenty. They had to saunter, sing, and sway. She saw them on stage together, darkness all around, locked together in a single beam of light.
At the end, she could see, Mr Windsor made Mrs Maynard a passionate proposal of marriage.
Mary buried her face in her hands. She was glad she was in the sanctuary of her little room, hidden away at the top of the house.
What would Mrs Liddell think? Mrs Liddell did like the theatre, she often went, but that was not the same as having her governess perform. Though she would not be performing as such, merely reading.
Still.
She would make a fool of herself, never having been to the theatre, not knowing what people did there.
The children would laugh at her. She would be exposed. All her outside would be rubbed away and just the raw nub would be left: a slug on a toothpick. Even the children would see into her.
Mary smoothed the pages back down, closed the book and got into bed. She would say no, but she would say it regretfully; she would try to communicate to him that she understood why he had suggested it, but without using words.
Chapter 17
Mr Wilton wrote again. It was agreed that they would visit a new exhibition (without the children this time): a pictorial representation of local farming methods, the new ways and the old. It was several weeks before Mary could escape, however – the children had so many pressing needs that she could not easily get away.
He took hold of her arm on the way to the gallery, talking of new deliveries at Elliston & Cavell, of new customers, in his usual way: running over the surface of things. Underneath his grip, sweat blossomed.
They stopped to admire a charcoal drawing of a horse labouring in front of a plough. The horse’s neck looked as if it could crush a man with one swipe. The plough seemed to be hooked up on a clod and the effort that the horse was making was magnificent. Mary’s eyes were caught by the bulge of its shanks as they strained: tight and curvaceous.
‘I think it was Lady Arndale, though I could not be sure, but the finest muslins were ordered, for her daughter I believe,’ said Mr Wilton.
‘Lady Arndale?’ said Mary. Even in charcoal she could see the gleam on the horse’s coat.
They moved on to a photograph of the new steam plough. It looked like the front of a train, waylaid in a field.
Mary was expecting the flow of conversation to continue all the way round; that she need not listen to it. Was expecting to be able to carry on underneath with her own private existence. But Mr Wilton had stopped talking and was standing in front of this new photograph, a look of unexplainable anger on his face.
‘I can’t abide it,’ he burst out.
‘Can’t abide what?’ Mary’s mind was still on Lady Arndale; perhaps she had done something egregious, or perhaps Mary had. Mr Wilton’s jowls had darkened. She thought of the church, of her refusal, and what came after.
‘That! That monstrosity can do the work of twenty horses. And what then? What becomes of them all, and of the labourers?’
Mary wriggled free from his grip and rubbed her arm. She wished she could roll her sleeve up and expose her skin to the air. But even undoing the buttons would not allow her sleeve, so tight at the wrist and at the elbow, to let the air in. ‘The steam plough?’ she said.
‘And look at that!’ Mr Wilton shifted his weight round to an etching of a pallet on wheels. ‘One man and two horses pulling that reaper-binder could do the same amount of work in one mere hour that would take a scytheman all day.’
‘Is that wrong?’ Mary spoke timidly. This sudden change unnerved her.
‘It is going against God’s time. It is forcing Mankind’s will over the earth. It is a relief, a blessed relief, I say, that the End of Days is coming.’
Mary wondered if it were a relief. For one thing, she did not dare ask herself whether she would be with the sheep or the goats. She did try to be good. And in daylight hours she was certain that she was. But if she were lying awake at night, she was gripped by the certainty that she was not.
It would be hot in hell, of course, and there was bound to be moaning and people hanging in chains. Or perhaps it was as George MacDonald said: no fire, no devil, just the cold withdrawal of God’s love.
She glanced at Mr Wilton, his face mottled purple, standing with his legs apart, the polish of his shoes and the polish of the floor reflecting the same shine. She wished that Mr Dodgson was there with her instead, with his cheeks as cool as a drink of water. Mr Dodgson, whose contraptions were all so devotedly on the side of life.
And how to tell which was a good and which a bad angel? In pictures they looked much the same, luxuriantly winged and robed.
They moved on finally. Mr Dodgson hovered in front of Mary, imitating in his teasing way the voices of the horses, and the dogs; perhaps even the hay bales. Ina would object that hay bales didn’t have voices, and Mr Dodgson would reply that, on the contrary, they often cried out, Please don’t cut me, I don’t want to be food for a horse. Surely you must all have heard that when you went for a walk!
‘What is your opinion about the theatre?’ said Mary.
‘I have never been,’ said Mr Wilton.
‘Nor I. But what do you think of it in principle?’
‘I think it may lower moral standards. The theatre is filled with rowdiness and cigar smoke. I don’t think it can be quite right to dress up as someone else every night of the week. Why, are you thinking of going to the theatre?’ he said.
‘Not going, not me. I—’
&n
bsp; ‘Would you like to go?’ said Mr Wilton, turning away as he said it.
Mary hurried on, unsure if he had just sacrificed his beliefs about the theatre on the altar for her; unsure if it was an invitation.
‘Oh no, I don’t . . . It’s . . .’ She trailed off.
She could not bring up Away With Melancholy. She found she did not want to mention Mr Dodgson’s name. Even if she did, Mr Wilton was bound to tell her she shouldn’t take part. Which she was not going to in any case. So there was no need.
But he still seemed to be waiting for an answer.
‘Oh no, I don’t think I should like the theatre, as you said.’
Mr Wilton walked away, but she saw his face. It was a mixture of embarrassment and regret.
‘You are quite right,’ she said again. ‘About the theatre. As a place for moral decay.’
Chapter 18
When Mary came into Mr Dodgson’s rooms, she saw that somebody had sewn a large white cloud on to a black square of felt for the backdrop, and painted a board blue to approximate the sea. He had gone to so much effort! And he looked so pleased to see her, too.
‘Mr Dodgson. Good afternoon! I had a look at the play.’ She searched for his eyes. ‘But I think in this case . . . Oh, you have hats!’
‘Yes, and I chose this one specially for you.’ Mr Dodgson placed one of the hats, a bright one twitching with feathers, gently on her head. ‘It fits perfectly! See in the looking glass.’
He put his hand on her shoulder. She felt the heat of it burn through the stiff material of her dress and on to her skin.
He gently turned her round.
The hat did suit her. It lent an angularity to her cheekbones and a depth to her eyes. She looked like a different person.