The Looking Glass House Read Online Free PDF Page A

strong-smelling liquid into one basin and quickly thrust the glass plate into it.
    ‘I muh-muh-must think of a way to make the time pass more quickly in front of the camera – a story, perhaps – because you know you can hurry time along if you push him very hard from behind,’ Mr Dodgson was saying as he agitated a tray full of chemicals.
    ‘I should like that during lessons!’ said Alice.
    ‘Lessons are not meant to be interesting,’ said Mary. ‘They are meant to be educational.’
    ‘I quite agree,’ said Mr Dodgson. ‘Though it does not make me popular in college.’
    Mary looked at him in surprise. His poem seemed to say the opposite. She would have imagined him the most whimsical tutor.
    They all stared down into the basin. Slowly something began to emerge, a light patch in the middle of the plate.
    ‘Oh look, here come my teeth!’ said Alice.
    ‘That is not your teeth, Alice, that is your hair. Your teeth and dress will be black, and your lips and hair white. It is all reversed – negative into positive, positive into negative.’ ‘Is that why the plate is called a glass negative?’ asked Ina. ‘Exactly so, yes. When I make a print from it, it is all turned round back to normal.’ Slowly the children’s image came into being. Even in the spec­tral version Mary could see there was a symmetry to Alice’s face, a rightness to it, that she had not noticed in the real Alice. And yet, as the image swam up at her into sharpness, there was some­thing .  .  . Even in the negative she could see it: the tilt of her head and the pout of her mouth. Something aggravating.
    ‘We have something here, I think,’ said Mr Dodgson. ‘This will make a fine photograph. Excellent even. A story, entire and complete.’ He leant down and kissed Alice on the top of her head, then Ina, then Edith. ‘For once to have achieved what I set out to do in the morning is most satisfying.’
    ‘You could not have done it without me,’ said Alice.
    Ina turned away and pushed open the door into the garden. When Mary came outside, blinking, she found her sitting alone on the farthest bench.
    ‘I do not see why I should have to be photographed. I don’t like it.’
    Mary put her arm round her shoulder. ‘You all looked very pretty. Your father will like to see it.’
    ‘All that holding still. It is stupid.’
    ‘I will give a very good report of you to your mother today – shall we see if she is back?’
    ‘She is back, look, there she is.’
    Mrs Liddell was indeed sailing over the lawn towards them in a sweep of satin and lace. Her hoops flattened grass and dis­turbed shrubbery; even from this distance Mary could hear the jangle of gold bracelets outside her gloves.
    ‘My darling Ina!’ Mrs Liddell stretched out her arms and sent a noisy kiss over her eldest daughter’s head. ‘Where are the others?’
    ‘In the darkroom,’ said Ina.
    ‘Oh yes, with Mr Dodgson. Was he here again?’
    ‘He took our photograph.’
    ‘Really?’ Mrs Liddell inclined to the side.
    ‘He said you had allowed it.’
    ‘Alice said she had been photographed before, many times,’ said Mary.
    ‘And so she has. Nevertheless, this time I was out. I do not remember giving permission.’
    ‘I am sorry, Mrs Liddell, he was quite persuasive.’ Mary flushed.
    ‘Mr Dodgson said he would come on Monday to try for another photograph of us, if you were agreeable,’ said Ina.
    ‘ Am I agreeable, Miss Prickett?’
    The question hung in the air. Mary struggled to formulate a reply, conscious that she was blushing. She did not know if she was being mocked, or punished for letting Mr Dodgson take the children’s photograph. Any answer sounded too familiar.
    ‘Well, my friends say I am, if my governess does not!’ Mrs Liddell laughed, letting her mouth open. Mary could see her teeth, very white, and her tongue in a point behind.
    Mary stretched her own mouth towards the corners of her face, her lips sticking on her teeth. She was