The Looking Glass House Read Online Free PDF

attempting a smile but she felt as if she was not making a good job of it.
    Mr Dodgson and Alice came out into the garden, still talking.
    ‘Mr Dodgson. I see you are photographing my children again,’ said Mrs Liddell.
    ‘Yes, I think I succeeded in a good image. You may like an imprint—’
    ‘And yet I have no recollection of the appointment.’
    ‘I am sure .  .  .’ Mr Dodgson smiled; Mary saw the tendons in his neck.
    ‘Did you know my husband is a very good artist?’ Mrs Liddell cut in. ‘Mr Ruskin says so. His blotting-paper sketches are quite prized. Usually executed during some dreary meeting or another, I dare say.’ She laughed again. ‘Can photography be called art, do you think?’
    ‘There is some skill in photography perhaps.’ Mr Dodgson rocked back and forth on the soles of his shoes. ‘For one thing the collodion must be quite right, and then the timing—’
    ‘But that seems to me a scientific skill, not an artistic one. The Dean, on the other hand, is very keen on photography, as well as art. He tells me that I cannot appreciate the science of it, and I dare say he’s right. After all, a mere woman could not be expected to understand.’ Mrs Liddell flashed out a smile to Mary.
    ‘No, a woman’s understanding is in general far below a man’s,’ said Mary.
    ‘Yes, on most things, Miss Prickett, but perhaps not all.’
    Mrs Liddell turned to go, but halfway across the lawn she stopped and turned back to Mr Dodgson, still smiling.
    ‘The Dean tells me you have been having troubles with your lectures.’
    Mr Dodgson flushed.
    ‘Students can be so lazy, but I dare say now that my husband has had a talk with them they will turn up. They do seem to be in awe of Mr Liddell, I can’t think why.’
    Mr Dodgson stood very still, his fingers worrying at a loose thread on his trouser leg.
    ‘I suppose that is a skill that some men have.’ She smiled again, broader than ever, and then turned again towards the house, pushing her children in front of her.
    They stood there together for a moment, united by the stirring of awkwardness that Mrs Liddell had created.
    ‘Students can be lazy,’ said Mary.
    It was the wrong thing to have said. Two angry spots appeared on Mr Dodgson’s cheeks.
    Mary rushed to fill the silence with more words. ‘Not that I have had as much experience as you!’ She had surmised that Mr Dodgson was a tutor of some kind at Christ Church. ‘I have only taught the girls, of course .  .  .’
    Mr Dodgson worried at the lawn with his foot. ‘If I only had girls I think I would be much better off. It is lazy young men that afflict me. But I am afraid that is the problem with modern life. Everybody affects boredom.’
    Mary had not come across modern life before. ‘Yes,’ she said.
    ‘I am afraid no one is interested in serious thought, or difficulty.’
    ‘No,’ said Mary. Mr Dodgson looked very solemn, but at the same time quizzical somehow. She imagined his mouth could quickly change from stern to amused, and back again. The wisp of breath coming out of it smelt faintly of cloves.
    Alice’s laugh floated across the lawn, and a shriek from Edith.
    ‘Oh, to be a child once more!’ said Mr Dodgson. ‘I find I long to be a child again, the further away from it I become. But we all grow older, do we not, every day!’
    Mr Dodgson did not look old, thought Mary. His skin was clear and unlined. Though perhaps his body seemed older, in the way that he carried it.
    At twenty-eight the line between her eyes was beginning to shape itself into a permanent furrow. ‘We do grow older every day, that is true,’ she said, frowning even as she spoke.
    ‘Though of course ladies age much more slowly than men,’ said Mr Dodgson.
    Mary blushed. Was he paying her a compliment or was he speaking in generalities? She could not tell from his face, which was still turned to the Deanery.
    Mary had not much practice with gallantry. The best way forward, she thought