Tennyson's Gift (16 page)

She sat on his bed, and slumped, helpless.

‘I shall knit you a muffler, Charles,' she said.

‘If it gives you pleasure, Julia.'

This was non-committal without being rude, and was his usual, well-practised response. As Julia had complained to Mr Watts, it avoided saying thank you and thereby implying an obligation.

‘See, Charles, I have converted the vegetable plot into a lawn overnight! You said you wished we had more grass!' Julia would declare.

Or, ‘While you were asleep I redecorated your bedroom! You said you preferred a darker shade!'

And rather than discouraging her by saying, ‘You're mad, Julia,' he would smile. ‘If it makes you happy, my dear.'

But what
was
the problem with this Elgin Marbles wallpaper, you ask? Well, obviously, it had the Elgin Marbles on it. As with so many of Julia's presents, the wallpaper was a gift inadequately thought through. Where would it hang at Farringford? Did it accord with the Tennysons' usual taste? What did it say about how Julia perceived her friends?

‘She thinks we belong in the British Museum,' said Emily.

Yet Julia had such a powerful vision of Alfred's pleasure on receiving this imaginative gift (‘Julia, what a kind person you are') that she had been unable to resist it. She had little idea what discord it would sow between Alfred and Emily, who were now scarcely on speaking terms. Lord Elgin and his wallpaper were now touchy subjects at Farringford. Lionel Tennyson had noticed (with delight) that even if you dropped the words ‘Parthenon' or ‘Great Russell Street' fairly innocently into a conversation, you would get some very sour looks.

‘Let's burn the damn stuff,' Alfred had said.

‘But how would Julia feel? She is such a good friend, Alfred.'

‘Would you rather we hung it on the walls and let it look at us?'

‘No.'

‘Well, then.'

Emily was glad that Julia could not ensnare Alfred's better nature by the gift of a few baubles; but at the same time horrified by the possibility that he simply had no better nature to ensnare.

‘It must be frustrating for Julia,' she sympathized, but only half-heartedly. It was quite comical, actually, from Emily's point of view. That Julia openly adored Alfred did not impress him; he regarded it as only natural. That her unreturned attentions made her unhappy was nothing to him. The stream of votive presents were an amusement (‘What's it today? A teapot!'); now that Emily had started sending things back, he was puzzled, nothing more.

Emily ordered that the wallpaper be piled at the base of Alfred's little spiral staircase – the special escape route built on the corner of his library so that he could avoid meeting invaders and invited guests. Emily felt he had been passing her the problem and forcing her to solve it; this seemed like a good passive way of handing it back. Every time he ran down his stairs, he would have to vault six rolls of wallpaper.

This was only fair. Emily protected her husband from so much that was unpleasant, she refused to protect him from well-meant gifts as well. Another letter from ‘Yours in aversion' had arrived this morning, and she put it in her pocket unopened, as always. She was glad now, anyway, that she never warned Alfred about the imminent arrival of Mr Dodgson. By some unknowable stroke of good fortune, the dreadful fellow had not shown up.

The great delight at Dimbola Lodge was the discovery that they had a new genius in their midst. To add to the greatest living poet and the greatest living painter, Julia could now lay claim to the greatest living nonsense writer (Edward Lear always gave her the cold shoulder anyhow). So while Dodgson took beef tea in sips and continued to mislay his reason, the manuscript of
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
was read by everybody, even old Mr Cameron, who particularly approved the Cheshire Cat, and the philosophical discussion between the King, Queen and executioner about whether a head can be beheaded when it is not connected to a neck.

‘I could quite happily think about this logical point for a week or more, Julia, if I were not excited with unexpected presents.'

All Mrs Cameron's former dislike of Dodgson – based only on reputation – was now swept away by her enthusiasm for Lewis Carroll. ‘I refuse to believe Mr Dodgson was overcome by the size of his own organs,' she said. ‘The sheer imaginative effort of writing this book could break the constitution of any man. But I do wish the poor fellow would recover himself,' she added. ‘I want to know why a raven is like a writing desk.'

Watts grew cross and grumpy, but Julia barely noticed. All weekend, everything was
Alice
this, and
Alice
that. Il Signor got almost no attention. Julia's behaviour was quite insensitive, and her noisy trilling about
Alice
was causing him a headache. On Sunday he had set up his easel and begun work on the recolouring of Ellen's portrait (‘Choosing'), but nobody asked him why the rosy cheeks were turning pale. Every time he sat down to instruct Julia on the Italian masters, too, she would think of some other mad coincidence that brought the world of
Alice
closer to her own existence.

‘How extraordinary, George, that I painted my roses on Wednesday! You see, that is the sort of thing that may have
set him off.
As we both know, George, genius must always be treated with delicacy.'

Watts winced.

‘In that case, could you call me Il Signor?'

‘Of course, George. Just say the word. But I feel sure the way to jolt him out of this state is to bring Alice alive for him in some way – perhaps little Daisy. What do you think? We could do tableaux! Ellen says that before his breakdown, he always stammered, people supplied his words for him. Now he speaks fluently, but nonsense. The human mind is fascinating, hm?'

Watts shrugged and stared out of the window toward the bay, where he saw Ellen approaching with Tennyson, just in time for tea. Ellen really was very beautiful. It was such a shame he couldn't do anything about it.

‘Haydon came to me again in the night,' Watts confided.

Julia said, ‘Did he, dear?' but she had followed his gaze to Alfred and the pretty girl, and was not really listening. It was truly irritating that Mrs Watts was the living Maud. Julia loved Alfred better than anybody, and he was always rotten to her because she was not young or pretty.

‘Yes. The poor dead fellow was shaking his fist at me and pointing to the place where he cut his throat.'

‘Don't take it to heart,' she said, still preoccupied. ‘It was really not your fault. It was the yankee midget, as I told you before. Live for the present, George.'

‘But Julia –'

Ellen and Tennyson arrived at the front door, and Julia recovered herself with a great effort.

‘And what a coincidence that we have a Mary Ann in the house when there is one in
Alice,
too!'

Watts gave in. Was there any profit in pointing out that half the maids in England were called Mary Ann? Probably not.

‘Fancy,' he clucked.

‘What's that, George?'

‘Mary Ann, fancy that. What an uncanny coincidence. Ellen's first name is Alice, too, did you know? Another accident which isn't one really.'

‘No?'

‘No, she tells me that Dodgson met her and admired her when she was only eight. She has concluded that the child in the book is her.'

‘Little Alice is Mrs Watts!' Julia exclaimed in disbelief, as she watched Ellen arrive at the front door and remove her bonnet.

‘Oh I don't think so, not Mr Dodgson too,' she muttered. ‘That silly girl can't inspire
everybody.'

After tea, Ellen was commissioned to sit upstairs with Dodgson for an hour, to see if there was anything she could do. Mary Ann came with her. They found him sitting morose in a high-backed chair beside an open sashed window, dressed in a heavily embroidered Indian shirt and a purple fez, evidently some inappropriate gifts from Julia. His gaze was far out to sea, and he hardly looked around when the others entered. His demeanour reminded Ellen of the mad scenes she had seen in Shakespeare – people are always mad when there is a crashing shore nearby, it seemed. If she dared, she would put her orchids in Dodgson's hair and tousle it a little.

But what really impressed her was that Dodgson, in this big shell of a chair, reminded her of the Mock Turtle on the sand in
Alice,
which she had read again that morning. So she sat on a low stool, quietly, and listened to the distant breaking waves, wondering who would play the Gryphon to complete the picture.

Mary Ann spoke up, with a big effort to sound normal.

‘This here young lady,' she said, ‘she wants to know your history, she do.'

Dodgson looked at Ellen, and then at the sea again, and then turned back. Demented or not, he certainly looked unhappy – as you would, too, if you were remembering that you were a real turtle once.

‘I'll tell it to you,' he said. ‘Sit down both of you, and don't speak a word until I've finished.'

Since they were already both sitting down, they did not move. They glanced at each other, and Ellen put her finger to her lips. She had a plan to remind him of his normal self.

‘Once,' he said, with a deep sigh, ‘I was a real t—'

‘Turtle?' Ellen prompted.

Dodgson bit his lip, and looked back out of the window. Biding for time, he wiped a tear with the back of his hand.

‘When we were little, we went to school in the sea,' he continued. ‘The master was an old turtle. We used to call him T—'

‘Tortoise?' she interrupted.

Dodgson sobbed, as though a bone was in his throat, and tried again.

‘You may not have lived much under the sea, and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster –'

‘No, but I would love to see a Lobster Quadrille!' said Ellen.

Dodgson put his hands to his head and closed his eyes. This wasn't supposed to happen. When he opened them again, the little girl was still sitting at his feet, with her chin in her hands, her big childish eyes gazing up at him. ‘Alice?' he said. ‘Is it you, Alice?'

‘Yes, I'm Alice,' she said, quite truthfully. (Well, she was.)

‘Alice, a terrible thing has happened. I hardly know how to tell you, my dear. But somehow or other, you have got inside my head.'

As night fell across the bay, Lorenzo and Jessie finally gave up testing each other for the Organ of Gratitude. After hours of hypnotic tests, expert manipulation, and some fairly brutal heart-searching, they were forced to admit the possibility that neither of them had one.

‘Perhaps one of these characters had it, though, Pa,' said Jessie, indicating the heads, piled like a Golgotha in the corner of the room. ‘That Haydon was always glad of help, wasn't he?' She went and got Haydon, and set him on the table.

Lorenzo frowned. ‘He was always asking for help, certainly, but –'

‘Now it seems to me,' she said, ‘That the key to Gratitude is Self Esteem.'