was finally growing up-which, indeed, she was.
Beginning in her sixteenth year, while on Sunday strolls along High Street with her mother and sisters, it was as the wardens of Charing Cross had predicted: Young men of rank paused in appreciation as Alice passed, took pains to learn who she was, invited her to parties where they did their best to impress her with their wit and knowledge of worldly affairs. They did not find Miss Liddell lacking in intelligence. Some perhaps even found her a bit too intelligent. She was a thoughtful, well-read young woman, with opinions on a variety of topics such as the responsibility that came with Britain’s military power, the nature of commerce and industry under a monarchy, how to care for the poor and neglected, the sensationalist tendencies of the Fleet Street papers, and the convolutions of the legal system as exposed by the eminent author Charles Dickens.
Many well-to-do dandies-even those uncomfortable with any woman who appeared smarter than themselves-thought it unfortunate that she’d been adopted. It meant that they could never marry her. Of course, these fellows took it for granted that Miss Liddell would have considered herself lucky to marry any one of them. But she was not easily impressed, nor prone to fall in love. The vicissitudes of her life had caused her to keep her feelings for others in check: It was dangerous to care for people; inevitably, you got hurt. She talked with young men, accepted their invitations to parties and galas, but more
because it pleased her mother than because of any affection for the men themselves.
The Reverend Dodgson published a sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland entitled Through the Looking-Glass. Again, his scribblings met with popular success. Alice herself did not read the book, but not long before its publication, and against her wishes, she found herself in the same room with its author. Oxford was not a big town and she’d often seen Dodgson in the street, or crossing the college grounds, but she had taken care not to get caught in conversation with him; she would offer a word of greeting as good manners required, but that was all. Alice’s eighteenth birthday having passed, Mrs. Liddell thought it time to document for posterity the young woman her daughter had become. She wanted Alice to sit for a photographic portrait and she asked Dodgson to be the photographer.
“Mother, please. You know I don’t wish to see him,” Alice said.
“A lady might not like a man,” Mrs. Liddell said, “but she shouldn’t show it so explicitly as you do.” So Alice agreed to sit for the portrait. On the appointed day, she heard Dodgson enter the house and
begin setting up his equipment in the parlor.
Detestable man, how can you not understand what you did to me? Should I forgive? I can’t, I can’t. Must be polite. But be quick about it. Get in and get out.
Alice could not completely hide her feelings, and when Mrs. Liddell called her down, she moved with the briskness of one overburdened with appointments.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Dodgson,” she said, and fell into a chair.
She slumped there, hands in her lap, head tilted toward her right shoulder as she eyed Dodgson from under her darkened brow until-as fast as he could: her behavior made him uncomfortable-he took the picture. Then she heaved herself up out of the chair.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, looking not at him but over his head as she left the room.
By Alice’s twentieth year, Mrs. Liddell was becoming anxious for her to choose a husband from among her many suitors.
“But I don’t feel anything for a single one of them,” Alice complained, shaking her head to fling out the unwanted memory of a boy left behind long ago. Don’t think of him! I mustn’t!
Then, one Saturday, the Liddell family attended an outdoor concert by a quartet at Christ Church Meadow. They were about to take their seats when a young gentleman, under the pretense of introducing himself to Dean Liddell, approached. He was Prince Leopold, Queen Victoria’s youngest son, and he
had been sent to Christ Church so that Dean Liddell might oversee his education. This was his first time meeting the family.
Mrs. Liddell became fidgety and excited as she was introduced.
“And these ladies,” said Dean Liddell, presenting his daughters, “are Edith, Lorina, and Alice. Girls, say hello to Prince Leopold.”
Alice held out her hand for the prince to kiss. He seemed reluctant to let it go.
“I’m afraid you can’t keep it, Your Highness,” she said. And when he didn’t understand: “My hand. I
may have use for it still.”
“Ah. Well, if I must return it to you, then I must, though if it ever needs safekeeping…” “I shall think of you, Your Highness.”
Prince Leopold insisted that the Liddells sit with him. He placed himself between Alice and Mrs. Liddell, and when the concert began with a Mozart medley, he leaned over and whispered in Alice’s ear, “I don’t fancy medleys. They skip lightly over so many works without delving thoroughly into any one of them.”
“There are quite a few people like that as well,” Alice whispered in return.
Mrs. Liddell, not hearing this exchange, flashed her daughter a look, which Alice was at a loss to interpret. The prince talked to her through the entire concert, discussing everything from art to politics.
He found Miss Liddell unlike other young women, who spoke of nothing but velvet draperies, wallpaper patterns, and the latest fashions, women who batted their eyelashes and expected him to swoon. Miss Liddell didn’t try to impress him-indeed, she gave the impression that she didn’t much care what he thought of her and he rather admired that. And her beauty…yes, her beauty was undeniable. All in all, he thought her a delectable puzzle of a creature.
No sooner was the concert over and Leopold gone than Mrs. Liddell voiced what she’d been trying to communicate to Alice with her eyes.
“He’s a prince! A prince! And he’s taken a fancy to you, I’m certain!”
“We were only talking, Mother. I talked to him as I would have talked to anyone.”
But her mother’s awe and enthusiasm were difficult to ignore, and she started running into Leopold all
over town. If she strolled through the Christ Church Picture Gallery, she found him gazing intently at an oil painting by one of the old masters. If she visited the Bodleian Library, she found him thumbing through a volume of Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (which she had read in its entirety).
He’s handsome enough, I suppose. And obviously well bred.
Yes, but so were many of the men who vied for her attention. At least he didn’t stroke his mustache with impatience as she talked of the need to provide for Britain’s poor.
“A nation should be judged on how it looks after its more unfortunate children,” she explained. “If Great Britain is truly to be the greatest kingdom in the world, it is not enough to flaunt our military power and our dominance in industry. We must lead by example and be more charitable to and protective of our own.”
Prince Leopold always listened to her judiciously, weighing her arguments and reasonings with seriousness. He never agreed or disagreed with her.
Mother may be right. I could certainly do worse than marry a prince. But although Alice tried to feel something for the man, her heart remained unconvinced.
Three months after the concert at Christ Church Meadow, while taking a ride in his carriage to Boar’s Hill, Prince Leopold said, “Your father tells me that you’ll be visiting the Banbury Orphanage tomorrow afternoon. I’d like to come along, if you’ll have me. One never knows what sort of troubles might beset a young woman there.”