The Looking Glass House by Vanessa Tait

Author:Vanessa Tait
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781782396543
Publisher: Corvus
Published: 2015-05-18T15:16:40+00:00

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.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.