The Looking Glass House by Vanessa Tait Page A

From her bird’s-eye view she saw that Ina’s nose had started to pimple and she had a conical red spot to the side of her forehead near her hairline. And when Ina had been putting on her dress,
    Mary had noticed the buds of her breasts for the first time.
    ‘Worms live below ground, that is why they are nicer,’ said Alice.
    ‘Well, I live above it,’ said Mrs Liddell. ‘I don’t know anyone who lives below.’
    ‘That reminds me, have you ridden on the new Metropolitan railway line in London?’ said Lord Newry. ‘There is a frightful crush in the mornings, and again in the evenings. I have experi­enced it, just for fun, and I must say one is pressed up against people quite as if there was no society left.’
    Mary had seen young men like him around Oxford many times, but this was the first time she had been up close. It was just as she had expected. The sneering shape of Lord Newry’s mouth as seen from a distance did indeed bring forth words intended to put others down when you could hear them. They dropped out of his constricted throat in a thin, high stream; perhaps the tightening of the throat developed when the aristoc­racy tightened their grip on the land and separated themselves from the rest of society.
    ‘Oh, you are brave, my dear Francis!’ Mrs Liddell put the palm of her hand on his knee. ‘I shouldn’t like to try it one bit. Travelling underground seems most unnatural.’
    ‘I suppose you have read Spencer?’
    ‘I have heard of him, yes.’
    ‘Travelling on the Met puts me in mind of him. He has coined a term for Mr Darwin’s theories: “survival of the fittest”. And I must say, jammed into one of those carriages I am inclined to agree.’
    Mary thought of the woman in the shades of red, with the peacock feather in her hat. She had had a vitality that the aristocrat lacked.
    ‘Whatever do you mean, Francis?’
    ‘The lower forms of society ought not to procreate, for the good of the higher. There are some ghastly people around.’
    Mary’s face burned. Even though she had not been in service long, she knew already to divide the world into two categories: those who noticed her and those who didn’t. Lord Newry fell into the second category.
    She wondered what he would have done. Sterilization perhaps. Would his plan extend to governesses? Surely not. Just the lady in orange and her sisters. But not to the men who visited them – that would take out half of Christ Church’s undergraduates.
    The talk travelled on. Alice was young enough to think her opinions counted for something, and Lord Newry was encour­aging her by asking questions and letting off laughter that rattled like a woodpecker on a tree.
    ‘I don’t like tea very much, I’m afraid,’ Alice said.
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘It tastes like leather shoes.’
    The avian laughter. ‘I daresay it does if you are – what age are you?’
    ‘Ten years old, Lord Newry.’
    ‘Precisely. But perhaps you will one day,’ said Lord Newry. ‘I should hope so at least, otherwise you will find it difficult to pay house visits.’
    ‘Ina is growing up so fast, she will soon be making house visits of her own,’ said Mrs Liddell.
    Ina stared down at her teacup.
    ‘How old are you now, Ina?’ asked the aristocrat.
    ‘Thirteen, Lord Newry.’
    ‘Ah, thirteen, yes. I knew a girl of fourteen engaged to be married, so I dare say house visits are nothing to that.’
    Mary noticed Ina’s ears burned bright red. And they were talking about her, and thus the origin of the phrase.
    ‘Fourteen is rather young, but I shan’t say anything against eighteen, Lord Newry, or seventeen at a push!’
    Lord Newry reddened now, though he hid it by yawning with his hand over his face.
    The girls were young, but perhaps never too young to be acquainted with the right sort of possibility, thought Mary.
    Standing behind the party as she was, Mary was the first to see Mr Dodgson come round the corner of the house, with his hands held out in front like