Free The Looking Glass House by Vanessa Tait Page B

only upon the trees. She kept it there until they were in the country­side. Most were still bare, but there was a row of copper beeches that had unfurled brand-new leaves already and they shone dully in the sun. Like coins.
    Mary took her damp handkerchief from her sleeve and inserted her nose into it. The nose felt as if it had been grafted on, with its own heartbeat, radiating out over the rest of her head.
    A misunderstanding, then. She was not to blame. She had told the Aclands’ governess as Mr Dodgson had asked, but Mrs Liddell had made other plans.
    Mary shut her eyes. She saw again the expression on Mr Dodgson’s face as he realized they were driving off and leaving him, his eyes following them in mute surprise, a smile of embarrassment.
    Mrs Liddell turned to her daughter. ‘Alice, dear, perhaps you are growing rather old for Mr Dodgson.’
    ‘Whatever do you mean?’ Her frown left no trace; her skin was a material that could be puckered and lined as often as it liked but smoothed out afterwards to leave an impeccable surface.
    ‘I mean that he has been your friend for a long time, since you were, what, four years old. But now that you are nearly eleven, you may want to .  .  .’ Mrs Liddell squinted up at the leaves. ‘You may want to move on.’
    ‘Move on to what?’
    Mrs Liddell sighed. ‘I mean he is a good companion for children. But for young ladies he is not.’
    ‘He knows lots of young ladies! He always says that his child friends are quite often by now grown into young ladies. Besides, I am not a young lady.’
    ‘No, but you soon will be. He is fond of you, fond of you all, I know. But I don’t want him coming over to the Deanery. These last few months he has practically lived here.’
    ‘But I like him! I like him coming over,’ said Alice.
    ‘Just do as I say. I don’t want to see that strange face every morning when I wake up and every evening before I go to bed. It’s too tiring!’
    ‘I still want to see him,’ said Alice. ‘We are friends.’ She set her face out of the window; she looked just like her mother.

Chapter 8
    It was Mary’s second visit to church that day, having been to hear the Dean preach at Christ Church with the children earlier. From the outside this church looked similar, if smaller. And the people inside looked much like any other congregation: women with ringlets, bonnets; men darkly dressed and sombre.
    The scripture was read by one of them, followed by a psalm read by another. And then the first difference: the man who took to the pulpit to preach the sermon was unlike any man Mary had seen in God’s service before.
    ‘Thank you, God, ye chose in your wisdom to work through us, unimportant members, low as we are, plain as we are, but who are sustained by love.’
    He ought not to have included himself alongside his congre­gation. The pastor was not plain. He was tall and dark, his face was startlingly symmetrical, his hair swept down past his ears.
    ‘You have put in our hearts a longing for the day when the whole world will come to an end.’
    Beside her Mr Wilton nodded and whispered: ‘The day of the Lord is near, even at our door.’
    Mr Wilton, a millenarian? Mary had not known it. She nodded back at him in confusion. That meant .  .  . would there be time .  .  . well, how soon was the world to end? She listened out for a date in the preacher’s sermon but she could not get one.
    No set date. That was a good thing: if he meant to ask her to marry him, there was still time before the apocalypse.
    ‘The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare,’ said the pastor.
    Around the church feathers shook, birds’ wings bobbed as women nodded their heads.
    A great wind was coming, he said – the trees in Christ Church meadow flattened like twigs, their roots torn up and dripping with soil. The roofs blown