Vying For Scraps

Vying for Scraps

            Guy de Perpetual

C. L. Dodgson sat in his kitchen in Christ Church studying the picture of Alice he had that afternoon completed. Eleven o'clock, and he was still wearing his shabby muslin housecoat. Outside the rain entranced the footman who smoked his pipe under the shelter over the door, in no hurry for someone to need him. Wet conifer through the open French doors troubled Charles with his first thoughts of gin. Two magpie vied for scraps at the back door where Lorna would be readying the pantry for breakfast. Coffee had brewed, biscuits baked in the oven, the fireplace ticked neatly without flames, and Mother purred to be picked up at his feet. He would give up photography. 

          This likelihood had occurred to Dodgson walking home the afternoon Alice and her friends sat for him in Colonstone Ravine. He had spent much time moving the heavy equipment there by boat and had been worn to a frazzle by the effort, physically unrobust as he was. Each spring the winter's inactivity in classroom and study rasped away at him, discouraging and tentative as the recovery of youthfulness again turned out to be. It would be delightful not ever to bother with the physical weight of the business. Slowing strength and the fuss of massive cameras, however, figured only barely in his decision. Another factor of greater significance bore the responsibility and he knew with clarity the reason he must retire his hobby and equipment immediately. The Rev. Hulme would surely sue, Liddell might hire a thug to take some measure of revenge, and Wycherley almost certainly intended a social purge that would publicize the event and paint him black in the eyes of the faculty as well as his seven sisters, aunt Sep, auntie Lancaster, and grandmother Annie. Time had risen from its long sleep and spoken aloud the startling nature of his desires, spoken these for the first time, even to him.

        The event in Colonstone Ravine occurred unexpectedly. He had set up his 9 mm Leica on the short stand after slogging it through the gorse and Yorgish fern that choked the riverbank and made passage slow and maddening. Tired, perspiring, uncharacteristically short tempered, he had barked at the girls to behave themselves when all they were doing was playing in the water and threatening accidentally to fall in and muddy their pretty dresses. Their shoes already would need scrubbing, for mud showed up inevitably in outdoor shots.

           "Barefoot!" he shouted to Alice and Lydia. "You will have to take those shoes off now. I won't have them in the photos. And they were perfect for this! Auntie let you put on your best and she is so particular about keeping them clean!" Then he felt remorse and put down his camera and walked to the three girls where they stood sorrowful and sullen among the weeds, their backs to him. He spread a blanket and patted it and said he was sorry. They loved him and believed him and so they sat. He put his arms around them and hugged two of them to him. The third sat in his lap and put her head on his chest.

         "Tell us a story," Alice said, eyes mixed with the memory of his sharp tongue and the pleasure of his apology. He did. He told them about the wonders of Alice in a strange land where rabbits scolded children and water filled their shoes of its own accord. While he told it, attentive though they were, one of them, and then all of them, giggling, removed their wet shoes and placed them on the grass at the edge of the blanket. Their stockings were still wet and Dodgson mentioned this to them. Laughing, Alice said, "Let's take off those, too!" And they did that. Dodgson smiled and hurried to his camera. 

        "Be beggars ," he called. The girls jumped about and acted oddly, chanting, "We are beggers. We need bread. Please spare us a little soup. Our stomachs are so hungry." They held hands and danced in a circle, their little bare feet happy on the soft woollen spread. They looked towards Charles, laughing as they twirled, their dresses floating in the air above their knees. They all fell breathless in a heap and began to tickle each other. Charles asked them to pretend to tickle one another for a still shot. This was difficult to achieve. The action of tickling was too dependent on movement and actual doing.

          "Let's stand and take a photo with each of you being a beggar. That will also be very nice," he said. The youngest, Myrnette, stood first. "Undo your buttons a little, and show your shoulder as if your bodice is torn and you are poor," he instructed. She unbuttoned two buttons. The other two began to imitate her and did the same. They unbuttoned three and stood just off the frame taunting Charles. He smiled at them to reassure them that he felt no irritation anymore.

        "Lift up your skirt a little to indicate that you are standing in the mire of a fen and so are of the poor beggar kind," he called from under his hood. The two girls outside the frame raised their skirts a few inches, and then quite a lot, till their underwear appeared, visibly, white, startling against the lonely gorse.

          "Girls!" Charles said, and jerked his head out into the daylight. "Are you teasing me?" he asked after a pause, with false scolding in his voice. He shifted his feet and put his hands on his hips in imitation of an angry nanny.

       "Yes we are! We are naughty girls and you can't do anything to us!" they called in high, squeaky voices, laughing and jostling each other. Then one of them pulled her dress off altogether and lay on the grass. The other two by now had gotten into the spirit of playful naughtiness and took theirs off, too. One, the least precocious of the three, removed her underwear also and stood there naked. She did a handstand, and then lay on the grass with her knees in the air. Charles said nothing, suppressing his feelings. Then Alice, too, and Miss Wycherley, quickly removed their clothes and ran about the camera and about Charles in this state. They entreated him and said, "Take off your jacket, Charles. Take off your shirt. Take off your shoes. Take off your belt. Take off your trousers. Take off your socks. Take off your underwear. Take off your underwear." 

       And he did that.