Falling Angel

Lavinia Waterhouse

It is so nice to have someone to mourn properly. And now I am eleven and old enough to wear a proper mourning dress, it is even better. Dear Auntie would have been so touched to see me dressed like this, and Papa got tears in his eyes when he saw me “looking so much like his dear sister.”

I have studied The Queen and Cassells very carefully so that I will not make any mistakes, and I have even written my own manual to help out other girls in my position who may have questions about the correct etiquette for mourning. I asked Maude to help me but she was not interested. Sometimes she will go on about constellations, or planets, or stones she has found in the heath, or plants in her mother’s garden, until I just want to scream.

So I have had to do it all myself. I think it has turned out very well-at least Mama says so. I have written it in my best script on black-edged paper, and I got Ivy May to draw an angel on the cover. Her drawing is quite good, and the book looks very handsome. I am going to copy the text below so that I shall always have it.

The Complete Guide to Mourning Etisuette by Miss Lavinia Ermyntrude Waterhouse

It is a very sad thing when someone dies. We mark the occasion with mourning. We wear special black clothes and black jewelry, we use special stationery for letters, and we do not go to parties or concerts.

Mourning lasts different lengths of time depending upon the loved one who has died.

The Widow mourns the longest because she is the saddest. What a terrible thing it is to lose a husband! She mourns for 2 years-18 months full mourning, 6 months half-mourning. Some ladies mourn for longer. Our own late Queen wore mourning for her husband Albert for the rest of her life-forty years!

How sad it is for a mother to lose her child, or a child her mother. They mourn for 1 year.

For brothers and sisters-6 months

For grandparents-6 months

Uncles and aunts-2 months

Great-uncles and great-aunts-6 weeks

First cousins-4 weeks

Second cousins-3 weeks

Clothing

It is very important to obtain proper mourning clothes. They must be new, and they must be burned after mourning, because it is bad luck to keep them in the house.

Jay’s on Regent Street is where all good London families buy their mourning clothes.

Ladies wear dresses made of best paramatta silk and trimmed with crape for full mourning of their husbands, parents, or children. For grandparents and brothers and sisters, ladies wear plain black silk trimmed with crape. For everyone else ladies wear black with no crape.

Ladies wear black gloves and carry white handkerchiefs edged with black.

After a time they can take off the crape. This is called “slighting” the mourning.

Then there is half-mourning. Ladies wear gray or lavender or violet, or black-and-white stripes. Their gloves are gray as well.

Jewelry

During full mourning ladies may wear jet brooches and earrings. The brooches may be adorned with the hair of the loved one. In half-mourning ladies may wear a little gold, silver, and pearls and diamonds.

Stationery

Paper for writing must have a black edge. It is very important that the edge should be wide enough to honor the loved one, but not so wide as to be vulgar.

Gentlemen

Gentlemen wear what they normally wear to work but also wear black hatbands, black cravats, and black gloves. They do not wear jewelry.

Chlidren (under ten)

Children may wear black if they wish, but most often they wear white dresses, and sometimes lavender or mauve or gray. They may wear gloves. Children over ten should wear full mourning.

Maude Coleman

When we went up to the cemetery today they were taking apart the Waterhouse grave. I knew the funeral for Lavinia’s aunt was the next day, but I had thought they would be digging the grave later in the day. It was strange to see Simon and his pa working on one of our graves rather than a stranger’s. I had always thought of our graves as solid and indestructible, but now I know that you can take a crowbar to them and pull them apart, and even knock down an angel in the process.

Lavinia took my arm when she saw the group of men around the grave, and I wondered if she was going to make a scene. I was rather weary of her, I must confess. Since her aunt died she has talked of nothing but black clothes and when she can begin wearing jewelry again-even though she is hardly allowed to wear any anyway! The mourning rules of conduct are quite ferocious, from what she says. I don’t think I would be very good at it. I would break rules all the time without even knowing it.

Then Mummy suddenly shouted, “John!” I have never heard her shout so loudly. We all jumped, and next thing I knew Simon’s pa had shoved Mr. Jackson and sent him flying. And then the Waterhouse angel hit the ground.

It was all very strange. For the longest time I couldn’t connect any of the things I saw. I did not understand why Simon’s pa pushed Mr. Jackson and why Mr. Jackson, looking very pale, then thanked him for it. I did not understand why the angel had fallen. And I did not understand why Mummy knew Mr. Jackson’s Christian name.

When I saw that the angel’s head had broken from its body I found it hard not to laugh. Lavinia fainted, of course. Then Simon ran off with the angel’s head under his arm and I did taugh-it made me think of the poem about Isabella burying her lover’s head in the pot of basil.

Luckily Lavinia didn’t hear me laugh-she had woken up and was busy being sick. Mummy made a surprising fuss over her, putting her arm round her and handing her a handkerchief.

Lavinia stared at Mummy’s handkerchief. “Oh no, I must use my own mourning handkerchief,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Mummy said. “Really it doesn’t.”

“Are you sure?”

“God won’t strike you dead for using a plain handkerchief.”

“But it’s not to do with God,” Lavinia said very earnestly. “It’s about respecting the dead. My auntie would be so hurt if she thought I wasn’t thinking of her in everything I do.”

“I shouldn’t think your auntie would want to be thought of while you’re wiping your mouth after being sick.”

Ivy May giggled. Lavinia frowned at her.

“Things are changing,” Mummy said. “No one expects you or your father or mother to go through full mourning any longer. You may not remember this, but King Edward limited the mourning period for his mother to three months.”

“I remember. But my mother wore black for longer than anyone else. And I would feel ashamed if I didn’t wear black for my auntie.”

“May I be of assistance, madam?” Mr. Jackson asked, standing over them.

“Could you order a cab to take us home, please,” Mummy said without looking at him.

Mr. Jackson went off to whistle for a cab. By the time he had returned Lavinia was standing, but she was still very pale and shaken.

“Shall we bring her down to the courtyard?” Mr. Jackson asked. “Can you walk, young lady, or would you like me to carry you?”

“I can walk,” Lavinia said. She took a few wobbly steps. Mummy slipped her arm around Lavinia’s shoulders and Mr. Jackson took her elbow. They began to go slowly down the path toward the entrance. As Ivy May and I trailed after them, I noticed that Mummy’s and Mr. Jackson’s hands seemed to be touching under Lavinia’s upper arm. I wasn’t entirely sure, and I thought for a moment of asking Ivy May what she saw, but then decided against it.

Mr. Jackson had to carry Lavinia down the steps to the courtyard, and then she insisted she was well enough to walk on her own. When we got to the front gate a hansom was waiting for us, which was not very big for four people, even if three of us were girls. I suppose it was the first cab to be found. Mr. Jackson handed Lavinia in-really he had to lift her, she was so weak. Then he turned and handed me in, and then Ivy May. Ivy May sat on my lap so that there would be room for Mummy. She sat very still, without wriggling. She is a solid little bundle, but I liked having her there, and put my arms round her to keep her steady. It made me wish I had a brother or sister to sit on my lap from time to time.

Mr. Jackson handed my mother in and shut the door for her. She opened the window, and he leaned in for a moment to say, “Good-bye, young ladies. I do hope you feel better, miss,” he added, nodding at Lavinia. “We’ll have your angel up again in no time.”

Lavinia hardly looked at him, but leaned back and closed her eyes.

Then, as the wheels began to turn, I heard someone say in a low voice, “Tomorrow.” I thought it must be Mr. Jackson adding that the angel would be ready in time for the funeral the next day.

Mummy must have heard it, too, for she sat up suddenly, as if Miss Linden at school had come around with her ruler and prodded her in the side the way she does to us during comportment lessons.

Then we were whizzing down the hill, and I spotted Simon coming out of the mason’s yard, without the angel’s head. He saw us, too, and from the corner of my eye I watched him sprint alongside the hansom until he could not keep up any longer.

Simon Field

This is what happens. I see it all.

When we slide the marble slab off the Waterhouse grave, we has to pry it loose from the base of the plinth where the angel stands. Joe and I are doing it, with our pa and Mr. Jackson watching. Mr. Jackson’s giving advice the way he likes to do. I want to tell him we knows what we’re doing, but he’s the guvnor-he can say what he likes.

Joe’s working at the slab with a crowbar and he leans against the plinth to put his weight behind the bar. Now, Joe’s a big strong man and his back’s pushing that plinth, and before you know it the plinth starts moving. Them masons must’ve made a mess of the foundation when they put it in for that to happen. I been digging at the cemetery six years and never seen one shift so.

Worse’n that, the mortar holding the angel to the base of the plinth ain’t strong. I see the angel wobble back and forth.

“Joe,” I says, “stop.”

Joe stops with the crowbar but he’s still leaning against the plinth, and the angel wobbles again. I can see the crack in the mortar now, but before I can say something the angel starts to topple. I hear a woman shout just as the angel falls sideways and hits the Coleman urn. The head cracks right off, and it falls one way and the body the other. In fact the body falls right where Mr. Jackson’s standing, ‘cept he ain’t there now ’cause our pa’s knocked him right out the way.

It all happens slow and fast too. Then Kitty Coleman and the girls run up to us. Livy takes one look at the headless angel and shrieks and faints, which is nothing new. Mrs. C. helps up Mr. Jackson-his face is all pale and sweaty. He’s breathing heavy and he takes out a kerchief and wipes his face. Then he looks at the base of the plinth and the cracked mortar, clears his throat, and says, “I’m going to strangle that mason with my bare hands.”

I know what he means.

Then he says, “Thank you, Paul,” real quiet and solemn to our pa. It sounds funny ‘cause he never calls our pa by his name.

Our pa just shrugs. “Dunno what they need an angel up there for anyways,” he says. “Urns and angels and columns and whatnot. Bloody nonsense. When you’re dead you’re dead. You don’t need an angel to tell you that. Give me a pauper’s grave any day.” Our pa taps one of the paupers’ wood crosses. “My pa were buried in one and that’ll suit me too.”

“Just as well,” Mr. Jackson says, “for that’s where you’re likely to end up.”

You might think our pa would be offended, but something in the way Mr. Jackson says it makes our pa smile. The guvnor smiles, too, and it’s a funny sight, given he’s just almost been struck down dead. It’s like they’re mates sitting over a jar in the pub, laughing at a joke.

“Anyhows, best see to the girlie,” our pa says then, nodding at Livy. Maude’s crouching by her, and Mrs. C. goes over to her too. Livy sits up. She’s all right-she always is.

Ivy May’s standing next to me. “You should have marked that angel,” she says.

Takes me a minute to work out she means the skull‘n’ crossbones. “Can’t,” I say. “Livy won’t let me.”

Ivy May shakes her head and I feel bad, like I let her down. No time to say more, though, ‘cause Mr. Jackson says to me, “Simon, run to the mason’s yard and tell Mr. Watson he’s wanted here immediately. If he complains, give him this.” He hands me the angel’s head, whose nose is broke off. It’s heavy and I almost drop it, which makes Livy shriek again. I tuck it under my arm and run.

Jenny Whitby

I were in the garden beating carpets when he came tumbling over the fence and fell right at my feet. “Ow!” I shouted. “What’s this boy doing here? You muddy little rascal, jumping the fence like you own the place. Don’t you come tracking that mud from the grave into this garden!”

Cheeky boy just grinned at me. “Why not?” he said. “You track enough of it here yourself on the bottom of your skirts. Though we ain’t seen much of you these days up at the cemetery.”

“Shut your trap,” I said. Oh, he were cheeky, all right. Simon, he’s called. Never said much to him at the cemetery but the girls talk about him all the time. He’s the brother Maude never had, I always think.

I seen him creeping behind graves to have a look when I been busy with that gardener. He thought he were hidden, but I seen him. Wanted to see the business. I didn’t care-I thought it was funny. Not now, though. Gardener don’t want no more to do with me. Bastard.

“I never thought much of him,” Simon said now like he knew exactly what I was thinking. “You’re well clear of him, I’d say.”

“Shut it,” I said. “No one asked you.” But I weren’t really mad at the boy. Talking to him gave me a chance to rest my back-these days beating rugs is a killer. “Anyways, what you come here for?”

“Want to see where the girls live.”

“How’d you find it?”

“Ran after their cab. Lost it for a bit, so I just walked round till I saw it again, leaving Maude and her mum here. Must’ve already let out Livy.”

“Sure, she lives right there, Miss Livy and her sister.” I pointed at the house across the way.

Simon had a good look at it. He’s a scrawny boy, for all his digging. His face is pinched round the eyes and his wrists are all red and knobbly, busting out of a jacket too small for him.

“Wait here a minute,” I said. I went into the kitchen, where Mrs. Baker was cutting up a chicken. “Who’s that boy?” she said right away. She don’t miss nothing round here. Can’t keep a thing from her. I seen how she looks at me sideways these days, though she don’t say nothing.

I ignored her, cut a slice of bread and spread it with butter. Then I took it out to Simon, who looked glad to see it. He ate it fast. I shook my head and went in to get some more. As I was spreading the butter, thicker this time, Mrs. Baker said, “If you give a stray scraps, it’ll never leave you alone.”

“Mind your business,” I snapped.

“That bread is my business. I baked it this morning and I’m not baking more today.”

“Then I’ll go without.”

“No, you won‘t,” she said. “If I let you, you’d eat the entire kitchen these days. You watch yourself, Jenny Whitby.”

“Leave me alone,” I said, and ran out before she could say more.

While Simon ate the bread I started to beat the rugs again.

“Look,” he said after a bit, “there’s Livy in the window. What’s she doing?”

I looked up. “They do that all the time, them two. Stand in the windows of their nurseries and make signs at each other. Got their own language no one understands but them.”

“Bet I’d understand it.”

I snorted. “What’s she saying, then?” Miss Livy was pointing up and bowing her head. Then she pulled a finger across her throat and pouted.

“She’s talking about the cemetery,” Simon said.

“How’d you know that?”

“That’s what the angel on her grave looks like.” Simon bowed his head and pointed. “Or did, anyway. The head come off-that’s why she did that with her throat.”

Then he told me about what happened to the angel and how his pa saved the guv’s life. It were thrilling stuff.

“Look,”Simon said then. “Livy’s seen me.”

Miss Livy was pointing at Simon.

I heard a window open above us and when I looked up Miss Maude was poking her head out to look down.

“I should go,” Simon said. “I got to help our pa with the grave.”

“Nah, stay. Miss Maude’ll be down to see you.”

“Thanks for the bread,” Simon said, getting up anyway.

“If ever you come there’s always bread for you here,” I said, looking out over the garden and not at him. “And you don’t need to climb the fence to get back here. If the gate’s locked the key’s hid under the loose stone by the coal chute.”

Simon nodded and went out of the gate.

I should’ve given him something to take with him. I hate to see a boy go hungry like that. Made me hungry just thinking of it. I went inside to get some of that bread for me. To hell with Mrs. Baker.

Lavinia Waterhouse

I went stargazing on the heath with Maude and her father tonight. I wasn’t sure I ought to do such a thing on the night of the very day of dear Auntie’s funeral, but Mama and Papa said I should go. They both seemed very weary-Mama even snapped at me. I looked up in Cassell’s and The Queen under stargazing, but neither mentioned it, which I took as a sign that I could go, as long as I didn’t enjoy it too much.

And I didn‘t, at first. We went at twilight because Maude’s father wanted to see the moon just as it appeared above the horizon. He was looking for something called Copernicus. I thought that was a person, but Maude said it was a crater that used to be a volcano. I am never certain what she and her father mean when they talk about the moon and stars. They let me look through the telescope and asked me if I could see any craters-whatever they are. Really I couldn’t see anything but to please them I said I could.

I much preferred looking at the moon without the telescope-I could see it so much better. It was lovely to look at, a half-moon hanging all pale orange just above the horizon.

Then I lay down on a blanket they had brought with them and looked up at the stars, which were just appearing in the sky. I must have fallen asleep because when I woke it was dark and there were many more stars. And then I saw a falling angel, and then another! I pointed them out to Maude, though of course they were gone by the time she looked.

Maude said they are called shooting stars but are actually little pieces of an old comet burning up, and are called meteorites. But I know what they really are-they are angels stumbling as they take messages from God to us. Their wings make streaks across the sky until they are able to find their footing again.

When I tried to explain this, Maude and her father looked at me as if I were mad. I lay back down to look for more, and kept it to myself when I saw one.

Richard Coleman

The moon was magnificent tonight, with Copernicus clearly visible. I was reminded of a night years ago when I took Kitty and her brother out to look at the moon. We were able to see Copernicus then almost as clearly. Kitty looked so lovely in the moonlight and I was happy, even with Harry babbling on in the background about Copernicus the man, trying to impress me. I decided that night I would ask her to marry me.

Tonight, for the first time in a long while, I wished Kitty were with us instead of sitting at home with a book. She never comes stargazing now. At least Maude is interested. Sometimes I think my daughter is the saving grace of this family.

Kitty Coleman

When it came to it at last, he did not hesitate at all. He laid me back on a bank of fading primroses, my body crushing them so that their almond scent filled the air around us. An angel hovered overhead, but he did not want to move. He was daring it to frighten him as the other angel had yesterday. I did not mind it being there, its head bowed so that it looked straight into my eyes-I had cause to thank an angel for driving him into my arms.

I lifted up the skirt of my gray dress and bared my legs. They looked like mushroom stems in the dim light, or the stamens of some exotic flower, an orchid or a lily. He put his hands on me, parted my lips down there, and pushed himself into me. That much was familiar. What was new were his hands remaining there, kneading me insistently. I pulled his head down to my breasts and he bit me through my dress.

At last the heaviness that has resided inside me since I married-perhaps even since I was born-tifted, boiling up slowly in a growing bubble. The angel watched, its gaze blank, and for once I was glad its eyes could not judge me, not even when I cried out as the bubble burst.

As I lay there afterward with him holding me I gazed up through the branches of the cypress arching over us. The half-moon was still low in the sky, but above me stars had appeared, and I saw one fall, as if to remind me of the consequences in store. I had seen and felt the signs inside me that day, and I had ignored them. I had had my joy at last, and I knew I would pay for it. I would not tell him, but it would be the end of us.