Falling Angels

Lavinia Waterhouse

At first I refused to help Maude. I wanted nothing to do with any suffragettes’ banners. But Maude is no seamstress, and when I saw her poor fingers at school one day, all pricked and torn from the needle (someone must teach her how to use a thimble properly!), I took pity on her and began going over in the afternoons to help.

It is a good thing I have! She is so slow, the dear, and her awful mother has left her with the most impossible pile of banners to sew. It was odd at first sitting in that morning room sewing-I was worried that at any minute Maude’s mother would come in, and I have not felt comfortable around her ever since I Found Out. As it happened, though, she is rarely at home, and when she is she is talking on the telephone she had installed, and doesn’t even notice us. That telephone makes me nervous-I always jump when it rings, and I would hate to answer it. Maude has to all the time when her mother is out, and takes endless messages about meetings and petitions and other nonsense.

Luckily my sewing is very good-I get through three banners to Maude’s one, and you can see her stitches. And it is rather fun sitting there together-we talk and sing, and sometimes Maude gives up sewing altogether when her fingers are bleeding too much, and reads a book aloud while I work. Jenny brings us endless cups of tea, and even coffee once or twice when we beg her.

All we have to do is to sew, thank goodness. We receive the cloth and letters already cut, and the slogan written on a piece of paper pinned to the cloth. The letters are usually white, the cloth green or black. I don’t think I could make up a slogan if you paid me. Some of them are so complicated I can make neither head nor tail of them. What on earth does TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION IS TYRANNY mean? Or worse, WOMEN’S “WILL” BEATS ASQUITH’S “WON‘T”? What does the prime minister have to do with it?

The best part has been the mistakes. It first happened when I was sewing on letters for one of the endless banners that read DEEDS NOT WORDS. (I am sick to death of those words!) As I was folding the finished banner I happened to glance at it and discovered I had sewn on WORDS NOT DEEDS. I was all ready to unpick the letters, but I peeked at Maude and saw that she hadn’t noticed-she was frowning over her banner, sucking on another pricked finger. So I quietly folded the banner, put it on the pile, and smiled to myself. Apparently there are to be thousands and thousands of banners-women all over the country are sewing them. Every few days Maude’s mother rushes in, grabs the pile of finished banners, and rushes out again without so much as a thank-you. I doubt anyone will trace the mistake back to me.

After that I began to make more “mistakes”-a few more WORDS NOT DEEDS, and then I sewed WEEDS NOT RODS, and stuffed the extra D in my pinafore pocket. It was great fun creating errors: WORKING WOMEN DEMAND THE VOTE became VOTING WOMEN DEMAND WORK; HOPE IS STRONG became ROPE IS THONG.

I had done half a dozen or so when Maude caught me out. She was helping me fold one when she suddenly said, “Stop a moment,” and spread out the banner. It read WHO WOULD FLEE THEMSELVES MUST STRIKE THE BROW.

“Lavinia! That’s meant to read, ‘Who would be free themselves must strike the blow’! You know, from Byron!”

“Oh, dear,” I said, and giggled.

“Haven’t you even been reading what you’re sewing? And where are the B and E for ‘BE’?”

I smiled sheepishly and pulled the letters out from my pocket. “I thought they were left over, or a mistake,” I said.

“You know very well what it was supposed to say,” Maude muttered. “What shall we do with it? It’s too late to change it, and we can’t hide it-Mummy’s sure to count them and will want to know why one is missing.”

I struck my own brow. “Oh, dear, I’d best flee.” It was silly but it made Maude laugh. Soon we were laughing so hard we were crying. It was good to see her laugh. She has been so serious these days. In the end we simply folded up the banner and added it to the pile.

I had not thought I would go to the Hyde Park march-the thought of being among thousands of suffragettes made me shiver. But after so many days of sewing and overhearing things about it, I couldn’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t be rather fun. There are to be women from all over the country, not all of them suffragettes per se, and there will be bands and speakers, and spectacles all over. And then Maude told me everyone is to wear white and green and purple, and I thought up the perfect outfits for us. We would wear our white dresses, and trim our straw hats with flowers from the Colemans’ garden. Maude’s mother may be sinful, but she has cultivated the most wonderful flowers.

“Delphiniums, cornflowers, star jasmine, and Persian jewels, all wound round with green leaves,” I decided. “It will look ever so beautiful.”

“But you said you didn’t want to go,” Maude said. “And what will your mother say?”

“Mama shall come with us,” I said. “And we won’t necessarily march, but we can be spectators.”

Maude thinks Mama will never agree, but she always says yes to me.

Gertrude Waterhouse

I felt very silly doing it, but I couldn’t see any other way to stop her. When Livy and Ivy May came home from school my ankle was wrapped in a bandage and propped on a footstool. “I tripped over the threshold,” I said when Livy exclaimed over it. “It’s only a sprain, thankfully, no broken bones.”

“Oh, Mama, you are so clumsy,” she said.

“Yes, I know.”

“How long did the doctor say you must stay off it?”

“A week at least.”

“But that means you can’t take us to the march Sunday!”

“Yes, I know. I’m sorry, dear-I know how much you were looking forward to it.” I myself had been dreading it.

Livy cried out. “But we must go! We can’t miss it, can we, Ivy May?”

Ivy May was inspecting the bandage. I should have wound it more tightly.

“Perhaps Papa can take us,” Livy suggested.

“No,” I said quickly. I would not have Albert involved. “You will be at church with him in the morning, and he is playing cricket in the afternoon. No, I think it best if you stay home.”

“Well, then, we could go with Maude and her mother.”

“No,” I said again, even more quickly.

“We’ll be perfectly safe.”

“No.”

Livy glared at me so hard I almost couldn’t bear it. “Really, Livy, dear,” I said as lightly as I could, “I don’t understand why you want to go so badly anyway. It’s not something that is of interest to you; nor should it be. I’m sure whoever you marry will be quite capable of deciding for you whom to vote for.”

“On the contrary,” Livy announced, “I do support woman’s suffrage.”

Ivy May tittered. “Livy doesn’t want to be left out,” she said.

“Shush, Ivy May, I’m sure you want to go to Hyde Park too,” Livy said.

“Do you really support woman’s suffrage?” I asked, surprised at my daughter.

“I do! I think the colors are splendid-the scarves and jewelry in violet, green, and white. And the women whizzing about in motorcars, so lively and passionate-” Livy stopped when she saw my face.

“I do not approve of the suffragettes, nor of the march,” I said sternly, hoping that would be the end of the matter.

Of course it was not. Livy cried for two days and would not speak to me, until at last, the night before the march, I gave in. Nothing stops her getting what she wants, not even her silly mother’s schemes. I did not want Livy to discover I had tried to deceive her, so in the end I could not even go with them, but had to hand them over to Kitty Coleman.

Ivy May caught me walking on my “sprained” ankle. Bless her, she said not a word.

Maude Coleman

We got off the omnibus at Euston Station and began to wade through the crowds of people already gathered on the pavement. Women were pouring out of the station, having ridden down on special trains from the north. Lavinia and I each grabbed one of Ivy May’s hands and held tight as we were pushed and shoved among a sea of accents from Birmingham and Manchester and Lancashire.

Mummy moved quickly through the crowds-the crush did not seem to bother her, which surprised me given how much she hates being confined. When we got to the road in front of St. Pancras Station, she began scanning the faces of women in white dresses who had gathered in the road with their banners. “Ah, there they are!” she cried, and pushed through the crowd on the pavement to get onto the road itself.

There I breathed more freely, for there was more room. It was strange to stand in the middle of such a big road and have no coaches or carts or cabs to dodge-just a long line of women in white dresses stretched ahead and behind, with men and women on the pavement watching us.

Mummy led us over to a group of women, many of whom I recognized from her At Homes. “Here they are, Eunice,” Mummy said, laying her hand on the arm of a tall woman with a face full of freckles who wore a sash that read BANNER CAPTAIN. “And there’s Caroline!” Mummy cried, waving. “Caroline!”

Caroline Black hurried over, flushed, her hair coming down from under her hat. Over her shoulder she carried a large bundle tied to a pole. Mummy kissed her. “Have you got everything?”

“Yes, I think so,” panted Caroline Black, “though thank heavens I gave the boy the armor yesterday to bring down. I’d never have made it otherwise.”

I did not know what they were talking about, but before I could ask, Mummy turned to me. “Now, Maude, I’m going to leave you with Eunice, who will look after you.”

“But you’re marching, too, aren’t you?” I asked, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “You’re marching with us.”

“I will be in the procession, yes, but I’ve got something to do in another part of it. You’ll be fine here-you know most of these women.”

“Where are you going? What are you doing?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“But… we thought we were going to be with you. We told Mrs. Waterhouse you were looking after us.”

Mummy shook her head impatiently. “What I have to do is far more important than looking after you. And frankly, Eunice is probably better at sorting you out than I would be. She’s banner captain for this section of the procession and is very capable. You’re in good hands with her. I’ll meet you at the end of the day, after the Great Shout at five o‘clock. Come to Platform Five, where Mrs. Pankhurst is speaking. I’ll see you there. Now, we really must be off. Have fun, girls! Remember, Maude, Platform Five after the Great Shout.” She took Caroline Black’s arm and rushed away into the crowd. I tried to keep my eyes on them but couldn’t-it was like following the progress of a twig through a fast-flowing stream.

Lavinia had turned pale. “What shall we do without her?” she moaned, which was rather hypocritical given how much she dislikes Mummy.

“Well, girls, we’ll have a grand day, eh?” Eunice cried as she helped two women next to us secure their banner that read HOPE IS STRONG. “I’ve got to check the other banners along my section. You stay here by this banner until I return.” She strode away before we could say anything.

“Bloody hell,” I said quietly. We had been abandoned.

Lavinia looked at me, shocked as much by my swearing as by our predicament, I expect. “Perhaps Mama was right,” she said. “Perhaps I should have stayed home. I’m feeling rather faint.”

“Stop it,” I said sharply. “We’ll manage.” It was going to be a grim afternoon, and worse if she fainted as well. I looked around for something to distract her. “Look at the band-the Hackney Borough Brass Band,” I read from their banner. “Aren’t their uniforms lovely?” I knew Lavinia preferred men in uniforms. She was already saying she planned to marry a soldier. The musicians were smirking at the surrounding women. A euphonium player winked at me before I could look away.

Lavinia was staring up at the banner we were meant to stay with. “Rope is thong,” she announced suddenly, and giggled.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

After a bit we began to feel better. The women around us were all talking and laughing, clearly excited to be there. The overall effect was of a great buzz of female sound, at times high pitched, loud, but not frightening as it might be if it were all men. It was hard not to be infected by the high spirits. And they did not all appear to be suffragettes. Many of them were just like us, there for the afternoon out of curiosity, not necessarily waving a banner and shouting. There were lots of women with their daughters, some of them quite young. There were even three little girls, all dressed in white with green and purple ribbons in their hair, sitting in a pony cart near us.

Lavinia squeezed my arm and said, “It is terribly exciting, isn’t it? Everyone is here!”

Except Mummy, I thought. I wondered what she and Caroline Black were doing.

Then the band, led by a man with a handlebar moustache, began to play a march from Aida and everyone stood up straighter, as if a wire had been pulled taut all up and down the procession. An expectant hum rose from the crowd. Eunice reappeared suddenly and called out, “Right, then, banners up!” Women around her raised their poles and fitted them into the holders at their sides; then others who saw those banners go up lifted theirs, until as far ahead and behind as I could see there were banners sailing above a sea of heads. For the first time I wished I, too, were carrying a banner.

The hum died down after a few minutes when we hadn’t moved.

“Aren’t we ever going to start?” Lavinia cried, hopping from foot to foot. “Oh, I can’t bear it if we don’t go soon!”

Then, suddenly, we did. The banners ahead jerked and a space opened up in front of us.

“Onward!” Eunice cried. “Come, now, girls!”

As we began to walk, the spectators on the pavement cheered and I felt tingles up and down my back. There were six other processions besides ours, coming from points all around London, bringing marchers toward Hyde Park. It was terribly thrilling to feel a part of a larger whole, of thousands and thousands of women all doing the same thing at the same time.

It took some time for the procession to assume a steady pace. We kept stopping and starting, making our way past St. Pancras, then Euston Station. On both sides, men watched us pass, some frowning, a few jeering, but most smiling the way my uncle does when he thinks I’ve said something silly. The women on the sidelines were more supportive, smiling and waving. A few even stepped in to join the marchers.

At first Lavinia was very excited, humming along with the band, laughing as a banner ahead of us caught a breeze and started to flap. But once we began walking more steadily, when we had passed Euston and were heading toward Great Portland Station, she sighed and dragged her feet. “Is this all we’re going to do? Walk?” she complained.

“There will be speeches at Hyde Park. It’s not so far. And we’ll be going along Oxford Street and you can see the shops.” I said this with authority, but I didn’t really know where the route would take us. My London geography was shaky-I had not been into town very often, and then I simply followed Mummy or Daddy. I knew the principal rivers of Africa better than the streets of London.

“There’s Simon.” Ivy May pointed.

It was a relief to see a familiar face among the mass of strangers. “Simon!” Lavinia and I called at the same time.

When he saw us his face lit up and he stepped out of the crowd to fall in beside us.

“What are you doing here, naughty boy?” Lavinia asked, squeezing his arm.

Simon turned red. “Came to find you.”

“Are you going to march with us?” I asked.

Simon looked around. “There ain’t no men, is there?”

“The bands are all men. Stay with us.”

“Well, maybe for a little bit. But I has to go and get the horse at Hyde Park.”

“What horse?”

Simon looked surprised. “The horse for the ladies. For your ma. Didn’t she tell you?”

“Mummy doesn’t have a horse. She hates horses.”

“It’s a friend of Mr. Jackson what has the horse. They’re just borrowing it for the day.”

“Mr. Jackson? What does he have to do with it?”

Simon looked like he’d rather not have said anything. “Your mother asked Mr. Jackson if he knew anyone could lend her a horse. A white horse, it had to be. And he has a friend has one, up off Baker Street. So he lent it to her, and asked me to fetch it and bring it back. Paid me and all.”

The band began to play the Pirate King song from The Pirates of Pen- zance. I was trying to take in what Simon was saying, but it was difficult to think in the middle of so many people and so much noise. “Mummy never goes to the cemetery. How could she see Mr. Jackson?”

Simon shrugged. “He visited her at Holloway. And I heard ‘em talking at the cemetery not long ago-about the suffragism and that.”

“She’s not riding the horse, is she? Where exactly is she?”

Simon shrugged again. “See for yourself. They’re at the start of the procession.”

“Is it far?”

“I’ll show you.” Simon immediately plunged back into the crowd on the pavement, probably relieved to leave the procession of women.

I began to follow but Lavinia grabbed my arm. “What about me?” she cried.

“Stay here. I’ll come back to you.”

“But you can’t leave me alone!”

“You’re not alone-you’re with Ivy May. Stay with the banner,” I added, gesturing at HOPE IS STRONG. “I’ll come back to you. And Eunice is bound to return soon. Tell her I’ve gone to look at the banners. Don’t say I’ve gone to see Mummy.”

“We’re coming with you!” Lavinia cried, but I wrenched my arm away and pushed into the crowd before she could follow. Whatever Mummy was doing, I didn’t want Lavinia to see it.

Simon Field

All I can say is, Mrs. C. weren’t wearing that when I handed over the horse to her earlier. Must’ve had it on under her dress.

I’m surprised but try not to show it. Can’t take my eyes from her legs. I only seen a woman’s legs like that once at a panto of Dick Whittington, and even then she wore tights and the tunic came to her knees. Mrs. C. ain’t dressed as Dick, though, but as Robin Hood. She wears a short green tunic belted in the middle, little green boots, and a green and purple cap with a white feather in it. She’s got bare legs, from her ankles up to-well, up high.

She’s leading the white horse what Miss Black’s riding. You’d think Miss Black’d be dressed as Maid Marian or Friar Tuck or some such, but instead she’s got on a full suit of armor and a silver helmet with a white feather in it that bobs up and down in time with the horse, just like the ostrich feathers on the horses in a funeral procession. She holds the reins in one hand and a flag in the other with words on it I can’t read.

Maude just stares. Who can blame her-everyone’s staring at Kitty Coleman’s legs. I has to say-they’re fine legs. I’m bright red looking at ‘em, and go hard, right among all them people. Has to cross my hands in front of me to hide it.

“Who’s Miss Black meant to be?” I ask, to distract myself.

“Joan of Arc.” Maude says it like she’s spitting the words.

I never heard of this Joan, but I don’t tell Maude. I know she don’t want to talk.

We’ve been standing on the pavement a bit ahead of ‘em, so we can watch ’em approach. As they pass by, Maude looks like she wants to say something to her ma, but she don’t. Mrs. C. ain’t looking at her-she has a funny smile on her face and seems to be looking way ahead, like she sees something on the horizon she can’t wait to get to.

Then they’re past. Maude don’t say nothing, and neither do I. We just watch the procession go by. Then Maude snorts.

“What?” I say.

“Caroline Black’s banner has a mistake on it,” she says, but she won’t tell me what it is.

Kitty Coleman

For most of the march I felt as if I were walking through a dream.

I was so excited that I hardly heard a thing. The buzz of spectators, the jangling and creaking of the bridle, the clanking of Caroline’s armor-they were all there, but distant. The horse’s hooves sounded as if they were muffled by blankets, or as if sawdust had been strewn along the route, as it sometimes is for funerals.

Nor could I really see anything. I tried to focus on faces along the route but they were all a blur. I kept thinking I saw people I knew-Richard, John Jackson, Maude, even my dead mother-but they were just resemblances. It was easier to look ahead toward our destination, whatever that would be.

What I did feel sharply was the sun and air on my legs. After a lifetime of heavy dresses, with their swathes of cloth wrapping my legs like bandages, it was an incredible sensation.

Then I heard a bang that was not muffled. I looked into the crowd, suddenly able to see, and there was someone who looked like my late brother on the pavement opposite me. He was staring at Caroline with such a perplexed expression that I couldn’t help but step across to see what he was looking at.

There was another bang. Just before the horse reared I saw Caroline’s banner-it read WORDS NOT DEEDS.

Blast, I thought, who made such a silly mistake? Then the hoof came down on my chest.

Lavinia Waterhouse

At first I would not speak to Maude when she and Simon came back-not all the way down Portland Place or Upper Regent Street, nor when we were stopped for a time along Oxford Street. I could not forgive her for leaving me like that.

She did not speak, either, just marched with a face like thunder, and did not seem to notice that I had sent her to Coventry. There is nothing more annoying than someone not realizing you are punishing them. Indeed it rather felt as if it were me being punished-I was immensely curious about Maude’s mother and the horse but since I was not speaking to her I could not ask about it. I wished Ivy May would talk to me, to make my silence with Maude all the more pointed. I straightened her hat for her, as it was tilted dangerously far back, but Ivy May simply nodded at me in thanks. She was not in the habit of saying things when one wanted her to.

Then the procession halted again. Simon ran off to collect his horse, and we moved toward the Marble Arch entrance to Hyde Park. We were pressed closer and closer together, as many of the people on the pavement squeezed into the crowd to enter as well. It was like being a grain of sand in an hourglass, waiting our turn to funnel through the tiny hole. It grew so crowded that I grabbed Maude and Ivy May’s hands.

Then we were through, and suddenly there was open space, sunny and green and full of fresh air. I gulped at it as if it were water.

A great sea of people had gathered in the distance around various carts where handfuls of suffragettes perched. In their white dresses and all piled up above the crowd they reminded me of puffy clouds on the horizon.

“Move along, move along,” called a woman behind us who wore a sash reading CHIEF MARSHAL. “There’s thousands more behind you, waiting to get in. Move along to the platforms, please, keeping in formation.”

The procession was meant to continue all the way to the platforms, but once inside the park everyone began rushing to and fro, and we lost all order. Men who had been spectators along the route were now mingling with all the ladies who had marched, and as we moved willy-nilly toward the platforms it became more crowded again, with them pushing in on us. Mama would be horrified if she could see us, unchaperoned, caught among all these men. I saw that silly Eunice for a moment, shouting at someone to bring her banner around. She was hopeless at looking after us.

There were banners everywhere. I kept looking for one I had sewn but there were so many that my mistakes were lost among them. I had not imagined that so many people could gather in one place at one time. It was frightening but thrilling as well, like when a tiger at the zoo stares straight at you with its yellow eyes.

“Do you see Platform Five?” Maude asked.

I couldn’t see numbers anywhere, but Ivy May pointed to a platform, and we began to make our way over. Maude kept pulling me into walls of people, and I had to grip Ivy May’s hand harder, as it was growing sweaty.

“Let’s not go any farther,” I called to Maude. “It’s so crowded.”

“Just a little bit-I’m looking for Mummy.” Maude kept pulling my hand.

Suddenly there were too many people. The little spaces we had managed to push into became a solid wall of legs and backs. People pressed up behind us, and I could feel strangers pushing at my arms and shoulders.

Then I felt a hand on my bottom, the fingers brushing me gently. I was so surprised that I did nothing for a moment. The hand pulled up my dress and began fumbling with my bloomers, right there in the middle of all those people. I couldn’t believe no one noticed.

When I tried to shift away, the hand Followed. I looked back-the man standing behind me was about Papa’s age, tall, gray haired, with a thin moustache and spectacles. His eyes were fixed on the platform. I could not believe it was his hand-he looked so respectable. I raised my heel and brought it down hard on the foot behind me. The man winced and the hand disappeared. After a moment he pushed away and was gone, someone else stepping into his place.

I shuddered and whispered to Maude, “Let’s get away from here,” but I was drowned out by a bugle call. The crowd surged forward and Maude was pushed into the back of the woman ahead of her, dropping my hand. Then I was shoved violently to the left. I looked around but couldn’t see Maude.

“If I may have your attention, I would like to open this meeting on this most momentous occasion in Hyde Park,” I heard a voice ring out. A woman had climbed onto a box higher than the rest of the women on the platform. In her mauve dress she looked like lavender sprinkled on a bowl of vanilla ice cream. She stood very straight and still.

“There’s Mrs. Pankhurst,” women around me murmured.

“I am delighted to see before me a great multitude of people, of supporters-both women and men-of the simple right of women to take their places alongside men and cast their ballots. Prime Minister Asquith has said that he needs to be assured that the will of the people is behind the call for votes for women. Well, Mr. Asquith, I say to you that if you were standing where I am now and saw the great sea of humanity before you as I do, you would need no more convincing!”

The crowd roared. I put my hands on the shoulders of the woman beside me and jumped up to try and see over the crowd. “Maude!” I called, but it was so noisy she would never have heard me. The woman scowled and shrugged off my hands.

Mrs. Pankhurst was waiting for the sound to die down. “We have a full afternoon of speakers,” she began as it grew quiet, “and without further ado-”

“Maude!” I cried.

Mrs. Pankhurst paused, and jerked her head slightly. “I would like to introduce-”

“Maude! Maude!”

“Lavinia!” I heard, and saw a hand fluttering above the crowd far to my right. I waved back and kept waving as I began to push toward the hand.

Mrs. Pankhurst had stopped again. “Shh! Shh!” women on the platform began to hiss. I continued to push, forcing spaces to open in front of me, ignoring whatever was happening on the platform. Then ahead of me I saw the garland of delphiniums and star jasmine I had woven that morning for Maude’s straw hat, and with one last shove I had found her.

We held on to each other tightly. Maude’s heart was beating hard, and I was trembling.

“Let’s get away from all these people,” Maude whispered. I nodded and, still holding tight to Maude, let her push away from the platform and out of the jam of people listening to Mrs. Pankhurst.

At last there was space again. When we reached the trees on the far edge of the crowd I stopped. “I’m going to be sick,” I said.

Maude led me to a tree, where I could kneel away from everyone. Afterward we found a shady spot to sit a little away from the base of the tree. We didn’t say anything for a few minutes, but watched people stroll or hurry past, detaching themselves from one wheel of spectators around a platform, joining another. We could see four platforms from where we sat. In the distance the women speaking on them were tiny figures whose arms moved about like windmills.

I was very thirsty.

Maude would speak eventually, I knew, and ask the question that must be asked. I dreaded it.

“Lavinia,” she said at last, “where is Ivy May?”

For the first time all day I began to cry. “I don’t know.”

Maude Coleman

Mummy was sitting just two trees away. We didn’t discover that until after the meeting had ended.

There was no point in searching for anyone while the speeches were being made and the crowd so tightly packed in. Lavinia was in despair, but I knew that Ivy May was a sensible girl-she might say little, but she heard everything, and she would know that we were to meet Mummy at Platform 5 after the Great Shout, whatever that was.

That is what I kept telling myself, and repeating to Lavinia, whenever she would listen. Eventually she laid her head in my lap and fell asleep, which is just like her in a dramatic moment. It is melodrama that she loves-to her true drama is dull. I fidgeted, waiting for the speeches to finish and for Lavinia to wake.

At last a bugle sounded. When it sounded a second time, Lavinia sat up, her face red and crumpled. “What time is it?” she said, yawning.

“I’m not sure. Close to five o‘clock, I expect.”

The distant crowds were waving their arms and cheering. The bugle sounded once more. A chant rose up like an orchestra swelling to a crescendo in a symphony. It sounded as if everyone were saying, “Folks are swimming.” Only the third time did I realize they were calling, “Votes for women!” The last one was loud like a thunderclap, and the cheers and laughter that followed like rain released from clouds.

Then, suddenly, the crowd broke up and a surge of people moved toward us. I scanned the passing faces for someone familiar. I did spy Eunice, who rushed past with a stray banner and pole. She did not see us and we did not try to stop her.

“We should go to Platform Five,” I said. “Someone is bound to be there.”

We linked arms and began to wade through the crowd, but it was very difficult as everyone was moving away from the platform rather than toward it. Everywhere there were exhausted faces-thirsty children, impatient women, concerned men wondering how they would get home through such crowds. Now that people were not marching in organized processions, the streets outside Hyde Park would be in chaos, jammed with people and cabs and overfull omnibuses. It would take hours to get home.

Finally we drew close to what I remembered as Platform 5, but the banner with the number 5 on it had been taken down. Mrs. Pankhurst and the other women had climbed down from the cart, and a man was hitching a horse up to it.

“They’re taking away the platform!” I cried. “How will we ever find Mummy without it?”

“There’s Caroline Black,” Lavinia said, pulling at my sleeve. “What on earth is she wearing?”

Caroline Black was hopping from foot to foot, still in her Joan of Arc armor. The white plume in her helmet bobbed up and down as she moved. She looked very grim, and my stomach turned over to see her alone.

“There you are!” she cried, not smiling sweetly at me as she usually did. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you for ages!”

“Where’s Mummy?” I demanded.

Caroline Black looked as if she might cry. “Your mother-she’s had a little mishap.”

“What happened?”

“It all went so well, that’s the shame of it.” Caroline Black shook her head. “We had a marvelous time, with such support from our comrades and the spectators. And the horse was lovely, so gentle, and a dream to ride. If only-”

“What happened? Where is she?” It was all I could do not to shriek the words.

“Someone let off firecrackers in the crowd along Oxford Street. The horse shied, and at that moment Kitty stepped in front of it to look at my banner-I don’t know why. The horse reared-I just barely kept my own seat. When it came down it kicked her in the chest.”

“Where is she now?”

“The daft thing insisted on finishing the march, leading the horse and all, as if nothing had happened. She said she was fine, just a bit breathless. And I stupidly allowed her. Then she wouldn’t leave during the speeches-she said she had to be here to find you afterward.”

“Where in God’s name is she?” I cried. Lavinia jumped at my tone and people around us stared. But Caroline Black didn’t even flinch.

“She’s sitting over in the trees.” She pointed back the way we had come.

Lavinia grabbed my arm as I began to walk toward the trees. “What about Ivy May?” she cried. “We must find her!”

“Let’s get to Mummy and then we’ll look for her.” I knew Lavinia was angry at me but I ignored her and kept going.

Mummy was propped up against the trunk of the tree, one leg folded under her, a bare leg stretched out in front.

“Oh, my Lord,” Lavinia murmured. I had forgot that she hadn’t seen Mummy in her costume.

Mummy smiled as we came up, but her face was tense, as if she were struggling to hide something. Her breathing was labored. “Hello, Maude,” she said. “Did you enjoy the procession?”

“How do you feel, Mummy?”

Mummy patted her chest. “Hurts.”

“We must get you home, my dear,” Caroline Black said. “Can you walk?”

“She mustn’t walk,” I interrupted, remembering my first-aid lessons from school. “That may make it worse.”

“Going to be a doctor, are you?” Mummy said. “That’s good. I thought you might become an astronomer, but I’ve been known to be wrong. As long as you become something, I don’t mind what it is. Except perhaps a wife. But don’t tell Daddy that.” She winced as she took a breath. “Go to university.”

“Hush, Mummy. Don’t talk.”

I looked around. Caroline Black and Lavinia were watching me as if I were in charge.

Then I saw a familiar figure striding toward us.

“Thank heaven you’re here, Mr. Jackson!” Lavinia cried, grabbing his arm. “Can you find Ivy May for us?”

“No,” I interrupted. “You must get Mummy to a cab. She needs a doctor quickly.”

Mr. Jackson looked at Mummy. “What has happened, Kitty?”

“She’s been kicked by a horse and can’t breathe,” I said.

“Hello, John,” Mummy murmured. “This is what happens, you see-I dress up as Robin Hood and get kicked by the pantomime horse.”

“Ivy May is lost, Mr. Jackson!” Lavinia shouted. “My little sister has been lost in that horrid crowd!”

Mr. Jackson looked from Mummy to Lavinia. I knew he could not make the decision himself-I would have to do it. “Mr. Jackson, go and find a cab,” I ordered. “You’re more likely to get one than me or Lavinia, and you can carry Mummy to it. Caroline, you wait here with Mummy, and Lavinia and I will look for Ivy May.”

“No!” Lavinia cried, but Mr. Jackson had already run off.

Mummy nodded. “That’s right, Maude. You’re perfectly capable of taking charge.” She remained against the tree, with Caroline Black kneeling awkwardly beside her in her armor.

I took Lavinia’s hand. “We’ll find her,” I said. “I promise.”

Lavinia Waterhouse

We did not find her. We searched everywhere, but we did not find her.

We walked back and forth across the park where the crowds had stood, the grass all trampled as if a herd of cattle had passed through. There were many fewer people now, so it should have been easy to see a little girl on her own. But there were none. Instead there were groups of young men roving about. They made me very nervous, especially when they called out to us. Maude and I linked arms tightly as we walked.

It was so frustrating-we could not find any policemen, nor even any of the suffragettes who had been running about during the procession wearing sashes that read BANNER CAPTAIN or CHIEF MARSHAL. Not one responsible grown-up was about to help.

Then a group of very rough men shouted, “Ahoy there, girls! Fancy a drink?” and came toward us. Well. Maude and I fairly ran our legs off to get out of the park. The men didn’t follow, but I refused to go back in-it was far too dangerous. We stood at the Marble Arch entrance and looked out across the grass, shielding our eyes from the early evening sun.

I was looking not just for Ivy May, but for Simon as well. We had not seen him since he left the procession to go and collect the horse (led by Maude’s mother in that costume! I am speechless. It was no wonder that the horse kicked her). He had said he might come back to the park after. I kept thinking as I looked that they would be together-that Simon would appear, leading Ivy May by the hand. They would be eating ice-creams and they would have them for Maude and me as well. Ivy May would give me a cheeky look, with a little smile and glittering eyes, and I would pinch her for frightening me so.

“She’s not here,” Maude said. “We would have seen her by now. Perhaps she’s gone home. She may have retraced the route we took, back to Euston, and got on an omnibus. She’s not stupid, Ivy May.”

I held up the little purse that dangled from my wrist. “She had no money for the bus,” I whispered. “I made her give it to me for safe-keeping, so she wouldn’t lose it.”

“She may have found her way back,” Maude repeated. “Perhaps we should walk along the procession route and look for her.”

“I’m so very tired. I don’t think I could take another step. Let’s stay here just a little longer.”

Then we did see Simon coming toward us. He looked so small in that great grass expanse, with his hands at his sides, kicking at things that had been left behind-bits of paper, flowers, a lady’s glove. He seemed unsurprised to see us, and unsurprised when Maude said, “Ivy May is missing.”

“Ivy May’s gone,” I said. “She’s gone.” I began to cry.

“She’s missing,” Maude repeated.

Simon gazed at us. I had never seen him look so grave.

“We think she may have gone along the route we marched,” Maude said. “Come with us to look.”

“What were she wearing?” Simon asked. “I didn’t notice before.”

Maude sighed. “A white dress. A white dress like everyone else. And a straw hat with flowers around the brim, like ours.”

Simon fell in beside us and we began walking back down Oxford Street. This time we could not walk down the middle of the street, for it was full of horse-drawn cabs and omnibuses and motorcars. We stayed on the pavement, crowded with people walking back from the demonstration. Simon crossed over to search the other pavement, looking in doorways and down alleys as well as scanning the faces around him.

I could not quite believe we were going to have to walk the whole route again-I was so thirsty and footsore that I did not think I could manage it. But then, as we were going along Upper Regent Street, I saw down a mews a pump for watering horses, and went up and put my whole face under the stream of water that gushed out. I didn’t care if the water was bad or my hair got wet-I was so thirsty I had to drink.

The bell in the clock tower of St. Pancras Station was striking eight when at last we arrived back at our starting point.

“Mama will be frantic with worry,” I said. As tired as I was, I dreaded arriving home to face Mama and Papa.

“It’s still so light out,” Maude said. “It’s the longest day of the year-did you know that? Well, second longest, perhaps, after yesterday.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake shush, Maude.” I could not bear to hear her talk like a teacher in a classroom. Besides which, I had a fearsome headache.

“We’d best go home,” Maude said, ignoring me. “Then we can tell your parents and they can contact the police. And I can find out about Mummy.”

“Your mother,” I began. Suddenly I was so angry I wanted to spit. Maude had sent Mr. Jackson off with her mother rather than have him help us. He would have found Ivy May, I was sure of it. “Your bloody mother got us into this mess.”

“Don’t blame her!” Maude cried. “It was you who wanted so badly to come on the march!”

“Your mother,” I repeated. “You don’t know the half of it about her.”

“Don‘t, Livy,” Simon warned. “Don’t you dare.”

Maude looked between us. “I don’t want to hear it, whatever it is,” she said to me. “Don’t you ever say a word of it to me.”

“Go home, both of you!” Simon said. I’d never heard him raise his voice before. ‘There’s an omnibus there.“ He even pushed us toward it.

“We can’t leave Ivy May,” I declared, stopping in my tracks. “We can’t just jump on a bus and leave her at the mercy of this awful city.”

“I’ll go back and look for her,” Simon said.

For that I could have kissed him, but he was already off at a run, back down along the Euston Road.

Jenny Whitby

Never did I expect to see such a sight.

I didn’t know who it could be, ringing the bell on a Sunday evening. I’d just returned from Mum‘s, didn’t even have my cap and apron on yet. I weren’t even there normally-I usually came back later, after Jack was asleep, but today he were so tired from running about that after tea he just fell into his bed.

Maybe it were the missus and Miss Maude, had their key pick-pocketed in the crowd. Or a neighbor meaning to borrow a stamp or run out of lamp oil. But when I opened the door, it were the man from the cemetery, carrying the missus in his arms. Not only that-she weren’t wearing a proper skirt! Her legs were bare as the day she was born. Her eyes were just open, like she’d been woke up from a nap.

Before I could say a word but stare with my eyes popping, Mr. Jackson had pushed inside, with that suffragette lady Miss Black fluttering behind him. “We must get her to her bed,” he said. “Where is her husband?”

“At the Bull and Last,” I said. “He always goes there after his cricket.” I led the way upstairs to her room. Miss Black was wearing some sort of metal suit what clanked as she went up the stairs. She looked so strange I began to wonder if I were dreaming it all.

Mr. Jackson laid the missus on her bed and said, “Stay with her-I’ll get her husband.”

“And I’ll fetch a doctor,” said Miss Black.

There’s one on the Highgate Road, just up from the pub,“ I said. ”I can…“

But they were gone before I could offer to go so Miss Black could stay with her friend. It were like she didn’t want to stay.

So it were just me and the missus. She lay there staring at me. I couldn’t think what to do. I lit a candle and were just about to close the curtains when she whispered, “Leave them open. And open the window.”

She looked so silly in her green outfit, her legs all naked. Mr. Coleman would have a fit if he saw her like that. After I opened the window I sat on the bed and began to take off her little green boots.

“Jenny, I want to ask you something,” she said real quiet.

“Yes, ma‘am.”

“Does anyone know about what happened to me?”

“About what happened to you, ma‘am?” I repeated. “You’ve had a little accident, is all.”

The missus’s eyes flared and she shook her head. “Jenny, there is no time for this silliness. For once let us be clear with each other-does anyone know what happened to me two years ago?”

I knew what she were talking about the first time, even though I acted like I didn’t. I set the boots on the floor. “No one knows but me. And Mrs. Baker-she guessed. Oh, and Simon.”

“The cemetery boy? How could he know?”

“It were his mum you went to.”

“And that is all-no one else knows?”

I didn’t look in her eyes, but tugged at the green cap in her hair. “No.” I didn’t say nothing about Miss Livy’s letter. There seemed no point in agitating her in her state. Simon and Mrs. Baker and me, we could keep our counsel, but there was no guessing what Miss Livy might say one of these days-or said already, like as not. But the missus needn’t know that.

“I don’t want the men to find out.”

“No.” I reached round and began to unbutton the back of her tunic.

“Promise me they won’t.”

“They won’t.”

“Promise me something else.”

“Yes, ma‘am.”

“Promise me you won’t let my mother-in-law get her claws into Maude.”

I pulled off the tunic and gasped. Her chest was one big black bruise. “Lord, what happened to you, ma‘am?”

“Promise me.”

Now I understood why she was talking like that. “Oh, ma‘am, you’re going to be just fine in a day or two. The doctor will be here soon and he’ll sort you out. Miss Black’s gone to fetch him. And Mr.-the gentleman’s gone to get your husband.” The missus tried to say something, but I wouldn’t let her-I just ran on and on, saying whatever popped into my head. “He’s down the pub just now, but it won’t take him a minute to get back. Let’s just get this nightgown on before they come, shall we? It’s ever so pretty, this one, what with the lace at the cuffs and all. Let’s just pop this over your head and pull it down. There. And your hair, that’s it. That’s better now, ain’t it?”

She lay back again, like she were too weak to fight my words. Her breathing were all wet and ragged. I couldn’t bear to hear it. “I’ll just run and light the lamps,” I said. “For the master and doctor. Won’t be a second.” I ran out before she could say anything.

Mr. Coleman came home as I was lighting the lamps in the front hallway, and then the doctor and Miss Black. They went upstairs, and then it went all quiet up there. I couldn’t help it-I had to go and listen outside the door.

The doctor had such a low voice that all I could hear was “internal bleeding.”

Then Mr. Coleman laid into Miss Black. “Why in hell didn’t you find a doctor the moment the horse kicked her?” he shouted. “You were boasting there would be a huge crowd-surely among two hundred thousand people there was a doctor!”

“You don’t understand,” Caroline Black said. “It was so crowded it was difficult to move or even speak, much less find a doctor.”

“Why didn’t you bring her home at once? If you had shown any sense whatsoever she might be all right now, with nothing more than a few bruises.”

“Don’t you think I didn’t beg her to? You clearly don’t know your wife well if you think she would have done what I asked her to. She wanted to get to Hyde Park and hear the speeches on such an historic occasion, and nothing I nor anyone else-not even you, sir-said could have dissuaded her.”

“Hyperbole!” Mr. Coleman shouted. “Even at a time like this you suffragettes resort to hyperbole. Damn your historic occasion! Did you even look at her chest after it happened? Did you even see the damage? And who on God’s green earth told Kitty to lead a horse? She’s a disaster around horses!”

“It was her idea. No one forced her. She never told me she didn’t like horses.”

“And where’s Maude?” Mr. Coleman said. “What’s happened to my daughter?”

“She‘s-she’s on her way home, I’m sure.” Caroline Black was crying now.

I didn’t stay to hear more. I went down to the kitchen and put the kettle on. Then I sat at the table and began to cry myself.

Ivy May Waterhouse

Over his shoulder I saw a star fall. It was me.

Simon Field

I never seen a dead body before. That sounds strange coming from a gravedigger. All day long I got dead bodies round me, but they’re in boxes, nailed shut tight and covered with dirt. Sometimes I’m standing on a coffin in a grave, and there’s only an inch of wood ‘tween me and the body. But I ain’t seen it. If I spent more time out of the cemetery I’d see dead bodies all the time. Funny, that. Our ma and sisters has seen hundreds, all them women and babies died in birth, or neighbors, died of hunger or the cold.

It’s strange seeing someone I know like that. If I didn’t know to be looking for her I wouldn’t recognize her. It’s not that she’s cut or crushed or anything like that. It’s just that she ain’t there. There are the legs, arms, head, all in the right places, lying down the back of a mews behind a stack of bricks. And the face is clean and smooth even, the mouth shut, her eyes a little open like she’s looking through her lashes and don’t want you to know she’s looking. But when I look at the face I just can’t see her. She ain’t a person no more, but a thing like a sack of spuds.

“Ivy May,” I call softly, squatting beside her. I say it even though I know she’s dead. Maybe I’m hoping she’ll come back if I say her name.

But she don’t. She don’t open her eyes and look at me with that look she has of knowing everything what’s happening and never saying. She don’t sit up with her legs straight out in front of her the way she likes to sit. She don’t stand solid, looking like you could never knock her down, as hard as you pushed.

The body just lays there. And I have to get it back somehow, from a mews off the Edgware Road to Dartmouth Park.

How am I going to get her all that way without someone seeing me? I wonder. Anyone sees me will think I did it.

Then I look up at the end of the mews and see a man standing there. A tall man. Can’t see much of his face ‘cept the glint of his specs in the streetlamp and a thin moustache. He’s staring at me, and when he sees me looking at him he steps back behind the building.

Could be he thinks I’ve done it and he’s off to tell someone. But I know he’s not. It’s him what done it. Our pa says men can’t leave their crimes alone-they got to come sniffing round again, like worrying a loose tooth or picking a scab.

I run out the mews to look for him, but he’s gone. I know he’ll come back again, though, and if I don’t take her now he will.

I straighten out her dress a bit, and her hair, and I buckle on one of her shoes what’d come off. When I lift her onto my back I see her straw hat’s been under her. It’s all broken, and the flowers crushed, and too much trouble to pick it up with Ivy May heavy on my back, so I leave it on the ground.

If anyone asks, I’ll say she’s my sister and fallen asleep. But I stay away from the pubs and keep to the little streets and then the parks, Regents then Primmers Hill then the bottom of the heath, and I don’t see many folk. And none ask. That time of night the people out are too drunk to notice, or else up to their own mischief and don’t want to draw attention to themselves.

All the way home I keep thinking ‘bout that hat. I wish I hadn’t left it. I don’t like leaving any part of her there. So when it’s over, when I’ve got her home, I go back, all the way through the parks and the streets. It takes no time, not without her weight on my back. But when I get to the mews and look behind the bricks the hat is already gone, flowers and all.

Maude Coleman

I waited on the wrought-iron steps that led from the French doors down into the garden. The air smelled of jasmine and mint and grass sprinkled with dew. I could hear frogs croaking in the pond at the bottom of the garden and, from the window below me, Jenny sobbing in the kitchen.

I have never been good at waiting-it always seems so wasteful, and I feel guilty, as if I should be doing something else. But I could not do anything else now-there was nothing to be done. Grandmother had arrived and was sitting in the morning room, knitting furiously, but I did not want to be busy like that. Instead I looked up at the stars, picking out the constellations-the Great Bear, the Crow, the Wolf.

The church bells close by struck midnight.

Daddy came and stood in the open French doors and lit a cigarette. I did not look at him.

“It’s a clear night,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Pity we can’t set up the telescope in the garden-we might even see Jupiter’s moons. But of course it wouldn’t be right, would it?”

I did not answer, though I’d had the same thought myself.

“I’m sorry I shouted at you when you arrived home, Maude. I was upset.”

“That’s all right.”

“I was afraid I’d lost you too.”

I shifted on the cold metal. “Don’t say that, Daddy.”

He coughed. “No, you’re right.”

Then we heard the scream, long and high pitched, from the direction of the Waterhouses’ house. I shivered.

“What in God’s name was that?” Daddy asked.

I shook my head. I had not told him about Ivy May going missing.

A throat cleared behind us. The doctor had come downstairs to get us. Now that the waiting was over I did not want to move from the steps. I did not want to see my mother. I had been waiting for her all my life, and now I preferred to be waiting for her always, if that was the only alternative.

Daddy flicked his cigarette into the garden and turned to follow the doctor. I could hear it sizzling in the dewy grass. After it stopped I went inside too.

Mummy was lying very still, her face pale, her eyes open and unnaturally bright. I sat down next to her. She fixed her eyes on me. I knew she was waiting for me to speak.

I had no idea what to say or do. Lavinia and I had rehearsed such scenes many times when we were playacting, but none of that seemed right now that I was actually here with Mummy. It felt silly to say something melodramatic, ridiculous to say something banal.

In the end, though, I did resort to the banal. “The garden smells nice tonight. The jasmine especially.”

Mummy nodded. “I’ve always loved jasmine on a summer’s night,” she said. Then she closed her eyes.

Was that all we were going to talk about-jasmine? It seemed so. I squeezed her hand tightly and looked hard at her face, as if that would help me to remember it better. I could not bring myself to say good-bye.

The doctor touched my shoulder. “It’s best if you go now, miss.”

I let go of Mummy’s hand, and went downstairs and back out into the garden, wading through the wet grass down to the back fence. The ladder was still there, although Lavinia and I did not meet each other over the fence so much now. I climbed to the top of the wall. The Waterhouses’ ladder was not up. I balanced there for a moment, then jumped, landing in the wet grass and smearing my dress. When I got my breath back I walked up the garden to the French doors that led directly into the Waterhouses’ back parlor.

The family was arranged in a semicircular tableau that a painter might have set up. Ivy May lay across the chaise longue, hair spread around her face, eyes closed. Lavinia lay at her sister’s feet, her head resting on the edge of the chaise longue. Mrs. Waterhouse sat in an armchair near Ivy May’s head, holding her hand. Mr. Waterhouse leaned against the mantelpiece, a hand covering his eyes. Simon hovered near the door with his head bowed.

I knew just from looking at them, gathered together yet so separate in their grief, that Ivy May was dead.

I felt as if my heart had been hollowed out, and now my stomach was too.

When I came in they all looked at me. Lavinia jumped up and threw herself into my arms, weeping. I gazed over her shoulder at Mrs. Waterhouse. It was as if I were seeing myself mirrored in her face. Her eyes were quite dry, and her expression was of someone who has been struck a blow from which she will not recover.

Because of that, I spoke the words directly to her. “My mother is dead.”

Kitty Coleman

All her life Maude was a presence at my side, whether she was actually there or not. I pushed her away, yet she remained.

Now I was holding on to her hand and did not want to let go. It was she who had to let go of me. When she did at the last, I knew I was alone, and that it was time for me to depart.

Simon Field

Next day Mr. Jackson went out and shot that white horse through the head.

Later, as our pa and Joe and me was digging, the police came to take me away for questioning. Our pa didn’t even look surprised. He just shook his head and I knew what he were thinking-I should never have got in with them girls.

The police asked me all kinds of things about what I did that day-not just about looking for Ivy May, or finding her, but about the horse and Kitty Coleman and Mr. Jackson. They seemed way off the mark to me, and none too nice about it neither. It were like they wanted to make their lives easy and say I did the crime.

When it sounded like they was ready to accuse me I said, “Who would be stupid enough to do that to a girl and then bring her home to her parents?”

“You would be surprised what criminals do,” one of the policemen said.

I thought of the tall man with the specs at the end of the mews. But when it came time to describe finding Ivy May I didn’t tell ‘em about him. Would’ve been easier on me if I had-given ’em someone else to look for.

But I knew he was long gone-them bumblers would never find him.

I would, though, someday. Find him. For Ivy May.

John Jackson

I arranged to meet Miss Coleman at her family grave. I’d considered asking her to come to Faraday, where her mother and I used to meet. But it was a silly, sentimental thought, and risky besides-questions might be asked if we were seen alone in the Dissenters, whereas in the meadow we could be thought to be discussing burial arrangements.

She was dressed all in black, with her hair up under a black straw hat. I had never seen her before with her hair up-she looked several years older. She has no idea but she is beginning to resemble Kitty.

“Thank you for coming, Miss Coleman,” I said as we stood side by side next to the grave. “I’m so sorry for your loss. It has been a great shock to us all. But your mother is with God now.” I blinked rapidly at the ground. I often express my condolences to mourners at the cemetery, but this time I felt the inadequacy of the words.

“My mother did not believe in heaven,” Maude said. “You know that.”

I wondered what those last three words were meant to signal. How much did she know about my intimacy with her mother? Her expression was so guarded that it was impossible to guess.

“Simon didn’t tell me what you wanted to see me about when he delivered the message,” she said. “I assume it is to do with my mother’s burial, which I thought my father went over with you.”

“He was here yesterday, yes. There was something I wished to discuss with him but did not. I thought that perhaps you and I might do so.”

Maude raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

There was no easy way to say it-no stock expressions or careful euphemisms to smooth the shock of the idea. “Your mother told me she wished to be cremated rather than interred.”

Maude looked up at the Coleman urn, studying it as if she had never seen it before. “I know that. She was always worried she might be buried alive.”

“Then perhaps you could tell your father what she told you.”

“Why didn’t you tell him yesterday?”

I paused. “She spoke of it only unofficially-she did not put it in writing or tell her husband. It would not be appropriate for me to tell him.”

Maude pursed her lips. “Daddy already knows she wanted to be cremated. They used to argue about it. He feels we should do what society dictates concerning the disposal of-of bodies.”

“He won’t agree to it even if he knows it was his wife’s fervent wish?”

“He’ll do what looks best.” Maude paused. “He lost her, and now he has got her back he will be sure to keep her.”

“What people do with their dead is usually a reflection of themselves rather than of their loved one,” I said. “Do you think all these urns and angels mean anything to the dead? It takes a very unselfish man to do exactly what his wife wants without his own-or society’s -desires and tastes entering into it. I had rather hoped your father was that man.”

“But surely if all these monuments mean nothing to the dead, then nothing we do to them does?” Maude replied. “If they don’t care, shouldn’t we then do what is important to us? It’s we who are left behind, after all. I’ve often thought this place is really for the living, not the dead. We design the grave to remind us of the dead, and of what we remember of them.”

“Will the urn on your family grave remind you of your mother-of what she was and what she wanted?”

“No, there is nothing of my mother on it,” Maude admitted. “If my mother were to choose her own grave it would have a statue of Mrs. Pankhurst on it and under her name it would read ‘Votes for Women.’ ”

I shook my head. “If your mother were to choose her own grave there would be no monument or words at all. It would be a bed of wildflowers.”

Maude frowned. “But Mummy is dead, isn’t she? She really is dead. She’s not going to design her grave.”

She was a remarkable young lady-there are few who could say what she said without flinching.

“And because she’s dead,” she continued, “surely she won’t care what happens to her body. She won’t be buried alive-we know that. It’s we who care-my father most of all. He represents all of us, and he must decide what is best.”

I leaned over and brushed away a spider from the Waterhouse grave. I knew it was not fair of me to make demands on her-after all, she was only thirteen years old and had just lost her mother. But for Kitty’s sake I must. “All I would ask of you, Miss Coleman,” I said gently, “is that you remind your father of what you know-of what he must already know-of your mother’s wishes. It is of course for him to decide what will then be done.”

Maude nodded and turned to go.

“Maude,” I said.

“Yes?”

“There is something else.”

She closed her eyes briefly, then looked at me.

“Your mother’s funeral”-I stopped abruptly. I could not tell her-it would be a breach of my professional duties, and I could lose my position for saying anything. But I wanted somehow to warn her. “It would be best if you spoke to your father sooner rather than later.”

“All right.”

“It is a matter of urgency. Perhaps more than you know.”

“I’ll speak to him today.” Maude turned and hurried down the path that led to the entrance.

I stood there for some time, studying the Coleman grave. It was hard to imagine Kitty being buried there. That absurd urn made me want to snort with laughter.

Richard Coleman

She came to see me in my study as I was going through papers. I stopped writing. “What is it, Maude?”

She took a deep breath-she was clearly very nervous. “Mummy said to me once that she wanted to be cremated and her ashes scattered.”

I looked down at my hands. There was a spot of ink on the cuff of my shirt. “Your mother said a great many things that have not come to pass. She once said she wanted four children. Do you see any sisters or brothers about? Sometimes what we think and what we do are not meant to be the same.”

“But-”

“That’s enough, Maude-there is nothing more to be said on the matter.”

Maude shuddered. I’d spoken more sharply than I’d intended. These days I find it difficult to control my tone.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she whispered. “I was only thinking of Mummy. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You haven’t upset me!” I pressed my pen so hard into the paper that the nib suddenly cracked. “Damn!” I threw down the pen.

Maude slipped out without another word.

The sooner this week is over the better.

Lavinia Waterhouse

Purchased from Jay’s in Regent Street, 22nd June 1908:

1. 1 black dress in paramatta silk for me-for the funeral and for Sundays; my old merino dress is for everyday. There was an even lovelier silk dress, with crape all round the neck, but it was too dear.

2. 1 black bombazine dress for Mama. It looks so cheap and shiny that I tried to convince her to buy paramatta instead, but she said we didn’t have the money and she would rather I had the silk as it matters more to me. Sweet of her.

3. 1 black cotton petticoat for me, 2 pairs bloomers threaded with black ribbon.

4. 1 black felt hat with veil for me. I insisted on the veil-I look so awful when I’ve been crying and shall need to pull down the veil often to hide my red eyes and nose. Mama did not buy a hat for herself but said she would dye one of her bonnets. She did at least buy a few ostrich feathers to trim it with.

5. 2 pairs black cotton gloves for Mama and me. They have 4 lovely jet buttons up the cuff. Mama had chosen plain ones without buttons, but did not notice when I switched them. Also, pair of gloves, a hatband, and black cravat for Papa.

6. 7 black-edged handkerchiefs-2 for Mama, 5 for me. I wanted many more but Mama would not let me. She has not cried at all, but I insisted she should have a few, just in case she does cry.

7. 200 sheets stationery with medium-band black edging.

8. 100 remembrance cards on order that read as follows:

Ivy May Waterhouse Age 10

“A lovely flower, soon snatched away,

To bloom in realms divine;

Thousands will wish, at Judgment Day,

Their lives were short as mine.”

I chose the epitaph, as Mama was overcome in the shop and had to go outside for some air. The shop assistant said the epitaph was meant for a baby, not someone Ivy May’s age, but I think it’s lovely, especially the phrase To bloom in realms divine, and I insisted it remain.

I could have spent all day in Jay‘s-it is so comforting to be in a shop devoted entirely to what one is experiencing. But Mama refused to linger and became quite short with me. I don’t know what to do about her-she is very pale, poor dear, and hardly says a word except to be contrary. Much of the time she remains in her room, lying in bed as if she is ill. She rarely emerges for visitors, and so it has been up to me to see to the entertaining-pouring out cups of tea, asking Elizabeth to bring in more cake and crumpets. So many cousins arrived today that we ran out and I had to send Elizabeth to the baker’s for more. I myself cannot eat a thing, except for the odd slice of currant bread, which the King’s physician recommends for keeping the strength up.

I have tried to interest Mama in the letters of condolence we have received, but she does not seem to read them. I have had to answer them myself, as I worry that if I leave them with Mama she will simply forget, and it does not do to delay a reply.

People have said the most surprising things about Ivy May-how angelic she was, how she was the perfect daughter and such a support to Mama, how tragic for us and how much she will be missed. Indeed, I sometimes want to write back and ask if they thought it was I who died. But instead I make sure simply to sign my name large and clear, so that there will be no doubt.

Mama said to me at breakfast that she does not want me to go back to school, that I can finish the term by studying at home. Oust as well, as I am in no mood to sit in class. I should probably interrupt everything by weeping at the wrong moments.) And that next term I am to switch schools and attend the Sainte Union on the Highgate Road. My heart did a little leap, as the girls there have such smart uniforms. I was surprised, of course, as the school is Catholic, but perhaps I shouldn’t be-Mama asked for the priest from St. Joseph’s in Highgate to come and see her last night. Papa said not a word. If reverting to Catholicism is a comfort to her, what is one to say?

Papa has been kept very busy with the arrangements, and that is good, I think. I helped him when I could, as Mama is unable. When the undertaker came to see us it was I who chose the dress Ivy May is to wear (white cotton with puffed sleeves that used to be mine) and the flowers (lilies) and what to do with her hair (loose curls and a crown woven of white roses). Papa answered the other questions about the coffin and horses and such. He also met with the cemetery people and the vicar, and with the police.

The latter gave me rather a shock, as Papa brought a policeman home to question me! He was nice enough, but asked me so many questions about that awful afternoon in Hyde Park that I began to be confused about exactly when Ivy May went missing. I tried to be brave but I’m afraid I went through all the handkerchiefs we had just bought. Luckily Mama was upstairs and so did not have to hear the details. Papa had tears in his eyes by the time I finished.

The policeman kept asking me about the men in the crowd. He even asked about Simon, as if Simon were someone to be suspicious of! I put him straight there. And I told him about the men who chased Maude and me at the demonstration, and how frightened we were.

I did not tell him about the man who put his hand on my bottom. I knew that I should have, that it was just the thing he was looking for. But I was embarrassed to have to speak of it. And I could not bear to think that that man got hold of my sister. Telling the policeman about him would be like an admission that he had. I wanted to keep Ivy May safe from him, in my mind if nowhere else.

No one has talked about what actually happened to Ivy May. But I can guess. I am no idiot. I saw the marks on her neck.

Tonight I was standing at my window when I saw Maude standing at hers. We waved to each other, but it felt very peculiar, and after a moment I stepped back from the window. We are not allowed to visit each other, as one is not meant to pay visits while in mourning. Besides which, I don’t think seeing Maude would bring much comfort to me now-all I can think of is her mother abandoning us in that huge crowd, and Ivy May’s sweaty hand slipping from mine.

I sat on my bed and looked at Ivy May’s little white bed in the corner. We would never lie in our beds again at night and whisper and tell each other stories-or rather, I told them and she listened. I am all alone now.

It hurt so much to look at that bed that I went down right then and asked Papa to move it.

Gertrude Waterhouse

I am so heavy with guilt that I cannot get out of bed. The priest has come, and the doctor, and neither can rouse me.

I did not tell them, nor Albert either, that I pretended to have a sprained ankle. Albert, bless him, thought it was real. If I had not pretended, if I had taken the girls to the march-or indeed if I had stood up to Livy and not allowed her to go-Ivy May would be sitting here with me now.

I have killed my daughter with my own stupidity, and if she is not here I do not want to live either.

Edith Coleman

The first thing I did was to give that impertinent maid her notice. I am sorry to admit that anything in a house of mourning could give me satisfaction, but that did. Of course she wailed and wrung her hands, but her dramatics had no effect on me-if anything they made me more determined that I had done the right thing, and none too soon.

Jenny had the nerve to mention Maude. “What will she do?” she kept crying.

“Maude will continue as she has always done. I will look after her-I have come to stay and will remain for as long as I am needed. But that is no concern of yours.”

Jenny looked stricken.

“I let you go two years ago,” I reminded her, “for reasons I’m sure you remember. My daughter-in-law should never have taken you back. Pack your bag and go. Your final wages will be sent to you.”

“What about my reference?”

I snorted. “Do you think I would give a reference to a girl like you?”

“But how am I to get another position?”

“You should have thought of that when you lay with that man.”

The girl ran from the room. To my surprise Mrs. Baker appeared a few minutes later, asking me to keep Jenny on.

“Why should I keep on a girl of such lax morals?” I replied. “Believe me, she will be much better off staying home and looking after her child, the poor mite.”

“And what will she feed him-air?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Never mind about Jenny’s son, ma‘am,” Mrs. Baker said. “It’s for Miss Maude’s sake that I’m asking you to keep Jenny. The poor girl’s just lost her mother-I hate to see her losing the people round her too. Jenny’s been here since Miss Maude was a baby. She’s like family to her.”

“That girl is nothing like family to Maude!” I was so furious it was a struggle to keep my voice down. “How dare you compare her to the Colemans! And Maude doesn’t need her-she’s got me.” By losing a mother, she has gained a grandmother, I almost said, but thought the better of it.

So Jenny went. Maude said not a word, though she stood in the hallway and watched her go with a very pale face.

Then, for her sake and Richard‘s, I made another decision. Already the morning after Kitty’s death the flowers had begun arriving-elaborate arrangements of lilies, irises, cornflowers, white roses, all tied up with purple, green, and white ribbons. The cards read things like “To Our Fallen Comrade” and “Hope Is Strong-In Heaven As On Earth” and “She Gave Herself To The Cause.” And that infernal telephone rang so much that I had a man come and disconnect it. Then suffragettes began coming to the door to ask about the funeral, until I had the hired girl who replaced Jenny turn them away. It was clear that Kitty was becoming a martyr to them. I dreaded to think what would happen if the suffragettes turned up en masse to the funeral-they might take it over and turn it into a political rally. I would never forgive myself for allowing James’s family name to be dragged through the mud yet again.

I would not let it happen. I spoke to Richard of my plan and he readily agreed. After that it was not so difficult to arrange things to our satisfaction-after all, discretion is paramount in the undertaking trade.

Jenny Whitby

She come running after me as I walked down the street with my bag. I’d stopped crying by then-I were too scared of what was to become of me even to cry. She didn’t say nothing, just threw her arms round me and hugged me tight.

There ain’t nothing she can do-a girl of thirteen up against such a grandmother? I feel terrible for breaking my promise to her mum about that witch, but I got no influence with someone like that-the missus should’ve known that. Nor can I do nothing about keeping her secret from the men. That’s in God’s hands now-or Miss Livy‘s, more like.

None of this should be my concern now, though-I got my own troubles, like how to keep me mum and me son and me on no wages and no reference. I’ve no time for tears. I’ve the rest of the missus’s sil- verware in my bag, but that won’t last forever.

Albert Waterhouse

I am rather ashamed of my daughter. I know these are difficult days for her, as they are for us all; indeed I’ve wondered if she would hold up under the strain. But I wish Livy and Maude had not said such awful things to each other in public, and right at Ivy May’s grave-my poor Ivy May, who I could not protect from evil men. I am just glad Trudy was being comforted by a sister and did not hear them-she would have been horrified to hear herself argued over.

It was at first something to do with Maude’s dress. I am no judge of these things, but she was wearing a rather fine silk dress that Livy clearly envied. Livy said something about the dress being ostentatious for a girl of thirteen to wear.

Maude then replied, “Lavinia, you can’t spell the word, must less understand what it means. Mourning dresses by definition are not ostentatious.”

I was a bit surprised, as Maude is usually so soft spoken. But then, she has just lost her mother. And Livy was shocked-and livid, I am sorry to say.

“I know enough to know that you should not be wearing a boater with that dress,” Livy said. “Nor should you put your hair up under a boater-it just looks silly. And it’s coming down at the back. Your hair isn’t thick enough to put up the way mine is.”

“Perhaps you forget that I have no mother to ask advice of,” Maude said. “Nor a sister, nor even a maid, now.”

“I don’t have a sister either! Have you forgot that?”

Maude looked mortified at her slip, and if Livy had allowed her to apologize, as she seemed about to do, their argument might have blown over. But of course Livy couldn’t resist pressing her point. “All you think of is yourself. Have you spared a thought for poor Mama, who has lost a daughter? Is there anything worse than losing one’s child?”

“Losing one’s mother, perhaps,” Maude said in a low voice.

These comparisons were so odious that I finally had to step in-wishing I had done so earlier. (I often wish that, when it is too late.) “Livy, would you like to walk with your mother down to the carriage?” I asked, at the same time giving what I hoped was a sympathetic look to Maude.

“Papa, how often must I remind you-it’s Lavinia.” Livy turned her back on Maude and went over to her mother. I was about to say something-what, I did not know-but before I could, Maude slipped away and ran up the path farther into the cemetery.

Later that night, I could not sleep and came downstairs with my candle to get out Cassell’s and The Queen. I have never looked in women’s manuals before-thankfully I have little to do with household sorts of things. But at last I found what I was looking for-both manuals say that a child mourns its parent and a parent its child for the same period of time-one year.

I left both books on the table open to those pages, but when I came down the next morning they had been put away.

Maude Coleman

I could not stop shaking. I have never been so furious.

What I hated most were the horrid things I said as well. Lavinia brought out the worst in me, and it is much harder to live with that than with her remarks. I have learned to expect her to say silly and stupid things, and I have usually managed not to sink to her level, until now.

I sat for a long time by the sleeping angel. I had not known where I was running to until I ended up there. And that is where he found me. I suppose I knew he would. He sat down at the end of the slab of marble but did not look at me or say anything. That is his way.

I looked up into the bright blue sky. It was an obscenely sunny day for a funeral, as if God were mocking us all.

“I hate Lavinia,” I said, swatting at some vetch that was growing at the base of the angel’s plinth.

Simon grunted. “Sounds like something Livy would say.”

He was right.

“But you ain’t Livy,” he added.

I shrugged.

“Listen, Maude,” he said, then stopped.

“What is it?”

Simon tapped his finger on the marble. “We’re digging your ma’s grave now.”

“Oh.” I could not think what more to say.

“It’s too early to be digging it. For a funeral meant for the day after tomorrow, in sandy soil? We should be digging it tomorrow afternoon. Else it could cave in, sitting there an extra day. Dangerous enough as ‘tis. Shoring don’t always work in sand. And Ivy May’s grave so close. Don’t like to dig two graves close together like that at the same time-the dirt don’t hang together so well on that side. No choice about it, though, is there?”

“Who told you to dig Mummy’s grave now rather than tomorrow?”

“The guvnor. Told us this morning. Our pa tried to argue with him but he just said to get on with it once Ivy May’s funeral’s done. Said he’d handle the consequences.”

I waited for Simon to continue. I could see from his face that there was something he would eventually tell me, laying it out step by step in his own time.

“So I had a little look round. Couldn’t see nothing from the work map in the lodge. Then I heard that the chapel here’s been booked for tomorrow morning. Now I knows the other graves dug for tomorrow’s all got coffins coming from outside. Don’t say which the chapel is for.”

I shook my head. “Mummy’s service is at St. Anne’s on Friday afternoon. Daddy told me.”

“Then one of the mutes at Ivy May’s funeral just now told me they’re doing a funeral at the chapel here tomorrow,” Simon continued as if I had not spoken. “Has to be your ma. Hers is the only grave ready with nothing to go in.”

I stood up-it hurt to hear him talk about Mummy like that, but I did not want him to see how much his words upset me. “Thank you for telling me,” I said. “I’ll try to find out from Daddy if something has been changed.”

Simon nodded. “Just thought you’d want to know,” he said awkwardly.

I wondered if Simon knew that Mr. Jackson had asked me about cremation-he seemed to find out about everything else. If he did, though, he didn’t say. At Ivy May’s grave Mr. Jackson had caught my eye, and to his unspoken question I’d simply shaken my head. He must have guessed by then anyway that Daddy had said no-otherwise he would have heard from us.

Instead I asked Simon about something else-something I was sure he knew. “What happened to Ivy May that day?” I said, looking straight at him. “No one will tell me.”

Simon shifted on the marble. For a long time he didn’t say anything and I wondered if I would have to repeat myself. Then he cleared his throat. “Someone strangled her.”

His answer was so stark that I could feel my own throat tightening. “A man?” I managed to say.

Simon nodded, and I saw from his face that I should not ask more.

We sat for a moment without speaking.

“I’m sorry ‘bout your ma,” Simon said suddenly. He leaned across and quickly kissed me on the cheek, then jumped off the grave and was gone.

Back at home I ran into Grandmother in the front hall, inspecting a bouquet of flowers that had arrived-lilies tied with green, white, purple, and black ribbons. “Suffragettes!” she was muttering. “Just as well we-” She stopped when she saw me. “Back already from the meal?”

“I haven’t been to the Waterhouses’ yet,” I confessed.

“Not been? Get you over there, then. Pay your respects. That poor child’s mother is gray with grief. Such a terrible terrible death. I hope they catch the man who-” She stopped herself.

“I will go,” I lied. “I just… need to have a word with Mrs. Baker first.” I ran downstairs so that I would not have to tell her why I was not going to the funeral meal. I just could not bear to see Mrs. Waterhouse’s face sucked dry of life. I could not imagine what it must feel like to lose a child, and to lose her so awfully and mysteriously. I could only compare it to how I felt losing my mother: an aching emptiness, and a precariousness about life now that one of the things I had taken for granted was gone. Mummy may have been absent or remote these past few years, but she had at least been alive. It was as if Mummy had been shielding me from a fire and then was suddenly taken away so that I could feel the scorching flames on my face.

For Mrs. Waterhouse, though, there must be simply a feeling of horror that I could not begin to describe.

Was one worse than the other, as Lavinia seemed to suggest? I did not know. I just knew that I couldn’t see Mrs. Waterhouse’s dead gaze without feeling an abyss open in myself.

Instead of going to the Waterhouses’ funeral meal, I went down to ask Mrs. Baker about ours. Since she was preparing it, she of all people would know if there had been a change in the arrangements.

She was stirring a pot of aspic on the range. “Hello, Miss Maude,” she said. “You should eat-you haven’t touched your food these last few days.”

“I’m not hungry. I-I wanted to ask if everything will be ready for Friday. Grandmother wanted me to find out for her.”

Mrs. Baker gave me a funny look. “Course it will.” She turned back to the pot. “I just spoke to your grandmother this morning. Nothing’s changed in two hours. Beef jelly will set overnight, the ham’s to be delivered this afternoon. It should all be ready by the day’s end. Mrs. Coleman wanted me to get everything ready early so I can help her with other things tomorrow-she’s not happy with the temporary help. Not that I do just anything. I won’t work on my knees, no matter what.” She glared at the pot. I knew that she missed Jenny, though she would never say.

She clearly thought the funeral Would be on Friday. If Daddy had changed the day, no one knew but him and probably Grandmother. I could not face asking either of them, and I knew they would not tell me anyway.

When I came down to breakfast next morning both Daddy and Grandmother were sitting at the table in their best mourning clothes, untouched cups of coffee in front of them. They had peculiar looks on their faces, but they simply said, “Good morning, Maude,” as I sat down to a bowl of congealed porridge. I tried to eat but could not swallow, so I simply pushed at the porridge with my spoon.

The doorbell rang. Daddy and Grandmother jumped. “I’ll get it,” Grandmother said to the hired char, who was lurking by the sideboard. I frowned at Daddy but he would not look at me-he kept his eyes on the newspaper, though I don’t think he was really reading it.

I heard low voices in the front hall and then heavy footsteps on the stairs, as well as creaking. Soon the footsteps sounded overhead, in Mummy’s room, and I knew Simon was right.

“Why have you done this, Daddy?”

He still would not look at me. “Finish your porridge, Maude.”

“I’m not hungry. Why have you changed the day of the funeral?”

“Go and change into your new dress, Maude.” Grandmother spoke from the doorway.

I did not move from my chair. “I want to know why you’ve done this. I have a right to know.”

“You have no rights!” my father roared, banging his hand on the table so that coffee slopped from both cups. “Don’t ever let me hear you say that again. You are my daughter and you will do as I say! Now go and change!”

I did not move from my chair.

Daddy glared at me. “Do I have no authority in my own house? Does no one obey me? Has her influence extended so far that my own daughter won’t do as I say?”

I did not move from my chair.

Daddy reached over and knocked my porridge bowl to the floor. It smashed at the feet of the terrified maid.

“Richard,” Grandmother warned. She turned to me, her face more lined than usual, as if she had not slept well. “Your mother’s funeral is to be this morning. We felt it best to have a private service so that it is not taken over by the wrong element. Now, go upstairs and put on your dress. Quickly, now, while I have a word with Mrs. Baker. The carriage will be here soon.”

“I didn’t want it to be taken over by the suffragettes,” Daddy said suddenly. “You saw what happened when she was released from prison-it was turned into a victory celebration. I’m damned if I’m going to let them make a martyr of her. Fallen comrade, they call her. They can go to bloody hell!” He sat back with such a pained look that I could almost forgive him his behavior.

I knew there was nothing I could do, so I ran upstairs. As I passed Mummy’s room-which I had avoided all week, leaving anything that needed doing in there to Grandmother-I could hear tapping. They were nailing the coffin shut.

In my room I dressed quickly. Then it came to me that there was one thing I could do. I found paper and pen and scribbled a note, pausing for a moment to recall the address I had seen printed so often on the letters page of the local paper. Then, grabbing my hat and gloves, I raced downstairs again, passing Daddy and Grandmother’s surprised faces in the front hall as I continued down to the kitchen.

Mrs. Baker was standing by the table, arms crossed, glaring at the spread of food laid out, a large ham glistening with jelly the center-piece.

“Mrs. Baker,” I whispered, “if ever you loved my mother, please find someone to take this immediately. Please, for her sake. As quick as you can, else it will be too late.”

Mrs. Baker glanced at the address, then without a word she strode to the back door and wrenched it open. As I was stepping into the carriage with Daddy and Grandmother I saw her stop a boy in the street and give him the note. Whatever she said to him made him run as if he were chasing his hat in the wind.

It was pouring with rain. The undertaker had spread straw in front of our house to muffle the horses’ hooves, but it was not necessary-the rain drowned out the sound anyway. A few neighbors had seen the funeral carriages and were standing in their doorways, but most were not expecting to do so until the next day.

No one spoke in the carriage. I stared out the window at the passing houses, and then the long brick-and-iron fence that separated graves from the road. The carriage ahead of us with the glass sides carrying the coffin was splashed with rain. All along the route people took off their hats for a moment as we passed.

At the cemetery Mr. Jackson stepped up to the carriage with a large umbrella and helped down first Grandmother and then me. He nodded at me briefly, and I managed to nod back. Then he led us through the gate to the chapel entrance, where Auntie Sarah was waiting for us. She was twelve years older than Mummy and lived in Lincolnshire. They had not been close. She pecked me on the cheek and shook Daddy’s hand. Then we went into the chapel for the service.

I sat in the front pew between Daddy and Auntie Sarah, with Grandmother next to Daddy. At first it was just the four of us and the vicar of St. Anne‘s, who led the service. But when we began the first hymn, I heard voices behind me joining in to sing “Nearer My God to Thee,” and turned to see Mr. Jackson and Simon standing at the back.

Just as we’d finished the second hymn, “Abide With Me” (which of course Mummy had detested), the door banged open. Caroline Black stood in the doorway, breathing heavily, her hat askew, her hair tumbling down. Daddy stiffened. “Damn her,” he muttered. Caroline Black took a seat halfway up the aisle and caught my eye. I nodded at her. When I turned back to face the front I could feel Daddy’s fury next to me, and I smiled a little and lifted my chin, as Mummy used to do when she was being defiant.

Damn you, I thought. Damn you yourself.

When it was all done-when the coffin had been taken into the cemetery and laid in the grave with the gigantic urn looming over it; when Simon and his father began to fill it in, working steadily in the pouring rain; when I stepped away from my mother to begin the journey home-Caroline Black reached over and took my hand. It was then that I at last began to cry.

Dorothy Baker

The waste of all that food was a crime. She didn’t even apologize-just said there had been a change in plans and there would be just four for the funeral meal. And there was me preparing for fifty!

I nearly walked out then and there, but for Miss Maude. In a week she’s lost her mum and Jenny-and her best friend, from what the Waterhouses’ char says. She doesn’t need me leaving too.

Simon Field

What happens today I’ll never tell Maude. Probably won’t tell no one.

After Kitty Coleman’s funeral our pa and Joe and me start filling the grave. The soil’s sandy, makes it hard to shovel much in at once, even in the rain. It’s always harder digging in the meadow, in the sand. Clay needs more cutting with the spade, but it sticks together so you can handle it easier than sand.

We been real careful with this grave, it being so close to Ivy May’s. It’s twelve feet deep, so Maude and her pa and gran can fit in when their time comes. We done extra shoring and made sure the wood were tight as we could get it against sand. Sand can be a killer if it ain’t handled right.

We’re shoveling in the sand awhile, and the grave’s half full. It’s chucking down rain and we’re soaked. Then our pa’s cap falls in.

“I’ll get it,” I says to our pa.

“Nah, son, I’ll get it,” he says, and jumps right in like he’s a boy again. Lands straight on his cap and starts to laugh. “Bull‘s-eye,” he says. “You owe me a pint.”

“Where you going to get a pint?” I laugh. “You’ll have to walk a long way for it.”

Only pub round here that’ll serve gravediggers is the Duke of St. Albans the bottom of Swain’s Lane, and they won’t let our pa in anymore ‘cause he got so drunk he tried to kiss the landlady, then wrecked a chair.

Just then there’s a crack and the shoring on the side by Ivy May’s grave pops out. It does that when the ground round it’s shifting. Before our pa can do anything but duck the flying wood, that side of the grave collapses.

It must happen fast, but it don’t seem like it. Seem like I got lots of time to watch our pa look up like he’s just heard thunder overhead and is waiting for the next flash of lightning. “Oh,” I think I hear him say.

Then the dirt is raining down on him, piling round him up to his waist. There seems to be a little pause then but it can’t be long‘cause Joe and I ain’t moved at all yet, ain’t said a word, ain’t even breathed.

Our pa catches my eye for a second and seems to smile at me. Then a pile of dirt comes down and knocks him over.

“Man in!” I shout as loud as I can through the rain. “Man in!” It’s words no one likes to hear in this place.

The dirt is still moving like it’s alive but I can’t see our pa now. Just like that he’s not there. Joe and I scramble round the grave, trying to keep from setting off more dirt. The hole’s three quarters full now. We need a big timber or ladder to lay‘cross the hole, to give us something stable to work from, but there ain’t one around. We had a ladder but someone’s borrowed it.

There ain’t no time to wait when a man’s buried like that. He’ll die in a few minutes if he ain’t got no air. I jump into the hole though I’m not supposed to, landing in the mud on all fours like a cat. I look and look and then I see the thing our pa taught me. I see his finger sticking out the dirt, just the tip of it, wiggling. He remembered to put his hand up. I start clawing round the finger with my hands. Don’t dare use a shovel. I dig so hard the sand gets jammed under my nails and it hurts bad.

“Hang on, our Pa,” I say as I’m digging. “We’re getting you out. I see your fingers. We’re getting you out.”

Don’t know as he can hear me, but if he can it might make him feel better.

I’m digging and digging, trying to find his face, hoping he put the other hand up to it. There ain’t no time, not even to look up. If I did look up, though, I know I’d see Joe standing on the edge of the grave, looking down at me, hands at his sides. He’s a big man, and can dig for hours without stopping, but he’s no thinker. He don’t do the delicate work. He’s better off up there.

“Joe, start counting,” I say as I keep clawing at the sand. “Start from ten and keep counting.” I reckon I’ve dug ten seconds.

“Ten,” Joe says. “‘Leven. Twelve.”

If he gets to two hundred and I ain’t found our pa’s face it’ll be too late.

“Thirty-two.”

“Sixty-five.”

“One twenty-one.”

I feel something overhead and look up. There’s a ladder ‘cross the grave now. If more dirt comes down I can reach up and grab hold of the rungs so it don’t get me. Then someone jumps into the grave beside me. It’s Mr. Jackson. He reaches out with his arms wide and hugs the pile of dirt I been digging. I didn’t think he were that strong but he shifts the pile back so I got more room. He do just what I need him to do without me having to say it.

“One seventy-eight.”

My fingers touch something. It’s our pa’s other hand. I dig round the hand and find his head, then dig round that and lift his hand so his mouth and nose are clear. His eyes are closed and he’s white. I put my ear up to his nose but don’t feel breath tickle it.

Then Mr. Jackson pushes me aside and puts his mouth over our pa’s like he’s kissing him. He breathes into his mouth a few times, then I see our pa’s chest go up and down.

I look up. Round the grave, all silent and still, there’s a circle of men standing-other diggers, gardeners, masons, even dung boys. Word got out fast and everybody came running. They’ve all took their caps off, even in the pouring rain, and are watching and waiting.

Joe’s still counting. “Two twenty-six, two twenty-seven, two twenty-eight.”

“You can stop counting, Joe,” I says, wiping my face. “Our pa’s breathing.”

Joe stops. The men all move, shifting feet, coughing, talking tow-everything they held back while they was waiting. Some of ‘em don’t like our pa for his love of the bottle, but no one wants to see a man caught down a grave like that.

“Hand us a spade, Joe,” Mr. Jackson says. “We’ve got a lot of work to do yet.”

I never been down a grave with Mr. Jackson. He ain’t so handy with a spade as me or other diggers but he insists on staying there with me till we get our pa out. And he don’t tell the other men to get back to work. He knows they want to see this through.

I like working side by side with him.

It takes a long time to uncover our pa. We have to dig careful so we don’t hurt him. For a time he has his eyes closed like he’s asleep, but then he opens ‘em. I start talking to him as I’m working so he won’t get scared.

“We’re just digging you out, our Pa,” I say. “The shoring come down with you in the grave. But you covered your face like you taught me, and you’re all right. We’ll be moving you out in a minute.”

He don’t say nothing, just keeps looking up at the sky, with the rain coming down so fast and going all over his face. He don’t seem to notice it. I start to have a bad feeling which I don’t say nothing ‘bout ’cause I don’t want to scare nobody.

“Look,” I says, trying to get him to say something. “Look, it’s Mr. Jackson digging. Bet you never thought you’d see the guvnor digging for you, eh?”

Our pa still don’t say nothing. The color’s coming back to his face but something’s still missing from his eyes.

“Expect I owe you that pint, our Pa,” I say, desperate now. “Expect there’s plenty of men’ll be buying you a pint today. I bet they’ll be letting you back in the Duke of St. Albans. The landlady might even let you kiss her.”

“Let him be, lad,” Mr. Jackson says real soft. “He’s just been through an ordeal. It may take him some time to recover.”

We work without talking then. When at last our pa’s uncovered, Mr. Jackson checks for broken bones. Then he takes our pa in his arms and hands him up to Joe. Joe puts him in a cart they use to haul stones, and two men start pulling him down the hill toward the gate. Mr. Jackson and I climb out the grave, both of us muddy all over, and Mr. Jackson starts to follow the cart. I stand there not sure what to do-the grave’s not filled and it’s our job to do it. But then two other diggers step up and take up the spades. They don’t say nothing-they and Joe just start filling the rest of the grave.

I follow Mr. Jackson and the cart down the path. When I catch up to him I want to say something to thank him, something that connects us so I’m not just another digger. I was close to him in Kitty Coleman’s grave and I want to remind him of that. So I say the thing I know ‘bout him and her, so he’ll remember the connection and know how grateful I am to him for saving our pa.

“I’m sorry ‘bout the baby, sir,” I say. “I bet she were too. She weren’t never the same after that, were she?”

He turns and looks at me sharp like. “What baby?” he says.

Then I realize he didn’t know. But it’s too late to take the words back. So I tell him.