Falling Angel

Lavinia Waterhouse

The first thing I thought when I heard the bells tolling was that they might disturb Mama in her delicate condition. But then, Mama has never been so fond of this king as she was of his mother. His death is of course very sad, and I do feel for poor Queen Alexandra, but it is not like when Queen Victoria died.

I threw open the window to lean out. It should have been raining, or foggy, or misty, but of course it wasn‘t-it was a beautiful May morning, sunny and soft. The weather never does what it ought.

Bells seemed to be ringing everywhere. Their noise was so mournful that I crossed myself. Then I froze. Across the way Maude had opened her window, too, and was leaning out in her white nightgown. She was staring straight at me, and she seemed to be smiling. I almost stepped away from the window, but it would have seemed very rude since she had already seen me. Instead I stayed where I was, and I was rather proud of myself-I nodded at her. She nodded back.

We have not spoken in almost two years-not since Ivy May’s funeral. It has been surprisingly easy to avoid her-we no longer go to the same school, and if I have passed her in the street I’ve simply turned my head and pretended not to see her. Sometimes at the cemetery when I’ve gone to visit Ivy May I’ve seen Maude at her mother’s grave, and then I’ve crept away and gone for a walk till she’s done.

Only once did we come face-to-face in the street. It was over a year ago now. I was with Mama and she with her grandmother and so it was impossible to avoid her. Maude’s grandmother went on and on giving her condolences to Mama while Maude and I stood there gazing at our shoes, not a word passing between us. It was all terribly awkward. I did manage to glance up at her from time to time, and saw that she was wearing her hair up for everyday now, and had begun wearing a corset! I was so shocked I wanted to say something, but of course I couldn’t. Afterward I made Mama take me straight out to buy a corset.

I have never said much to Mama about falling out with Maude. She knows we fought, but not why-she would be mortified if she knew it was in part over her. I know she thinks Maude and I are being silly. Perhaps we are. I wouldn’t admit it to Maude but I do miss her. I have not met anyone at the Sainte Union who comes close to being the kind of friend Maude was. In fact the girls there have been rather awful to me, I think because to be honest I am so much prettier than they. It can be a burden having a face like mine-though on balance I prefer to keep it.

I expect my nod at Maude means I have forgiven her.

I went down to breakfast, still in my dressing gown, with a suitably sad face for the King. Mama, however, seemed not to notice the bells at all. She is so big now that she cannot sit easily at the table, and so she was eating a plate of marmalade toast on the chaise longue while Papa read the paper to her. Even as he read out the news Mama was smiling to herself, with a hand resting on her stomach.

“Such sad news,” I said, depositing a kiss on each of their heads.

“Oh, hello, dear,” Mama said. “Would you like to feel the baby kicking?”

Really, it was enough to make me flee the room. It is one thing for Mama to be pleased about the baby, especially at her age, and it is good that she has some color in her cheeks. But she seems to have altogether forgot Ivy May.

Papa smiled at me, though, as if he understood, and for his sake I stayed and managed a bowl of porridge, though I did not feel much like eating.

When I went back upstairs to change, I stood in front of my wardrobe and debated for a long while about what to wear. I knew I should wear black for the King, but just looking at that old merino rag hanging there made me feel faint. Perhaps if I’d still had the lovely silk from Jay’s I would have worn that, but I burned it a year after Ivy May’s death, as one is not meant to keep mourning clothes-they might tempt Fate to make one need to use them again.

Besides, I wanted to wear my blue dress, which I love. It has a special significance-I have been wearing it as often as possible, especially leading up to Mama’s imminent confinement. I want a baby brother. I know it’s silly, but I thought wearing the blue would help. I don’t want another sister-it would hurt too much, and remind me of how I failed Ivy May so miserably. I let go of her hand.

So I put on my blue dress. At least it is dark blue-dark enough that from a distance it could be taken for black.

What is sad about today is not simply that the King is dead, but that his mother is truly gone now. If it were she who died I would not have thought twice about wearing black. I have begun to feel recently that I am the only one who still looks back to her as an example to us all. Even Mama is looking forward. I am getting tired of swimming against the tide.

Maude Coleman

I lay in bed for a long time and tried to guess which bells belonged to which church: St. Mary’s Brookfield up one hill, St. Michael’s and St. Joseph’s up the hill in Highgate, our church St. Anne’s at the bottom. Each rang just one low bell, and although each was at a slightly different pitch and tolled ever so slightly more or less slowly, still they all sounded the same. I had not heard such a noise since Queen Victoria’s death nine years ago.

I stuck my head out of the window and saw Lavinia crossing herself in her window. Usually when I caught a glimpse of her somewhere-in her garden or on the street-a jolt ran through me as if someone had shoved me from behind. But now it was so strange to see her make such a foreign gesture that I forgot to be upset at seeing her. She must have learned to cross herself at the Sainte Union. I thought of her years ago being frightened of going into the Dissenters’ section of the cemetery where all the Catholics are buried, and smiled. It was funny how things change.

She saw me then, and, hesitating for a moment, she nodded to acknowledge my smile. I had not meant it as a smile at her, really, but once she nodded I felt I ought to nod too.

We turned away from our windows then, and I went to get dressed, hesitating over the dresses in my wardrobe. The black silk hung there still, but it would need altering to fit me now-I had filled out since last wearing it, and I was wearing a corset besides. I had worn black for almost a year following Mummy’s death, and for the first time I had understood why we are meant to wear black. It is not just that the color reflects a mourner’s somber mood, but also that one doesn’t want to have to choose what to wear. For the longest time I would wake in the morning and be relieved that I did not have to decide among my dresses-the decision had been made for me. I had no desire to wear color, or to be concerned about my appearance. It was only when I did want to wear color again that I knew I was beginning to recover.

I wondered sometimes how Lavinia fared with such a long period of mourning for Ivy May-six months for a sister, though I expect she kept up with her mother and wore black for a year. I wondered now what she would wear for the King.

I looked at my dresses again. Then I saw Mummy’s dove-gray dress among them and thought that perhaps I could manage that. It still surprises me that her dresses now fit me. Grandmother does not approve of me wearing them, but the stroke has left her unable to speak easily, and I have managed to ignore her dark looks.

I suppose she is thinking in part of Daddy, and I do try not to wear Mummy’s dresses in front of him. I could see him now, smoking a cigarette out in the garden-something Mummy forbade him to do, as he always flicks the butts into the grass. I went downstairs in the gray dress and slipped out before he saw me.

On Swain’s Lane the paperboys were crying out about the King’s death, and some shops were already hung with black and purple banners. No one was painting their ironwork black, though, as they had done after the Queen’s death. Some people were dressed in black, but others weren’t. They stopped to speak to one another, not in the hushed tones of mourners, but jovially as they spoke of the King. I remembered that when the Queen died everything ground to a halt-no one went to work, schools were closed, shops shut. We ran short of bread and coal. Now, though, I sensed this would not happen-the baker would deliver his bread, the milkman his milk, the coal man his coal. It was a Saturday, and if I went over to the heath, children would still be flying kites.

I had been planning to return a book to the library, but when I got there it was shut, with a small notice announcing the King’s death pasted to the door. Some still honored the tradition. I glanced across the road at the cemetery gate, remembering the white banner from the library falling onto the funeral procession, and Mr. Jackson, and Caroline Black. It seemed a long time ago, and yet I also felt as if I’d lost Mummy only yesterday.

I didn’t want to go home, so instead I crossed the road, entered the gate, and began walking up the path toward the main part of the cemetery. Halfway up, Simon’s father was sitting on a flat tombstone and leaning against a Celtic cross. He had a hand on each knee and was gazing into the distance the way old men do by the seaside. His eyes flashed with the blue of the sky so that it was hard to tell what he was looking at. I wasn’t sure that he saw me, but I stopped anyway. “Hallo.”

His eyes moved about but did not seem to fix upon me. “Hallo,” he said.

“It is a shame about the King, isn’t it?” I said, feeling I ought to make conversation.

“Shame ‘bout the King,” Simon’s father repeated.

I had not seen him in a long while. Whenever I looked for Simon at work, his father did not seem to be digging with him, but was off getting a ladder or a wheelbarrow or a bit of rope. Once I had seen him propped up against a grave, asleep, but had thought he was sleeping off a night of drink.

“Do you know where Simon is?” I asked.

“Where Simon is.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and looked deep into his eyes. Although they were turned in my direction, they did not show any recognition. It was as if he were blind, though he could see. Something was wrong with him-he clearly would not push a spade into clay again. I wondered what had happened to him.

I squeezed his shoulder. “Never mind. It’s been lovely to see you.”

“Lovely to see you.”

Tears pricked my eyes and nose as I continued along the path.

I tried to stay away from our grave, and wandered for a time around the cemetery, looking at the crosses, columns, urns, and angels, silent and shining in the sun. But somehow in the end I still found my way there.

She was already waiting for me. When I saw her I thought at first that she was wearing a black dress, but when I got closer I realized it was blue-which was what Mummy had worn so scandalously for Queen Victoria. I smiled at that, but when Lavinia asked why I was smiling, I knew better than to say.

Simon Field

They’re sitting each on her own grave, like they used to. I ain’t seen them together in a long time, though neither would ever tell me what the matter was with the other whenever I saw one alone. Too much happened in too little time for them girls.

They don’t see me-I hide well.

They ain’t quite themselves now-they don’t have their arms linked, and they don’t laugh the way they used to. They’re sitting far apart and making polite talk. I hear Maude ask, “How is your mother?”

Livy gets a funny look on her face. “Mama is going to have a baby any day now.”

Maude looks so surprised I almost laugh and give myself away. “That’s wonderful! But I thought-I thought she was too old to have children. And-after Ivy May…”

“It seems not.”

“Are you pleased?”

“Of course,” Livy says. “Life does go on, after all.”

“Yes.”

They both look at their graves, at Ivy May’s and Kitty Coleman’s names.

“And your grandmother-how is she?” Livy asks.

“She is still living with us. She had a stroke a few months ago and can’t speak.”

“Oh, dear.”

“It’s just as well, really. It’s much easier to be with her now.”

The two of ‘em giggle as if Maude’s said something naughty. I come out from behind a grave and scrape my feet in the pebbles on the path so they’ll hear me. They both jump. “Hello,” Maude says, and Livy says, “Where have you been, naughty boy?” and that’s like old times. I squat by our granpa’s grave across from them, pick up two pebbles from the path, and rub ’em ‘tween my fingers.

“How did you know we were here?” Maude asks.

I shrug. “I knew you’d both come. King’s dead, ain’t he?”

“Long live the King,” they say together, then smile at each other.

“Isn’t it a pity?” Livy says. “If Mama has a boy she shall have to name him George. I don’t like that name as much as Edward. Teddy, I would have called him. Georgie isn’t quite so nice.”

Maude laughs. “I’ve missed your silly remarks.”

“Hush,” Livy says.

“Simon, I saw your father just now,” Maude says suddenly.

I let the pebbles drop back onto the path.

“What happened to him?” she asks real quiet.

“Accident.”

Maude don’t say nothing.

“He were buried. We got him out, but…” I shrug again.

“I’m sorry,” Maude whispers.

“And I,” Livy adds.

“I got something to ask you,” I says to Livy.

She stares at me. Bet she’s thinking ‘bout that kiss down the grave, years ago. But that’s not what I’m going to ask her.

“You know I marked all the graves here. Got all of ‘em in the meadow, far’s I know. ’Cept yours.” I jerk my head at the Waterhouse angel. “You told me not to, all them years back, after the Queen died. So I didn’t. But I want to now. For Ivy May. To remember she’s there.”

“What, to be reminded she’s just bones?” Livy says. “That’s horrid!”

“No, no, it ain’t that. It’s to remind you she’s still there. Some of her rots, sure, but her bones’ll be there for hundreds of years. Longer’n these stones, even, I’ll bet. Longer’n my mark. That’s what matters, not the grave and what you put on it.”

Maude looks at me funny, and I can see that all these years she ain’t understood my skull ‘n’ crossbones either, for all her being smarter than Livy.

Livy don’t say nothing for a minute. Then she says, “All right.”

I get up and go behind the plinth with my pocket knife.

While I’m back there, scratching the mark, they start talking again.

“I don’t care if Simon marks the angel,” Livy says. “I’ve never felt the same about it since it fell. I’m always expecting it to fall again. And I can still see the break in the nose and neck.”

“I have never liked our grave,” Maude says. “I look at it and none of it makes me think of Mummy, even though her name’s on it. Did you know she wanted to be cremated?”

“What, and placed in the columbarium?” Livy sounds horrified.

“No, she wanted her ashes scattered where flowers grow. That’s what she said. But Daddy wouldn’t do it.”

“I should think not.”

“It’s always felt wrong, burying her here, but there’s nothing to be done. As you said, life goes on.”

I finish the mark and fold up my knife. I’m glad to have done it, like I finally scratched an itch on my back. I’ve owed Ivy May a long time. When I come out I nod at them. “I has to get back to work. Joe’ll be wondering where I am.” I’m quiet a minute. “You’ll be coming back to see me, both of you?”

“Of course,” they say.

Don’t know why I asked that, ‘cause I know the answer, and it ain’t the one they gave. They’re growing up and they don’t play in the cemetery anymore. Maude’s got her hair up and looks more like her mother every day, and Livy’s…well, Livy. She’ll be married at eighteen, to a soldier, I expect.

I hold out my hand to Maude. She looks surprised but she takes it.

“Good-bye,” I say. She knows why I’m doing it, ‘cause she knows the real answer too. Suddenly she steps up to me and kisses my dirty cheek. Livy jumps up and kisses the other one. They laugh, then they link arms and start down the path together toward the entrance.

I got an idea back there behind Ivy May’s grave. Listening to Maude made me think about her ma’s grave, and how our pa got buried in it. I always thought maybe it were a sign she didn’t want to be buried there. Sometimes I think Mr. Jackson thought the same thing. The look on his face when her coffin were lowered into the grave was like a knife turning in his gut.

I go down to see Mr. Jackson. He’s in the lodge meeting with a family ‘bout a burial, so I wait in the courtyard. A line of men are pushing wheelbarrows ’cross to the dumping ground. This place don’t stop even for a king.

When Mr. Jackson’s showed his visitors out, I clear my throat. “Can I have a quick word, guvnor?” I say.

“What is it, Simon?”

“Something I need to say inside. Away from everybody.” I nod at the wheelbarrows.

He looks at me surprised, but he lets me into the lodge and shuts the door. He sits behind his desk and starts straightening the ledger he’s been writing in, recording the next burial-date and time and place and depth and monument.

He’s been good to me, Mr. Jackson. He don’t never complain ‘bout our pa not digging. He even pays him same as ever, and gives me and Joe extra time to finish. Some of the other diggers ain’t happy ’bout it, but Mr. Jackson shuts ‘em up. They looks at our pa sometimes and I can see ’em shiver. “Grace of God,” they whisper. “There but for.” They don’t talk to us much, me and Joe. Like we’re cursed. Well, they’ll have to live with me. I ain’t going nowhere, as far as I can see. ‘Cept if there’s a war, what Mr. Jackson sometimes says there might be. They’ll need diggers then.

“What did you want, Simon?” Mr. Jackson says. He’s nervous of what I might say, wondering if I got any more surprises to tell him. I still feel bad, giving that one up ‘bout Kitty’s baby.

It ain’t easy to say it. “I been up at the Coleman grave,” I says at last. “Maude and Livy were there.”

Mr. Jackson stops moving the ledger and lays his hands on the desk.

“Maude were saying how her mother wanted to be burn-cremated. And how she looks at the grave now and there ain’t nothing there of her mother‘cept her name.”

“Is that what she said?”

“Yep. And I were thinking-”

“You were thinking too much.”

I almost don’t go on ‘cause he sounds so miserable. But something about Kitty Coleman keeps linking him and me.

“I think we should do something ‘bout it,” I say.

Mr. Jackson looks at the door like he’s scared someone might come in. He gets up and locks the door. “What do you mean?” he says.

So I tell him my idea.

He don’t say nothing for a time. Just looks at his hands laying on the desk. Then he balls his hands into fists.

“It is the bones that pose the problem,” he says. “We have to get the fire hot enough for long enough. Special coal, perhaps.” He stops.

I don’t say nothing.

“It may take some time to organize.”

I nod. We got time. I know just when to do it-when everybody’s looking somewhere else.

Gertrude Waterhouse

When she came in I didn’t say a word to Livy about the blue dress. I hadn’t noticed her wearing it this morning. Though it did surprise me, I managed to hide it behind burbling about the baby. I hope at least that she wears black on the day of the King’s funeral. They say it is to be set for a fortnight’s time.

But then, perhaps it is just as well that Livy is wearing blue. I don’t think just now that I could face the drama she brings to mourning. Dear Ivy May would have been appalled at how her sister has carried on over her, when she never did when Ivy May was alive.

I do miss her. That feeling never leaves, I have discovered, nor my guilt-though I have managed at last to forgive myself.

Perhaps I am being unfair on Livy. She has grown up quite a bit over this past year. And she said that she has made it up with Maude. I am glad. They need each other, those girls, whatever has happened in the past.

“Do you know, Mama,” Livy was saying just now, “the Colemans have had electricity installed? Maude said it’s wonderful. Really I think we should have it too.”

But I was not listening. I had felt something inside me that was no kick. It was beginning.

Albert Waterhouse

I confess I’d had a fair few. What with toasting Trudy’s health and the old King’s passing and the new King’s health, the pints did add up. And I was in there since midafternoon, when Trudy started. By the time Richard came in I was more or less propping up the Bull and Last’s bar.

He didn’t seem to notice. Bought me a pint when he heard Trudy was abed, talked about the cricket and which games would be canceled for the King.

Then he asked me something peculiar. Fact is, I still wonder whether or not he did say it or it was the pints talking in my ear. “Maude wants to go to university,” he said.

“Come again?”

“She came to me today and said she wants to go to a boarding school that will prepare her for the exams to get into Cambridge. What do you think I should do?”

I almost laughed-Richard always has trouble with his women-folk. But then, anything can happen with those Coleman women. I thought of Kitty Coleman holding my arm that time I took her home, and her ankles flashing slim and lovely under her skirt on her bicycle, and I couldn’t laugh. I wanted to cry. I studied the foam on my beer. “Let her,” I said.

Just then our char ran in and told me I have a son. “Thank God!” I shouted, and bought the whole pub a round.

Richard Coleman

Maude sat with me in the garden tonight while I smoked a cigarette. Then Mrs. Baker called for her and she went inside, leaving me alone. I looked at the smoke curling through my fingers and thought: I will miss her when she goes.

Dorothy Baker

I shouldn’t have waited so long to bring Miss Maude into it. But I wasn’t to know, was I? I try to mind my business. And I couldn’t say anything while her grandmother was running the house. That stroke has been the biggest blessing in disguise. I could see Miss Maude blossom once her grandmother’s mouth was stopped.

I didn’t say anything straightaway after the stroke-it would’ve looked bad to go against a woman after something like that. But the other day a letter was returned I’d meant for Jenny, reading “gone away.” Of course the letter had been slit and the coins stolen. I’d been sending her the odd shilling when I could spare it, trying to help her out. I knew they were close to the edge, her and her mother and Jack. Now it seemed they couldn’t manage the rent.

Later when I was going over the week’s menus with Miss Maude, I decided I had to say something. Perhaps I should have said it more casual, but that’s not my way. We finished, and I shut the book and said, “Something’s wrong with Jenny.”

Miss Maude sat up straight. “What’s the matter?” We don’t speak of Jenny, so it was a surprise to her.

“I’ve had a letter returned-she and her mum have moved.”

“That doesn’t mean something’s wrong. Perhaps they’ve moved someplace-nicer.”

“She would’ve told me. And she doesn’t have the money for nicer.” I’d never told Miss Maude how bad it was. “Fact is, Jenny’s had a hard time of it ever since your grandmother let her go without a reference.”

“Without a reference?” Miss Maude repeated like she didn’t understand.

“Without a reference she can’t get another job as a maid. She’s been working in a pub, and her mum takes in washing. They’ve hardly a shilling between them.”

Miss Maude was beginning to look horrified. She is still innocent of many of the ways of the world. I didn’t dare tell her what working in a pub can lead to.

Then she surprised me. “How can she raise a son on that?”

I hadn’t been sure till then that she knew Jack was Jenny’s son. But she said it calmly, as if she wasn’t judging her.

I shrugged.

“We must find her,” Miss Maude said. “That is the least we can do.”

“How? It’s a big city-she could be anywhere. The neighbors would’ve given the postman a forwarding address if they knew it.”

“Simon will find her,” Miss Maude declared. “He knows her. He’ll find her.”

I was going to say something, but she was so trusting in the boy that I didn’t have the heart to dash her hopes.

“Suppose we do find her,” I said. “What do we do then? We can’t have her back here, what with the new maid making a good job of it. It wouldn’t be fair to her.”

“I shall write the new maid a reference myself.”

It’s surprising how quick a girl can grow up when she’s a mind to.

Simon Field

When Maude tells me to find Jenny I don’t ask why. Sometimes I don’t need to know why. It ain’t so hard to do-turns out she’s been to see our ma, who tells me where she is. When I go there her and her mum and Jack are in a tiny room with not a crumb of food ‘tween ’em-Jenny spent all her money on what our ma could do for her.

I take‘em to a caff and feed ’em-Maude’s given me money for it. The boy and his gran eat everything in sight, but Jenny just picks at her food. She’s gray in the face.

“I don’t feel well,” she says.

“That’ll pass,” I say, which is what our ma always says after a woman’s been to her. A few years back Jenny wanted nothing to do with what our ma does for women, but things is different for her now. She knows what it’s like to have a child don’t get enough to eat. That’ll change anyone’s mind about bringing another mouth into the world you can’t feed.

I don’t say nothing, though. Jenny don’t need me to remind her how things change. I keep my mouth shut, and get her to have a little soup.

Guess I’ve caught her just in time.

Lavinia Waterhouse

Well. I don’t know. Truly I don’t know what to think. Maude has often said I must try to be more open minded, and I suppose this is one of those moments when I should try. But it is very difficult. Now I have two more secrets to keep from her.

I have just come back from the cemetery, of course. Our lives seem to revolve around it. I had gone there on my own to visit our grave. I wanted to, just before the King’s funeral. Mama of course couldn’t come because she is still in bed, with little Georgie at her side. When I left they were both asleep, which is good as I didn’t want to leave her alone otherwise. Elizabeth is there, though I don’t trust her with Georgie-I’m sure she would drop him on his head. Papa is at work, though he said it has been very dull and quiet there this week, everyone with long faces and doing very little-waiting for the King to be laid to rest.

I could have asked Maude to go with me, but we spent all of yesterday together, queueing up Whitehall to see the King lying in state, and I was rather happy to be in my own company.

I went to our grave and placed a new posy for Ivy May, and weeded a bit-around the Colemans’ as well as ours, for it needed attention. The Colemans can be rather lax on that front. And then I just sat. It was a lovely, sunny, quiet afternoon. I could just feel the grass and flowers and trees around me growing. I thought about the new king-King George V. I even said it aloud a few times. It is easier to accept him now that I have a brother named for him.

Then I had the idea to tour the angels. It had been so long since I had seen them all. I began with ours, of course, and walked around counting. There are far more than thirty-one now, but I looked only for those old ones from my childhood. It was like greeting old friends. I reached thirty but for the life of me I couldn’t find the thirty-first angel. I was deep in the cemetery, up by the northwest corner, still searching, when I heard the bell ring for closing. Then I remembered that I had forgot the sleeping angel, and hurried down the Egyptian Avenue to it. Only when I’d seen it, lying on its side asleep, wings neatly tucked, did I feel I could go.

I rushed down the path toward the entrance. It was really very late-no one was about, and I worried that the gates might already be locked. Nonetheless, I ran into the meadow just for a moment to say good-bye to Ivy May.

And there I found Simon and Joe and Mr. Jackson, beginning to pry up the granite slab on the Coleman grave! I was so shocked I just stood there, my mouth hanging open. For an awful moment I thought I had lost Maude too. Then Simon saw me and dropped his spade, and Joe and Mr. Jackson stopped as well. They all looked so guilty that I knew something was wrong.

“What in heaven’s name are you doing?” I cried.

Simon glanced at Mr. Jackson, then said, “Livy, come sit a minute.” He waved at the foot of my angel. I sat under it rather gingerly-I have never quite trusted it since it fell.

Simon explained everything. At first I could say nothing. But when I had got my breath back I said, “It is my Christian duty to remind you that what you are doing is both illegal and immoral.”

“We know,” that naughty boy replied-he said it almost gleefully!

“It is what she wanted,” Mr. Jackson said very quietly.

I gazed at him. I could have his job, and Simon’s. If I told the police about this, I could ruin his life, and Simon‘s, and upset Maude and her father dreadfully. I could.

But that would not bring back Ivy May.

They were looking at me fearfully, as if they knew what I was considering.

“Are you going to tell Maude?” I asked.

“When the time is right,” Mr. Jackson said.

I let them wait a little longer. It was very quiet in the cemetery, as if all the graves were waiting for me to reply.

“I shan’t tell anyone,” I said at last.

“You sure, Livy?” Simon said.

“Don’t you think I can keep a secret? I haven’t told Maude about what happened to her mother, you know-about the baby. I did keep that secret.”

Mr. Jackson started and turned red. I looked at him and, after years of leaving the puzzle unfinished in my mind, I at last allowed him to take his place next to Kitty in the story. To my great surprise I felt sorry for him.

Another secret. But I wouldn’t tell. I left them to their gruesome task and ran home, trying not to think about it. It was not so hard-once I’d got in and was holding my baby brother in my arms, I discovered it was quite easy to forget everything but his sweet face.

Maude Coleman

It was long past midnight when Daddy and I came to the top of Parliament Hill. We had gone to the Hampstead Scientific Society’s new observatory by Whitestone Pond to look at Halley’s Comet, and were walking across the heath on our way home.

It had been a disappointing viewing-the waxing moon was shining so brightly that the comet was rather indistinct, though its long curved tail was still spectacular. But Daddy loves the observatory-he campaigned so hard to have it built-and I did not want to spoil his evening there by complaining about the moon. I was one of the few ladies present, and kept very quiet.

Now, though, with the moon lower in the sky, the comet was more visible, and I felt more relaxed than I had been in the dome with its narrow slit of sky, crowded with men drinking brandy and smoking cigars. Lots of people were still out on the hill, looking at the comet. Someone was even playing “A Little of What You Fancy” on an accordion, though no one danced-the King was being buried in a few hours’ time, after all. It was strange that the comet should be in the sky the night before his funeral. It was the kind of thing Lavinia would make a great deal of, but I knew it was simply a coincidence, and coincidences can often be explained.

“Come, Maude, let’s go home,” Daddy said, flicking a cigarette butt into the grass.

Something flared in the corner of my eye. I looked across at the next hill toward Highgate and saw a huge bonfire burning, lighting up the trees around it. Among the dancing branches I thought I saw the cemetery’s cedar of Lebanon.

That fire was certainly no coincidence-someone had probably lit it for the King. I smiled. I love fire. I felt almost as if it had been lit for me as well.

Daddy disappeared down the hill into the darkness ahead of me, but I remained a little longer, my eyes flicking back and forth between the comet and the flames.

Simon Field

It takes a long time. We’re at it all night. He were right ‘bout the bones.

Afterward as the sun’s coming up we get some buckets and half fill ‘em with sand. We mix the ashes into it and we sprinkle it all over the meadow. Mr. Jackson has plans to let wildflowers grow there, like she wanted. That’ll make a change from all them flower beds and raked paths.

I still got a little left in a bucket and I goes to our granpa’s rosebush and dump the rest there. That way I’ll be sure of where some of her is, if ever Maude wants to know. ‘Sides, bone meal’s good for roses.