Falling Angels (24 page)

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.

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.

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.

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.