Falling Angels

  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 s
he 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. “W
hat 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?”