Трейси Шевалье - Falling Angel

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

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

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

Miss Livy was pointing at Simon.

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

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

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

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

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

Simon nodded and went out of the gate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why I have received two invoices from the mason’s yard at the cemetery is a mystery. “For repairs to grave furniture,” one read. This was separate from the invoice for chiseling my sister’s name into the plinth. At her funeral I didn’t notice anything wrong with the grave. Trudy said she knows nothing of it, but Livy became quite upset when I mentioned it, and ran from the room. Later she said it was because she was having a coughing fit, but I didn’t hear any coughing. And Ivy May just looked at me as if she knew the answer but wasn’t about to tell me.

My daughters are an even greater mystery to me than the rogue invoice-which I have sent on to the superintendent with a query. Let him sort it out-he seems a capable fellow.

It has often been the case that I am the one forced to take in hand an unfortunate situation. This age has gone soft. I see it everywhere: in the foolish fashions that pass for women’s dress, in the shockingly permissive theater, in this ludicrous woman’s suffrage movement we hear of. Even, dare I say it, in the conduct of our own king. I only hope his mother never got wind of his shenanigans with Mrs. Keppel.

The young lack the moral fiber of their elders, and time and again my generation is required at the last to step into the breach. I do not complain of doing so-if I can be of assistance, of course I will do whatever is required, out of Christian charity. When it happens in my own son’s house, however, I feel it as a more personal attack-an ill reflection on him and on the Coleman name.

It seems that Kitty is simply blind. It was I who shone the light into the dark corners and illuminated them for her.

I had come to lunch, served on that horrid black-and-yellow-checked service-another example of the frivolities of the day. Far worse, however, was the state of their maid. After she had banged every dish onto the table and waddled out again, I sat stunned. Kitty did not meet my eye, but pushed the poached fish and new potatoes around her plate. I disapprove of lack of appetite-it is selfish behavior when there is so much hardship in the world. I would have said so but I was more concerned to address the problem of Jenny.