Трейси Шевалье - Falling Angel

“All right,” she said at last.

I had her and Jenny help bring out the stacks of banners I’d been sewing-or rather, that I’d begun and found I hadn’t the time for, and so paid Jenny and Mrs. Baker extra to sew. I am still far behind the number I’ve promised to make. I am going to have to enlist Maude, though her sewing is worse than mine.

It was thrilling to be driven through London. I have done it many times now, but I still love it. Fred wears goggles when he drives, but I refuse to-I feel I never see anything if I have them on. We had tied our hats down with scarves-mine a purple, green, and white one that reads “Votes for Women” (I offered one to Maude but she refused) -but everything flapped like mad in the wind anyway, and the dust from the street flew into our clothes and hair. It was terribly exciting. The speed was so exhilarating-we zoomed past milk carts, horse-drawn omnibuses, men on bicycles, and raced alongside motorized cabs and other private cars. Pubs, washhouses, tea shops, all passed by in a blur.

Even Maude enjoyed herself, though she did not say much-not that one can talk over the noise of the engine. For the first time in months she seemed to relax, snug in the backseat between me and the banners. As we drove through an avenue of plane trees, their leaves forming a canopy overhead, she leaned her head back and looked up at the sky.

She helped me unload the banners at Clements Inn-Fred never lifts a finger to help, as he disapproves of suffragettes-but would not stay in the office, preferring to wait outside with Fred. I tried to be quick about it, but there were so many comrades to greet, questions to answer, and points to be raised, that by the time I got back to the car Maude and Fred were both sulking.

“Sorry!” I cried gaily. “Never mind, let’s go on. Collingwood’s on Bond Street, if you please, Fred.” This stop wasn’t strictly WSPU business, but it was certainly to do with woman’s suffrage.

Maude looked surprised. “Has Daddy bought you something new?” Collingwood’s was where Richard went for jewelry for me.

I laughed. “In a manner of speaking. You’ll see.”

But when she saw the necklace in the black velvet box which the jeweler proudly presented to me, she didn’t have quite the response I’d expected. She said nothing.

The necklace was made up of emeralds and amethysts and pearls, clustered together to form purple and white flowers with green leaves. The stones came entirely from necklaces I already owned: pearls I had received for my confirmation, amethysts inherited from my mother, and emeralds from a necklace Mrs. Coleman gave me when I got married.

“You’ve done a marvelous job,” I said to the jeweler. “It’s exquisite!” Maude was still staring at the necklace.

“Don’t you like it?” I asked. “It’s the colors, don’t you see? The WSPU colors. Lots of women are having pieces made up in them.”

“I thought-” Maude stopped.

“What is it?”

“Well-was I to inherit the necklaces that it is made from?”

“Gracious, is that what the matter is? So now you’ll inherit this one instead.”

“Daddy will be furious,” Maude said quietly. “And Grandmother. Those were her emeralds.”

“She gave me that necklace to do with what I liked. It’s mine now-it’s not for her to say.”

Maude was silent, a silence worse than the sulk earlier.

“Shall we go to Fortnum and Mason’s for ice cream?” I suggested.

“No, thank you, Mummy. I think I’d like to go home now, please,” Maude said in a small voice.

I’d thought she would love the necklace. It seems that I can never please her.

I noticed them immediately. Kitty was in the hallway, preening herself in the mirror before we left for Mother’s party. Jenny stood holding her wrap while Maude watched from the steps. Her dress was cut low, and as I glanced at her décolletage I recognized the emeralds. I had seen my mother wear them many times when she and my father went to parties and functions, and once to meet the Queen. They look hideous now, made up in a new necklace with other stones.

I said nothing-Kitty’s blackmail has effectively cut out my tongue. Instead I grew furious with myself for being so powerless with my wife. Surely this was not how a husband should be, so helpless and without authority. Kitty knew exactly what she was doing.

Later when I saw the look on my mother’s face as she gazed at Kitty’s necklace, I could have throttled my wife’s lovely white throat.

I think she enjoys tormenting me.

It has been bad enough this past year the few times when, for form’s sake, I have had to visit my son at their house. Worse still when she was sent to Holloway and the Coleman name appeared in the papers. I was mortified, but it blew over more quickly than I had expected. My friends-my good friends-did not mention it, sparing me further embarrassment. I was just glad that James is not alive to see his name brought so low.

But the worst has been the emeralds. James’s mother gave them to me the night before our wedding, with the understanding that I would cherish and preserve them, to pass on to my own son’s wife. In those days such an understanding was unspoken. It would never have occurred to me to do anything other than wear the emeralds proudly and pass them on willingly when the time came. It could never have occurred to any of us Coleman women to desecrate them as Kitty has done.

She wore them to my annual May party, with a dark green silk dress cut far too low. I knew immediately what they were, even if the necklace itself was not familiar to me. I would have known my emeralds anywhere. She saw me recognize them as well. Poor Richard standing next to her had no idea. Emeralds are in a woman’s realm, not a man’s. I shall never tell him.

I did not make a scene-I could not in front of everyone, and I would not do so to please her either. Instead I waited until the last guest had gone. Then I sat in the dark and wept.

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?