Трейси Шевалье - Falling Angel

The best part has been the mistakes. It first happened when I was sewing on letters for one of the endless banners that read DEEDS NOT WORDS. (I am sick to death of those words!) As I was folding the finished banner I happened to glance at it and discovered I had sewn on WORDS NOT DEEDS. I was all ready to unpick the letters, but I peeked at Maude and saw that she hadn’t noticed-she was frowning over her banner, sucking on another pricked finger. So I quietly folded the banner, put it on the pile, and smiled to myself. Apparently there are to be thousands and thousands of banners-women all over the country are sewing them. Every few days Maude’s mother rushes in, grabs the pile of finished banners, and rushes out again without so much as a thank-you. I doubt anyone will trace the mistake back to me.

After that I began to make more “mistakes”-a few more WORDS NOT DEEDS, and then I sewed WEEDS NOT RODS, and stuffed the extra D in my pinafore pocket. It was great fun creating errors: WORKING WOMEN DEMAND THE VOTE became VOTING WOMEN DEMAND WORK; HOPE IS STRONG became ROPE IS THONG.

I had done half a dozen or so when Maude caught me out. She was helping me fold one when she suddenly said, “Stop a moment,” and spread out the banner. It read WHO WOULD FLEE THEMSELVES MUST STRIKE THE BROW.

“Lavinia! That’s meant to read, ‘Who would be free themselves must strike the blow’! You know, from Byron!”

“Oh, dear,” I said, and giggled.

“Haven’t you even been reading what you’re sewing? And where are the B and E for ‘BE’? ”

I smiled sheepishly and pulled the letters out from my pocket. “I thought they were left over, or a mistake,” I said.

“You know very well what it was supposed to say,” Maude muttered. “What shall we do with it? It’s too late to change it, and we can’t hide it-Mummy’s sure to count them and will want to know why one is missing.”

I struck my own brow. “Oh, dear, I’d best flee.” It was silly but it made Maude laugh. Soon we were laughing so hard we were crying. It was good to see her laugh. She has been so serious these days. In the end we simply folded up the banner and added it to the pile.

I had not thought I would go to the Hyde Park march-the thought of being among thousands of suffragettes made me shiver. But after so many days of sewing and overhearing things about it, I couldn’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t be rather fun. There are to be women from all over the country, not all of them suffragettes per se, and there will be bands and speakers, and spectacles all over. And then Maude told me everyone is to wear white and green and purple, and I thought up the perfect outfits for us. We would wear our white dresses, and trim our straw hats with flowers from the Colemans’ garden. Maude’s mother may be sinful, but she has cultivated the most wonderful flowers.

“Delphiniums, cornflowers, star jasmine, and Persian jewels, all wound round with green leaves,” I decided. “It will look ever so beautiful.”

“But you said you didn’t want to go,” Maude said. “And what will your mother say?”

“Mama shall come with us,” I said. “And we won’t necessarily march, but we can be spectators.”

Maude thinks Mama will never agree, but she always says yes to me.

I felt very silly doing it, but I couldn’t see any other way to stop her. When Livy and Ivy May came home from school my ankle was wrapped in a bandage and propped on a footstool. “I tripped over the threshold,” I said when Livy exclaimed over it. “It’s only a sprain, thankfully, no broken bones.”

“Oh, Mama, you are so clumsy,” she said.

“Yes, I know.”

“How long did the doctor say you must stay off it?”

“A week at least.”

“But that means you can’t take us to the march Sunday!”

“Yes, I know. I’m sorry, dear-I know how much you were looking forward to it.” I myself had been dreading it.

Livy cried out. “But we must go! We can’t miss it, can we, Ivy May?”

Ivy May was inspecting the bandage. I should have wound it more tightly.

“Perhaps Papa can take us,” Livy suggested.

“No,” I said quickly. I would not have Albert involved. “You will be at church with him in the morning, and he is playing cricket in the afternoon. No, I think it best if you stay home.”

“Well, then, we could go with Maude and her mother.”

“No,” I said again, even more quickly.

“We’ll be perfectly safe.”

“No.”

Livy glared at me so hard I almost couldn’t bear it. “Really, Livy, dear,” I said as lightly as I could, “I don’t understand why you want to go so badly anyway. It’s not something that is of interest to you; nor should it be. I’m sure whoever you marry will be quite capable of deciding for you whom to vote for.”

“On the contrary,” Livy announced, “I do support woman’s suffrage.”

Ivy May tittered. “Livy doesn’t want to be left out,” she said.

“Shush, Ivy May, I’m sure you want to go to Hyde Park too,” Livy said.

“Do you really support woman’s suffrage?” I asked, surprised at my daughter.

“I do! I think the colors are splendid-the scarves and jewelry in violet, green, and white. And the women whizzing about in motorcars, so lively and passionate-” Livy stopped when she saw my face.

“I do not approve of the suffragettes, nor of the march,” I said sternly, hoping that would be the end of the matter.

Of course it was not. Livy cried for two days and would not speak to me, until at last, the night before the march, I gave in. Nothing stops her getting what she wants, not even her silly mother’s schemes. I did not want Livy to discover I had tried to deceive her, so in the end I could not even go with them, but had to hand them over to Kitty Coleman.

Ivy May caught me walking on my “sprained” ankle. Bless her, she said not a word.

We got off the omnibus at Euston Station and began to wade through the crowds of people already gathered on the pavement. Women were pouring out of the station, having ridden down on special trains from the north. Lavinia and I each grabbed one of Ivy May’s hands and held tight as we were pushed and shoved among a sea of accents from Birmingham and Manchester and Lancashire.

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.”