Трейси Шевалье - Falling Angel

“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.