Трейси Шевалье - Falling Angel

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.

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.

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.

At first I would not speak to Maude when she 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.