Трейси Шевалье - Falling Angel

“Such sad news,” I said, depositing a kiss on each of their heads.

“Oh, hello, dear,” Mama said. “Would you like to feel the baby kicking?”

Really, it was enough to make me flee the room. It is one thing for Mama to be pleased about the baby, especially at her age, and it is good that she has some color in her cheeks. But she seems to have altogether forgot Ivy May.

Papa smiled at me, though, as if he understood, and for his sake I stayed and managed a bowl of porridge, though I did not feel much like eating.

When I went back upstairs to change, I stood in front of my wardrobe and debated for a long while about what to wear. I knew I should wear black for the King, but just looking at that old merino rag hanging there made me feel faint. Perhaps if I’d still had the lovely silk from Jay’s I would have worn that, but I burned it a year after Ivy May’s death, as one is not meant to keep mourning clothes-they might tempt Fate to make one need to use them again.

Besides, I wanted to wear my blue dress, which I love. It has a special significance-I have been wearing it as often as possible, especially leading up to Mama’s imminent confinement. I want a baby brother. I know it’s silly, but I thought wearing the blue would help. I don’t want another sister-it would hurt too much, and remind me of how I failed Ivy May so miserably. I let go of her hand.

So I put on my blue dress. At least it is dark blue-dark enough that from a distance it could be taken for black.

What is sad about today is not simply that the King is dead, but that his mother is truly gone now. If it were she who died I would not have thought twice about wearing black. I have begun to feel recently that I am the only one who still looks back to her as an example to us all. Even Mama is looking forward. I am getting tired of swimming against the tide.

I lay in bed for a long time and tried to guess which bells belonged to which church: St. Mary’s Brookfield up one hill, St. Michael’s and St. Joseph’s up the hill in Highgate, our church St. Anne’s at the bottom. Each rang just one low bell, and although each was at a slightly different pitch and tolled ever so slightly more or less slowly, still they all sounded the same. I had not heard such a noise since Queen Victoria’s death nine years ago.

I stuck my head out of the window and saw Lavinia crossing herself in her window. Usually when I caught a glimpse of her somewhere-in her garden or on the street-a jolt ran through me as if someone had shoved me from behind. But now it was so strange to see her make such a foreign gesture that I forgot to be upset at seeing her. She must have learned to cross herself at the Sainte Union. I thought of her years ago being frightened of going into the Dissenters’ section of the cemetery where all the Catholics are buried, and smiled. It was funny how things change.

She saw me then, and, hesitating for a moment, she nodded to acknowledge my smile. I had not meant it as a smile at her, really, but once she nodded I felt I ought to nod too.

We turned away from our windows then, and I went to get dressed, hesitating over the dresses in my wardrobe. The black silk hung there still, but it would need altering to fit me now-I had filled out since last wearing it, and I was wearing a corset besides. I had worn black for almost a year following Mummy’s death, and for the first time I had understood why we are meant to wear black. It is not just that the color reflects a mourner’s somber mood, but also that one doesn’t want to have to choose what to wear. For the longest time I would wake in the morning and be relieved that I did not have to decide among my dresses-the decision had been made for me. I had no desire to wear color, or to be concerned about my appearance. It was only when I did want to wear color again that I knew I was beginning to recover.

I wondered sometimes how Lavinia fared with such a long period of mourning for Ivy May-six months for a sister, though I expect she kept up with her mother and wore black for a year. I wondered now what she would wear for the King.

I looked at my dresses again. Then I saw Mummy’s dove-gray dress among them and thought that perhaps I could manage that. It still surprises me that her dresses now fit me. Grandmother does not approve of me wearing them, but the stroke has left her unable to speak easily, and I have managed to ignore her dark looks.

I suppose she is thinking in part of Daddy, and I do try not to wear Mummy’s dresses in front of him. I could see him now, smoking a cigarette out in the garden-something Mummy forbade him to do, as he always flicks the butts into the grass. I went downstairs in the gray dress and slipped out before he saw me.

On Swain’s Lane the paperboys were crying out about the King’s death, and some shops were already hung with black and purple banners. No one was painting their ironwork black, though, as they had done after the Queen’s death. Some people were dressed in black, but others weren’t. They stopped to speak to one another, not in the hushed tones of mourners, but jovially as they spoke of the King. I remembered that when the Queen died everything ground to a halt-no one went to work, schools were closed, shops shut. We ran short of bread and coal. Now, though, I sensed this would not happen-the baker would deliver his bread, the milkman his milk, the coal man his coal. It was a Saturday, and if I went over to the heath, children would still be flying kites.

I had been planning to return a book to the library, but when I got there it was shut, with a small notice announcing the King’s death pasted to the door. Some still honored the tradition. I glanced across the road at the cemetery gate, remembering the white banner from the library falling onto the funeral procession, and Mr. Jackson, and Caroline Black. It seemed a long time ago, and yet I also felt as if I’d lost Mummy only yesterday.

I didn’t want to go home, so instead I crossed the road, entered the gate, and began walking up the path toward the main part of the cemetery. Halfway up, Simon’s father was sitting on a flat tombstone and leaning against a Celtic cross. He had a hand on each knee and was gazing into the distance the way old men do by the seaside. His eyes flashed with the blue of the sky so that it was hard to tell what he was looking at. I wasn’t sure that he saw me, but I stopped anyway. “Hallo.”

His eyes moved about but did not seem to fix upon me. “Hallo,” he said.

“It is a shame about the King, isn’t it?” I said, feeling I ought to make conversation.

“Shame ‘bout the King,” Simon’s father repeated.

I had not seen him in a long while. Whenever I looked for Simon at work, his father did not seem to be digging with him, but was off getting a ladder or a wheelbarrow or a bit of rope. Once I had seen him propped up against a grave, asleep, but had thought he was sleeping off a night of drink.

“Do you know where Simon is?” I asked.

“Where Simon is.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and looked deep into his eyes. Although they were turned in my direction, they did not show any recognition. It was as if he were blind, though he could see. Something was wrong with him-he clearly would not push a spade into clay again. I wondered what had happened to him.

I squeezed his shoulder. “Never mind. It’s been lovely to see you.”

“Lovely to see you.”

Tears pricked my eyes and nose as I continued along the path.

I tried to stay away from our grave, and wandered for a time around the cemetery, looking at the crosses, columns, urns, and angels, silent and shining in the sun. But somehow in the end I still found my way there.

She was already waiting for me. When I saw her I thought at first that she was wearing a black dress, but when I got closer I realized it was blue-which was what Mummy had worn so scandalously for Queen Victoria. I smiled at that, but when Lavinia asked why I was smiling, I knew better than to say.