Falling Angels

by Tracy Chevalier

  As an example of lowered standards I pointed out some ivy from an adjacent grave (not the Waterhouses‘) that was creeping up the side of ours. If nothing is done it will soon cover the urn and topple it. Kitty made to pull it off, but I stopped her, saying it was for the cemetery management to make sure other people’s ivy doesn’t grow onto our property. I insisted that she leave the ivy as evidence, and that the superintendent himself be alerted to the situation.

  To my surprise Kitty went off then and there to find the superintendent, leaving Gertrude Waterhouse and me to make awkward conversation until she reappeared—which was a very long time indeed. She must have taken a turn around the entire cemetery.

  To be fair, Gertrude Waterhouse is pleasant enough. What she needs is more backbone. She should take some from my daughter-in-law, who has far more than is good for her.

  Simon Field

  I like it up the tree. You can see all over the cemetery, and down to town. You can sit up there all peaceful and no one else sees you. One of them big black crows comes and sits on the branch near me. I don’t throw nothing or yell at it. I let it sit with me.

  I don’t stay long, though. When the girls are gone a few minutes I climb down to find‘em. I’m running down the main path when I see Mr. Jackson coming the other way and I have to dive behind a grave.

  He’s talking to one of the gardeners. “Who is that woman with the girls?” he says. “The one wearing the apple-green dress?”

  “Tha’s Mrs. Coleman, guv. Kitty Coleman. You know that grave down by the paupers with the big urn? Tha’s theirs.”

  “Yes, of course. The urn and the angel, too close together.”

  “Tha’s it. She’s a looker, ain’t she?”

  “Watch yourself, man.”

  The gardener chuckled. “Sure, guv. Sure I’ll watch myself.”

  When they’ve passed I go down to the graves. I have to hide from the gardeners working in the meadow. It’s tidy here, all the grass clipped and the weeds pulled and the paths raked. Some places in the cemetery they don’t bother with so much now, but in the meadow there’s always someone doing something. Mr. Jackson says it has to look good for the visitors, else they won’t buy plots and there’ll be no money to pay us. Our pa says that’s rubbish—people die every day and need a place to be buried, and they’ll pay whether the grass is cut or no. He says all that matters is a grave well dug.

  I crouch down behind the grave with the angel on it. Livy’s grave. There still ain’t no skull ‘n’ crossbones marked on it, though it makes my fingers itch to see it blank like that. I kept my word.

  The ladies are standing in front of the two graves talking, and Livy and Maude are sitting in the grass, making chains out of little daisies. I peek out now and then but they don’t see me. Only Ivy May does. She stares straight at me with big greeny-brown eyes like a cat that freezes when it sees you and waits to see what you’re going to do—kick it or pat it. She don’t say nothing and I put my finger on my mouth to go shhh. I owe her for saving our pa’s job.

  Then I hear the lady in the green dress say, “I’ll go and find the superintendent, Mr. Jackson. He may be able to get someone to look after things here.”

  “It won’t make any difference,” the old lady says. “It’s the attitude that’s changed. The attitude of this new age which doesn’t respect the dead.”

  “Nevertheless, he can at least have someone remove the ivy, since you won’t allow me to,” the lady in green says. She kicks at her skirts. I like it when she does that. It’s like she’s trying to kick ‘em off. “I’ll just go and find him. Won’t be a minute.” She goes up the path and I slip from grave to grave, following her.

  I’d like to tell her where Mr. Jackson is now, but I don’t know myself. There’s three graves being dug today, and four funerals. There’s a column being put up near the monkey puzzle tree, and there’s some new graves sunk and need more dirt on‘em. Mr. Jackson could be any of them places, overseeing the men. Or he could be having a cuppa down the lodge, or selling someone a grave. She don’t know that, though.

  On the main path she almost gets run down by a team of horses pulling a slab of granite. She jumps back, but she don’t shriek like lots of ladies would. She just stands there, all white, and I have to hide behind a yew tree while she takes out a handkerchief and presses it to her forehead and neck.

  Near the Egyptian Avenue another lot of diggers comes down toward her with spades over their shoulders. They’re hard men—our pa and me stay away from ‘em. But when she stops ’em and says something they look at the ground, both of ‘em, like they’re under a spell. One points up the path and over to the right and she thanks ’em and walks the way he pointed. When she’s past they look at each other and one says something I can’t hear and they both laugh.

  They don’t see me following her. I jump from grave to grave, ducking behind the tombstones. The granite slabs on the graves are warm under my feet where they’ve been in the sun. Sometimes I just stand still for a minute to feel that warmth. Then I run to catch up with her. Her back from behind looks like an hourglass. We got hourglasses on graves here with wings on ‘em. Time flies, our pa says they mean. You think you got long in this world but you don’t.

  She turns down the path by the horse statue into the Dissenters, and then I remember they’re trimming branches off the horse chestnuts back there. We go round a corner and there’s Mr. Jackson with four gardeners—two on the ground and two who have climbed a big chestnut tree. One of ‘em straddles a branch and shinnies out along it, holding tight with his legs. A gardener on the ground makes a joke about the branch being a woman, and everybody laughs ’cept Mr. Jackson and the lady, who nobody knows is there yet. She smiles, though.

  They’ve tied ropes round the branch and the two men up the tree are pulling back and forth on a two-man saw. They stop to wipe the sweat off their faces, and to unstick the saw when it gets caught.

  Some of the men see the lady in the green dress. They nudge each other but nobody tells Mr. Jackson. She looks happier watching the men in the tree than when she was with the other ladies. Her eyes are dark, like there’s coal smudged round them, and little bits of her hair are coming out of their pins.

  Suddenly there’s a crack, and the branch breaks where they’re sawing it. The lady cries out, and Mr. Jackson turns round and sees her. The men let the branch down with the ropes and when it’s on the ground they start sawing it to pieces.

  Mr. Jackson comes over to the lady. He’s red in the face like it’s him been sawing the branch all this time instead of telling others what to do.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Coleman, I didn’t see you. Have you been here long?”

  “Long enough to hear a tree branch compared to a woman.”

  Mr. Jackson sputters like his beer’s gone down the wrong way.

  Mrs. Coleman laughs. “That’s all right,” she says. “It was quite refreshing, actually.”

  Mr. Jackson don’t seem to know what to say. Lucky for him one of the men in the tree shouts down, “Any other branches to cut here, guv?”

  “No, just take this one down to the bonfire area. Then we’re finished here.”

  “Do you have fires here?” Mrs. C. asks.

  “At night, yes, to burn wood and leaves and other refuse. Now, madam, how may I be of service?”

  “I wanted to thank you for speaking to my mother-in-law about cremation,” she says. “It was very instructive, though I expect she was rather taken aback to be answered so forthrightly.”

  “Those with firm opinions must be dealt with firmly.”

  “Whom are you quoting?”

  “Myself.”

  “Oh.”

  They don’t say nothing for a minute. Then she says, “I think I should like to be cremated, now that I know it will be no more of a challenge to God than interment.”

  “It is something you must consider carefully and decide for yourself, madam. It is not a decision to be taken lightly.”

  �
��I don’t know about that,” she says. “Sometimes I think it matters not a jot what I do or don’t do, or what is done to me.”

  He looks at her shocked, like she’s just cursed. Then one of the gatekeepers comes running up the path and says, “Guv, the Anderson procession’s at the bottom of Swain’s Lane.”

  “Already?” Mr. Jackson says. He pulls his watch from his pocket. “Blast, they’re early. Send a boy over to the grave to tell the diggers to stand by. I’ll be down in a moment.”

  “Right, guv.” The man runs back down the path.

  “Is it always this busy?” Mrs. C. says. “So much activity doesn’t encourage quiet contemplation. Though I suppose it is a little quieter here in the Dissenters.”

  “A cemetery is a business, like any other,” Mr. Jackson says. “People tend to forget that. Today in fact is relatively quiet for burials. But I’m afraid we can’t guarantee peace and quiet, except on Sundays. It’s the nature of the work—it’s impossible to predict when people will pass on. We must be prepared to act swiftly—nothing can be planned in advance. We have had twenty funerals in one day. Other days we’ve had none. Now, madam, was there something else you wanted? I’m afraid I must be getting on.”

  “Oh, it seems so trivial now, compared to all this.” She waves her hand round her. I’ll have to ask our pa what trivial means.

  “Nothing is trivial here. What is it?”

  “It’s about our grave down in the meadow. Some ivy from another grave is growing up the side of it. Though I believe it is our responsibility to cut it, it’s rather upset my mother-in-law, who feels the cemetery should complain to the neighboring grave owner.”

  Now I understand what trivial means.

  Mr. Jackson smiles a smile you only see when he’s with visitors, like he’s got a pain in his back and is trying to hide it. Mrs. C. looks embarrassed.

  “I’ll have someone remove it at once,” he says, “and I shall have a word with the other owners.” He looks round as if he’s looking for a boy to give orders to, so I step out from the stone I was standing behind. It’s risky, ‘cause I know he’s still mad at me for hanging round Livy and Ivy May rather’n working. But I want Mrs. C. to see me.

  “I’ll do it, sir,” I say.

  Mr. Jackson looks surprised. “Simon, what are you doing here? Have you been harassing Mrs. Coleman?”

  “I don’t know what harassing means, sir, but I ain’t been doing it. I’m just offering to clear off that ivy.”

  Mr. Jackson is about to say something but Mrs. C. interrupts. “Thank you, Simon. That would be very kind of you.” And she smiles at me.

  No lady’s ever said such a nice thing to me, nor smiled at me. I can’t move, staring at her smile.

  “Go, boy. Go,” Mr. Jackson says quietly.

  I smile back at her. Then I go.

  JANUARY 1905

  Jenny Whitby

  It were a right nuisance, that was sure. We’d got into a routine, he and I. Everyone was happy—the missus, the girls, him, and me. (I always come last on the list.) I’d take the girls up the hill once a week or so. I’d my bit of fun, they’d theirs, and her ladyship didn’t have to do nothing but sit at home and read.

  But then she got it into her head to take them to the cemetery herself. In the summer she started going up there two, three times a week. The girls were in heaven, but me, I were in hell.

  Then she stopped, and started sending me again, and I thought: It’s back on. But now it’s winter the girls don’t go so much, and when they do she wants to take them again. Sometimes she even takes them when they ain’t so keen on going. It’s cold there, with all that stone round the place. They have to run to keep warm. Me, I know how to keep warm when I’m there.

  Once or twice I’ve convinced the missus that I should go instead of her. Rest of the time I’ve to sneak out of an afternoon. He ain’t there evenings. Gardeners work shorter hours than maids, I like to remind him.

  “Yep, an’ we get paid twice as much,” he said. “It’s a dog’s life, innit?”

  I asked him what it is with the missus—what she goes to the cemetery so much for.

  “Maybe the same reason as you,” he said.

  “She never!” I laughed. “Who would she go for, anyhow—a gravedigger?”

  “The guvnor, more like,” he said.

  I laughed again, but he were serious—said everyone saw ‘em together, talking over in the Dissenters.

  “Just talking?”

  “Yep, just like us,” he said. “Fact is, we talk too much, you an’ me. Just shut your mouth an’ open your legs, now.”

  Cheeky sod.

  OCTOBER 1905

  Gertrude Waterhouse

  I do like to make an effort with my At Homes. I always have them in the front parlor, and use the rose-pattern tea set, and Elizabeth bakes a cake—lemon this week.

  Albert asks sometimes if we oughtn’t use the front parlor as the dining room instead, rather than eating in the back parlor, which is a bit cramped when the table is pulled out. Now, Albert is right in most things, but when it comes to running a household I do get my way. I always feel better having a “best” room to show visitors to, even if it’s only used once or twice a week. Thus I have insisted that we leave the rooms as they are, though I admit it is a bit inconvenient to fold the table back three times a day.

  It is very silly, too, and I will never tell Albert, but I also prefer to have my At Homes in the front parlor because it is out of view of the Colemans’ house. This is very silly because for one thing, according to Livy, who has been to them a few times with Maude (I have never gone, of course), Kitty Coleman has her At Homes in her morning room, which is on the other side of the house, overlooking the street rather than us. And even if it were on this side, she would hardly have the time to look out of her window over at us. But just the same I do not like to think of her presence at my back, judging what I do. It would make me nervous and unable to attend to my visitors.

  I am always a little anxious when Lavinia goes to Kitty Coleman’s At Homes, which I’m relieved to say is not very often. Indeed, more often than not the girls come here after school. Maude says it’s much more snug here, which on reflection I think is intended as a compliment rather than a comment on the lack of space. At any rate I have decided to take it as such. She is a dear girl and I do try to see her as separate from her mother.

  I am quietly pleased that, for all the space and elegance of the Colemans’ house, it is here that the girls prefer to be. Livy says their house gets very cold and drafty except in the kitchen, and she fears she’ll catch a chill—though really, apart from her fainting she has a robust constitution and a healthy appetite. She also says she prefers our comfortable dark sofas and chairs and the velvet curtains to Kitty Coleman’s taste for rattan furniture and venetian blinds.

  Until the girls arrive back from school, Ivy May helps me with the At Homes, passing around the cake and taking the pot back to the kitchen for Elizabeth to fill. The ladies who come—neighbors from the street and from church, and stalwart friends who make the journey from Islington to see me, bless them—all smile at her, though they are often puzzled by her as well.

  She is indeed a funny little thing. At first her refusal to speak very often did upset me, but over time I’ve grown used to it and now love her the better for it. Ivy May’s silence can be a great comfort after Livy’s dramas and tears. And there is nothing the matter with her head—she reads and writes well enough for a girl of seven, and her numbers are good. In a year I will send her to school with Livy and Maude, and then it may be harder for her—her teachers may not be so patient with her as we are.

  I asked her once why she said so little, and the dear replied, “When I do speak, you listen.” It is surprising that someone so young should have worked that out for herself. I could have done with the lesson—I do go on and on, from nerves and to fill the silence. Sometimes in front of Kitty Coleman I could just sink into the ground from hearing myself chatte
r like a performing monkey. Kitty Coleman just smiles as if she’s terribly bored but hiding it so civilly.

  When the girls get home Livy immediately takes over the passing out of the cake to the ladies, and little Ivy May sits quietly in the corner. It breaks my heart sometimes. Still, I am glad to have the girls around me, and I try to make things as comfortable as possible. Here at least I can have some influence over them. I don’t know what Kitty Coleman gets up to when they are at Maude’s. Mostly she ignores them, according to Livy.

  They like to come here, but they love best of all to go to the cemetery. I have had to limit how often Livy may go—else she’d be up there every day. As it is I do believe she lies to me about it. A neighbor said she thought she saw Livy and Maude running among the graves with a boy one day when she was meant to be playing at Maude‘s, but when I questioned her she denied it, saying the neighbor must need new spectacles! I did not look convinced, and Livy began to cry to think I suspected her of lying. So really I do not know what to think.

  I wanted to have a word with Kitty Coleman about the frequency of their visits—it being she who most often takes them. What an awkward conversation it was! She does make me feel such a fool. When I suggested that it was perhaps unhealthy for them to visit the cemetery so often, she replied, “Oh, the girls are getting plenty of fresh air, which is very healthy for them. But really if they want to go there, we have Queen Victoria to blame for it, elevating mourning to such ridiculous heights that girls with romantic notions grow drunk from it.”

  Well! I was mortified, and not a little angry too. Apart from the slight on Livy, Kitty Coleman knows how dear the late Queen still is to me, God bless her soul. There is no need to go criticizing the dead. I told Kitty Coleman so, straight to her face.

  She just smiled and said, “If we can’t criticize her now, when can we? Do so when she was alive and we’d likely have been tried for treason.”

  “The monarchy is above criticism,” I responded with as much dignity as I could muster. “They are our sovereign representatives, and we do well to look up to them or it reflects poorly on us.”