Falling Angels

by Tracy Chevalier

  As a rule I don’t involve myself in this family’s comings and goings. I arrive at half-seven in the morning, I cook for them, I leave at seven at night-six if the supper’s a cold one. I stay out of the way, I don’t have opinions. Or if I do I keep them to myself. I have my own little house, my grown children with their dramas-I don’t need more. Not like Jenny, who given half a chance pokes her nose into every story going. It’s a miracle she’s not had it cut right off.

  But I do feel sorry for Miss Maude. I was going home the other evening through a thick fog when I saw her walking just ahead of me. I’d never seen her in Tufnell Park before. She’s got no reason to come over here-her life goes in other directions, north and west toward Highgate and Hampstead, not east toward Tufnell Park and Holloway. That’s to be expected of a family of that class.

  The streets here are not so rough, but all the same I didn’t like to see her on her own, especially in that pea-soup. A person could disappear for good in one. I felt I ought to follow to make sure she came to no harm. It was clear enough where she was headed. Can’t say I blame her-I’d have done the same in her shoes, though living near it as I do, I don’t feel much draw to see it. But then, I don’t have family inside. My children act out their dramas within the bounds of the law.

  Miss Maude found her way there easy enough-even with the fog and the strange streets she’s got a level head on her. When she got there she stopped and stared. The look of the place when it loomed out of the fog must have thrown her. The Castle, they call it round here. True enough it resembles one, with a big arched entrance and stone towers with ramparts. Most peculiar for a prison. My children used to play knights and maidens in front of it, when they dared. There are also rows of little windows set in a brick wall far back from the road, where the prisoners must be.

  Then we both got a surprise-blow me if that Black woman wasn’t marching up and down in front of the entrance. She’s a little thing, but she wore a long gray coat that flapped round her ankles and made her look taller. She was singing this:Sing a song of Christabel’s clever little plan

  Four and twenty suffragettes packed in a van

  When the van was opened they to the Commons ran

  Wasn’t that a dainty dish for Campbell-Bannerman?

  Asquith was in the treasury, counting out the money

  Lloyd George among the Liberal women speaking words of honey

  And then there came a bright idea to all those little men

  “Let’s give the women votes,” they cried, “and all be friends again.”

  Then she turned to the little windows and shouted, “Chin up, my dear-you’re halfway through now. Only three weeks to go! And we have so much to do when you come out!” Her voice hardly carried in the fog, though-don’t know how she thought anyone inside would hear her.

  Miss Maude had seen enough-she turned and ran. I followed but my running days are long over and I lost sight of her. It was dusk now, and I began to worry. The shops were closed, and soon there wouldn’t be any decent people out on the street for her to ask directions of.

  Then I turned a corner and she was rushing out of the fog toward me, looking very frightened.

  “Miss Maude, what on earth are you doing out here?” I said, pretending not to know.

  “Mrs. Baker!” She was so relieved to see me that she clutched my arm.

  “You should be at home,” I scolded, “not wandering the streets.”

  “I’ve been ... for a walk and got lost.”

  I looked at her. There was no point in being coy. “Wanted to see where she is?”

  “Yes.” Miss Maude hung her head.

  I shuddered. “Grim place. I’ve never liked having it on my doorstep. Here, you!” I called to a passing figure.

  “Hallo, Mrs. Baker.”

  “Miss Maude, this is Jimmy, my neighbor’s son. See her to the Boston Arms, will you, Jimmy? She’ll know her way from there.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Baker,” Miss Maude whispered.

  I shrugged. “It’s not my business,” I said. “Not a word of this to anyone. Take care how you go in the fog.”

  I keep my word.

  MARCH 1908

  Simon Field

  It’s chucking down, so our Jenny lets me in from the rain. Mrs. Baker don’t say nothing when she sees me—just grunts. Makes me a soft egg, though.

  “Lord,” our Jenny says, looking out of the window while I sit at the table eating. “What a day to be visiting prison.”

  “Who’s going to prison?” I ask.

  Mrs. B. bangs a pot of water onto the range and gives our Jenny a look. Jenny ignores her—she says whatever she likes.

  “The master and Miss Maude. They ain’t been able to visit till now-them suffragettes can’t have visitors the first four weeks. First it were to be just the master, but I heard‘em arguing and Miss Maude got her way, bless her. She misses her mum. Though heaven knows why, the woman were hardly round before anyway.”

  “That’s enough, Jenny,” Mrs. B. says.

  “It don’t matter—it’s just Simon.”

  “What doesn’t matter?” Maude has come down the stairs, and is standing with her arms clutched over her stomach. She looks peaky to me.

  Our Jenny and Mrs. B. both turn quick to look at her. “Nothing, Miss Maude,” our Jenny says. “You had enough to eat?”

  “I’m not much hungry, thanks.”

  “Terrible luck, getting the curse on top of the rain on your visiting day.”

  Maude looks at me then glares at our Jenny.

  “For pity’s sake, Jenny, leave the girl alone!” Mrs. B. don’t often shout. “Get upstairs and clear away the dishes.”

  Our Jenny runs off. I’ve enough sense not to say nothing ‘bout the curse. “Hallo” is all I says.

  “Hello.”

  Hard to imagine Maude’s ma in prison-who ever thought she’d end up there? When I first found out from our Jenny, I let it slip real casual one day to Mr. Jackson Mrs. C. were in Holloway. He jumped like someone’d pinched him.

  “Good Lord. Why is she there?”

  I didn’t really know why, to be truthful. “Women’s things, sir.”

  He stared at me so hard I had to say something more. “You know, them women what goes round on bicycles, chalking signs on the pavement and shouting at rallies and that.”

  “You mean suffragettes?”

  “I suppose so, sir.”

  “Good Lord,” he said again. “Prison is a terrible place for a woman. I hope she is not being mistreated.”

  “Probably no more’n anyone else in prison, sir. My cousin got out after six months with nothing worse’n flea bites.”

  “That is not much comfort, Simon.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  I want to say something to Maude now, but can’t think of nothing that would help. Then there’s a knock at the back door, and Livy comes in dripping wet, and there ain’t much chance for me to get a word in. Maude don’t look too happy to see her. Livy rushes over and gives her a big hug. She sees me over Maude’s shoulder but don’t say nothing. She’s been funny with me ever since I kissed her. That were over a year ago and she ain’t been the same since. Our pa were right, I guess.

  Fact is, this is the first time all three of us has been together in a long while. Not like when the girls was younger and used to visit the cemetery all the time.

  “Oh, my dear, you look so pale!” Livy says now. “You must be terribly upset about your visit.”

  The thing about Livy is that she says things like that but she means something else. She don’t think it’s terribly upsetting Mrs. C. is in Holloway-to her it’s great fun, though she would never admit it. She looks so excited now, that I know what’s to come next.

  She sits Maude down at the table. “Now,” she says, “I want to suggest something to you.” She’s acting like no one else is there-like I’m not sitting at the table, too, and Mrs. B. ain’t peeling potatoes at the sideboard, and our Jenny ain’t taking a tray with t
he breakfast things through to the scullery. But she knows we’re there and listening. “I know you’ll say no, so I want you to promise to be quiet until I’ve finished what I have to say. Do you promise?”

  “All right,” Maude says.

  “I want to come with you this morning to visit your mother.”

  “You can‘t-

  “I haven’t finished yet.”

  Maude frowns but stays quiet.

  “You know it will be horrid and it will upset you. Don’t you want your friend to be there with you, holding your hand and helping you to be as brave as you can in front of your mother?”

  We all wait to hear what Maude will say—our Jenny standing in the scullery door, Mrs. B. frowning at a potato skin like she’s not listening. “But what about your mother?” Maude says. “And Daddy? I’m sure he won’t let you.”

  Livy smiles. “Mama needn’t know, and don’t you worry about your father. He’ll say yes—I’ll make sure of it.”

  She will too. Livy can make a man do anything she likes. I’ve seen her at the cemetery, rolling her eyes and swirling her skirt, and men do what she says. Even Mr. Jackson fetches her a watering can if she wants one-though that may be ‘cause he still feels bad about her angel getting broke. Unless you look real hard you can’t see the join in the neck where the mason fitted the head back on, but they made a mess of the nose. Probably should’ve left it chipped. Once I took Livy round the angels and showed her all the chips and scratches on them. I did it to make her feel better, but it just seemed to upset her.

  “Maude, are you ready?”

  Everybody turns to stare at Maude’s pa come down the stairs. The way our Jenny and Mrs. B. act Jenny’s eyes get big, and Mrs. B. lets her knife slip so she cuts her thumb and has to suck it-it’s clear he don’t ever come down here. He must be feeling nervous about going to Holloway, or he don’t like the whole house above us all empty, and has come looking for people.

  Even Maude jumps to see him here. “Yes, Daddy, I just need to—to get one thing in my room. I’ll be right back.” She looks at Livy, then squeezes past her pa and runs upstairs. He still stands at the bottom of the stairs, looking like he’s surprised himself that he’s down here.

  Livy’s getting ready to work her charm. “Mr. Coleman—”

  But Mr. C. has spotted me. “Mrs. Baker, who is this boy eating our bread?”

  Mrs. B. don’t even flinch. “Gardener’s boy, sir.” She chose well-the garden is Mrs. C.’s territory. Mr. C. probably don’t even set foot in it except to smoke a cig. He won’t know which is the gardener’s boy.

  Mr. C. looks out at the rain. “Well, he certainly picks his days, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes, he does, sir. Do you hear, Simon? There’ll be no gardening for you. Off you go, now.”

  I gulp down the rest of my tea, put on my cap, and step out into the rain. I don’t get to say nothing to Maude, nor hear Livy’s sweet talk. Never mind—at least my tum’s full.

  Lavinia Waterhouse

  Really it was not at all difficult. I simply appealed to his softer nature. And he does have a soft nature. He clearly is a broken man with his wife in prison-anyone can see that if they only look. But I am not sure anyone is looking except me. I do feel, too, that he and I have a special connection, because of the letter. Although he does not know that I wrote it, he must know someone is looking out for him.

  For a long time I could not understand why he did not throw his wife out once he had read the letter, but now that I am older and beginning to understand men better, I see that he has quite gallantly set aside his own feelings in order to protect the family name from scandal.

  He said yes when I asked to accompany them to Holloway. I repeated more or less what I had said to Maude-that I would be a comfort to her in difficult circumstances-but also suggested he was being an exemplary father and gentleman to consider his daughter’s needs in that way.

  I cannot help but think that he said yes in part because he prefers my company to Maude’s. Certainly I was the livelier one in the cab over. But how could I not be-we were to see the inside of a prison! I couldn’t think of anything more deliciously exciting.

  The only dampening element (apart from the rain, ha ha!) was that as the cab drove past our house I saw Ivy May had pulled aside the net curtain and was looking out of the window. She seemed to look right at me, and I had to pray that she would not tattle on me-Mama thinks Maude and I were at the library.

  I had never seen Holloway prison before. As we walked up to the arched wooden doors of the main entrance, I squeezed Maude’s arm. “It looks like a castle!” I whispered.

  To my amazement Maude wrenched her arm away. “This isn’t a fairy tale!” she hissed.

  Well. I was a little put out, but soon recovered when I saw the woman who opened the side door to let us in. She was short and fat and wore a gray uniform, with a big bunch of keys hanging at her waist. Best of all, she had a huge mole on her upper lip. She was just like a character out of Dickens, though I didn’t say so to Maude. I had to clap my hand over my mouth so the woman wouldn’t see me laughing. She did, though, the troll.

  We went into a reception room, and Maude and I sat on a narrow bench while Troll opened a ledger book and took down Mr. Coleman’s details. I was amazed she could read and write.

  Troll looked up at us. “Only one of youse can come in,” she said. “Only three visitors allowed at one time, an’ one’s already there. One of youse’ll have to wait here.” She fixed a yellow eye on me.

  “Another visitor?” Mr. Coleman looked puzzled. “Who?”

  Troll put her finger on a page in the ledger. “Miss C. Black.”

  “Damn her! What the devil’s she doing here?”

  “She arranged a visit, same as you.”

  “She’s no relation to my wife. Tell her she has to go.”

  Troll smiled slyly. “She’s a right to see ‘er, same as anyone else. It’s your wife decides who she sees an’ don’t sees.”

  Poor Mr. Coleman was furious but there was nothing he could do. “You two wait here for me,” he said to us.

  “But I’ve come to see Mummy!” Maude cried.

  “It’s best if you stay here with Lavinia. We can’t leave her alone.”

  He turned to the woman. “Can the girls wait here for me?”

  Troll just grunted.

  I smiled, relieved by his chivalry.

  “But Lavinia will be fine here on her own,” Maude insisted. “Won’t you, Lavinia?”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but that nasty woman jumped in. “I don’t want two of youse cluttering up my bench.” She pointed at Maude. “You go with your da, and you”—pointing at me—“wait where you are.” She went to the door and called out something into the corridor.

  I was so shocked I couldn’t speak. Being left alone in a prison with a horrid troll? And for such a silly reason as the space needed on a hard bench? Clearly Troll was saying this simply to get at me. I turned to Mr. Coleman for help. Unfortunately he then revealed that he is not so gallant as I thought-he simply nodded at Troll.

  Another woman came in, tall this time, also wearing the gray uniform, and jangling her keys in a most irritating manner.

  “H-fifteen, second division,” Troll said to her. “Another un’s already there.”

  The wardress nodded and gestured for Mr. Coleman and Maude to follow-which they did, neither of them giving me even a backward glance.

  Well. When they were gone, Troll grinned at me from behind her table. I was surprised to see she had a full set of teeth—I would have expected them to be black and falling out. I ignored her and sat very quietly, like a little mouse. For I was rather terrified.

  The thing about a little mouse, though, is that it can’t help but look around for some crumbs to munch on. There was not much to see in the room just the table and a few benches, all empty-and I found myself studying Troll. She was sitting behind the table, writing something in the ledger. She really was quite repulsive,
even worse than something Dickens would have thought up. Her mole positively gleamed on her lip. I wondered if there were hairs growing out of it. The thought made me giggle. f didn’t think she could see me spying on her-I was looking at her through my lashes while pretending to study my fingernails-but she growled, “What you laughing at, gal?”

  “My own little joke,” I said bravely. “It’s nothing to do with you. And really, you had better call me Miss Waterhouse.”

  She had the impudence to laugh, so I felt obliged to explain that I was almost certain we were related to the painter J. W. Waterhouse, even though Papa thinks not, and that I had written to him to discover the connection. (I didn’t tell her that Mr. Waterhouse never responded to my letter.) Of course I was assuming far too much of a prison gatekeeper with a mole on her lip, even if she can write—she clearly had never heard of J.W W , not even when I described his painting of the Lady of Shalott that hangs in the Tate. She hadn’t even heard of her! Next she would be asking who was Tennyson.

  Fortunately this fruitless conversation was interrupted by the arrival back of yet another wardress. Troll said she was glad the other had come because I could “talk the ear off an elephant, an’ all of it rubbish too.”

  I was very tempted to stick out my tongue at her-the longer I sat there the less terrified I was. But then a bell rang, and she went off to answer the door. The other wardress just stood there and stared at me as if I were a piece in a museum exhibition. I glared at her but it didn’t seem to put her off. I expect they don’t often see girls like me sitting on that bench-no wonder that she stared.

  Troll came back with a man in tow, dressed in a dark suit and bowler hat. He stood at the table while Troll looked in her ledger and said, “She’s already got her visitors for today. Popular lady. Did you write ahead to arrange it?”

  “No,” the man said.

  “You have to write ahead for permission,” Troll said gleefully. She did delight in others’ misfortunes. “And then it’s up to her to say she’ll see you.”

  “I see.” The man turned to leave.