Falling Angels (17 page)

"Because I'm going to let you kiss me if you do."

I stare at her mouth. She's just licked her lips and they're all glistening like rain on leaves. She's trapped me. I move toward her, but she pulls her face back.

"Tell me first."

I shake my head. I hate to say it but I don't trust Livy. I have to have my kiss before I'll say a word. "I'll only tell you after."

"No, kiss after."

I shake my head again, and Livy sees I'm serious. She lies back down on the mud. "All right, then. But I must pretend I'm Sleeping Beauty and you're the prince who wakes me." She closes her eyes and crosses her hands over her chest again like she's dead. I look up. Our pa ain't hanging over the grave--he must've sat down to wait with the bottle. I don't know how long I'll be lucky, so I lean over quick and press my mouth against Livy's. She stays still. Her lips are soft. I touch them with my tongue--they don't taste like chocolate cherries, but like salt. I move back onto my heels and Livy opens her eyes. We look at each other but don't say nothing. She smiles a little.

"Simon, get yourself going, lad. We've another to dig after this," our pa calls down. He's standing up top leaning over like he's going to fall in. I don't know if he saw us kissing--he don't say. "You need help up, missy?" he says.

I don't want him coming down here when Livy's with me. Three people is too much in a grave. "Leave her 'lone," I call up. "I'll bring her out."

"I'll come up myself as soon as Simon answers my question," Livy says.

Our pa looks like he's going to climb down, so I has to say it quick. "Mrs. C. visited our ma," I whisper.

"What, on a charity visit?"

"Who says we need charity?"

Livy don't answer.

"Anyhow, it were business, not charity."

"Your mother is a midwife, isn't she?"

"Yes, but--"

"Do you mean she's had another child?" Livy's eyes get big. "Maude has a secret brother or sister somewhere? How exciting! I do hope it's a brother."

"It weren't that," I say quickly. "She don't have a brother nor suchlike. It were the other. Getting rid of the brother or sister before it's born. Else it would've been a bastard, see."

"Oh!" Livy sits up straight and stares at me, her eyes still big. I wish I'd never said a thing. Some people's meant to be innocent of life, and Livy's one of'em. "Oh!" she says again, and starts to cry. She lays back down on the mud.

"It's all right, Livy. Our ma was gentle. But it took her a time to recover."

"What will I tell Maude?" she sobs.

"Don't tell her nothing," I say quickly, not wanting it to get worse. "She don't need to know."

"But she can't possibly live with her mother in those circumstances."

"Why not?"

"She can come and live with us. I'll ask Mama. I'm sure she'll say yes, especially when she's heard why." Livy's stopped crying now.

"Don't tell her nothing, Livy," I say.

Then I hear a scream overhead and look up. Livy's mother is looking down at us with Maude peeking over her shoulder. Ivy May's standing by herself on the other side of the grave.

"Lavinia, what on earth are you doing lying down there?" her mother cries. "Get out at once!"

"Hello, Mama," Livy says calmly, like she ain't just been crying. She sits up. "Were you looking for me?"

Livy's mum sinks to her feet and starts to cry, not quiet like Livy did, but noisy with lots of gasping.

"It's all right, Mrs. Waterhouse," Maude says, patting her shoulder. "Lavinia's fine. She's coming right up, aren't you, Lavinia?" She glares at us.

Livy smiles a funny smile, and I know she's thinking about Maude's ma.

"Don't you dare tell her, Livy," I whisper.

Livy don't say nothing, nor look at me. She just climbs up the wood fast and is gone before I can say more.

Ivy May drops a clod of clay into the grave. It falls at my feet.

It's quiet when they're all gone. I start scraping mud into the cracks round the coffin.

Our pa comes and sits down at the side of the grave, dangling his legs over the edge. I can smell the bottle.

"You going to help me or what, our Pa?" I say. "You can bring the Lamb's box over now."

Our pa shakes his head. "It's no use kissing girls like her," he says.

So he did see. "Why not?" I say.

Our pa shakes his head again. "Them girls ain't for you, boy. You know that. They like you 'cause you're different from them, is all. They'll even let you kiss 'em, once. But you won't get nowhere with 'em."

"I'm not trying to get nowhere with 'em."

Our pa starts to chuckle. "Sure you're not, boy. Sure you're not."

"Hush, our Pa. You just hush." I go back to my mud--it's easier than talking to him.

At last I have reached a decision.

I have felt sick ever since Simon told me. Mama thinks I caught a chill down in the grave, but it is not that. I am suffering from Moral Repulsion. Even Simon's kiss--which I shall never tell a soul about--could not make up for the horror of the news about Kitty Coleman.

When they came to get me at the cemetery, I could hardly look at Maude. I knew that she was annoyed with me, but I genuinely felt ill and could not speak. Then we returned to the library and I felt even worse when I saw Maude's mother. Luckily she paid no attention to me--she was in the clutches of a frightening woman who Maude told me is a local suffragette. (I don't understand what all the fuss is about with voting. Politics are so dull--what woman would want to vote anyway?) They walked home arm in arm, talking intimately as if they had known each other for years, and ignored me, which is just as well. It is truly astonishing how brazen Maude's mother is, given what she has done.

I have not been comfortable with Maude since that day, and indeed for a time felt rather too ill to see her or go to school. I know she thought I was simply pretending, but I felt so burdened. Then, thank goodness, it was half-term, and Maude went off to see her aunt in Lincolnshire, and so I could avoid her for a time. Now she is back, though, and the burden of my knowledge is greater than ever. I hate to keep such a secret from her, and indeed, from everyone, and that has made me sick.

I have not told Mama, for I cannot bring myself to shock her. I am feeling quite fond of dear Mama and Papa, and even of Ivy May. They are simple people, unlike myself, who am rather more complicated, but at least I know that they are honest. This is not a House of Secrets.

I must do something. I cannot sit by and watch the contamination at the heart of the Coleman house spread to dear Maude. So, after three weeks of soul searching, I sat down this afternoon in my room and wrote, in a disguised hand, the following letter:

I shall creep around this evening and slide it under their door. Then I am sure I will begin to feel better.

NOVEMBER 1906

First thing was, the house were filthy. I had to clean it top to bottom, then clean it again. The only good thing about it was I didn't have time to think about Jack. That and Mrs. Baker was actually pleased to see me again-I guess she'd had her fill of the replacements. Them chars was a useless lot.

Then there were my bubbies. Every few hours they'd swell and milk would pour out for Jack, right down my front. I had to wear cotton pads and change 'em all the time, and even then I'd get caught out. Luckily the missus never saw-not that she'd notice anyway. But it happened once when I were cleaning out the coal fire in Miss Maude's room. She come in and I had to quick hug a pile of linens to me, coal dust all over me and all, and make an excuse to get away. She did give me a funny look but didn't say nothing. She's so glad I'm back she's not about to complain.

I dunno how much she knows-Mrs. Baker thinks not a lot, that she's still an innocent lamb. But I don't know-sometimes I catch her staring at me or her mother and 1 think: She's no fool.

Her mother-now, there's a strange thing. I come back on my tippy-toes, dreading to see her after how we parted. I thought she'd be awkward with me, but when I arrived she squeezed my hand and said, "So lovely to see you again, Jenny. Come in, come in!" She brought me into the morning room, where a fluttery little woman, a Miss Black, jumped up and shook my hand too.

"Jenny is our treasure," the missus said to Miss Black. Well, I blushed at that, thinking she was teasing me. But she seemed genuine enough, as if she'd forgot all about the blackmail.

"I'll just settle my things in my room and get started," I said.

"Miss Black and I are plotting great things, aren't we, Caroline?" the missus said like she didn't hear me. "I'm sure you could be of great help to us."

"Oh, I don't know, ma'am. Perhaps I'll just fetch you some tea."

"Tell me, Jenny," Miss Black said, "what do you think about woman's suffrage?"

"Well, we all suffer, don't we?" I said carefully, not sure what there was to say.

Miss Black and the missus laughed, though I'd not made a joke.

"No, I mean votes for women," Miss Black explained.

"But women don't vote," I said.

"Women
aren't allowed
to vote, but they should have every right to, the same as men. That is what we are fighting for, you see. Don't you feel you have as much right as your father, your brother, your husband, to elect who is to govern this country?"

"Haven't got none of them." She hadn't mentioned sons.

"Jenny, we are fighting for your equality," the missus said.

"That's very kind of you, ma'am. Now, will you be wanting coffee or tea?"

"Oh, coffee, I think, don't you, Caroline?"

Them two are together all the time now, plotting against the government or some such thing. I should be pleased for the missus, that she seems happier than before. But I ain't. There's something about her don't seem right, like a top that's been wound too tight-it's spinning like it should, but it might just break.

Not that it matters so much to me now--I got others to think of. The first Saturday 1 went back to Mum's I cried when I saw Jack. Only five days away and he looked like someone else's baby. I'd still a little milk left in me then, but he wouldn't take it-he wanted the girl across the way who's nursing him after losing her own. 1 cried again to see him at her bubbies.

How I'm to pay her all these months I don't know. Wish I'd thought of that when I were securing my job here with the missus. Four months ago she'd have given me anything, but now if I asked for better wages she'd probably just lecture me about women suffering. One thing I've learned-you've to be scared of blackmail for it to work. 1 don't think she cares about nothing now except votes for women.

Here's another funny thing-the missus is busy acting like nothing happened to her this summer, but someone ain't forgot. I were putting the shoes out in the hallway, all polished and ready for the next day, when a letter gets slid under the front door, addressed to Mr. Coleman. 1 picked it up and looked at it. It were in a funny hand, like a schoolgirl writing it on a wobbly chair. I opened the front door and looked out. It were a foggy night and I could just make out Miss Lavinia running up the street before she disappeared.

I didn't put the letter on a tray for the master, but kept it with me. Next morning I sat down for a cuppa in the kitchen and showed it to Mrs. Baker. Funny how she and I are friendlier since Jack. She don't know about the blackmail, but she must suspect as much. She never asked how I got my job back.

"What would she be writing to the master for except to make trouble?" I said.

Mrs. Baker studied the letter, then took it over to the kettle and in a minute had steamed it open. That's what I like about her-she can be horrible mean sometimes, but she's definite.

I read over her shoulder. When we'd finished we looked at each other. "How does she know about all that?" I wondered aloud, before I realized Mrs. Baker mightn't have known about the missus's predicament.

But she did. Mrs. Baker's no fool. She must've worked it out for herself.

"That silly girl," she said now. "Trying to stir things up." She opened the door of the range and threw the letter into the flames.

As I said, she's definite.

When she opened the door I thought for a moment that I was dreaming. But I knew very well that 1 was wide awake-1 am not the dreaming type. Of course there was a smirk on her face to tell me she knew I was surprised.