Falling Angels

November 1903

KITTY COLEMAN

Tonight we went with the Waterhouses to a bonfire on the Heath. The girls wanted to, and the men get on well enough (though Richard privately mocks Albert Waterhouse as a buffoon), and it’s left to Gertrude Waterhouse and me to smile and bear each other’s company as best we can. We stood around an enormous bonfire on Parliament Hill, clutching our sausages and baked potatoes, and marvelling that we were gathered on the very hill where Guy Fawkes waited to see Parliament burn. I watched as people moved closer to or farther away from the heat of the flames, trying to find a spot where they were comfortable. But even if our faces were hot, our backs were cold – like the potatoes, charred on the outside, raw inside.

My threshold to heat is much higher than Richard’s or Maude’s – or most people’s, for that matter. I stepped closer and closer until my cheeks flamed. When I looked around, the ring of people was far behind me – I stood alone by the edge of the fire.

Richard wasn’t even looking at the fire, but up at the clear sky. That is just like him – his love is not heat, but the cold distance of the universe. When we were first courting he would take me, with Harry as chaperone, to observation parties to look at the stars. I thought it most romantic then. Tonight, though, when I followed his gaze up to the starry sky all I felt was the blank space between those pinpricks and me, and it was like a heavy blanket waiting to drop on me. It was almost as suffocating as my fear of being buried alive.

I cannot see what he sees in the stars – he and now Maude, for he has begun taking her with him when he goes out to the Heath at night with his telescope. I haven’t said anything, because there is nothing I can truly complain of, and Maude clearly thrives on his attention. But it brings me low, for I can see him fostering in her the same cold rationality that I discovered in him once we were married.

I am being ridiculous, of course. I too was brought up by my father to be logical, and I despise the sentimentality of the age, as embodied to perfection by the Waterhouses. But I’m secretly glad Maude and Lavinia are friends. Irritating and melodramatic as Lavinia is, she is not cold, and she counterbalances the icy hand of astronomy.

I stood by the fire, everyone around me so cheerful, and thought what an odd creature I am – even I know that. Too much space and I’m frightened, too little and I’m frightened. There is indeed no comfortable place for me – I am too near the fire or too far away.

Behind me, Gertrude Waterhouse stood with an arm around each daughter. Maude stood next to Lavinia, and they were all laughing about something – Maude a little shyly, as if she was not sure she should be sharing the laughter with them. I felt a pang for her.

At times it is painful to be with the Waterhouses. Lavinia may be bossy with her mother, but there is clearly an affection between them that I cannot muster with Maude. After a few hours with them I come away resolved to link my arm with Maude’s when we walk, as Gertrude does with Lavinia. And to be with her more – read to her, help her with her sewing, bring her into the garden with me, take her into town.

It has never been like that with her. Maude’s birth was a shock from which I have not recovered. When I came to from the ether and first held her in my arms I felt as if I were nailed to the bed, trapped by her mouth at my breast. Of course I loved her – love her – but my life as I had imagined it ended on that day. It fed a low feeling in me that resurfaces with increasing frequency.

At least I was lucky in my doctor. When he came to see me a few days after the birth I sent the nurse from the room and told him I wanted no more babies. He took pity on me and explained the timing and the signs to look for, and what I might say to my husband to keep him away during those times. It does not work for every woman, but it has for me, and Richard has never guessed – not that he is often in my bed these days. I had to pay the doctor, of course, an ironic fee – ‘to make certain you’ve understood my lesson’ was how he put it – just the once when my body had recovered. I kept my eyes closed and it wasn’t so bad. It did occur to me that he could use it against me, blackmail me for further payments in the flesh, but he never did. For that and his biology lesson I have always been grateful. I even shed a tear when I later heard he had died. An understanding doctor can come in handy at times.

To be fair to Maude, that trapped feeling had emerged well before her birth. I first felt it one morning when Richard and I were just back from our honeymoon and newly installed in our London house. He kissed me goodbye in my new morning room – which I had chosen to be at the front of the house, overlooking the street rather than the garden, so that I could keep an eye on the world outside – and left to catch his train to work. I watched from the window as he walked away, and felt the same jealousy I had suffered when seeing my brother go off to school. When he had gone round the corner, I turned and looked at the still, quiet room, just on the edge of the city that is the centre of the world, and I began to cry. I was twenty years old, and my life had settled into a long, slow course over which I had no control.

I recovered, of course. I knew very well that I was lucky in many things: to have had an education and a liberal father, to have a husband who is handsome and well enough off that we can afford a cook as well as a live-in maid, and who does not discourage me from bettering myself, even if he is unable to give me the larger world I long for. I dried my tears that morning, grateful that at least my mother-in-law had not been there to see me cry. Small mercies – I thank my God for them.

My marriage is no longer what it once was. Now I dread Richard’s announcement about New Year’s Eve. I do not know that he really takes pleasure from the experience itself. Rather he is doing it to punish me. But I do not think I am capable of being what he wants me to be, of becoming once more the lively wife who thinks the world a reasonable place and he a reasonable man.

If I could do that, or even pretend to, we could spend our New Year’s at home. But I can’t do it.

I tried tonight to quell my black feelings and at least not neglect Maude. As we were leaving the bonfire I went up to her, took her hand and slipped it into the crook of my elbow. Maude jumped as if I had bitten her, then looked guilty for having such a response. She held onto me rather awkwardly, but we managed to remain like that for several minutes before she made an excuse and ran to catch up with her friend. To my shame, I was relieved.

May 1904

MAUDE COLEMAN

I know I shouldn’t say this, but Grandmother always manages to ruin our day when she visits, even before she arrives. Until her letter came yesterday we were having such a lovely time, sitting around the table on the patio and reading out bits from the papers to each other. That is my favourite time with Mummy and Daddy. It was a warm spring day, the flowers in Mummy’s garden were just beginning to bloom, and Mummy for once seemed happy.

Daddy was reading little snippets out from the Mail, and Mummy from the local paper all the crimes committed that week – fraud, wife-beating, and petty theft the most common. She loves the crimes page.

‘Listen to this,’ she said. ‘“James Smithson has appeared before the court charged with stealing his neighbour’s cat. In his defence Mr Smithson said the puss had made off with the Sunday joint and he was only reclaiming his property, now inside the cat.”’

We all three laughed, but when Jenny arrived with the letter Mummy stopped smiling.

‘What on earth am I going to do with her for the day?’ she said when she had finished the letter.

Daddy didn’t answer, but frowned and kept reading his paper.

That was when I suggested visiting the columbarium. I was not entirely certain what a columbarium was, but one had opened at the cemetery, and it sounded grand enough for Grandmother.

‘Good idea, Maude,’ Mummy said. ‘If she’ll agree.’

Daddy looked up from the Mail. ‘I would be very surprised if she agreed to see such an unsavoury thing.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Mummy said. ‘I think it’s rather a clever idea. I’m surprised you don’t, given how much you like urns.’

When I heard the word urn, I knew they would argue, so I ran down to the bottom of the garden to tell Lavinia that we might go to the cemetery the next day. Daddy and Mr Waterhouse have put up ladders so that we can climb the fence more easily, after I sprained my wrist once from falling.

I am rather frightened of Grandmother. She looks as if she has swallowed a fishbone and can’t get it out, and she says things that I would be punished for saying. Today when she arrived she looked at me and said, ‘Lord, child, you are plain. No one would guess you were Kitty’s daughter. Or my granddaughter, for that matter.’ She always likes to remind everyone that she was a beauty when she was younger.

We went up to the morning room, and Grandmother said once again that she did not approve of the colours Mummy had done the room in. I rather like them. They remind me of the workman’s café Jenny sometimes takes me to as a treat, where there is a pot of mustard and a bottle of brown sauce on each table. Perhaps Mummy saw them there and decided to use them in her morning room – though it is hard to imagine Mummy in a workman’s café, with all the smoke and grease and the men who have not shaved. Mummy has always said she prefers a man with smooth skin like Daddy’s.

Mummy ignored Grandmother’s remarks. ‘Coffee, please, Jenny,’ she ordered.

‘Not for me,’ Grandmother said. ‘Just a cup of hot water and a slice of lemon.’

I stood behind them by the window so that I could look out through the venetian blinds. It was dusty outside, what with all the activity in the street – horses pulling carts loaded with milk, coal, ice, the baker’s boy going door to door with his basket of bread, boys bringing letters, maids running errands. Jenny always says she is at war with dust and is losing the battle.

I liked looking out. When I turned back to the room, where dust floated in a shaft of sunlight, it seemed very still.

‘Why are you lurking back there?’ Grandmother said. ‘Come out so we can see you. Play us something on the piano.’

I looked at Mummy, horrified. She knew I hated playing.

She was no help. ‘Go on, Maude,’ she said. ‘Play us something from your last lesson.’

I sat down at the piano and wiped my hands on my pinafore. I knew Grandmother would prefer a hymn to Mozart, so I began to play ‘Abide with me’, which I know Mummy hates. After a few bars Grandmother said, ‘Gracious, child, that’s terrible. Can’t you play better than that?’

I stopped and stared down at the keys; my hands were trembling. I hated Grandmother’s visits.

‘Come, now, Mother Coleman, she’s nine years old,’ Mummy at last defended me. ‘She hasn’t been taking lessons for long.’

‘A girl needs to learn these things. How’s her sewing?’

‘Not good,’ Mummy answered frankly. ‘She’s inherited that from me. But she reads very well. She’s reading Sense and Sensibility, aren’t you, Maude?’

I nodded. ‘And Through the Looking-Glass again. Daddy and I have been recreating the chess game from it.’

‘Reading,’ Grandmother said, her fishbone look even stronger. ‘That won’t get a girl anywhere. It’ll just put ideas in her head. Especially rubbish like those Alice books.’

Mummy sat up a little straighter. She read all the time. ‘What’s the matter with a girl having ideas, Mother Coleman?’

‘She won’t be satisfied with her life if she has ideas,’ Grandmother said. ‘Like you. I always said to my son that you wouldn’t be happy. “Marry her if you must,” I said, “but she’ll never be satisfied.” I was right. You always want something more, but all your ideas don’t tell you what.’

Mummy didn’t say anything, but sat with her hands clasped so tightly in her lap I could see the whites of her knuckles.

‘But I know what you need.’

Mummy glanced at me, then shook her head at Grandmother, which meant Grandmother was about to say something I should not hear. ‘You should have more children,’ she said, ignoring Mummy. She always ignores Mummy. ‘The doctor said there’s no physical reason why you can’t. You’d like a brother or sister, wouldn’t you, Maude?’

I looked from Grandmother to Mummy. ‘Yes,’ I said, to punish Mummy for making me play the piano. I felt bad the moment I said it, but it was true, after all. I am often jealous of Lavinia because she has Ivy May, even though Ivy May can be a nuisance when she has to come everywhere with us.

Just then Jenny arrived with a tray, and we were all relieved to see her. When she had served them I managed to slip out after her as she left. Mummy was saying something about the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. ‘It’s sure to be rubbish,’ Grandmother was saying as I shut the door.

‘Rubbish,’ Jenny repeated when we were in the kitchen, her head shaking and her nose wrinkling. She sounded so much like Grandmother that I laughed till my stomach hurt.

I sometimes wonder why Grandmother bothers to visit. She and Mummy disagree on almost everything, and Grandmother is not very polite about it. It is always left to Mummy to smooth things over. ‘The privilege of age,’ Daddy says whenever Mummy complains.

For a moment I felt bad about abandoning Mummy upstairs, but I was still angry that she said my sewing was as bad as my piano. So I stayed in the kitchen and helped Mrs Baker with lunch. We were to have cold cow’s tongue and salad, and lady’s fingers for pudding. Lunches with Grandmother are never very interesting.

When Jenny came down with the coffee tray she said she had overheard Grandmother say she does want to visit the columbarium, ‘even though it is for heathens.’ I didn’t wait for her to finish, but ran to get Lavinia.

KITTY COLEMAN

Frankly I was surprised that Mrs Coleman was so keen on seeing the columbarium. I expect the idea appeals to her sense of tidiness and economy, though she made it clear it would never be appropriate for Christians.

At any rate I was relieved to have something to do with her. I always dread her visits, though it is easier than when I was first married. It has taken these ten years of marriage to learn to handle her – like a horse, except that I have never managed a horse – they are so big and clumsy.

But handle her I have. The portraits, for example. As a wedding present she gave us several dark oil portraits of various Colemans from the last century or so, all with the same dour expression that she wears as well – which is remarkable given that she married into the family rather than inheriting the look.

They are dreary things, but Mrs Coleman insisted they be hung in the hallway where every visitor could see and admire them; and Richard did nothing to dissuade her. It is rare he will cross her. His one rebellious act has been to marry a doctor’s daughter from Lincolnshire, and he will probably spend the rest of his days avoiding other conflicts. So up went the portraits. After six months I found some botanical watercolours exactly the same size, and hung them instead, replacing them with the portraits whenever Mrs Coleman came to call. Luckily she is not the kind of woman to pay surprise visits – she always announces her arrival the day before, giving me plenty of time to switch paintings.

After several years of swapping I grew more confident, and at last felt able to leave up the watercolours. Of course on arrival she noticed them first thing, before she had even unbuttoned her coat. ‘Where are the family portraits?’ she demanded. ‘Why are they not in their places?’

Luckily I was prepared. ‘Oh, Mother Coleman’ (how it grates to call her that – she is no mother to me), ‘I was concerned that the draughts from the door might damage them, and so I had them rehung in Richard’s study, where he can take comfort from his ancestors’ presence.’

Her response was typical. ‘I myself don’t know why you’ve left them there all that time. I should like to have said something, but this is your home, after all, and far be it from me to tell you how to run it.’

Jenny almost dropped Mrs Coleman’s coat on the floor from giggling – she knew all too well the palaver that had gone on over the pictures, for it had been she who’d helped me switch the paintings each time.

I did have one victory over Mrs Coleman early on, and it has seen me through many a grinding afternoon with her when afterwards I have had to lie down with a dose of Beecham’s. Mrs Baker was my triumph. I chose her as our cook because of her name – the frivolity of the reason was irresistible. And I could not help it – I told Mrs Coleman as well.

When she heard she spat out her tea, appalled. ‘Chosen for her name? Don’t be ridiculous! What way is that to run a household?’

To my immense satisfaction, Mrs Baker – a small, self-contained woman who reminds me of a bundle of twigs – has turned out to be a gem, a thrifty, able cook who instinctively understands certain things so that I do not need to spell them out. When I tell her Mrs Coleman is coming for lunch, for example, she serves bouillon rather than mulligatawny, a poached egg rather than an omelette. Yes, she is a gem.

Jenny has been more of a trial, but I like her better than Mrs Baker, who has a way of looking at everyone sideways and so appearing constantly suspicious. Jenny has a big mouth and wide cheeks – a face made for laughing. She is always going about her work with a smirk on her face, as if she is about to burst with some great joke. And she does, too – I can hear her laugh all the way up from the kitchen. I try not to think it but I can’t help wondering if the laughter is ever directed at me. I am sure it is.

Mrs Coleman says she is not to be trusted, of course. I suspect she may be right. There is something restless about Jenny that suggests one day she will crash, and we will all suffer the consequences. But I am determined to keep her on, if only to annoy Mrs Coleman.

And she has been good for Maude – she is a warm girl. (Mrs Baker is cold like pewter.) Since Maude’s nanny left and I am meant to be looking after her, Jenny has become indispensable in keeping an eye on her. She often takes her to the cemetery – a whim of Lavinia’s that Maude has unfortunately adopted and which I did not nip in the bud as I ought to have done. Jenny doesn’t complain much – I suspect she welcomes the chance for a rest. She always leaves for the cemetery in high spirits.

Maude said the Waterhouses would like to come along to see the columbarium too, which was just as well. I suspected that Gertrude Waterhouse is, if not the class of woman Mrs Coleman would have had her son marry (not that I was either), then at least more compatible with her. They could talk about their mutual adoration of the late Queen, if nothing else.

The columbarium is housed in one of the vaults in the Circle of Lebanon, where a sort of channel has been dug round a big Lebanon cedar and lined with a double row of family vaults. To get to it one walks up the Egyptian Avenue, a gloomy row of vaults overhung with rhododendrons, the entrance done in the Egyptian style, with elaborate columns decorated with lotus flowers. The whole thing is rather theatrical – I am sure it was very stylish back in the 1840s, and now it makes me want to laugh. The tree is lovely, at least, its branches crooked and almost horizontally spread, like an umbrella of blue-green needles. With the blue sky behind it like today it can make the heart soar.

Perhaps I should have prepared the girls more for what they were about to see. Maude is quite phlegmatic and robust, and Ivy May, the younger Waterhouse girl with the big hazel eyes, keeps her thoughts to herself. But Lavinia is the kind of girl who will find any excuse to fall into a faint, which she promptly did the moment she peered through the iron grillwork into the columbarium. Not that there is much to see, really – it is a small, high vault lined with cubicles of about one foot by eighteen inches. They are all empty except for two quite high up which have been covered over with stone plaques, and another with an urn sitting in it, with no plaque as of yet. Given that there are urns everywhere on graves here, it is hard to see what Lavinia made such a fuss about.

It was secretly gratifying too, I must confess, for up until that moment Gertrude Waterhouse and Mrs Coleman had been getting on very well. I would never say I was jealous, but it did make me feel rather inadequate. However, when Gertrude had to attend to her prone daughter, waving smelling salts under her nose while Ivy May fanned her with a handkerchief, Mrs Coleman grew more disapproving. ‘What’s wrong with the girl?’ she barked.

‘She’s a bit sensitive, I’m afraid,’ poor Gertrude replied. ‘She’s not meant to see such sights.’

Mrs Coleman humphed. Her humphs are often more damaging than her words.

While we waited for Lavinia to revive, Maude asked me why it was called a columbarium.

‘That’s Latin for dovecote, where birds live.’

‘But birds don’t live there.’

‘No. The little cubbyholes are for urns, as you can see, like what we have on our grave except much smaller.’

‘But why do they keep urns there?’

‘Most people when they die are buried in coffins. But some people choose to be burned. The urns hold their ashes and this is where you can put them.’

‘Burned?’ Maude looked a bit shocked.

‘Cremated is the word, actually,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with it. In a way it’s less frightening than being buried. Much quicker, at least. It’s becoming a little more popular now. Perhaps I’d like to be cremated.’ I threw out the last comment rather flippantly, as I had never really considered it before. But now, staring at the urn in one of the cubbyholes, it began to appeal – though I should not want my ashes placed in an urn. Rather they be scattered somewhere, to help the flowers grow.

‘Rubbish!’ Mrs Coleman interrupted. ‘And it’s entirely inappropriate for a girl of Maude’s age to be told about such things.’ Having said that, however, she couldn’t resist continuing. ‘Besides, it’s un-Christian and illegal. I wonder if it is even legal to build such a thing—’ she waved at the columbarium – ‘if it encourages criminal activity.’

As she was speaking a man came trotting down the steps next to the columbarium that led from the upper to the lower level of the Circle. He stopped abruptly when he heard her. ‘Pardon me, madam,’ he said, bowing to Mrs Coleman. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing your comment. Indeed, cremation is not illegal. It has never been illegal in England – it’s simply been disapproved of by society, and so it has not been carried out. But there have been crematoria for many years – the first was built at Woking in 1885.’

‘Who are you?’ Mrs Coleman demanded. ‘And what business is it of yours what I say?’

‘Pardon me, madam,’ the man repeated, with another bow. ‘I am Mr Jackson, the superintendent of the cemetery. I simply wished to set you straight on the facts of cremation because I wanted to reassure you that there is nothing illegal about the columbarium. The Cremation Act passed two years ago regulates the procedures and practice throughout all of Britain. The cemetery is simply responding to the public’s demand, and reflecting public opinion on the matter.’