Falling Angels Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  JANUARY 1901

  Kitty Coleman

  Richard Coleman

  Maude Coleman

  Kitty Coleman

  Lavinia Waterhouse

  Gertrude Waterhouse

  Albert Waterhouse

  Simon Field

  DECEMBER 1901

  Richard Coleman

  MARCH 1903

  Lavinia Waterhouse

  Maude Coleman

  Gertrude Waterhouse

  JUNE 1903

  Maude Coleman

  Jenny Whitby

  NOVEMBER 1903

  Kitty Coleman

  MAY 1904

  Maude Coleman

  Kitty Coleman

  Lavinia Waterhouse

  Edith Coleman

  Simon Field

  JANUARY 1905

  Jenny Whitby

  OCTOBER 1905

  Gertrude Waterhouse

  FEBRUARY 1906

  Maude Coleman

  Kitty Coleman

  APRIL 1906

  Lavinia Waterhouse

  Maude Coleman

  Simon Field

  Jenny Whitby

  Lavinia Waterhouse

  Richard Coleman

  Kitty Coleman

  MAY 1906

  Albert Waterhouse

  JULY 1906

  Edith Coleman

  Maude Coleman

  Simon Field

  Jenny Whitby

  SEPTEMBER 1906

  Albert Waterhouse

  OCTOBER 1906

  Lavinia Waterhouse

  Gertrude Waterhouse

  Maude Coleman

  Kitty Coleman

  Simon Field

  Lavinia Waterhouse

  NOVEMBER 1906

  Jenny Whitby

  Edith Coleman

  Richard Coleman

  FEBRUARY 1907

  GertrudeWaterhouse

  Jenny Whitby

  JULY 1907

  Maude Coleman

  FEBRUARY 1908

  Kitty Coleman

  Dorothy Baker

  MARCH 1908

  Simon Field

  Lavinia Waterhouse

  Maude Coleman

  Richard Coleman

  MAY 1908

  Albert Waterhouse

  Kitty Coleman

  Richard Coleman

  Edith Coleman

  JUNE 1908

  Lavinia Waterhouse

  Gertrude Waterhouse

  Maude Coleman

  Simon Field

  Kitty Coleman

  Lavinia Waterhouse

  Maude Coleman

  Lavinia Waterhouse

  Jenny Whitby

  Ivy May Waterhouse

  Simon Field

  Maude Coleman

  Kitty Coleman

  Simon Field

  John Jackson

  Richard Coleman

  Lavinia Waterhouse

  Gertrude Waterhouse

  Edith Coleman

  Jenny Whitby

  Albert Waterhouse

  Maude Coleman

  Dorothy Baker

  Simon Field

  MAY 1910

  Lavinia Waterhouse

  Maude Coleman

  Simon Field

  Gertrude Waterhouse

  Albert Waterhouse

  Richard Coleman

  Dorothy Baker

  Simon Field

  Lavinia Waterhouse

  Maude Coleman

  Simon Field

  Acknowledgements

  Praise for Falling Angels

  “Chevalier’s ringing prose is as radiantly efficient as well-tended silver.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “Chevalier’s tone is candid and immediate. Her enthusiasm for her subject, as well as her dedication to historical accuracy, keeps the reader engaged.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Chevalier not only authentically details the era’s social mores, tensions, and contradictions, she writes the book we want to read.”

  —New York Daily News

  “Part of the secret of Chevalier’s success is her uncanny ability to bring a lost world to life... Just as Vermeer’s work helps to explain his world in Chevalier’s earlier novel, so the symbolic art of the graveyard beautifully illuminates Victorian culture in Falling Angels.”

  —The Baltimore Sun

  “A thoughtful exploration of the ways people misread each other by being trapped in their own perspectives.”

  —People magazine

  “Chevalier’s second novel confirms her place in the literary firmament... This is a beautiful novel, not soon forgotten.”

  —Minneapolis Star Tribune

  TRACY CHEVALIER is the author of the bestselling Girl With a Pearl Earring. An American originally from Washington, D.C., she currently lives in London with her husband and son.

  Visit www.tchevalier.com and www.pearlearring.com

  “Brilliant ... a rich story that is true to the era.”

  —The Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “At once elegant, daring, original, and compelling.”

  —Kansas City Independent

  “Her new novel may be called Falling Angels, but there is no doubt Tracy Chevalier is a rising star.”

  —The Orlando Sentinel

  “[Girl With a] Pearl Earringfans will love the evocation of atmosphere one would expect from this writer ... Chevalier gives the kiss of life to the historical novel.”

  —The Independent (London)

  “The novel is as cleverly atmospheric as its predecessor ... Each separate voice is perfectly judged, reverberating in the mind’s ear ... A well-researched, vividly imagined, and entirely credible tale.”

  —The Sunday Telegraph

  PLUME

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182—190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  Published by Plume, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Previously published in a Dutton edition.

  First Plume Printing, October 2002

  Copyright © Tracy Chevalier, 2001

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the Dutton edition as follows:

  Chevalier, Tracy.

  Falling angels / by Tracy Chevalier.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-17489-0

  1. Great Britain—History—Edward VII, 1901—1910—Fiction. 2. Highgate

  Cemetery (London, England)—Fiction. 3. London (England)—Fiction. 4. Social

  classes—Fiction. 5. Friendship—Fiction. 6. Children—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3553.H4367 F35 2001

  813’.54—dc21

  2001033474

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product
s of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION, PENGUIN PUTNAM INC., 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Jonatban, again

  JANUARY 1901

  Kitty Coleman

  I woke this morning with a stranger in my bed. The head of blond hair beside me was decidedly not my husband’s. I did not know whether to be shocked or amused.

  Well, I thought, here’s a novel way to begin the new century.

  Then I remembered the evening before and felt rather sick. I wondered where Richard was in this huge house and how we were meant to swap back. Everyone else here—the man beside me included—was far more experienced in the mechanics of these matters than I. Than we. Much as Richard bluffed last night, he was just as much in the dark as me, though he was more keen. Much more keen. It made me wonder.

  I nudged the sleeper with my elbow, gently at first and then harder until at last he woke with a snort.

  “Out you go,” I said. And he did, without a murmur. Thankfully he didn’t try to kiss me. How I stood that beard last night I’ll never remember—the claret helped, I suppose. My cheeks are red with scratches.

  When Richard came in a few minutes later, clutching his clothes in a bundle, I could barely look at him. I was embarrassed, and angry too—angry that I should feel embarrassed and yet not expect him to feel so as well. It was all the more infuriating that he simply kissed me, said, “Hello, darling,” and began to dress. I could smell her perfume on his neck.

  Yet I could say nothing. As I myself have so often said, I am open minded—I pride myself on it. Those words bite now.

  I lay watching Richard dress, and found myself thinking of my brother. Harry always used to tease me for thinking too much—though he refused to concede that he was at all responsible for encouraging me. But all those evenings spent reviewing with me what his tutors had taught him in the morning—he said it was to help him remember it—what did that do but teach me to think and speak my mind? Perhaps he regretted it later. I shall never know now. I am only just out of mourning for him, but some days it feels as if I am still clutching that telegram.

  Harry would be mortified to see where his teaching has led. Not that one has to be clever for this sort of thing—most of them downstairs are stupid as buckets of coal, my blond beard among them. Not one could I have a proper conversation with—I had to resort to the wine.

  Frankly I’m relieved not to be of this set—to paddle in its shallows occasionally is quite enough for me. Richard I suspect feels differently, but he has married the wrong wife if he wanted that sort of life. Or perhaps it is I who chose badly—though I would never have thought so once, back when we were mad for each other.

  I think Richard has made me do this to show me he is not as conventional as I feared. But it has had the opposite effect on me. He has become everything I had not thought he would be when we married. He has become ordinary.

  I feel so flat this morning. Daddy and Harry would have laughed at me, but I secretly hoped that the change in the century would bring a change in us all; that England would miraculously slough off her shabby black coat to reveal something glittering and new. It is only eleven hours into the twentieth century, yet I know very well that nothing has changed but a number.

  Enough. They are to ride today, which is not for me—I shall escape with my coffee to the library. It will undoubtedly be empty.

  Richard Coleman

  I thought being with another woman would bring Kitty back, that jealousy would open her bedroom door to me again. Yet two weeks later she has not let me in any more than before.

  I do not like to think that I am a desperate man, but I do not understand why my wife is being so difficult. I have provided a decent life for her and yet she is still unhappy, though she cannot—or will not—say why.

  It is enough to drive any man to change wives, if only for a night.

  Maude Coleman

  When Daddy saw the angel on the grave next to ours he cried, “What the devil!”

  Mummy just laughed.

  I looked and looked until my neck ached. It hung above us, one foot forward, a hand pointing toward heaven. It was wearing a long robe with a square neck, and it had loose hair that flowed onto its wings. It was looking down toward me, but no matter how hard I stared it did not seem to see me.

  Mummy and Daddy began to argue. Daddy does not like the angel. I don’t know if Mummy likes it or not—she didn’t say. I think the urn Daddy has had put on our own grave bothers her more.

  I wanted to sit down but didn’t dare. It was very cold, too cold to sit on stone, and besides, the Queen is dead, which I think means no one can sit down, or play, or do anything comfortable.

  I heard the bells ringing last night when I was in bed, and when Nanny came in this morning she told me the Queen died yesterday evening. I ate my porridge very slowly, to see if it tasted different from yesterday‘s, now that the Queen is gone. But it tasted just the same—too salty. Mrs. Baker always makes it that way.

  Everyone we saw on our way to the cemetery was dressed in black. I wore a gray wool dress and a white pinafore, which I might have worn anyway but which Nanny said was fine for a girl to wear when someone died. Girls don’t have to wear black. Nanny helped me to dress. She let me wear my black-and-white plaid coat and matching hat, but she wasn’t sure about my rabbit‘s-fur muff, and I had to ask Mummy, who said it didn’t matter what I wore. Mummy wore a blue silk dress and wrap, which did not please Daddy.

  While they were arguing about the angel I buried my face in my muff. The fur is very soft. Then I heard a noise, like stone being tapped, and when I raised my head I saw a pair of blue eyes looking at me from over the headstone next to ours. I stared at them, and then the face of a boy appeared from behind the stone. His hair was full of mud, and his cheeks were dirty with it too. He winked at me, then disappeared behind the headstone.

  I looked at Mummy and Daddy, who had walked a little way up the path to view the angel from another place. They had not seen the boy. I walked backward between the graves, my eyes on them. When I was sure they were not looking I ducked behind the stone.

  The boy was leaning against it, sitting on his heels.

  “Why do you have mud in your hair?” I asked.

  “Been down a grave,” he said.

  I looked at him closely. There was mud on him everywhere—on his jacket, on his knees, on his shoes. There were even bits of it in his eyelashes.

  “Can I touch the fur?” he asked.

  “It’s a muff,” I said. “My muff.”

  “Can I touch it?”

  “No.” Then I felt bad saying that, so I held out the muff.

  The boy spit on his fingers and wiped them on his jacket, then reached out and stroked the fur.

  “What were you doing down a grave?” I asked.

  “Helping our pa.”

  “What does your father do?”

  “He digs the graves, of course. I helps him.”

  Then we heard a sound, like a kitten mewing. We peeked over the headstone and a girl standing in the path looked straight into my eyes, just as I had with the boy. She was dressed all in black, and was very pretty, with bright brown eyes and long lashes and creamy skin. Her brown hair was long and curly and so much nicer than mine, which hangs flat like laundry and isn’t one color or another. Grandmother calls mine ditch-water blond, which may be true but isn’t very kind. Grandmother always speaks her mind.

  The girl reminded me of my favorite chocolates, whipped hazelnut creams, and I knew just from looking at her that I wanted her for my best friend. I don’t have a best friend, and have been praying for one. I have often wondered, as I sit in St. Anne’s getting colder and co
lder (why are churches always cold?), if prayers really work, but it seems this time God has answered them.

  “Use your handkerchief, Livy dear, there’s a darling.” The girl’s mother was coming up the path, holding the hand of a younger girl. A tall man with a ginger beard followed them. The younger girl was not so pretty. Though she looked like the other girl, her chin was not so pointed, her hair not so curly, her lips not so big. Her eyes were hazel rather than brown, and she looked at everything as if nothing surprised her. She spotted the boy and me immediately.

  “Lavinia,” the older girl said, shrugging her shoulders and tossing her head so that her curls bounced. “Mama, I want you and Papa to call me Lavinia, not Livy.”

  I decided then and there that I would never call her Livy.

  “Don’t be rude to your mother, Livy,” the man said. “You’re Livy to us and that’s that. Livy is a fine name. When you’re older we’ll call you Lavinia.”

  Lavinia frowned at the ground.

  “Now stop all this crying,” he continued. “She was a good queen and she lived a long life, but there’s no need for a girl of five to weep quite so much. Besides, you’ll frighten Ivy May.” He nodded at the sister.