Then the band, led by a man with a handlebar moustache, began to play a march from Aida and everyone stood up straighter, as if a wire had been pulled taut all up and down the procession. An expectant hum rose from the crowd. Eunice reappeared suddenly and called out, “Right, then, banners up!” Women around her raised their poles and fitted them into the holders at their sides; then others who saw those banners go up lifted theirs, until as far ahead and behind as I could see there were banners sailing above a sea of heads. For the first time I wished I, too, were carrying a banner.
The hum died down after a few minutes when we hadn’t moved.
“Aren’t we ever going to start?” Lavinia cried, hopping from foot to foot. “Oh, I can’t bear it if we don’t go soon!”
Then, suddenly, we did. The banners ahead jerked and a space opened up in front of us.
“Onward!” Eunice cried. “Come, now, girls!”
As we began to walk, the spectators on the pavement cheered and I felt tingles up and down my back. There were six other processions besides ours, coming from points all around London, bringing marchers toward Hyde Park. It was terribly thrilling to feel a part of a larger whole, of thousands and thousands of women all doing the same thing at the same time.
It took some time for the procession to assume a steady pace. We kept stopping and starting, making our way past St. Pancras, then Euston Station. On both sides, men watched us pass, some frowning, a few jeering, but most smiling the way my uncle does when he thinks I’ve said something silly. The women on the sidelines were more supportive, smiling and waving. A few even stepped in to join the marchers.
At first Lavinia was very excited, humming along with the band, laughing as a banner ahead of us caught a breeze and started to flap. But once we began walking more steadily, when we had passed Euston and were heading toward Great Portland Station, she sighed and dragged her feet. “Is this all we’re going to do? Walk?” she complained.
“There will be speeches at Hyde Park. It’s not so far. And we’ll be going along Oxford Street and you can see the shops.” I said this with authority, but I didn’t really know where the route would take us. My London geography was shaky-I had not been into town very often, and then I simply followed Mummy or Daddy. I knew the principal rivers of Africa better than the streets of London.
“There’s Simon.” Ivy May pointed.
It was a relief to see a familiar face among the mass of strangers. “Simon!” Lavinia and I called at the same time.
When he saw us his face lit up and he stepped out of the crowd to fall in beside us.
“What are you doing here, naughty boy?” Lavinia asked, squeezing his arm.
Simon turned red. “Came to find you.”
“Are you going to march with us?” I asked.
Simon looked around. “There ain’t no men, is there?”
“The bands are all men. Stay with us.”
“Well, maybe for a little bit. But I has to go and get the horse at Hyde Park.”
“What horse?”
Simon looked surprised. “The horse for the ladies. For your ma. Didn’t she tell you?”
“Mummy doesn’t have a horse. She hates horses.”
“It’s a friend of Mr. Jackson what has the horse. They’re just borrowing it for the day.”
“Mr. Jackson? What does he have to do with it?”
Simon looked like he’d rather not have said anything. “Your mother asked Mr. Jackson if he knew anyone could lend her a horse. A white horse, it had to be. And he has a friend has one, up off Baker Street. So he lent it to her, and asked me to fetch it and bring it back. Paid me and all.”
The band began to play the Pirate King song from The Pirates of Pen- zance. I was trying to take in what Simon was saying, but it was difficult to think in the middle of so many people and so much noise. “Mummy never goes to the cemetery. How could she see Mr. Jackson?”
Simon shrugged. “He visited her at Holloway. And I heard ‘em talking at the cemetery not long ago-about the suffragism and that.”
“She’s not riding the horse, is she? Where exactly is she?”
Simon shrugged again. “See for yourself. They’re at the start of the procession.”
“Is it far?”
“I’ll show you.” Simon immediately plunged back into the crowd on the pavement, probably relieved to leave the procession of women.
I began to follow but Lavinia grabbed my arm. “What about me?” she cried.
“Stay here. I’ll come back to you.”
“But you can’t leave me alone!”
“You’re not alone-you’re with Ivy May. Stay with the banner,” I added, gesturing at HOPE IS STRONG. “I’ll come back to you. And Eunice is bound to return soon. Tell her I’ve gone to look at the banners. Don’t say I’ve gone to see Mummy.”
“We’re coming with you!” Lavinia cried, but I wrenched my arm away and pushed into the crowd before she could follow. Whatever Mummy was doing, I didn’t want Lavinia to see it.
Simon Field
All I can say is, Mrs. C. weren’t wearing that when I handed over the horse to her earlier. Must’ve had it on under her dress.
I’m surprised but try not to show it. Can’t take my eyes from her legs. I only seen a woman’s legs like that once at a panto of Dick Whittington, and even then she wore tights and the tunic came to her knees. Mrs. C. ain’t dressed as Dick, though, but as Robin Hood. She wears a short green tunic belted in the middle, little green boots, and a green and purple cap with a white feather in it. She’s got bare legs, from her ankles up to-well, up high.
She’s leading the white horse what Miss Black’s riding. You’d think Miss Black’d be dressed as Maid Marian or Friar Tuck or some such, but instead she’s got on a full suit of armor and a silver helmet with a white feather in it that bobs up and down in time with the horse, just like the ostrich feathers on the horses in a funeral procession. She holds the reins in one hand and a flag in the other with words on it I can’t read.
Maude just stares. Who can blame her-everyone’s staring at Kitty Coleman’s legs. I has to say-they’re fine legs. I’m bright red looking at ‘em, and go hard, right among all them people. Has to cross my hands in front of me to hide it.
“Who’s Miss Black meant to be?” I ask, to distract myself.
“Joan of Arc.” Maude says it like she’s spitting the words.
I never heard of this Joan, but I don’t tell Maude. I know she don’t want to talk.
We’ve been standing on the pavement a bit ahead of ‘em, so we can watch ’em approach. As they pass by, Maude looks like she wants to say something to her ma, but she don’t. Mrs. C. ain’t looking at her-she has a funny smile on her face and seems to be looking way ahead, like she sees something on the horizon she can’t wait to get to.
Then they’re past. Maude don’t say nothing, and neither do I. We just watch the procession go by. Then Maude snorts.
“What?” I say.
“Caroline Black’s banner has a mistake on it,” she says, but she won’t tell me what it is.
Kitty Coleman
For most of the march I felt as if I were walking through a dream.
I was so excited that I hardly heard a thing. The buzz of spectators, the jangling and creaking of the bridle, the clanking of Caroline’s armor-they were all there, but distant. The horse’s hooves sounded as if they were muffled by blankets, or as if sawdust had been strewn along the route, as it sometimes is for funerals.
Nor could I really see anything. I tried to focus on faces along the route but they were all a blur. I kept thinking I saw people I knew-Richard, John Jackson, Maude, even my dead mother-but they were just resemblances. It was easier to look ahead toward our destination, whatever that would be.
What I did feel sharply was the sun and air on my legs. After a lifetime of heavy dresses, with their swathes of cloth wrapping my legs like bandages, it was an incredible sensation.