I was looking not just for Ivy May, but for Simon as well. We had not seen him since he left the procession to go and collect the horse (led by Maude’s mother in that costume! I am speechless. It was no wonder that the horse kicked her). He had said he might come back to the park after. I kept thinking as I looked that they would be together-that Simon would appear, leading Ivy May by the hand. They would be eating ice-creams and they would have them for Maude and me as well. Ivy May would give me a cheeky look, with a little smile and glittering eyes, and I would pinch her for frightening me so.
“She’s not here,” Maude said. “We would have seen her by now. Perhaps she’s gone home. She may have retraced the route we took, back to Euston, and got on an omnibus. She’s not stupid, Ivy May.”
I held up the little purse that dangled from my wrist. “She had no money for the bus,” I whispered. “I made her give it to me for safe-keeping, so she wouldn’t lose it.”
“She may have found her way back,” Maude repeated. “Perhaps we should walk along the procession route and look for her.”
“I’m so very tired. I don’t think I could take another step. Let’s stay here just a little longer.”
Then we did see Simon coming toward us. He looked so small in that great grass expanse, with his hands at his sides, kicking at things that had been left behind-bits of paper, flowers, a lady’s glove. He seemed unsurprised to see us, and unsurprised when Maude said, “Ivy May is missing.”
“Ivy May’s gone,” I said. “She’s gone.” I began to cry.
“She’s missing,” Maude repeated.
Simon gazed at us. I had never seen him look so grave.
“We think she may have gone along the route we marched,” Maude said. “Come with us to look.”
“What were she wearing?” Simon asked. “I didn’t notice before.”
Maude sighed. “A white dress. A white dress like everyone else. And a straw hat with flowers around the brim, like ours.”
Simon fell in beside us and we began walking back down Oxford Street. This time we could not walk down the middle of the street, for it was full of horse-drawn cabs and omnibuses and motorcars. We stayed on the pavement, crowded with people walking back from the demonstration. Simon crossed over to search the other pavement, looking in doorways and down alleys as well as scanning the faces around him.
I could not quite believe we were going to have to walk the whole route again-I was so thirsty and footsore that I did not think I could manage it. But then, as we were going along Upper Regent Street, I saw down a mews a pump for watering horses, and went up and put my whole face under the stream of water that gushed out. I didn’t care if the water was bad or my hair got wet-I was so thirsty I had to drink.
The bell in the clock tower of St. Pancras Station was striking eight when at last we arrived back at our starting point.
“Mama will be frantic with worry,” I said. As tired as I was, I dreaded arriving home to face Mama and Papa.
“It’s still so light out,” Maude said. “It’s the longest day of the year-did you know that? Well, second longest, perhaps, after yesterday.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake shush, Maude.” I could not bear to hear her talk like a teacher in a classroom. Besides which, I had a fearsome headache.
“We’d best go home,” Maude said, ignoring me. “Then we can tell your parents and they can contact the police. And I can find out about Mummy.”
“Your mother,” I began. Suddenly I was so angry I wanted to spit. Maude had sent Mr. Jackson off with her mother rather than have him help us. He would have found Ivy May, I was sure of it. “Your bloody mother got us into this mess.”
“Don’t blame her!” Maude cried. “It was you who wanted so badly to come on the march!”
“Your mother,” I repeated. “You don’t know the half of it about her.”
“Don‘t, Livy,” Simon warned. “Don’t you dare.”
Maude looked between us. “I don’t want to hear it, whatever it is,” she said to me. “Don’t you ever say a word of it to me.”
“Go home, both of you!” Simon said. I’d never heard him raise his voice before. ‘There’s an omnibus there.“ He even pushed us toward it.
“We can’t leave Ivy May,” I declared, stopping in my tracks. “We can’t just jump on a bus and leave her at the mercy of this awful city.”
“I’ll go back and look for her,” Simon said.
For that I could have kissed him, but he was already off at a run, back down along the Euston Road.
Jenny Whitby
Never did I expect to see such a sight.
I didn’t know who it could be, ringing the bell on a Sunday evening. I’d just returned from Mum‘s, didn’t even have my cap and apron on yet. I weren’t even there normally-I usually came back later, after Jack was asleep, but today he were so tired from running about that after tea he just fell into his bed.
Maybe it were the missus and Miss Maude, had their key pick-pocketed in the crowd. Or a neighbor meaning to borrow a stamp or run out of lamp oil. But when I opened the door, it were the man from the cemetery, carrying the missus in his arms. Not only that-she weren’t wearing a proper skirt! Her legs were bare as the day she was born. Her eyes were just open, like she’d been woke up from a nap.
Before I could say a word but stare with my eyes popping, Mr. Jackson had pushed inside, with that suffragette lady Miss Black fluttering behind him. “We must get her to her bed,” he said. “Where is her husband?”
“At the Bull and Last,” I said. “He always goes there after his cricket.” I led the way upstairs to her room. Miss Black was wearing some sort of metal suit what clanked as she went up the stairs. She looked so strange I began to wonder if I were dreaming it all.
Mr. Jackson laid the missus on her bed and said, “Stay with her-I’ll get her husband.”
“And I’ll fetch a doctor,” said Miss Black.
There’s one on the Highgate Road, just up from the pub,“ I said. ”I can…“
But they were gone before I could offer to go so Miss Black could stay with her friend. It were like she didn’t want to stay.
So it were just me and the missus. She lay there staring at me. I couldn’t think what to do. I lit a candle and were just about to close the curtains when she whispered, “Leave them open. And open the window.”
She looked so silly in her green outfit, her legs all naked. Mr. Coleman would have a fit if he saw her like that. After I opened the window I sat on the bed and began to take off her little green boots.
“Jenny, I want to ask you something,” she said real quiet.
“Yes, ma‘am.”
“Does anyone know about what happened to me?”
“About what happened to you, ma‘am?” I repeated. “You’ve had a little accident, is all.”
The missus’s eyes flared and she shook her head. “Jenny, there is no time for this silliness. For once let us be clear with each other-does anyone know what happened to me two years ago?”
I knew what she were talking about the first time, even though I acted like I didn’t. I set the boots on the floor. “No one knows but me. And Mrs. Baker-she guessed. Oh, and Simon.”
“The cemetery boy? How could he know?”
“It were his mum you went to.”
“And that is all-no one else knows?”
I didn’t look in her eyes, but tugged at the green cap in her hair. “No.” I didn’t say nothing about Miss Livy’s letter. There seemed no point in agitating her in her state. Simon and Mrs. Baker and me, we could keep our counsel, but there was no guessing what Miss Livy might say one of these days-or said already, like as not. But the missus needn’t know that.
“I don’t want the men to find out.”
“No.” I reached round and began to unbutton the back of her tunic.