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I don’t dare tell anyone or I will be accused of treason, but I was terribly excited to hear the Queen is dead. The dullness I have felt since New Year’s vanished, and I had to work very hard to appear appropriately sober. The turning of the century was merely a change in numbers, but now we shall have a true change in leadership, and I can’t help but think Edward is more truly representative of us than his mother.

For now, though, nothing has changed – we were expected to troop up to the cemetery and make a show of mourning, even though none of the Royal Family is buried there, nor is the Queen to be. Death is there, and that is enough, I suppose.


Once we heard the news I lay awake all night, worrying about our clothes. Albert could wear his black work suit, with jet cufflinks and a black band for his hat. Mourning has always been easier for men. And Ivy May is too young for her clothes to be a concern. But Livy and I were to be dressed properly for our Queen’s passing.

What with the little sleep and the waking early I was so tired by the time we reached the cemetery that I almost cried to see the blue silk Kitty Coleman was wearing. It was an affront to the eyes, like a peacock spreading its feathers at a funeral.


It is so nice to have someone to mourn properly. And now I am old enough to wear a real mourning dress, it is even better. I have studied The Queen and Cassell’s very carefully so that I will not make any mistakes. I could have spent all day purchasing mourning clothes in Jay’s of Regent Street – it is comforting to be in a shop devoted entirely to what one is experiencing.


Our Granpa worked here too. Same as our Pa and me. Said it’s the nicest cemetery in London. Wouldn’t have wanted to be buried in any of t’others. He had stories to tell about t’others. Piles of bones everywhere. Bodies buried with just a sack of soil over ’em. Phew, the smell! And men snatching bodies in the night. Here he were at least safe and sound, with the boundary wall being so high, and the spikes on top.


That blasted cemetery. I have never liked it.

To be fair, it is not the fault of the place itself, which has a lugubrious charm, with its banks of graves stacked on top of one another – granite headstones, Egyptian obelisks, gothic spires, plinths topped with columns, weeping ladies, angels, and of course, urns – winding up the hill to the glorious Lebanon Cedar at the top. I am even willing to overlook some of the more preposterous monuments – ostentatious representations of a family’s status. But the sentiments that the place encourages in mourners are too overblown for my taste.


A cemetery is a business, like any other. People tend to forget that. Today in fact is relatively quiet for burials. But I’m afraid we can’t guarantee peace and quiet, except on Sundays. It’s the nature of the work – it’s impossible to predict when people will pass on. We must be prepared to act swiftly – nothing can be planned in advance. We have had twenty funerals in one day. Other days we’ve had none.


When my husband and I were married he brought me to the cemetery to show me the Coleman family grave, and I was all the more certain that I had chosen well in a husband. It looked to be a solid, safe and orderly place: the boundary walls were high, the flower beds and paths well-tended, the staff unobtrusive and professional.

Now, however, standards are slipping. Today I saw dead tulips in the flowerbeds. That would never have happened thirty years ago – then a flower was replaced the moment it passed its prime. And it is not just the management. Some grave owners are even choosing to plant wild flowers around their graves! Next they’ll bring in a cow to munch the buttercups.


It was amusing to watch Richard splutter over the angel that has been erected on the grave next to our urn.

"How dare they inflict their taste on us!" he said. "The thought of having to look at this sentimental nonsense every time we visit turns my stomach."

While I don’t think much of the blank-faced angels dotted around the cemetery, they bother me less than the urns, which seem a peculiar thing to put on a grave when one thinks that they were used by the Romans as receptacles for human ashes. A pagan symbol for a Christian society. But then, so is all the Egyptian symbolism one sees here as well. When I pointed this out to Richard he huffed and puffed but had no response other than to say, "That urn adds dignity and grace to the Coleman grave."

I don’t know about that. Utter banality and misplaced symbolism are rather more like it. I had the sense not to say so.


Simon is an apprentice gravedigger at the cemetery. He said he was a mute for the undertakers first but started digging graves once he could use a spade.

"There were three mutes at my grandmother’s funeral," Lavinia said. "One of them was whipped for laughing."

Mother says there are not so many funerals like that any more. She says they are too dear and the money should be spent on the living.


The columbarium 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.

Maude asked me what it was used for.

"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. "It’s becoming a little more popular now. Perhaps I’d like to be cremated."

"Rubbish!" Mrs Coleman said. "It’s un-Christian and illegal. What about re-assembly? How can the body and soul be reunited on the Day of Resurrection if the body has been –" Mrs Coleman did not complete her sentence, but waved a hand at the cubicles.

"Burnt to a crisp," Maude finished for her. I stifled a giggle.


My heart sank when I discovered that not only are we neighbours with the Colemans, but their house backs onto ours. And of course it is a whole storey higher than ours and has the most tremendous garden. When no one was about I stood on a chair and peeked over.

The front of their house is so elegant – the garden is full of rosebushes, and the steps leading up to the door are tiled in black and white. (The door of our own house opens directly onto the pavement. But I must try not to compare.)

Kitty Coleman received us in her morning room. I blinked at the colours she’d had it done in – mustard yellow with a dark brown trim, which I suppose is fashionable now. She called them "golden yellow" and "chocolate brown," which sound much better than they looked. I prefer our own burgundy. There is nothing to compare with a simple burgundy parlour.

Her taste is very refined – embroidered silk shawls over the sofas, potted ferns, vases of dried flowers, and a baby grand piano. I was rather shocked by the modern coffee set, which has a pattern of tiny black and yellow checks that made me feel dizzy. I myself prefer a simple rose pattern.

For all the space and elegance of the Colemans’ house, it is our house where the girls prefer to be. Livy prefers our comfortable dark sofas and chairs and the velvet curtains to Kitty Coleman’s taste for rattan furniture and venetian blinds. Maude says it’s much more snug here, which on reflection I think is intended as a compliment rather than a comment on the lack of space. At any rate I have decided to take it as such.


We went up to the morning room, and Grandmother said 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.


I do like to make an effort with my At Homes – I always have them in the front parlour, and use the rose pattern tea set, and Elizabeth bakes a cake – lemon this week. The ladies who come are neighbours from the street and from church, and stalwart friends who make the journey from Islington to see me, bless them…

Today I went to Kitty Coleman’s At Home, taking Lavinia and Ivy May with me for support. I must say it was the loudest At Home I have ever attended. Everyone was talking at once, and I am not sure anyone was actually listening. But I listened, and as I did my eyes grew big and my mouth small. I didn’t dare say a word. The room was full of suffragettes.


"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," I said. "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. Don’t you feel you have as much right as your father, your brother, your husband to elect who is to govern this country? We are fighting for your equality, Jenny."

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

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


"Caroline and I have been discussing the Women’s Social and Political Union," Kitty said.

"I don’t approve of women voting," I interrupted. "They don’t need to – their husbands are perfectly capable of doing so on their behalf.

"There are plenty of unmarried women – myself included – deserving of representation," Miss Black said. "Besides, a woman doesn’t always have the same views as her husband."

"In any sound marriage the woman is in perfect agreement with her husband," I said. "Otherwise they shouldn’t have married in the first place."


Sometimes I felt as if the room was no longer Mummy’s, but a cause’s. The old traces of Mummy – the yellow silk shawl on the sofa, the piano with a vase of dried flowers on it, the prints of plants – were still there. But what I noticed instead was the half-finished banner draped across the sofa that read DEEDS NOT WORDS; the stack of WSPU pamphlets on the piano; the scrapbook on the table, newspaper cuttings, letters, photographs piled next to it along with scissors and a gluepot; the box of chalk, the handbills, the sheets of paper scribbled with lists. Daddy never came in here. If he did he would be very surprised.


I went straight to Kitty’s morning room, where she keeps her books. There I saw just how far she has fallen into the black pit that is this cause.

I burned every handbill, every newspaper, every banner I could lay my hands on.


"I went to Parliament Square with some others to try to get in to the House of Common," I said.

"And – did you?" Maude asked.

"No. I was arrested."

"But why? What did you do?"

"I didn’t do anything. We were simply pushing through the crowd when policemen grabbed us and threw us to the ground. When we got up, they threw us down again and again. The bruises on my shoulders and ribs are quite spectacular. I’ll be in court early tomorrow. They may send me straight to Holloway prison. I wanted to say goodbye now."

"But – how long would you be in – in prison?"

"I don’t know. Possibly up to three months."

"Three months! What will we do?"


I let it slip real casual one day to Mr Jackson Mrs C. were in Holloway. He jumped like someone’d pinched him.

"Good Lord. Why is she there?"

"Women’s things, sir. You know, them women what goes round on bicycles, chalking signs on the pavement and shouting at rallies and that."

"You mean suffragettes?"

"I suppose so, sir."

"Good Lord," he said again. "Prison is a terrible place for a woman. I hope she is not being mistreated."

"Probably no more’n anyone else in prison, sir. My cousin got out after six months with nothing worse’n flea bites."

"That is not much comfort, Simon."

"Sorry, sir."


Women’s Sunday is to be the largest public gathering of people anywhere, ever in the world. We are run off our feet with tasks – booking trains from all over the country, getting permission for the march routes and use of Hyde Park, conferring with the police, finding speakers and marching bands, making banners. It is like planning a battle. No, not just a battle – an entire war.


A great sea of people had gathered in the distance around various carts where handfuls of suffragettes perched. In their white dresses and all piled up above the crowd they reminded me of puffy clouds on the horizon.

"If I may have your attention, I would like to open this meeting on this most momentous occasion," I heard a voice ring out. A woman had climbed onto a box higher than the rest of the women on the platform. In her mauve dress she looked like lavender sprinkled on a bowl of vanilla ice cream. She stood very straight and still.

"There’s Mrs Pankhurst," women around me murmured.

"I am delighted to see before me a great multitude of people, of supporters – both women and men – of the simple right of women to take their places alongside men and cast their ballots. Prime Minister Asquith has said that he needs to be assured that the will of the people is behind the call for votes for women. Well, Mr Asquith, I say to you that if you were standing where I am now and saw the great sea of humanity before you as I do, you would need no more convincing!"


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. In the procession Mrs C. is dressed 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 armour 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.

"Who’s Miss Black meant to be?" I ask.

"Joan of Arc," Maude says.

I never heard of this Joan, but I don’t tell Maude.


The first thing I thought when I heard the bells tolling was that they might disturb Mama in her delicate condition. But then, Mama has never been so fond of this King as she was of his mother. His death is of course very sad, and I do feel for poor Queen Alexandra, but it is not like when Queen Victoria died.

I stood in front of my wardrobe and debated for a long while about what to wear. I knew I should wear black for the King, but just looking at that old merino rag hanging there made me feel faint. Perhaps if I’d still had the lovely silk from Jay’s I would have worn that, but I burned it, as one is not meant to keep mourning clothes – they might tempt Fate to make one need to use them again.

Besides, I wanted to wear my blue dress, which I love. At least it is dark blue – dark enough that from a distance it could be taken for black.


It was long past midnight when Daddy and I came to the top of Parliament Hill. We had gone to look at Halley’s Comet and were walking across the Heath on our way home.

It had been a disappointing viewing – the waxing moon was shining so brightly that the comet was rather indistinct, though its long curved tail was still spectacular.

Now, though, with the moon lower in the sky, the comet was more visible. Lots of people were still out on the hill, looking at the comet. Someone was even playing "A Little of What You Fancy" on an accordion, though no one danced – the King was being buried in a few hours’ time, after all. It was strange that the comet should be in the sky the night before his funeral. It was the kind of thing Lavinia would make a great deal of, but I knew it was simply a coincidence, and coincidences can often be explained.