Lilian had decided that Evelyn’s skirt and blouse would do for tea at the Park Lane, but insisted on lending her a hat. It was a grey felt cloche and decorated with white and orange ostrich feathers, as well as a fancy silver and crystal ornament, where the feathers met the white ribbon which went around the crown. Evelyn wore Lilian’s string of pearls again but had left her butterfly brooch on her dressing table, afraid of losing it again and made uncomfortable by her dream. Lilian also insisted in lending her a woollen wrap of grey wool, doing away with the need for her coat.
For her part, Lilian did not look quite so extraordinary as she had the previous evening. Her outfit was a single tone of midnight blue, skirt and coat matching the hat perfectly. A loose belt at her waist had a silver buckle which sparkled with crystals, and there was a similar ornament to the ribbon of her hat, but otherwise she was, for Lilian, dressed in quite a conservative manner. Evelyn noticed that the women of London wore a myriad of colours and styles. Some of the older women looked as though they had not fully escaped the last century, with floor-length skirts and corseted waists, many were stylish but dour, and others wore bright colours and short skirts more similar to Lilian. It was these women to whom Evelyn’s attention was most drawn, until a group of young women in what was clearly school uniform walked past, laughing together.
“Oh, how I miss my school days,” Lilian exclaimed as they passed. “Don’t you, darling?”
“Yes,” Evelyn replied. “Although those girls are much older than I was when I left school.”
“You mean you didn’t stay on?” Lilian seemed to think this unusual.
“I left when I was fourteen. My parents needed my help and they could only really afford for Eddie to be at the High School.”
“So you missed out on all the fun of being a senior then? Believe it or not, they made me prefect. Can’t imagine it, can you?”
“No, I suppose not. I never really got to find out what that was like. Most girls from West Coombe didn’t. Most of the boys left at fourteen too. If there was no need for us to carry on learning, we didn’t.”
“And, let me guess, it was common wisdom that girls only needed to be able to sew and cook and be good and obedient wives,” Lilian scoffed.
“Yes. I did want to carry on learning, but I didn’t really think to question it myself.” Evelyn now wondered why she had just accepted this approach.
“And this is why women have still got such a long way to go, darling. You see. One day, it’ll be realised that we’re much more than just adornments, or wives, or slaves.”
“I never really felt like a slave,” Evelyn said, feeling compelled to defend her well-meaning parents, “or an adornment.” In fact, the latter seemed a little hypocritical coming from the highly adorned Lilian.
“It’s because so many women don’t realise it that it still happens. Women who think it’s all they can do to be the best wives and mothers they can be. And that’s fine, but there’s so much more. We’re so much more. And some of us might not be wives or mothers.”
“Of course.” Evelyn nodded her agreement but was not quite sure what to say. Then her attention was distracted by the view through the bare branches of the winter trees ahead of them. “Is that it? Is that Buckingham Palace?”
Lilian smiled. “Yes, that’s it.”
At the edge of the park were tall, ornate metal gates between stone pillars. Through the bars of these gates could be seen the pale facade of one of the most famous buildings in London. Evelyn quickened her pace, full of excitement at finally setting eyes on a place she’d never thought she’d have a chance to see.
As they emerged from the park, they were on a broad road, the Mall, which swept up towards and went around a tall statue, situated a short distance from the black palace gates. The statue was surrounded by a pool of water and carved stones lions. Evelyn gazed in awe at what she knew to be the memorial to Queen Victoria. Although it had opened in 1911, Evelyn had read in the newspapers of its final completion only two or three years ago. She looked up to the gilded statue of Winged Victory at the very top, standing on a globe. It shone bright and proud, even in the winter light. Below that, the statues represented courage and constancy—she remembered that, although she could not quite remember the symbolism of every figure. The eagles certainly represented Empire, that she knew well enough, and she was fairly sure one of the marble carvings was the embodiment of justice.
Evelyn gazed at the gilded and pale marble figure, at the stony face of the Queen herself, and realised she was not feeling proud, or patriotic. When she looked at the modest war memorial in West Coombe churchyard, she felt a sort of horrified pride. The war had been so terrible, and Edward had been so damaged, and yet there was a certain nobility in the names of the young men who had died fighting for freedom. But this richly decorated statue did not take names and individuals into account. It raised a hymn of glory to the Empire, it suggested victory over the globe, and all in the name of justice and truth. Carved eternally in marble, it was the Britain
