Tipping the Velvet (16 page)

with a pocket so full of sovereigns all the ladies look, and We lay until the front door slammed, and we heard Mrs smile, and wink their eyes. It is sung by mashers even now; Dendy's cough, and Tootsie laughing on the stair. Then but it was Kitty and I who had it first, and when we tried it Kitty said we should rise, and dress, or the others might out together that afternoon - changing the author's T to 'we', wonder; and for the second time that day I lay and watched linking our arms, and promenading over the parlour-rug her wash, and pull on stockings and a skirt, through lazy with our voices raised in a harmony -well, it sounded eyes.

sweeter and more comical than I could have thought As I did so, I put a hand to my breast. There was a dull possible. We sang it once, and then a second time, and then movement there, a kind of pulling or folding, or melting, a third and fourth; and each time I grew a little freer, a little exactly as if my chest were the hot, soft wall of a candle, gayer, and a little less certain of the foolishness of Walter's falling in upon a burning wick. I gave a sigh. Kitty heard, plan . . .

and saw my stricken face, and came to me; then she moved At length, when our throats were hoarse and our heads were my hand away and placed her lips, very softly, over my swimming with sovereigns and winks, he closed the piano heart.

lid and let us rest. We made tea, and talked of other things.

I was eighteen, and knew nothing. I thought, at that I looked at Kitty and remembered that I had another, more moment, that I would die of love for her.

pressing, reason to be gay and giddy, and I began to wish We did not see Walter, and there was no more talk about that Walter would leave us. That, and my tiredness, made his plan to put me on the stage at Kitty's side until two 131

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evenings later, when he arrived at Mrs Dendy's with a boy with buttons and a belt. The thought, once again, was a parcel, marked Nan Astley. It was the last night of the year: saucy one; I felt I ought not to encourage it. I went down at he had come to supper, and to stay to hear the chimes of once to the parlour, put my hands in my pockets and posed midnight with us. When at last they came - struck out upon before them all, and made ready to receive their praises.

the bells of Brixton church - he raised his glass. To Kitty When I stood turning upon the rug, however, Walter was and Nan!' he cried. He gazed at me, and then - more rather subdued, and Mrs Bendy thoughtful. When, at their lingeringly - at Kitty. 'To their new partnership, that will request, I took Kitty's arm and we sang a quick chorus, bring fame and fortune to us all in 1889, and ever after!' We Walter stood back, frowned, and shook his head.

were at the parlour-table with Ma Dendy and the Professor,

'It's not quite right,' he said. 'It grieves me to say it, but - it and now we joined our voices with his, and took up his just won't do.'

toast; but Kitty and I exchanged one swift, secret glance, I turned, in dismay, to Kitty. She was fiddling with her and I thought - with a little thrill of pleasure and triumph necklace, sucking at the chain and tapping with the pearl that I couldn't quite suppress - poor man! how could he upon a tooth. She, too, looked grave. She said, There is know what we were really celebrating?

something queer about it; but I can't say what..."

Only now did Walter present me with his package, and I gazed down at myself. I took my hands from my pockets smile to see me open it. But I knew already that it would and folded my arms, and Walter shook his head again. 'It's a hold: a suit, a stage suit of serge and velvet, cut to my size perfect fit,' he said. The colour is good. And yet there's to the pattern of one of Kitty's - but blue to match my eyes, something - unpleasing - about it. What is it?'

where hers was brown. I held it up against me, and Walter Mrs Bendy gave a cough. Take a step,' she said to me. I did nodded. 'Now that,' he said, 'will make all the difference.

so. 'Now a turn - that's right. Now be a dear and light me a Just you trot upstairs and slip that on, and then we'll see fag.' I did this for her too, then waited while she drew on what Mrs Dendy has to say about it.'

her cigarette and coughed again.

I did as he asked; then paused for a moment to study myself

'She's too real,' she said at last, to Walter.

in the glass. I had put on a pair of my own plain black boots Too real?'

and piled my hair up inside a hat. I had placed a cigarette Too real. She looks like a boy. Which I know she is behind my ear -I had even taken off my stays, to make my supposed to - but, if you follow me, she looks like a real flat chest flatter. I looked a little like my brother Davy -

boy. Her face and her figure and her bearing on her feet.

only, perhaps, rather handsomer. I shook my head. Four And that ain't quite the idea now, is it?'

nights before I had stood in the same spot, marvelling to see Now I felt more awkward than ever. I looked at Kitty and myself dressed as a grown-up woman. Now, there had been she gave a nervous kind of laugh. Walter, however, had lost one quiet visit to a tailor's shop and here I was, a boy - a his frown, and his eyes looked blue and wide as a child's.

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'Damn it, Ma,' he said, 'but you're right!' He put his hand to The trousers were shorter, their line rather spoiled. The his brow, then stepped to the door: we heard his heavy, jacket flared a little, above and below the waist, quite as if I rapid tread upon the stairs, heard footsteps in the room had hips and a bosom - but it felt tighter than before, and above our heads -Sims's and Percy's room - and then the not a half as comfortable. My face, of course, I could not slam of a door, higher up. When he returned he held a see: I had to turn and squint into a picture over the hearth, strange assortment of objects: a pair of gentleman's shoes, a and saw it reflected there - all eyes and lips - over the red sewing-basket, a couple of ribbons, and Kitty's make-up nose and whiskers of 'Rackity Jack'. I looked at the others.

box. These he dumped about me on the carpet. Then, with a Mrs Bendy and the Professor smiled. Kitty did not look at hasty 'Pardon me, Nancy', he pulled the jacket from me, and all nervous, now. Walter was flushed, and seemed awed by the boots. The jacket he handed to Kitty, along with the his own handiwork. He folded his arms.

sewing-basket: 'Put a few tucks down the inside of that

'Perfect,' he said.

waist,' he said, pointing to the seam. The boots he cast After that - clad not exactly as a boy but, rather aside, and replaced with the pair of shoes - Sims's shoes confusingly, as the boy I would have been, had I been more they were, and small, low-heeled and rather dainty; and of a girl - my entry into the profession was rather rapid. The Walter made them daintier still by tying ribbons in a bow at very next day Walter sent my costume to a seamstress, and the laces. To advertise the bows a bit - and because, without had it properly re-sewn; within a week he had borrowed a my boots, I was now a little shorter — he caught hold of the hall and a band from a manager who owed him a favour, bottom of my trouser-legs, and gave them cuffs.

and had Kitty and I, in our matching suits, practising upon Next he seized my head and tilted it back, and worked upon the stage. It was not at all like singing in Mrs Dendy's my lips and lashes with carmine and spit-black from Kitty's parlour. The strangers, the dark and empty hall, box: he did this gently as a girl. Then he plucked the disconcerted me; I was still and awkward, quite unable to cigarette from behind my ear and cast it on to the mantel.

master the few simple strolling steps that Kitty and Walter Finally he turned to Kitty and snapped his fingers. She, tried patiently to teach me. At last Walter handed me a infected by his air of haste and purpose, had begun to sew cane, and said I should just stand and lean upon it, and let as he had shown her. Now she raised the jacket to her cheek Kitty dance; and that was better, and I grew easier, and the to bite the final length of cotton from it, and when that was song began to sound funny again. When we had finished done he took it from her and shrugged me into it and and were practising our bows, some of the men in the buttoned it over my breast.

orchestra clapped us.

Then he stood back, and cocked his head.

Kitty sat and took a cup of tea, then; but Walter led me off I gazed down at myself once again. My new shoes looked to a seat in the stalls, away from the others, and looked quaint and girlish, like a principal boy's in a pantomime.

grave.

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'Nan,' he began, 'I told you when all this started that I would Tonight!'

not press you, and I meant it; I would give up the business

'Just one song. He'll find space for you in his programme; altogether before I forced a girl upon the stage against her and if they like you, he'll keep you there.'

will. There are fellows who do that sort of thing, you know, Tonight..." I looked at Walter in dismay. His face was very fellows who think of nothing but their own pockets. But I kind, and his eyes seemed bluer and more earnest than ever.

am not one of them; and besides, you are my friend. But -'

But what he said made me tremble. I thought of the hall, he took a breath. 'We have come this far, the three of us; hot and bright and filled with jeering faces. I thought of that and you are good - I promise you, you are good.'

stage, so wide and empty. I thought: I cannot do it, not even

'With work, perhaps,' I said doubtfully. He shook his head.

for Walter's sake. Not even for Kitty's.

'Not even with that. Haven't you worked, these past six I made to shake my head. He saw, and quickly spoke again months - harder than Kitty, almost? You know the act as

-spoke, perhaps for the first time in all the months that I had well as she; you know her songs, her bits of business - why, known him, with something that was almost guile. He said: you taught them to her, most of them!'

'You know, of course, that we cannot throw over the idea of

'I don't know,' I said. This is all so new, and strange. All my the double act, now that we have hit upon it. If you don't life I've loved the music hall, but I never thought of getting wish to partner Kitty, there'll be some other girl who does.

up upon the stage, myself..."

We can spread the word, place notices, audition. You

'Didn't you?' he said then. 'Didn't you, really?' Every time mustn't feel that you are letting Kitty down you saw some little serio-comic captivate the crowd, at that I looked from him to the stage, where Kitty herself sat on Palace of yours, in Canterbury, didn't you wish that it was the edge of a beam of limelight, sipping at her cup, you? Didn't you close your eyes and see your name upon swinging her legs, and smiling at some word of the the programmes, your number in the box? Didn't you sing conductor's. The thought that she might take another partner to your — oyster-barrel - as if it were a crowded hall, and

- might stroll before the footlights with another girl's arm you could make those little fishes weep, or shriek with through hers, another girl's voice rising and blending with laughter?'

her own - had not occurred to me. It was more ghastly than I bit my nail, and frowned. 'Dreams,' I said.

the image of the jeering hall; more ghastly than the prospect He snapped his fingers. 'The very stuff thai stages are made of being laughed and hissed off a thousand, thousand stages of.'

. . .

'Where would we start?' I said then. 'Who would offer us a So when Kitty stood in the wing of the theatre that night, spot?'

waiting for the chairman's cry, I stood beside her, sweating The manager here would. Tonight. I've already spoken with beneath a layer of grease-paint, biting my lips so hard I him-'

thought they would bleed. My heart had beat fast for Kitty 137

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before, in apprehension and passion; but it had never the stage, drew out the coins that he had tipped into my thudded as it thudded now -I thought it would burst right pocket - they were only chocolate sovereigns, of course, but out of my breast, I thought I should be killed with fright.

covered in foil to make them glitter - and cast them into the When Walter came to whisper to us, and to fill our pockets laughing crowd. A dozen hands reached up to snatch them.

with coins, I could not answer him. There was a juggling There were calls for an encore, then; but we, of course, had turn upon the stage. I heard the creaking of the boards as none to make. We could only dance back beneath the the man ran to catch his batons, the clap-gasp-clap-gasp-dropping curtain while the crowd still cheered and the c/ieer of the audience as he finished his set; and then carne chairman called for order. The next act - a couple of trick-the clack of a gavel, and the juggler ran by us, clutching his cyclists - was pushed hurriedly on to take our place; but gear. Kitty said once, very low, 'I love you!' - and I felt even at the end of their set there were still one or two voices myself half-pulled, half-thrust beneath the rising curtain, calling for us.

and knew that I must somehow saunter and sing.

We were the hit of the evening.

At first, so blinded was I by the lights, I couldn't see the Back stage, with Kitty's lips upon my cheek, Walter's arm crowd at all; I could only hear it, rustling and murmuring -

about my shoulders, and exclamations of delight and praise loud, and close, it seemed, on every side. When at last I greeting me from every corner, I stood quite stunned, stepped for a second out of the glare of lime, and saw all unable either to smile at the compliments or modestly the faces that were turned my way, I almost faltered and disclaim them. I had passed perhaps seven minutes before lost my place - and would have done, I think, had not Kitty that gay and shouting crowd; but in those few, swift at that moment pressed my arm and murmured, 'We have minutes I had glimpsed a truth about myself, and it had left them! Listen!' under cover of the orchestra. I did listen then me awed and quite transformed.

- and realised that, unbelievably, she was right: there were The truth was this: that whatever successes I might achieve claps, and friendly shouts; there was a rising hum of as a girl, they would be nothing compared to the triumphs I expectant pleasure as we worked towards our chorus; there should enjoy clad, however girlishly, as a boy.