Tipping the Velvet (19 page)

wiped his forehead, which was very damp. From the stage,

'Shocking awful traffic,' she called back - the first verse was however, there were signs that the scuffling, at last, was about to begin, and she was slipping further into character subsiding.

with every step she took - 'but not so bad as a road my Kitty looked at me, then nodded. 'He's right,' she said to friend and I were a-walking on the other afternoon. Why, it Walter. Then, to the manager: Tell them to put our number took us quite half a day to get from Pall Mall to Piccadilly up.'

..." And effortlessly, seamlessly - and with me beside her, The manager pocketed his handkerchief and stepped closer and more faithful than a shadow - she led us into our smartly away before she could change her mind; but Walter song.

still looked grave. 'Are you sure?' he asked us. He glanced When that was over we headed back into the wing, to back towards the stage. The roughs had been successfully where Flora, our dresser, waited with our suits. Walter kept carried off, and the singer had been placed in a chair in the his distance, but clasped his hands together before his chest wing across from us and given a glass of water. His clogs when we emerged, and shook them, in a gesture of triumph.

must have been thrown back on to the stage, or else some He was pink-faced and smiling with relief.

kind soul had delivered or retrieved them; at any rate, they Our second number - a song called 'Scarlet Fever', for now stood rather neatly beneath his chair and beside his which we dressed in guardsmen's uniforms (red jackets and bruised and naked feet. There were still some shrieks and caps, white belts, black trousers, very smart) - went down a whistles, however, from the hall.

treat; it was during the next routine that all turned sour.

'You don't have to do it,' Walter went on. 'They may hurl There was a man in the stalls: I had noticed him earlier, for something; you might get hurt.'

he was large, and clearly very drunk; he slept noisily in his seat, with his knees spread wide, his mouth open and his 157

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chin glistening slightly in the glow from the stage. For all I were squinting into the gloom. Half a dozen hands waved know, he might have slept through all the rumpus with the and pointed to where the man leaned over the footlights, his clog-dancer; now, however, by some horrible mischance, whiskers fluttering in the heat.

he had woken up. It was a very small theatre and I could He, now, had started banging on the stage with the heel of see him quite distinctly. He had stumbled over his his hand. I suppressed an urge to dance up to him and stamp neighbours' legs to get to the end of his row, swearing all upon his wrist (for, apart from anything else, I thought he the way, and drawing answering curses from everyone he was quite capable of seizing my ankle and dragging me into stepped on. He had reached the aisle at last -but there he the stalls.) Instead, I took my cue from Kitty. She had hold had grown confused. Instead of heading for the bar, the of my arm, and had pressed it, but her brow was smooth privy, or wherever it was that he had made up his gin-or and untroubled. At any moment, I thought, she would slow whisky- soaked mind to make for, he had wandered down the song, launch into the man, or call for the door-men to to the side of the stage. Now he stood, peering up at us, come and remove him.

with his hands over his eyes.

But they, at last, had spotted him, and had begun their

'What the devil - ?' he said; he said it during a lull between advance. He, all unknowing, ranted drunkenly on.

verses, and it sounded very loud. A few people turned away

'Call that a song?' he shouted. 'Call that a song? I want my from us to look at him, and to titter or tut-tut.

shilling back! You hear me? I want my bleeding shilling I exchanged a glance with Kitty, but kept my voice and back!'

steps in time with hers, my eyes still bright, my smile still

'You want your bleeding arse kicked, is what you want!'

broad. After a second the man began to curse even louder.

answered someone from the pit. Then someone else, a The crowd - who were still, I suppose, rather ready for a bit woman, yelled, 'Stop your row, can't you? We can't hear the of sport - began to shout at him, to quieten him down.

girls for all your racket.'

'Throw the old josser out!' called someone; and, 'Don't you The man gave a sneer; then he hawked, and spat. 'Girls?' he pay no mind to him, Nan, dear!' This was from a woman in cried. 'Girls? You call them girls? Why, they're nothing but the stalls. I caught her eye, and tipped my hat - it was a a couple of- a couple of tomsl'

boater; we were wearing the Oxford bags and boaters, now He put the whole force of his voice into it - the word that

- and saw her blush.

Kitty had once whispered to me, flinching and shuddering All the shouting, however, only seemed to enrage and as she said it! It sounded louder at that moment than the confuse the man still further. A boy stepped up to him, but blast of a cornet - seemed to bounce from one wall of the was knocked away; I saw the fellows in the orchestra begin hall to another, like a bullet from a sharp-shooter's act gone to gaze a little wildly over the tops of their instruments. At wrong.

the back of the hall two door-men had been summoned and Toms!

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At the sound of it, the audience gave a great collective Far off in the gallery someone called something that I could flinch. There was a sudden hush; the shouts became not catch, and there was an awkward answering laugh.

mumbles, the shrieks all tailed away. Through the shaft of If the shout cast a spell over the theatre, the laughter broke limelight I saw their faces - a thousand faces, self-conscious it. Kitty shifted, then seemed to see for the first time that and appalled.

our arms were joined. She gave a cry, and drew away from Even so, the awkwardness might have lasted no longer than me as if in horror. Then she put her hand to her eyes and a moment; they might have forgotten it at once, and grown stepped, with her head bowed, into the wing.

noisy and gay again - but for what happened, simultaneous For a second I stood, dazed and confounded; then I hurried with their silencing, upon the stage.

after her. The orchestra rattled on. There were shouts from For Kitty had stiffened; and then she had stumbled. We had the hall, at last, and cries of 'Shame!' The curtain, I think, been dancing with our arms linked. Now her mouth flew was rung hurriedly down.

open. Now it shut. Now it trembled. Her voice - her lovely, Back stage, everything was in a state of the greatest shining, soaring voice - faltered and died. I had never confusion. Kitty had run to Walter: he had his arm about known it happen before. I had seen her sail, quite at her her shoulders and looked grave. Flora stood by with a shoe ease, through seas of indifference, squalls of heckling.

unlaced and ready, shocked and uncertain but desperately Now, upon that single, dreadful, drunken cry, she had curious. A knot of stage-hands and fly-men looked on, foundered.

whispering amongst themselves. I stepped up to Kitty and I, of course, should have sung all the louder, swept her reached for her arm; she flinched as if I had raised my hand across the stage, jollied the audience along; but I, of course, to strike her, and instantly I fell back. As I did so the was only her shadow. Her sudden silence stopped my manager appeared, more flustered than ever.

throat, and stunned me into immobility, too. I looked from

'I should like to know, Miss Butler, Miss King, what the her to the orchestra pit. There, the conductor had seen our blazes you mean by -'

confusion. The music had slowed and faded for a second -

'I should like to know,' interrupted Walter harshly, 'what the but now picked up, more briskly than before.

blazes you mean by sending my artistes on before that But the melody affected neither Kitty nor the audience. At rabble you call your audience. I should like to know why a the side of the stalls, the door-men had reached the drunken drunken fool is allowed to interfere with Miss Butler's man at last, and had hold of his collar. The crowd looked performance for ten minutes, while your men gather their not at him, however, but at us. They looked at us, and saw -

scattered wits together, and make up their minds to remove what? Two girls in suits, their hair close-clipped, their arms him.'

entwined. Toms! For all the efforts of the orchestra, the The manager stamped his foot: 'How dare you, sir!'

man's cry still seemed to echo about the hall.

'How dare you, sir -!'

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The debate went on. I didn't listen to it, only looked at deal. Kitty became choosier about the theatres we worked Kitty. Her eyes were dry, but she was white-faced and stiff.

at; she began to question Walter, too, about the other acts She hadn't taken her head from Walter's shoulder, and she that we must share the bills with. Once he booked us to had not glanced towards me, at all.

appear alongside an American artist - a man called 'Paul or Finally Walter gave a snort, and waved the blustering Pauline?', whose turn was to dance in and out of an ebony manager away. He turned to me. He said, 'Nan, I am taking cabinet, dressed now as a woman, now as a man, and Kitty home, at once. There's no question now of you going singing soprano and baritone by turns. I thought the act was on for your final number; I'm afraid, too, that we must a good one; but when Kitty saw him work, she made us forfeit our supper. I shall hail us a hansom; will you follow cancel. She said the man was a freak, and would make us with Flora and the gear, in the carriage? I should like to get seem freakish by association . . .

Kitty back to Ginevra Road as swiftly as possible.' I We lost money on that deal, too. In the end I marvelled at hesitated, then looked at Kitty again. She raised her eyes to Walter's patience.

mine at last, very briefly, and nodded.

For that was another change. I have spoken of the curious

'All right,' I said. I watched them leave. Walter took up his dimming of Walter's brightness, of the subtle new distance cloak, and - though it was far too large for her, and trailed that had grown between us, since Kitty and I had become upon the dusty floor - he placed it over Kitty's slender sweethearts. Now the dimming and the distance increased.

shoulders. She clasped it tight at the throat, then let him He remained kind, but his kindness was tempered by a usher her away, past the angry manager and the knot of surprising kind of stiffness; in Kitty's presence, in whispering boys.

particular, he grew easily flustered and self-conscious - and By the time I reached Ginevra Road - after having gathered then jolly, with a horrible, forced kind of jolliness, as if our boxes and bags together at Deacon's, and delivered ashamed of himself for being so awkward. His visits to Flora to her own house in Lambeth - Walter had gone, our Ginevra Road grew rarer. At last we saw him only to rooms were dark, and Kitty was in bed, apparently asleep. I rehearse new songs, or in the company of the other artistes bent over her, and stroked her head. She did not stir, and I we sometimes took supper or drinks with.

didn't like to wake her to perhaps more upset. Instead, I I missed him, and wondered at his change of heart - but simply undressed, and lay close beside her, and placed my didn't wonder very hard, I must confess, because I thought I hand upon her heart -which beat on, very fiercely, through knew what had caused it. That night at Islington he had her dreams.

learned the truth at last - had heard that drunken man's The disastrous night at Deacon's brought changes with it, shout, seen Kitty's terrible, terrified response, and and made some things a little strange. We did not sing at understood. He had driven her home - I did not know what the hall again, but broke our contract - losing money on the had passed between them then, for neither of them seemed 163

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at all inclined to discuss any part of that dreadful evening -

Tootsie was also leaving - leaving for France, for a part in a he had driven her home, but that tender gesture of his, to Parisian revue; and her room was being taken by a place his cloak about her trembling shoulders and see her comedian who whistled. The Professor had developed the safely to her door, had been his last. Now he could not be beginnings of a palsy - there was talk that he might end up easy with her - perhaps because he knew for sure that he in a home for old artistes. Sims and Percy were doing well, had lost her; more probably, because the idea of our love he and planned to take our rooms when we had left them; but found distasteful. And so he stayed away.

Percy had found a sweetheart, too, and the girl made Had we remained very long at Mrs Dendy's house, I think quarrels between them -I learned later that they split the act, our friends there would have noticed Walter's absence, and and found spots as minstrels in rival troupes. It's the way of quizzed us over it; but at the end of September came the theatrical houses, I suppose, to break up and refashion biggest change of all. We said good-bye to our landlady and themselves; but I was almost sadder, on my last day at Ginevra Road, and moved.

Ginevra Road, than I had been on leaving Whitstable. I sat We had talked vaguely of moving since the start of our in the parlour - my portrait was upon the wall, now, along fame; but we had always put the crucial moment off - it with all the others - and thought how much had changed seemed foolish to leave a place in which we had been, and since I had sat there first, a little less than thirteen months were still, so happy. Mrs Dendy's had become our home. It before; and for a moment I wondered if all the changes had was the house in which we had first kissed, first declared been good ones, and wished that I could be plain Nancy our love; it was, I thought, our honeymoon house - and for Astley again, whom Kitty Butler loved with an ordinary all that it was so cramped and plain, for all that our love she was not afraid to show to all the world.

costumes now took up more space in the bedroom than our The street to which we moved was very new, and very bed, I was terribly loath to leave it.