Tipping the Velvet (30 page)

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my head and raised my hat, and said in the same low tone End accent, more or less; but her voice was deep and that I had used on her before: 'G'mornin!’

slightly breathy. 'We have been trying for ages to get our As before, she started. Then she glanced up at the balcony hands on some of the flats in this block here, and that night above my head. And then she pinked. 'Oh! It was you then -

you saw me we had moved our first family in - a bit of a was it?'

success for us, we are only a small affair - and Miss Derby I smiled again, and gave a little bow. My stays creaked; it thought we should make a party of it.'

felt all wrong, being gallant in a skirt, and I had a sudden

'Oh yes? Well, she plays very nicely. You should tell her to fear that she might take me not for an impertinent voyeur, come and busk round here more often.'

but for a fool. But when I raised my eyes to hers again her

'You live there then, do you?' she asked, nodding towards flush was fading, and her face showed neither contempt, Mrs Milne's.

nor discomfiture, but a kind of amusement. She tilted her

'I do. I like to sit out on the balcony ..."

head.

She raised her hand to tuck away a lock of hair beneath her A van passed between us, followed by a cart. In lifting my bonnet. 'And always in trousers?' she asked me then, so that hat to her this time I had thought only, and vaguely, to I blinked.

correct the earlier misunderstanding; perhaps, to make her

'Only sometimes in trousers.'

smile. But when the street was once again clear and she still

'But always, to gaze at the women and give them a start?'

stood there it seemed a kind of invitation. I crossed, and Now I blinked two or three times. 'I never thought to do it,'

stood before her. I said, 'I'm sorry if I frightened you the I answered, 'before I saw you.' It was the plain truth; but she other night.' She seemed embarassed at the memory, but laughed at it, as if to say, Oh yes. The laugh, and the laughed.

exchange which had provoked it, was unsettling. I studied

'You didn't frighten me,' she said, as if she were never her more closely. As I had seen on that first night, she was frightened. 'You just gave me a bit of a start. If I'd known not what you might term a beauty. She was thick at the you were a woman - well!' She blushed again - or it may waist and almost stout, and her face was broad, her chin a have been the same blush as before, I couldn't tell. Then she firm one. Her teeth were even, but not perfectly white; her glanced away; and we fell silent.

eyes were hazel, but the lashes not long; her hands,

'Where's your friend the musician?' I said at last. I held an however, seemed graceful. Her hair was the kind of hair we imaginary mandolin to my waist and gave it a couple of had all been thankful, as girls, that we did not have - for strums.

though she had bound it into a bun at her neck, the curls

'Miss Derby,' she said with a smile. 'She is back at our kept springing from it and twisting about her face. With the office. I do a bit of work with a charity, finding houses for lamp behind it, too, it had seemed auburn; but it would poor families that've lost their homes.' She had a plain East really be more truthful to say that it was brown.

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I believe I liked it better that she was not more handsome.

I didn't care a button about the families; but I did care, And though there was something wonderfully intriguing suddenly at the thought that I might lose her. I said, 'Well, about her tranquillity at my strange behaviour - as if women then I shall have to see you when you come again to Green donned gents' trousers all the time; as if they made love to Street. When will that be?'

girls on balconies so often that she was used to it, and

'Ah well, you see,' she said, 'it won't. I shall be leaving this thought it merely naughty - I did not think I saw that trick post in a couple of days, and.I am to help with the running in her, that furtive something, that I had recognised in other of a hostel, at Stratford. It is better for me, since it's nearer girls. Certainly nobody, gazing at her, would ever think to where I live, and I know the local people; but it means I sneer and call out Torn] Again, though, I was glad of it. I shall be spending most of my days down East..."

had quit the business of hearts and kisses; I was in quite

'Oh,' I said. 'And shall you never be coming into town, at another trade altogether, these days!

all, after that?'

And yet would it hurt me after all this time to have a -

She hesitated; then: 'Well, I do sometimes come in, in the friend?

evenings. I go to the theatre, or to the lectures at the I said, 'Look here, will you come to the park with me? I was Athenaeum Hall. You might come with me, to one of those just on my way there when I saw you.'

places .. .'

She smiled, but shook her head: 'I'm working, I couldn't.'

I only went to the theatre, now, as a renter; I wouldn't sit in

'It's too hot for working.'

a velvet seat before a stage again, even for her. I said, 'The The work must still be done, you know. I have a visit to Athenaeum Hall? I know that place. But lectures - what do make at Old Street - a lady Miss Derby knows might have you mean? Church stuff?'

some rooms for us. I should be there now, really.' And she

'Political stuff. You know, the Class Question, the Irish frowned down at a little watch that hung from a ribbon at Question ..."

her breast like a medal.

I felt my heart sink. The Woman Question.'

'Can't you send to Miss Derby and make her go? It seems

'Exactly. They have speakers, and readings, and afterwards awfully hard on you. I bet she's sitting in the office with her debates. Look here.' She reached into her satchel and drew feet upon her desk, playing a tune on the mandolin; and forth a slim blue pamphlet. The Athenaeum Hall Society here are you out in the sun doing all the tramping about.

Lecture Series, it said; Women and Labour: An Address by You need a bit of ice-cream, at the least; there's an Italian Mr- and it gave a name I now forget, followed by a little lady in Kensington Gardens who sells the best ices in piece of explanatory text, and a date that was for four or London, and she lets me have them at half-price . . .'

five days ahead.

She smiled again. 'I cannot. Else, what would happen to all I said, 'Lord!' in an ambiguous sort of way. She lifted her our poor families?'

head, took the pamphlet back from me, and said: 'Well, 255

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perhaps, after all, you would prefer the ice-cream cart in I was amongst them. For two days almost I had kept Kensington Gardens ..." There was a hint of rustiness about indoors in a kind of hot stupor, drinking endless cups of the words, that I found I could not bear to hear. I said at lemonade with Mrs Milne and Gracie in their darkened once, 'Good heavens, no: this looks a treat!' But I added, parlour, or dozing naked on my bed with the windows that if they really didn't sell ices in the hall, then I thought thrown open and the curtains pulled. Now the promise of a we ought to take some refreshment first. There was, I had night of chilly liberty on the swarming, gaudy streets of the heard, a little public-house at the King's Cross corner of West End drew me like a magnet. My purse, too, was Judd Street with a ladies' room at the back of it, where they almost empty - and I was mindful of the supper I would did a very nice, very inexpensive supper. The lecture began have to take care of, with Florence, the following night. So at seven - would she meet me there beforehand? At, say, six I needed, I thought, to cut something of a dash. I washed, o'clock? I said -because I thought it would please her - that and combed my hair flat and brilliant with macassar; and I might need some instruction, in the ins and outs of the when I dressed I put on my favourite costume - the Woman Question.

guardsman's uniform, with its brass buttons and its piping, At that she snorted, and gave me another knowing look; its scarlet jacket and its neat little cap. I hardly ever wore though what it was she thought she knew, I wasn't sure. She this outfit. The military pips and buckles meant nothing to did, however, agree to meet me - with a warning that I must me, but I had a vague terror that some real soldier might not let her down. I said there was not a chance of it, held one day recognise them, and claim me for his regiment; or out my hand; and for a second felt her fingers, very firm else that some emergency might occur - the Queen be and warm in their grey linen glove, clasp my own.

assaulted while I was strolling by Buckingham Palace, for It was only after we had parted that I realised we had not instance - and I would be called upon to play some exchanged names; but by then she had turned the corner of impossible role in its resolution. But the suit was a lucky Green Street, and was gone. But I had, as a piece of secret one, too. It had brought me the bold gentleman of the knowledge from our earlier, darker encounter, her own Burlington Arcade, whose kiss had proved such a fateful romantic Christian name, at least. And besides, I knew I one; and it had tipped the wavering balance at my first should be seeing her again within the week.

interview at Mrs Milne's. Tonight, I thought, I should be content enough if it would only net me a sovereign.

Chapter 10

And there was a curious quality to the city that night, that The days that week grew ever warmer, until at last even I seemed all of a piece with the costume I had chosen. The began to tire of the heat. All London longed for a break in air was cool and unnaturally clear, so that colours - the red the weather; and on Thursday evening, when it finally of a painted lip, the blue of a sandwich-man's boards, the came, crowds took to the streets of the city in sheer relief.

violet and the green and the yellow of a flower-girl's tray -

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seemed to leap out of the gloom. It was just as if the city from my friends at Leicester Square, were demanding.

were a monstrous carpet to which a giant hand had applied They paid well, but expected correspondingly large the beater, to make all glow again. Infected by the mood I favours: bum-work, bed-work - nights, sometimes, in had sensed even in my Green Street chamber, people had, hotels. Even so, it never hurt to show off a bit: the gent like me, put on their finest. Girls in gay dresses walked the inside might remember me on another, more pedestrian, pavements in long, intimidating lines, or spooned with their occasion. I had ambled up and down the edges of the bowler-hatted beaux on steps and benches. Boys stood Square for a good ten minutes, occasionally reaching down drinking at the doors of public-houses, their pomaded heads to give a twitch to my groin - for, in the rather flamboyant gleaming, in the gas-light, like silk. The moon hung low spirit in which I had dressed that night, I had padded my above the roofs of Soho, pink and bright and swollen as a drawers with a rolled silk cravat, instead of my usual Chinese lantern. One or two stars winked viciously kerchief or glove, and the material was slippery, and kept alongside it.

edging along my thigh. Still, I thought, such a gesture might And through it all sauntered I, in my suit of scarlet; and yet not prove unpleasing to the distant eye of an interested gent.

by eleven o'clock, when the streets were thinning, I had had

. .

no luck at all. A couple of gents had seemed to like the look The carriage, however, with its taciturn driver and bashful of me, and one rough-looking man had set himself to follow occupant, had at last jerked into life and pulled away.

me, right the way from Piccadilly to Seven Dials and back Since then my admirers had all, apparently, been as again. But the gents, at the last, had been lured by other cautious as that last one; I had sensed a few interested renters; and the rough man was not the type I cared for. I glances slither my way, but had managed to hook none of had given him the slip in a lavatory with two exits.

them with my own more frankly searching one. By now it And then there had been yet another almost-encounter, had grown very dark, and almost chill. It was time, I later, while I was idling beside a lamp-post in St James's thought, to pick my slow way home. I felt disappointed.

Square. A brougham had driven slowly by, then stopped; Not with my own performance, but with the evening itself, and then, like me, it had lingered. No one had got out of it, which had opened with such promise and had finished such no one had got in. The driver had had a high collar a flop. I had not earned so much as a threepenny-bit: I shadowing his face, and had never moved his gaze from his should now have to borrow a little cash from Mrs Milne, horse - but there had been a certain twitching of the lace at and spend longer, more resolute, less choosy hours on the the dark carriage windows, that let me know that I was streets over the following week, until my luck turned. The being observed, carefully, from within.

thought did not cheer me: renting, which had seemed such a I had strolled about a bit, and lit a cigarette. I didn't, for holiday at first, had come to seem, of late, a little tiresome.

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It was in these spirits that I began to make my way back to disappeared from my view completely. In the darkness the Green Street - avoiding, now, the busier routes that I had brougham seemed quite black, but where the light from a trod for fun before, and taking back roads: Old Compton guttering street-lamp spilled on it, it gleamed a deep Street; Arthur Street; Great Russell Street, which took me crimson, touched here and there with gold. The gent inside, by the pale, silent mass of the British Museum; and finally I thought, must be a very rich one.

Guilford Street, which would lead me by the Foundling Well, he would be disappointed; he had followed me for Hospital and on to the Gray's Inn Road.

nothing. I quickened my step, and made to move past, head Even on these quieter routes, however, the traffic seemed down. But as I drew level with the rear wheel I heard the unusually heavy - unusually, and puzzlingly, for though soft click of a latch undone: the door swung silently open, few carts and hansoms seemed actually to pass me, the low blocking my path. From the shadows beyond the doorframe clatter of wheels and hooves formed a continuous drifted a thread of blue tobacco smoke; I heard a breath, a accompaniment to my own slow footfalls. At last, at the rustle. Now I must either retrace my steps and cross behind entrance to a dim and silent mews, I understood why; for the vehicle, or squeeze between the swinging door and the here I paused to tie my lace and, as I stooped, looked wall on my left -and catch a glimpse, perhaps, of its casually behind me. There was a carriage moving slowly enigmatic occupant. I confess, I was intrigued. Any gent towards me out of the gloom, a private carriage with a who could bring such a sense of drama to the staging of an particular, well-greased rumble I now knew for the one that encounter which, in the ordinary course of things, might be had pursued me all the way from Soho, and a hunched and settled so unspectacularly - by a word, or a nod, or the muffled driver I thought I recognised. It was the brougham fluttering of one spit-blacked lash - was clearly someone that had waited near me in St James's Square. Its shy special. I was also, frankly, flattered; and having been master, who had watched while I had posed beneath a flattered, generous. Since he had had to make do so far with lamppost and strolled the pavement with my fingers at my admiring my bottom from a distance, I felt it only fair to crotch, evidently fancied another look.