Tipping the Velvet (38 page)

moved by the winder. I turned it in my hands, Diana We dined in a room at the Solferino. We dined with Dickie smiling as I did so. 'It's for your wrist,' she said at last.

and Maria - Maria brought Satin, her whippet, and fed him I gazed at her in wonder - people never wore wrist-watches dainties from a plate. The waiters had been told it was my then, it was marvellously exotic and new - then tried to birthday, and fussed around me, offering wine. 'How old is buckle the watch upon my arm. I could not manage it, of the young gentleman today?' they asked Diana; and the way course: like so many of the things in Felicity Place, you they asked it showed they thought me younger than I was.

really needed a maid to do it properly. In the end, Diana They might, I suppose, have taken Diana for my mother; fastened it for me; and then we both sat gazing at the little for various reasons, the idea was not a nice one. Once, face, the sweeping hand, and listened to the ticking.

though, I had stopped at a shoe-black while Diana and her I said, 'Diana, it's the most wonderful thing I ever saw!', and friends stood near to watch it, and the man - catching sight she pinked, and looked pleased: she was a bitch, but she of Dickie and reading tommishness, as many regular people was human, too.

do, as a kind of family likeness - asked me if she, Dickie, Later, when Maria came to call, I showed her the watch and were not my Auntie, taking me out for the day; and it had she nodded and smiled at it, stroking my wrist beneath the been worth being mistaken for a schoolboy, for the sake of leather of the strap. Then she laughed. 'My dear, the time is her expression. She once or twice tried to compete with me, wrong! You have it set at seven, and it's only a quarter-past on the question of suits. The night of my birthday, for four!'

example, she wore a shirt with cuff-links and, above her I looked at the face again, and gave a frown of surprise. I skirt, a short gent's cloak. At her throat, however, she had a had been wearing it as a kind of bracelet, only: it had not jabot - I should never have worn anything so effeminate.

occurred to me to tell the time with it. Now I moved the She did not know it - she would have been horrified to arms to 4 and 3, for Maria's sake - but there was really no know it! - but she looked like nothing so much as a weary need, of course, for me ever to wind it at all.

old mary-anne - one of the kind you see sometimes holding 323

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court, with younger boys, on Piccadilly: they have rented so reached the desk at last and he tilted his face to the long they're known as queens.

garments I gave him, I saw that he was Billy-Boy, my old Our supper was a very fine one, and when it was over smoking-partner from the Brit.

Diana sent a waiter for a cab. As I have said, I had thought At first, I only stared; I think, actually, that I was her plan not much of a treat; but even I could not help being considering how I might best make my escape before he excited as our hansom joined the line of rocking carriages saw me. But then, when he tugged at the coats and I failed at the door of the Royal Opera, and we - Diana, Maria, to release them, he raised his eyes - and I knew that he Dickie and I - entered the crush of gentlemen and ladies in didn't recognise me at all, only wondered why I hesitated; the lobby. I had never been here before; had never, in a year and the thought made me terribly sorry. I said, 'Bill', and he of fitful chaperoning, been part of such a rich and looked harder. Then he said: 'Sir?'

handsome crowd - the gents, like me, all in cloaks and silk I swallowed. I said again, 'Bill. Don't you remember me?"

hats and carrying glasses; the ladies in diamonds, and Then I leaned and lowered my voice. 'It's Nan,' I said, 'Nan wearing gloves so high and slender they might all have just King.' His face changed. He said, 'My God!'

left off dipping their arms, to the armpit, in tubs of milk.

Behind me, the queue had grown longer; now there came a We stood jostling in the lobby for a moment or two, Diana cry: 'What's the delay there?' Bill took the coats from me at exchanging nods with certain ladies that she recognised, last, walked quickly to a hook with them, and gave me a Maria holding Satin at her bosom, out of the crush of heels ticket. Then he stepped a little to one side, leaving his and trains and sweeping cloaks. Dickie said she would fetch friend to struggle with the cloaks, for a minute, on his own.

us a tray of drinks, and went off to do so. Diana said, 'Take I moved too, away from the jostling gents, and we stood our coats, Neville, will you?' nodding to a counter where facing each other across the desk, shaking our heads. His two men stood, in uniform, receiving cloaks. She turned to brow was shiny with sweat. His uniform was a white bum-let me draw the coat from her, Maria did the same, and I shaver jacket and a cheap bow-tie, of scarlet.

picked my way across the lobby with them, then paused to He said, 'Lord, Nan, but you gave me a fright! I thought you unfasten my own cloak -thinking all the time, only, what a must be some gentleman I owed money to.' He looked at handsome gathering it was, and how well I looked in it! and my trousers, my jacket, my hair. 'What are you up to, making sure that the coats I carried weren't falling over my wandering about like that, here?’ He wiped his brow, then wrist and obscuring the watch. The counter had a queue at looked about him. 'Are you here with an agent? You're not it, and as I waited I looked idly at the men whose job it was in the show, Nan - are you?'

to collect the cloaks from the gents, and give them tickets.

I shook my head; and then I said, very quietly, 'You mustn't One of them was slim, with a sallow face - he might have say "Nan" now, Bill. The fact is -' The fact was, I hadn't been Italian. The other man was a black man. When I 325

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thought what I would tell him. I hesitated; but it was married to Flora, and Flora was still with Kitty; and Kitty impossible to lie to him: 'Bill, I'm living as a boy just now.'

had a spot at the Middlesex Music Hall. And that was about

'As a boy?’ He said it loudly; then put a hand before his three streets away from where I stood now.

mouth. Even so, one or two of the grumbling gents in the And Kitty, of course, was married to Walter.

queue turned their heads. I edged a little further away from Are they happy? I wanted to call to Bill then. Does she talk them. I said again: 'I'm living as a boy, with a lady who of me, ever? Does she think of me? Does she miss me? But takes care of me . . .' And at that, at last, he looked a little when he returned - looking even more flustered and damp more knowing, and nodded.

about the brow - I said only, 'How's - how's the act, Bill?'

Behind him, the Italian dropped a gentleman's hat, and the The act?' He sniffed. 'Not so good, I don't think. Not so gentleman tutted. Bill said, 'Can you wait?' and stepped to good as the old days ..."

help his friend by taking another couple of cloaks. Then he We gazed at one another. I looked harder at his face, and moved towards me again. The Italian looked sour.

saw that he had gained a bit of weight beneath his chin, and I glanced over to Diana and Maria. The lobby had emptied that the flesh about his eyes was rather darker than I knew a bit; they stood waiting for me. Maria had placed Satin on it. Then the Italian called, 'Bill, will you come?' And Bill the floor and he was scratching at her skirt. Diana turned to said that he must go.

catch my eye. I looked at Bill.

I nodded, and held my hand out to him. As he shook it, he

'How are you, then?' I asked him.

seemed to hesitate again. Then he said, very quickly, 'You He looked rueful, and lifted his hand: there was a wedding-know, we was all really sorry, when you took off like that, ring on it. He said, 'Well, I am married now, for a start!'

from the Brit.' I shrugged. 'And Kitty,' he went on, 'well,

'Married! Oh, Bill, I am happy for you! Who's the girl? It's Kitty was sorriest of all of us. She put notices, with Walter, not Flora? Not Flora, our old dresser?' He nodded, and said in the Era and the Ref, week after week. Did you never see it was.

'em, Nan, those notices?'

'It is on account of Flora,' he added, 'that I am working here.

'No, Bill, I never did.'

She has a job on round the corner, a month at the Old Mo.

He shook his head. 'And now, here you are, dressed up like She is still, you know' - he looked suddenly rather awkward a lord!' But he gave my suit a dubious glance, and added:

- 'she is still, you know, dressing Kitty ..."

'You're sure though, are you, that you're doing all right?'

I stared at him. There came more mutters from the queue of I didn't answer him. I only looked over to Diana again. She gents, and more sour looks from the Italian, and he stepped was tilting her head to gaze after me; beside her stood back again to help with the cloaks and hats and tickets. I Maria, and Satin, and Dickie. Dickie held our tray of lifted a hand to my head, and put my fingers through my drinks, and had placed her monocle at her eye. She said, hair, and tried to understand what he had told me. He was 327

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'The wine will warm, Diana,' in a pettish sort of voice: the had made us late, however, and the stalls were almost full: lobby was thinned of people, I could hear her very clearly.

we had to stumble over twenty pairs of legs to reach our Diana tilted her head again: 'What is the boy doing?'

seats. Dickie spilled her wine. Satin snapped at a lady with

'He is talking to the nigger,' answered Maria, 'at the cloaks!'

a fox-fur around her throat. Diana, when she sat at last, was I felt my cheeks flame red, and looked quickly back at Bill.

thin-lipped and self-conscious: this was not the kind of His gaze had followed mine, but now had been caught by a entrance she had planned for us, at all.

gentleman offering a coat, and he was lifting the garment And I sat, numb to her, numb to all of it. I could think only over the counter, and already turning with it to the row of of Kitty. That she was still in the halls, in her act with hooks.

Walter. That Bill saw her daily - would see her later, after

'Good-bye, Bill,' I said, and he nodded over his shoulder, the show, when he fetched Flora. That even now, while the and gave me a sad little smile of farewell. I took a step actors in the opera we had come to see were putting on their away -but then, very quickly, I returned to the counter and grease-paint, she was sitting in a dressing-room three streets put my hand upon his arm. I said: 'What's Kitty's place, on away, putting on hers.

the bill at the Mo?'

As I thought all this, the conductor appeared, and was

'Her place?' He thought about it, folding another cloak. 'I'm clapped; the lights went down, and the crowd grew silent.

not sure. Second half, near the start, half-past nine or so ..."

When the music started and the curtain went up at last, I Then Maria's voice came calling: 'Is there trouble, Neville, gazed at the stage in a kind of stupor. And when the singing over the tip?'

began, I flinched. The opera was Figaro's Wedding.

I knew then that if I lingered near him any longer some I can remember hardly any of it. I thought only of Kitty.

terrible sort of scene would ensue. I didn't look at him again My seat seemed impossibly narrow and hard, and I shifted but went back to Diana at once, and said it was nothing, I and turned in it, till Diana leaned to whisper that I must be was sorry. But when she raised a hand to smooth back the still. I thought of all the times I had walked through the hair I had unsettled, I flinched, feeling Bill's eyes upon me; city, fearful of turning a corner and seeing Kitty there; I and when she pulled my arm through hers, and Maria thought of the disguise I had adopted, to avoid her. Indeed, stepped around me to take my other arm, the flesh upon my avoiding Kitty had become, in my renter days, a kind of back seemed to give a kind of shudder, as if there was a second nature to me, so that there were whole areas of pistol pointed at it.

London through which I automatically never passed, streets The hall itself, which was so grand and glorious, I only at which I didn't have to pause, for thought, before I turned gazed at rather dully. We did not have a box - there had not away to find another. I was like a man with a bruise or a been time to book a box - but our seats were very good broken limb, who learns to walk in a crowd so that the ones, in the centre of one of the front rows of the stalls. I wound might not be jostled. Now, knowing that Kitty was 329

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so near, it was as if I was compelled to press the bruise, to Walter's old stage-name. They were, as Bill had said, twist the shrieking limb, myself. The music grew louder, placed near the start of the second half- fourteenth on the and my head began to ache; my seat seemed narrower than list, after a singer and a Chinese conjuror.

ever. I looked at my watch, but the lights were too low for In the booth inside sat a girl in a violet dress. I went to her me to read it; I had to tilt it so that its face caught the glow window, then nodded to the hall. 'Who's on stage?' I asked.

from the stage, and in doing so, my elbow caught Diana and

'What number are they at?' She looked up; and when she made her sigh with pique, and glare at me. The watch saw my suit, she tittered.

showed five to nine - how glad I was that I had wound it,

'You've lost your way, dearie,' she said. 'You want the now! The opera was just at that ridiculous point where the Opera, round the corner.' I bit my lip, and said nothing, and countess and the maid have forced the principal boy into a her smile faded. 'All right, Lord Alfred,' she said then. 'It's frock and locked him in a closet, and the singing and the number twelve, Belle Baxter, Cockney Chanteuse.'

rushing about is at its worst. I turned to Diana. I said, I bought a sixpenny ticket - she pulled a face at that, of

'Diana, I can't bear it. I shall have to wait for you in the course: 'Thought we should have the red carpet brung up, at lobby.' She put a hand out to grip my arm, but I shook her the least.' The truth was, I dared not venture too close to the away, and rose and - saying 'Pardon me, oh! pardon me!' to stage. I imagined Billy-Boy having come to the theatre and every tutting lady and gent whose legs I stumbled over or told Kitty that he had met me, and how I was dressed. I feet I trampled, I made my halting way along the row, remembered how near the crowd could seem, from a stage towards the usher and the door.