Tipping the Velvet (45 page)

sound of a mandolin, on that balmy June evening, in the I said it was. Then: 'And the charity? Do you remember week I met Diana. They had lost their home and been given them, and where their rooms are?'

a new one. They had been visited by that charity-visitor

'Where their rooms are, let me see ... I did go there wunst; with the romantic-sounding name.

but I don't know as I can quite recall the partic'lar number. I Florence! I did not know that I had remembered her. I had do know as it was a place rather close to the Angel, not thought of her at all, for a year and more.

Islington.'

If only I might meet her, now! She found houses for the

'Near Sam Collins's?' I asked.

poor; she might find a house for me. She had been kind to

'Past Sam Collins's, on Upper Street. Not so far as the post me once - wouldn't she be kind, if I appealed to her, a office. A little doorway on the left-hand side, somewhere second time? I thought of her comely face, and her curling between a public-house and a tailor's ..."

hair. I had lost Diana, I had lost Zena; and now I had lost This was all he could recall; I thought it might be enough. I Mrs Milne and Grace. In all of London she was the closest thanked him, and he smiled. 'What a lovely black eye,' he thing I had, at that moment, to a friend - and it was a friend said again, but to his daughter this time. 'Just like the song -

just then that, above all else, I longed for.

ain't it, Betty?'

On the balcony above me, the man had turned away. Now I By now I felt as if I had been on my feet for a month. I called him back: 'Hey, mister!' I walked closer to the wall suspected that my boots had worn their way right through of the tenement, and gazed up at him: he and his daughter my stockings, and had started on the bare flesh of my toes leaned from the balcony rail - she looked like an angel on and heels and ankles. But I did not stop at another bench, the ceiling of a church. I said, 'You won't know me; but I and untie my laces, in order to find out. The wind had 383

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picked up a little and, though it was only two o'clock or so, naked stairs. The banister was sticky, but I grasped it, and the sky was grey as lead. I wasn't sure what time the charity began to climb. Before I had reached the third or fourth offices might close; I wasn't sure how long it would take me step, a door at the top of the staircase had opened, a head to find them; I didn't know if Florence would even be there, had emerged in the gap, and a lady's voice called when I did. So I walked rather quickly up Pentonville Hill, pleasantly: 'Hallo down there! It's rather steep, but worth and let my feet be rubbed to puddings, and tried to plan the effort. Do you need a light?'

what I would say to her when I found her. This, however, I answered that I did not, and climbed faster. At the top, a proved difficult. After all, she was a girl I hardly knew; little out of breath, I was led by the lady into a tiny chamber worse - I could not help but recall this, now -I had once that held a desk, and a cabinet, and a set of mismatched arranged to meet her, then let her down. Would she, even, chairs. When she gestured, I sat; she herself perched upon remember me at all? In that gloomy Green Street the edge of the desk, and folded her arms. From a room passageway I had been certain that she would. But with nearby came the fitful crack-crack-crack of a typewriting every burning step, I grew less sure of it.

machine.

It did not, as it turned out, take me very long to find the

'Well,' she said, 'what can we do for you? I say, what an eye right office. The man's memory was a good one, and Upper you have!' I had removed my hat, as if I were a man, and, as Street itself seemed wonderfully unchanged since his last she studied my cheek - and then, more warily, my close-visit there: the public-house and the tailor's were quite as he clipped head -I fiddled with the ribbon on the hatband, had described them, close together on the left-hand side of rather awkwardly. She said, 'Have you an appointment with the street, just past the music hall. In between them were us?' and I answered that I hadn't come about a house, at all.

three or four doors, leading to the rooms and offices above; I had come about a girl.

and upon one of these was screwed a little enamel plaque,

'A girl?'

which said: Ponsonby's Model Dwelling Houses. Directress

'A woman, I should say. Her name is Florence, and she Miss J. A. D. Derby - I remembered this very well now as works here, for the charity.'

the name of the lady with the mandolin. Beneath the plaque She gave a frown. 'Florence,' she said; then 'are you sure?

was a handwritten, rain-spattered note with an arrow There's really only Miss Derby, myself, and another lady.'

pointing to a bell-pull at the side of the door. Please Ring, it

'Miss Derby,' I said quickly, 'knows who I mean. She said, and Enter. So, with some trepidation, I did both.

definitely used to work here; for the last time I saw her she The passageway behind the door was very long and very said - she said -'

gloomy. It led to a window, which looked out at a view of

'She said . . . ?' prompted the lady, more warily than ever -

bricks and oozing drain-pipes; and from here there was only for my mouth had fallen open, and my hand had flown to one way to proceed, and that was upwards, via a set of 385

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my swollen cheek; and now I cursed, in a hopeless kind of heard the murmur of voices, the prolonged rustling of miserable fury.

paper, and finally the slam of a cabinet drawer.

'She said that she was leaving this post,' I said, 'and moving The lady reappeared, bearing a white page - a letter, by the to another. What a fool I've been! I had forgotten it till now.

look of it - in her hand. 'Success! Thanks to Miss Derby's That means that Florence hasn't worked here for a year and beautiful clerking system we have tracked your Florence -

a half, or more!'

or, at least, a Florence - down; she left here just before both The lady nodded. 'Ah, well, you see, that was before my Miss Bennet and I began, in 1892. However' - she grew time. But, as you say, Miss Derby is sure to remember her.'

grave - 'we really do not think that we can give you her own That, at least, was still true. I lifted my head. 'Then, may I address; but she left here to work at a home for friendless see her?'

girls, and we can tell you where that is. It's a place called

'You may - but not today; nor even tomorrow, I'm afraid.

Freemantle House, on the Stratford Road.'

She won't be in now until Friday -'

A home for friendless girls! The very idea of it made me

'Friday!' That was terrible. 'But I must see Florence today, I tremble and grow weak. 'That must be her,' I said. 'But -

really must! Surely you have a list, or a book, or something, Stratford? So far?' I shifted my feet beneath my chair, and that says where she has gone to. Surely somebody here felt the leather slide against my bleeding heels. The boots must know.'

themselves were thick with mud; my skirt had gained a frill The lady seemed surprised. 'Well,' she said slowly, 'perhaps of filth, six inches deep, at the hem. Against the window we do ... But I cannot really give that sort of detail out, you there came the spatter of rain. 'Stratford,' I said again, so know, to strangers.' She thought for a moment. 'Could you miserably that the woman drew near and put her hand upon not write her a letter, and let us forward it . . . ?' I shook my my arm.

head, and felt my eyes begin to prick. She must have seen,

'Have you not the fare?' she asked gently. I shook my head.

and misunderstood, for she said then, rather gently: 'Ah -

'I have lost all my money. I have lost everything!' I placed a perhaps you're not very handy with a pen . . . ?'

hand over my eyes, and leaned in utter weariness against I would have admitted to anything, for the sake of a kind the desk. As I did so, I saw what lay upon it. It was the word. I shook my head again: 'Not very, no.'

letter. The lady had placed it there, face upwards, knowing -

She was silent for a moment. Perhaps she thought, that thinking -that I could not read it. It was very brief; it was there could be nothing very sinister about my quest, if I signed by Florence herself- Florence Banner, I now saw her could not even read or write. At any rate, she rose at last full name to be - and was addressed to Miss Derby. Please and said, 'Wait here.' Then she left the room and entered accept notice of my resignation ... it ran. I didn't read that another, across the hall. The sound of the typewriter grew part. For at the top right-hand corner of the page there was a louder for a second, then ceased altogether; in its place I date, and an address - not that of Freemantle House but, 387

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clearly, the home address that I was not allowed to know. A Having no intention at all, now, of travelling to Stratford, I number, followed by the name of a street: Quilter Street, did not, as the lady recommended, catch a bus. I did, Bethnal Green, London E. I memorised it at once.

however, buy myself a cup of tea, from a stall with an Meanwhile, the woman talked kindly on. I had scarcely awning to it, on the High Street. And when I gave back my heard her, but now I raised my head and saw what she was cup to the girl, I nodded. 'Which way,' I asked, 'to Bethnal about. She had taken a little key from her pocket and Green?'

unlocked one of the drawers in the desk. She was saying,'. .

I had never been much further east before - alone, and on

. not something we make a habit of doing, at all; but I can foot - than Clerkenwell. Now, limping down the City Road see that you are very weary. If you take a bus from here to towards Old Street, I felt the beginnings of a new kind of Aldgate, you can pick up another there, I believe, that will nervousness. It had grown darker during my time in the take you along the Mile End Road, to Stratford.' She held office, and wet and foggy. The street-lamps had all been lit, out her hand. There were three pennies in it. 'And perhaps and every carriage had a lantern swinging from it; City you might get yourself a cup of tea, along the way?'

Road was not, however, like Soho, where light streamed I took the coins, and mumbled some word of thanks. As I upon the pavements from a thousand flares and windows.

did so a bell rang, close at hand, and we both gave a start.

For every ten paces of my journey that were illuminated by She glanced at a clock upon the wall. 'My last clients of the a pool of gas-light, there were a further twenty that were day,' she said.

cast in gloom.

I took the hint, and rose and put on my hat. There were The gloom lifted a little at Old Street itself, for here there footsteps in the passageway below, now, and the sound of were offices, and crowded bus stops and shops. As I walked stumbling on the stairs. She ushered me to the door, and towards the Hackney Road, however, it seemed only to called to her visitors: 'Come up, that's right. It's rather steep, deepen, and my surroundings to grow shabbier. The I know, but worth the effort. . .' A young man, followed by crossings at the Angel had been decent enough; here the a woman, emerged from the gloom. They were both rather roads were so clogged with manure that, every time a swarthy -Italians, I guessed, or Greeks - and looked terribly vehicle rumbled by, I was showered with filth. My fellow pinched and poor. We all shuffled around in the doorway of pedestrians, too - who, so far, had all been honest working-the office for a moment, smiling and awkward; then at last people, men and women in coats and hats as faded as my the lady and the young couple were inside the room, and I own - grew poorer. Their suits were not just dingy, but was alone at the head of the staircase.

ragged. They had boots, but no stockings. The men wore The lady raised her head, and caught my eye.

scarves instead of collars, and caps rather than bowlers; the

'Good luck!' she called, a little distractedly. 'I do so hope women wore shawls; the girls wore dirty aprons, or no you find your friend.'

apron at all. Everyone seemed to have some kind of burden 389

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- a basket, or a bundle, or a child upon their hip. The rain either, for the glass in some of the street-lamps was fell harder.

cracked, or missing entirely, and the pavement was I had been told by the tea-girl at the Angel to head for blocked, here and there, by piles of broken furniture, and by Columbia Market; now, a little way along the Hackney heaps of what the novels politely term ashes. I looked at the Road, I found myself suddenly on the edge of its great, number of the nearest door: number 1. I started slowly shadowy courtyard. I shivered. The huge granite hall, its down the street. Number 5 ... number 9 ... number 11 ... I towers and tracery as elaborate as those on a gothic felt weaker than ever ... 15 ...

cathedral, was quite dark and still. A few rough-looking 17 ... 19 ...

fellows with cigarettes and bottles slouched in its arches, Here I stopped, for now I could see the house I sought quite blowing on their hands to keep the cold off.

clearly. Its drapes were drawn against the dark, and A sudden clamour in the clock tower made me start. Some luminous with lamplight; and seeing them, I felt suddenly complicated pealing of bells - as fussy and useless as the quite sick with apprehension. I placed a hand against the great abandoned market hall itself - was chiming out the wall, and tried to steady myself; a boy walked by me, hour: it was a quarter-past four. This was far too early to whistling, and gave me a wink -I suppose he thought I had visit Florence's house, if Florence herself was at work all been drinking. When he had passed I looked about me at day: so I stood for another hour in one of the arches of the the unfamiliar houses in a kind of panic: I could remember market where the wind was not so cutting and the rain was the sense of purpose that had visited me in Green Street, but not so hard. Only when the bells had rung half-past five did it seemed a piece of wildness, now, a piece of comedy - I I step again into the courtyard, and look about me: I was would tell it to Florence, and she would laugh in my face.