Tipping the Velvet (48 page)

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While I waited for these things to heat I wandered back into These things did not much interest me. I looked next at the the parlour, to separate the armchairs that had made my alcove beside the chimney-breast, where there was a set of bed, and set the blankets in a tidy pile. This done, I did home-made shelves, fairly bursting with books and what I had been at first too bewildered, and then too sleepy, magazines. This collection was also very mixed, and very to do the night before: I stood and had a proper look dusty. There was a good supply of shilling classics -

around.

Longfellow, Dickens, that sort of thing - and one or two The room, as I have said, was a very small one - far cheap novels; but there were also a number of political smaller, certainly, than my old bedroom at Felicity Place -

texts, and two or three volumes of what might be called and there were no gas-jets in it, only oil-lamps and interesting verse. At least one of these -Walt Whitman's candlesticks. The furniture and decorations were, I thought, Leaves of Grass -I had seen before on Diana's bookshelves a rather curious mixture. The walls were bare of paper, like at Felicity Place. I had tried to read it once in an idle Diana's, but had been stained a patchy blue, like a moment: I had thought it terribly dull.

workshop's; for decoration they had only a couple of These shelves and their contents claimed my attention for a almanacks - this year's and last year's - and two or three minute or so; it was seized after that by two pictures which dull-looking prints. There were two rugs upon the floor, one hung from the rail above. The first of these was a family ancient and threadbare, the other new and vivid and coarse portrait, and as stiff, as quaint and as marvellously and rather rustic: the kind of rug I thought a shepherd, intriguing as other families' portraits always are. I looked 409

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for Florence first, and found her - aged, perhaps, fifteen or filth from my skirts and pressed them flat and put them on so, and very fresh and plump and earnest - seated between a again, I felt fit and warm and quite unreasonably gay. I white-haired lady and a younger, darker girl, who had the walked back into the parlour - it was a matter of some ten beginnings of a barmaid's flash good looks about her and steps or so - stood for a second there, then returned to the must, I thought, be a sister. Behind them stood three boys: kitchen. It was, I thought, a very pleasant house; as I had Ralph, minus his sailor's whiskers and wearing a very high already begun to notice, however, it was not a very clean collar; a rather older brother who looked very much like one. The rugs, I saw, all badly wanted beating. The him; and an older brother again. There was no father.

skirting-boards were scuffed and streaked with mud. Every The second portrait was a picture-postcard photograph: it shelf and picture was as dusty as the sooty mantelpiece. If had been placed in the edge of the large picture's frame, but this was my house, I thought, I would keep it smart as a its corner curled a little, showing a loop of faded writing on new pin.

the back. The subject of the portrait was a woman - a Then I had a rather wonderful idea. I ran back into the heavy-browed woman with untidy dark hair: she seemed to parlour and looked at the clock. Less than an hour had be sitting very squarely, and her gaze was rather grave. I passed since Florence's departure, and neither she nor thought she might be the sister from the family group, Ralph, I guessed, would be home much before five. That grown up; or she might be a friend of Florence's, or a gave me about eight whole hours - slightly less, I supposed, cousin, or - well, anybody. I leaned over to try to read the if I wanted to be sure of finding myself a room in some handwriting that showed where the card curled over; but it lodging-house or hostel while it was still light. How much was hidden, and I didn't like to pluck it free - it wasn't that cleaning could you do in eight hours? I had no idea: it was intriguing. Then I caught the bubbling of the pan of water I generally Alice who had helped Mother out at home; I had had set upon the stove, and hurried out to see to it.

hardly cleaned a thing before in my life; lately I had had I found a little tin bowl to wash in, and a block of green servants to do my cleaning for me. But I felt inspired, now, kitchen soap; and then - since there was no towel, and I to tidy this house - this house where I had been, albeit didn't think it really polite to use the dish-cloth - I danced briefly, so content. It would be a kind of parting gift, I about before the range until I was dry enough to climb back thought, for Ralph and Florence. I would be like a girl in a into my dirty petticoats. I thought, with a little sigh, of fairy story, sweeping out the dwarves' cottage, or the Diana's handsome bathroom - of that cabinet of unguents robbers' cave, while the dwarves or the robbers were at that I had liked to sample for hours at a time. Even so, it work.

was marvellous to be clean again, and when I had combed I believe I laboured, that day, harder than I had ever my hair and tended my face (I rubbed a bit of vinegar into laboured over anything before; and I have wondered since, the bruise, and then a bit of flour); when I had thumped the thinking back to the industry of those hours, whether the 411

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thing that I was really washing was not my own tarnished

'A fine job you've taken on,' she said, 'cleaning the Banners'

soul. I began by lighting a bigger fire in the range, to heat place.' I smiled, glad of the rest, and wiped the sweat from more water with. Then I found that I had used up all the my brow and lip.

water in the house: I had to limp up and down Quilter Street

'Are they known for their dirt, then?'

with two great buckets, looking for a stand-pipe; and when

'They are,' she said, 'in this street. They do too much in I found one I also found a line of women at it, and had to other folks' houses, and not enough in their own. That's the wait amongst them for half-an-hour, until the tap - which trouble." She spoke good-humouredly, however: she didn't ran no faster than a trickle, and sometimes only spluttered seem to mean that Ralph and Florence were busy-bodies. I and choked - was free. The women looked me up and rubbed my aching shoulder. 'You'll be the new lodger, I down, rather - they looked at my eye, and more especially suppose?' she asked me then. I shook my head, and at my head, for I had placed a cap of Ralph's upon it in lieu repeated what I had told the other neighbours - that I was of my damp hat, and they could see where the hair was only passing through. She seemed as unimpressed by that shorn and razored beneath. But they were not at all as they had been. She watched me for a minute or two unfriendly. One or two, who had seen me leave the house, while I resumed my beating; then she went indoors, without asked me, 'Was I lodging with the Banners?' and I answered another word.

that I was only passing through. They seemed happy When the rugs were beaten I swept the fireplace in the enough with that, as if people passed through, in this parlour; then I found some blacklead in the pantry, and district, very frequently.

began to dab at it with that. I had not leaded a grate since I When I had staggered home with the water, set it warming left home -though I had seen Zena blacking Diana's on the stove, and wrapped myself in a great, crusty apron I fireplaces a hundred times, and remembered it as rather found hanging on the back of the pantry door, I began on easy labour. In fact, of course, it was tricky, filthy work, the parlour. First I wiped down all the dim and sooty things and kept me busy for an hour, and left me feeling not a half with a wet cloth; then I washed the window, and then the so blithe as I had been at first. Still, however, I didn't stop skirting-boards. The rugs I carried out into the yard: here I to rest. I swept the floors, and then I scrubbed them; then I hung them over the wash-line, and beat them until my arm washed the kitchen tiles, and then the range, and then the ached. As I did so, the back door of the neighbouring house kitchen window. I did not like to venture upstairs, but the was pulled open and a woman, her sleeves rolled up like parlour and the kitchen, and even the privy and the yard, I mine and her own cheeks flushed, emerged to stand upon worked upon until they fairly gleamed; until every surface the step. When she saw me she nodded, and I nodded back.

that was meant to shine, shone; until every colour was vivid, rather than dulled and paled by dust.

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My final triumph was the front doorstep: this I swept and thought, like a child, How pleased they will be! How washed, and finally scrubbed with a piece of hearthstone pleased ... I was not quite so gay, however, as I had been until it was as white as any doorstep in the street - and my six hours before. Like the darkening day beyond the parlour arms, which had been black with lead, were streaked with window, there was a gloomy knowledge pressing at the chalk from my fingernails to my elbows. I knelt for a few edges of my own pleasure -the knowledge that I must go, moments when I had finished it, admiring the effect and and find some shelter of my own. I picked up the list that stretching my aching back, too warmed with work to be Florence had made for me. Her handwriting was very neat bothered by the January breezes. Then I saw a figure but the ink had stained her fingers, and there was a smudge emerge from the house next door, and looked up to see a where she had lain her tired hand upon the sheet.

little girl in a tattered frock and a pair of over-large boots I could not bear the idea of going just yet - of working my pigeon-stepping her way towards me with a spilling mug of way through the list of hostels, of being shown to a bed in tea.

another chamber like the one I had slept in with Zena. I

'Mother says you must be fairly fagged, and to give you would go in an hour; for now, I thought again, this,' she said. Then she ducked her head. 'But I'm to stay determinedly, of how enchanted Ralph and Florence would with you while you drink it, to make sure we get the cup be, to come home to a tidy house - and then, with more back.'

enthusiasm, I thought: And how much more pleased would The tea had been made murky with a bit of skim-milk, and they be, to come home to their tidy house, and find their was terribly sweet. I drank it quickly, while the girl supper bubbling on the stove! There was not much food in shivered and stamped her feet. 'No school for you today?' I the cupboards, so far as I could see; but there was, of asked her.

course, the half-crown that they had left for me ... I didn't

'Not today. It's wash-day, and Mother needs me at home to stop to think that I should keep it for my own needs. I keep the babies out from under her heels.' All the while she picked the coin up - it was just where Florence had placed talked to me she kept her eyes fixed on my shorn head. Her it, for I had lifted it only to wipe beneath it with a cloth, own hair was fair, and - much as mine had used to -

then put it back again - and hobbled off down Quilter dribbled down between her jutting shoulder-blades in a Street, towards the stalls and barrows of the Hackney Road.

long, untidy plait.

A half-hour later I was back. I had bought bread, meat and It was now about half-past three, and when I returned to vegetables and - purely on the grounds that it had looked so Florence's kitchen to wash my filthy hands and arms I handsome on the fruit-man's barrow - a pineapple. For a found the house had grown quite dark. I removed my apron, year and a half I had eaten nothing but cutlets and salmis, and lit a lamp; then I took a few minutes to wander between pates and crystallised fruits; but there was a dish that Mrs the rooms, gazing at the transformation I had effected. I Milne had used to make, consisting of mashed potato, 415

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mashed cabbage, corned beef and onions - Gracie and I had She laughed, showing her teeth. 'Then you, I suppose, must used to smack our lips at the sight of it placed before us on be the fairy king himself. Or is it, the fairy queen? I cannot the table. I thought it couldn't be very hard to make; and I tell if your hair is at odds with your costume, or the other set about cooking it now, for Ralph and Florence.

way around. If that' - she laughed again - 'means anything.'

I had set the potatoes and the cabbage on to boil, and got as I didn't know what it might mean. I said only, rather primly, far as browning the onions, when I heard a knock at the that I was waiting for my hair to grow; and she answered, door. This made me jump, then grow a little flustered. I had

'Ah', and her smile grew a little smaller. Then she said, in a made myself so comfortable that I felt, instinctively, that I puzzled sort of way: 'And you're staying with Florrie and should answer it; but should I, really? Was there not a point Ralph, are you?'

at which helpfulness, if persevered with, became

'They let me sleep last night in the parlour, as a favour; but impertinence? I looked down at the pan of onions, my today I have to move on. In fact - what time have you?' She rolled-up sleeves. Had I perhaps crossed over that point, showed me her watch: a quarter to five, and much later than already?'

I had expected. 'I really must go very soon.' I took the pan While I wondered, the knock came again; and this time I off the stove - the onions had burned a little browner than I didn't hesitate, but went straight to the door and opened it.

wanted - and began to look about me for a bowl.

Beyond it was a girl - a rather handsome girl, with dark hair

'Oh,' she said, waving her hand at my haste, 'have a cup of showing beneath a velvet tam-o'-shanter. When she saw me tea with me, at least.' She put some water on to boil, and I she said, 'Oh! Is Florrie not at home, then?' and looked began jabbing at the potatoes with a fork. The dish, as I quickly at my arms, my dress, my eye, and then my hair.

assembled it, did not look quite like the meal that Mrs I said, 'Miss Banner isn't here, no. I'm on my own.' I Milne had used to make; and when I tasted it, it was not so sniffed, and thought I caught the smell of burning onions.

savoury. I set it on the side, and frowned at it. The girl

'Look here,' I went on, 'I'm doing a bit of frying. Do you handed me a cup. Then she leaned against a cupboard, quite mind . . . ?' I ran back to the kitchen to rescue my dish. To at her ease, and sipped at her own tea, and then yawned.