Tipping the Velvet (56 page)

'Mashers!' said Florence.

to the woman. 'I'm afraid,' I said, 'that you must lose your

'Why yes,' continued Jenny. Then: 'Why, just a minute - I bet. I am Nan King.' It was the truth, and yet I felt like an believe there is the very thing to show it, here ..." She 477

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pushed her way through the crowd of gaping women to the

'What a treat, Miss King,' cried someone else then, 'to find bar, and here I saw her catch the barmaid's eye, then gesture you here ..." There was a general murmuring as the towards the wall behind the rows of upturned bottles. There implications of this comment were digested; 'I cannot say I was a faded piece of baize there, with a hundred old notes never wondered,' I heard someone say. Then Jenny leaned and picture-postcards fastened to it; I saw Mrs Swindles near to me again, and cocked her head.

reach into the layers of curling paper for a second, then

'What about Miss Butler, if you don't mind my asking? I draw out something small and bent. This she handed to heard she was a bit of a torn, herself.'

Jenny; in a moment it had been placed before me, and I That's right,' said another girl, 'I heard that too.'

found myself gazing at a photograph: Kitty and I, faint but I hesitated. Then: 'You heard wrong,' I said. 'She wasn't.'

unmistakable, in Oxford bags and boaters. I had my hand

'Not just a bit. . . ?'

upon her shoulder, and a cigarette, unlit, between the

'Not at all.'

fingers.

Jenny shrugged. 'Well, that's too bad.'

I looked and looked at the picture. I remembered very I looked at my lap, suddenly upset; worse, however, was to clearly the weight and scent of that suit, the feel of Kitty's follow, for at that moment one of the gay girls thrust her shoulder beneath my hand. Even so, it was like gazing into way between Ruth and Nora to call, 'Oh, Miss King, won't someone else's past, and it made me shiver.

you give us a song?' Her cry was taken up by a dozen The postcard was seized from me, then, first by Florence -

throats - 'Oh yes, Miss King, do!' - and, as in a terrible who bent her head to it and studied it almost as intently as I dream, a broken-down old piano was suddenly produced, it had - then by Ruth and Nora, and Annie and Miss seemed, from nowhere, and wheeled over the gritty Raymond, and finally by Jenny, who passed it on to her floorboards. At once, a woman sat down before it, cracked friends.

her knuckles, and played a staggering scale.

'Fancy us still having that pinned up,' she said. 'I remember

'Really,' I said, 'I can't!' I looked wildly at Florence - she the gal what put it there: she was rather keen on you -

was studying me as if she had never seen my face before.

indeed, you was always something of a favourite, at the Jenny cried carelessly: 'Oh, go on, Nan, be a sport, for the Boy. She got it from a lady in the Burlington Arcade. Did gals at the Boy. What was that one you used to sing - about you know there was a lady there, selling pictures such as winking at the pretty ladies, with your hand hanging on to yours, to interested gals?' I shook my head - in wonder, to your sovereign . . . ?'

think of all the times that I had trolled up and down the One voice, and then another and another, picked it up.

Burlington Arcade for interested gents, and never noticed Annie had taken a swig of her beer, and now almost choked that particular lady.

on it. 'Lord! she said, wiping her mouth. 'Did you sing that?

I saw you once at the Holborn Empire! You threw a 479

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chocolate coin at me - it was half-melted from the heat of

'You were really famous?' she asked me, as I found a your pocket -I ate it, and thought I should die! Oh, Nancyl'

cigarette and lit it. 'And you really sang?'

I gazed at her and bit my lip. The billiard players had all set

'Sang, and danced. And acted, once, in a pantomime at the down their cues and moved to stand about the piano; the Britannia.' I slapped my thigh. '"My lords, where is the pianist was picking out the chords of the song, and about Prince, our master.'" She laughed, though I did not.

twenty women were singing it. It was a silly song, but I

'How I wish I'd seen you! When was all this?'

remembered Kitty's voice lilting upwards at the chorus, and I thought for a moment; then, 'Eighteen eighty-nine,' I said.

giving the tune a kind of sweet liquidity, as if the foolish She stuck her lip out. 'Ah. Strikes all that year: no time for phrases turned to honey on her tongue. It sounded very the music hall. I think, one night, I might have stood different here, in this rough cellar - and yet, it had a certain outside the Britannia, collecting money for the dockers ..."

trueness, too, and a new sweetness all of its own. I listened She smiled. 'I should have liked a chocolate sovereign, to the boisterous girls, and found myself beginning to hum though.'

... In a moment I had knelt upon my seat and joined my

'Well, I should have made sure to throw you one She lifted voice with theirs; and afterwards they cheered and clapped her glass to her lips, then thought of something else. 'What me, and I found I had to put my head upon my arm, and happened,' she asked, 'to make you leave the theatre? If you bite my lip, to stop the tears from coming.

were doing so well, why did you stop? What did you do?'

They started on another song, then - not one of mine and I had admitted to some things; but I wasn't ready to admit to Kitty's, but a new one that I didn't know, and so could not them all. I pushed my plate towards her. 'Eat this pie for join in with. I sat down, and let my head fall back against me,' I said. Then I leaned past her and called down the the panels of the stall. A girl arrived at the end of our table table. 'I say, Annie. Give me a cigarette, will you? This with a pork pie on a plate, sent over from Mrs Swindles and one's a dud.'

'on the house'. I picked at the pastry of this for a while, and

'Well, since you're a celebrity. . .'

grew a little calmer. Ruth and Nora now had their elbows Florence ate the pie, helped out by Ruth. The singers at the on the table, their heads on their chins, and were gazing at piano grew weary and hoarse, and went back to their me, their story forgotten. Annie, I could hear in the pauses billiards. The gay girls in the stall next door got up, and of the new song, was explaining to an incredulous Miss pinned on their hats: they were off, I suppose, to start work, Raymond: 'No, I swear, we had no idea. Arrived on in the more ordinary publics of Wapping and Limehouse.

Florrie's doorstep with a black eye and a bunch of cresses, Nora yawned and, seeing her, we all yawned, and Florence and has never left it. Quite a dark horse ..."

gave a sigh.

Florence herself had her face turned my way, and her eyes

'Shall we go?' she asked. 'I think it must be very late.'

in shadow.

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'It is almost midnight,' said Miss Raymond. We stood, to

'I hope it won't, indeed,' she answered kindly. Then she button our coats on.

looked past me, to Florence and the others. 'Your girl is a-

'I must just have a word with Mrs Swindles,' I said, 'to waiting for you,' she said with a smile. I put the picture in thank her for my pie'; and when I had done that - and been the pocket of my coat.

seized and saluted by half-a-dozen women on the way -I

'So she is,' I said absently. 'So she is.'

wandered over to the billiard corner, and nodded to Jenny.

I joined my friends; we picked our way across the crowded

'Good-night to you,' I said. 'I'm glad you won your shilling.'

room, and hauled ourselves up the treacherous staircase into She took my hand and shook it. 'Good-night to you, Miss the aching cold of the February night. Outside The Frigate King! The shilling was nothing compared to the pleasure of the road was dark and quiet; from Cable Street, however, having you here among us all.'

came a distant row. Like us, the customers of all the other

'Shall we see you here again, Nan?' her friend with the publics and gin palaces of the East End were beginning to tattoo called then. I nodded: 'I hope so.'

make their tipsy journeys home.

'But you must sing us a proper song next time, on your

'Is there never trouble,' I said as we started to walk, own, in all your gentleman's toggery.'

'between women at the Boy and local people, or roughs?'

'Oh yes, you must!'

Annie turned her collar up against the cold, then took Miss I made no answer, only smiled, and took a step away from Raymond's arm. 'Sometimes,' she said. 'Sometimes. Once them; then I thought of something, and beckoned to Jenny some boys dressed a pig in a bonnet, and tipped it down the again.

cellar stairs . . .'

'That picture,' I said quietly when she was close. 'Do you

'No!'

think - would Mrs Swindles mind - do you think that I

'Yes,' said Nora. 'And once a woman got her head broken, might have it, for myself?' She put her hand to her pocket at in a fight.'

once, and drew out the creased and faded photograph, and

'But this was over a girl,' said Florence, yawning, 'and it passed it to me.

was the girl's husband who hit her ..."

'You take it,' she said; then she could not help but ask, a

'The truth is,' Annie went on, 'there is such a mix round little wonderingly, 'But have you none of your own? I these parts, what with Jews and Lascars, Germans and should've thought

Poles, socialists, anarchists, Salvationists . . . The people

'Between you and me,' I said, 'I left the business rather fast.

are surprised at nothing.'

I lost a lot of stuff, and never cared to think of it till now.

Even as she spoke, however, two fellows came out of a This, however -' I gazed down at the photo. 'Well, it won't house at the end of the street and, seeing us - seeing Annie hurt me, will it, to have this little reminder?'

and Miss Raymond arm-in-arm, and Ruth with her hand in Nora's pocket, and Florence and I bumping shoulders - gave 483

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a mutter, and a sneer. One of them hawked as we passed by was: it was as thick and brown as gravy, but we drank it him, and spat; the other cupped his hand at the fork of his anyway - carrying our mugs back into the parlour, where trousers, and shouted and laughed.

the air was warmest, and holding our hands before the last Annie looked round at me and gave a shrug. Miss few glowing coals in the ashy hearth.

Raymond, to make us all smile, said, 'I wonder if any The chairs had been pushed back to make room for my bed, woman will ever get her head broken on my account..."

so now, rather shyly, we sat upon it, side by side: as we did

'Only her heart, Miss Raymond,' I called gallantly and had so, it moved a little on its castors, and Florence laughed.

the satisfaction of seeing both Annie and Florence look my There was a lamp turned low upon the table but, apart from way and frown.

that, the room was very dim. We sat, and sipped our tea, Our group got smaller as we journeyed, for at Whitechapel and gazed at the coals: now and then the ash would shift a Ruth and Nora left us to pick up a cab to take them to their little in the grate, and the coal give a pop. 'How still it flat in the City, and at Shoreditch, where Miss Raymond seems,' said Florence quietly, 'after the Boy!'

lived, Annie looked at the toe of her boot and said, 'Well, I I had drawn my knees to my chin - the bed was very low think I shall just walk Miss Raymond to her door, since it's upon the rug - and now turned my cheek upon them, and so late; but you be sure to go on without me, and I'll catch smiled at her.

you up ..."

'I'm glad you took me there,' I said. 'I don't believe I've had So then it was only Florence and me. We walked quickly, such a pleasant night since - well, I cannot say.'

because it was so cold, and Florence linked her hands

'Can't you?'

around my arm and held me very close. When we reached

'I can't. For half my pleasure, you know, was seeing you so the end of Quilter Street we stopped, as I had done on my gay. . .'

first journey there, to gaze for a moment at the dark and She smiled, then yawned. 'Didn't you think Miss Raymond eerie towers of Columbia Market, and to peer up at the very handsome?' she asked me.

starless, moonless, fog- and smoke-choked London sky.

'Pretty handsome.' Not as handsome as you, I wanted to

'I don't believe Annie will catch us up, after all,' murmured say, looking again at all the features I had once thought Florence, looking back towards Shoreditch.

plain. Oh Flo, there's no one as handsome as you!

'No,' I said. 'I don't believe she will. . .'

But I didn't say it. And meanwhile, she had smiled. 'I The house, when we entered it, seemed hot and stuffy remember another girl Annie courted once. We let them enough; we soon grew chilled, however, once we had taken stay with us, because Annie was sharing with her sister our coats off and visited the privy. Ralph had left my then. They slept in here, and Lilian and I were upstairs; and truckle-bed made up for me, and fixed a note to the mantel they were so noisy, Mrs Monks came round to ask, "Was to say there was a pot of tea for us inside the oven. There someone poorly?" We had to say that Lily had the 485

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toothache - when in fact, she had slept through it all, with She drew in her breath. A coal in the hearth fell with a me beside her ..."

rattle, but she did not turn to it, and neither did I. We only Her voice grew quiet. I put a hand to my necktie, to loosen stared: it was as if her words, that were so warm, had it: the idea of Flo lying at Lilian's side, stirred to a useless melted our gazes the one into the other, and we could not passion, made me bitter; but, as usual, it also made me tear them free. I said, almost laughing: 'Jim! Jim!' She rather warm. I said, 'Wasn't it hard, sharing a bed with blinked, and seemed to shiver; and then I shivered, too. And someone you loved like that?'

then I said, simply, 'Oh, Flo . . .'