Tipping the Velvet (60 page)

halls.' Miss Skinner - who was about nineteen or so, and

'I dare say. That Diana Lethaby, though - well! You've seen would still have been in short skirts on the night I took my her, of course?'

last bow at the Brit - gazed politely at me, and offered me

'Diana?' I shook my head. 'Not likely! Did you think I'd go her hand. Zena went on then, 'Miss King lives with Flo back to Felicity Place, after that dam' party . . . ?'

Banner -' and at once, Miss Skinner's grip tightened, and Zena stared at me. 'But, don't tell me you didn't know it?

her eyes grew wide.

Diana is here-!'

'Flo Banner?' she said, in just the tone that Zena had. 'Flo

'Here? She can't be!'

Banner, of the Guild? Oh! I wonder - I've got the

'She is! I tell you, all the world is here this afternoon - and programme of the day about me somewhere - do you think, her amongst 'em. She is over at the table of some paper or Miss King, you might get her to sign it for me?'

magazine. I saw her, and nearly fainted dead away!'

'Sign it!' I said. She had produced a paper giving the

'My God.' Diana, here! The thought was awful - and yet...

running-order of the speeches and the layout of the stalls, Well, they do say that old dogs never forget the tricks their and held it to me, trembling. Florence's name, I now saw, mistresses beat into them: I had felt myself stir, faintly, at was printed, along with one or two others, amongst the list the first mention of her hateful name. I looked once into the of organisers. 'Well,' I said. 'Well. You might ask her tent, and saw Florence, on her feet again and still shaking yourself, you know: she's only over there -'

her arm at the platform; then I turned to Zena. 'Will you

'Oh, I couldn't!' answered Miss Skinner. 'I should be too shy show me,' I asked, 'where?'

. . .'

She gave me one swift warning sort of look; then she took In the end I took the paper, and said I would do what I my arm and led me through the crowd, towards the bathing could; and Miss Skinner looked desperately grateful, then lake, and came to a halt behind a bush.

went off to tell her friends that she had met me.

'Look, there,' she said in a low voice. 'Near that table. D'you

'She's a bit romantic, ain't she? said Zena, wrinkling her see her?' I nodded. She was standing beside a display - it nose again. 'I might throw her over for the other one, yet..."

was for the women's journal Shafts, that she sometimes I shook my head, looked at the paper another time, then helped with the running of - and was talking with another placed it in the pocket of my skirt.

lady, a lady I thought might be one of the ones who had We chatted for another few moments; and then Zena said, come dressed as Sappho to the fancy-dress ball. The lady

'And so, you're quite happy, are you, in Bethnal Green? It had a Suffrage sash across her bosom. Diana was clad in ain't quite what you was used to in the old days ..."

grey, and her hat had a veil to it - though this was, at the moment, turned up. She was as haughty and as handsome 513

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as ever. I gazed at her and had a very vivid memory - of handsome, and bulged at the fork. The boy himself was tall myself, sprawled beside her with pearls about my hips; of and slight; his hair was dark, and cut very short. His face the bed seeming to tilt; of the chafing of the leather as she was a pretty one, his lips pink as a girl's . . .

straddled me and rocked . . .

When he reached Diana she leaned and drew the

'What do you think she would do,' I said to Zena, 'if I went handkerchief from his pocket, and began to dap with it at over?'

his thigh - it seemed, he had spilt his ice-cream after all.

'You ain't going to try it!'

The other lady at the stall looked on, and smiled; then

'Why not? I'm quite, you know, out of her power now.' But murmured something that made the pretty boy blush.

even as I said it, I looked at her and felt that doggishness I had stood and watched all this, in a kind of astonishment; come over me again - or doggishness, perhaps, is not the but now I took a slow step backwards, and then another.

term for it. It was like she was some music-hall mesmerist, Diana may have raised her face again, I cannot say: I didn't and I a blinking girl, all ready to make a mockery of stop to see it. Reggie had lifted his hand to lick at his ice, myself, before the crowd, at her request. . .

his cuff had moved back, and I had caught the flash of a Zena said, 'Well I ain't going nowhere near her . . .'; but I wrist-watch beneath it... I blinked my eyes, and shook my didn't listen. I glanced quickly again at the speakers' tent, head, and ran back to the bush where Zena still stood then I stepped out from behind the bush and made my way peeping, and put my face against her shoulder.

towards the stall - straightening the knot in my necktie, as I When I looked again at Diana, through the leaves, she had did so. I was within about twenty yards of her, and had her arm in Reggie's and their heads were close, and they lifted a hand to remove my hat, when she turned, and were laughing. I turned to Zena, and she bit her lip.

seemed to raise her eyes to mine. Her gaze grew hard,

'It is only the devils what prosper in this world, I swear,' she sardonic and lustful all at once, just as I remembered it; and said. But then she bit her lip again; and then she tittered.

my heart twitched in my breast - in fright, I think! - as if a I laughed, too, for a moment. Then I cast another bitter look hook had caught it.

towards the stall, and said: 'Well, I hope she gets all she But then she opened her mouth to speak; and what she said deserves!'

was: 'Reggie! Reggie, here!'

Zena cocked her head. 'Who?' she asked. 'Diana, or -?'

That made me stumble. From somewhere close behind me I pulled a face, and would not answer her.

came a gruffer answering cry - 'All right' - and I turned, and We wandered back to the speakers' tent, then, and Zena said saw a boy picking his way across the grass, his eyes in a she had better try to find her Maud.

scowl and fixed on Diana's, his hand bearing a sugared ice,

'We'll be friends, won't we?' I said as we shook hands.

which he held before him and sucked at very gingerly, for She nodded. 'You must be sure to introduce me to Miss fear it would drip and spoil his trousers. The trousers were Banner, anyway; I should like that.'

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'Yes, well - you must at least come round some time and intent on causing a stir. Poor Ralph is to speak next: he is so tell her you've forgiven me: she thinks me a regular brute, feverish you could fry an egg on him.'

over you.'

I bounced Cyril upon my knee. 'Flo,' I said, 'you will never She smiled - then something caught her eye, and she turned believe who I have just seen!'

her head. There's my other sweetheart,' she said quickly -

'Who? she asked. Then her eyes grew wide. 'Not Eleanor she gestured to a wide-shouldered, tommish-looking Marx?'

woman, who was studying us as we chatted, and frowning.

'No, no - nobody like that! It was Zena, that girl I knew at Zena pulled a face. 'She likes to come the uncle, that one Diana Lethaby's. And not only her, but Diana herself! The

..."

both of them here at once, can you imagine? My heart,

'She does look a bit fierce. You'd better go to her: I don't when I saw Diana again - I thought I should die!' I jiggled want to end up with another blacked eye.'

Cyril until he began to squeal. Florence's face, however, She smiled, and pressed my hand; and I saw her step over had hardened.

to the woman and kiss her cheek, then disappear with her

'My God!' she said; and her tone made me flinch. 'Can we into the crush of people between the stalls. I ducked back not enjoy even a socialist rally without your wretched past into the tent. It was fuller and hotter than ever in there, the turning up to haunt us? You have not sat and listened to one air thick with smoke, the people's faces sweating and speech here today; I suppose you have not so much as jaundiced-looking where they were struck, through the glanced at one of the stalls. All you have eyes and thoughts canvas, by the afternoon sun. On the platform a woman was for is yourself; yourself, and the women you have - the stumbling hoarsely through some speech or other, and a women you have -'

dozen people in the audience were on their feet, arguing The women I have fucked, I suppose you mean,' I said in a with her. Florence was back in her chair before the dais, low voice. I leaned away from her, really shocked and hurt; with Cyril kicking in her lap. Annie and Miss Raymond then I grew angry. 'Well, at least I got a fuck out of my old were beside her, with a pretty fair-haired girl I did not sweethearts. Which is more than you got out of Lilian.'

know. Ralph was nearby, his forehead gleaming and his At that, her mouth fell open, and her eyes began to gleam face stiff with fright.

with tears.

There was an empty seat next to Florence, and when I had

'You little cat,' she said. 'How can you say such things to made my way across the grass I sat in it and took the baby me?'

from her.

'Because I am sick to death of hearing about Lilian, and

'Where have you been?' she asked above the shouting. 'It how bloody marvellous she was!'

has been terrible in here. A load of boys have come in, 517

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'She was marvellous,' she said. 'She was. She should have

'She tells the truth,' I said miserably. 'Which is sharper than been here to see all this, not you! She would have anything.' I sighed; then, to change the subject, I asked: understood it all, whereas you -'

'Have you had a good day, Annie?'

'You wish she was here, I suppose,' I spat out rashly,

'I have,' she said. 'It has all been rather wonderful.'

'instead of me?'

'And who is that girl with your Emma?' I nodded to the fair-She gazed at me, the tears upon her lashes. I felt my own haired woman at Miss Raymond's side.

eyes prickle, and my throat grow thick. 'Nance,' she said, in That's Mrs Costello,' she said, 'Emma's widowed sister."

a gentler tone - but I raised my hand, and turned my face

'Oh!' I had heard of her before, but never expected her to be away.

so young and pretty. 'How handsome she is. What a shame

'We agreed it, didn't we?' I said, trying to keep the she ain't - like us. Is there no hope of it?'

bitterness from my voice. And then, when she wouldn't

'None at all, I'm afraid. But she is a lovely girl. Her husband answer: 'God knows, there are places I'd sooner be, than was the kindest man, and Emma says she is just about here!'

despairing that she will ever find another to match him. The I said it to spite her; but when she rose and moved away only men who want to court her turn out to be boxers ..."

from me with her fingers before her eyes, I felt desperately I smiled dully; I was not much bothered about Mrs sorry. I put my hand to my pocket for a handkerchief: what Costello, really. While Annie talked I kept glancing over to I drew out was the programme that Miss Skinner had given Florence. She now stood at the far side of the tent, a me, for Flo to sign; I found myself gazing at it, quite handkerchief gripped between her fingers but her cheeks bewildered by the sudden turns the afternoon had taken.

dry and white. However long and hard I looked at her, she And all the time, the woman on the platform talked would not meet my gaze.

hoarsely on, arguing with the hecklers in the audience - the I had almost decided to make my way over to her, when air seemed clotted with shouts and smoke and bad feeling.

there came a sudden clamour: the lady on the platform had I looked up. Florence was standing near the wall of canvas, finished her speech, and the crowd was reluctantly beside Annie and Miss Raymond: she was shaking her clapping. This meant, of course, that it was time for Ralph's head, as they leaned to put their hands upon her arm. When address; Annie and I turned to see him hover uncertainly at Annie drew back I caught her eye, and she walked over and the side of the little stage, then stumble up the steps as his gave me a wary smile.

name was announced, and take up his place at the front of

'You should have learned better than to argue with Florrie,'

the platform.

she said, taking the seat beside me. 'She is about as sharp-I looked at Annie and grimaced, and she bit her lip. The tongued as anyone I know.'

tent had quietened a little, but not much. Most of the afternoon's serious listeners seemed to have grown tired and 519

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left: their seats had been taken by idlers, by yawning mind to step over to him and tell him to speak up or to stop; women and by more rowdy boys.

I saw Florence, pale and agitated to see her brother so Before this careless crowd Ralph now stood and cleared his awkward - her own griefs, for the moment, quite forgotten.

throat. He had his speech, I saw, in his hand - to refer to, I Ralph started on a passage of statistics: 'Two hundred years guessed, if he forgot his lines. His forehead was streaming ago,' he read, 'Britain's land and capital was worth five with sweat; his neck was stiff. I knew he would never be hundred million pounds; today it is worth - it is worth -' He able to project his voice to the back of the tent, with his tilted the paper again; but while he did so, a fellow stood up throat so stiff and tense.

to shout: 'What are you, man? A socialist, or a With another cough, he began.

schoolmaster?' And at that, Ralph sagged as if he had been

'"Why Socialism?" That is the question I have been invited winded. Annie whispered: 'Oh, no! Poor Ralph! I can't bear to discuss with you this afternoon.' Annie and I were sitting it!'

in the third row from the front, and even we could hardly

'Neither can I,' I said. I jumped to my feet, thrust Cyril at hear him; from the mass of men and women behind us there her, then hurried to the steps at the side of the platform and came a cry - 'Speak up!' - and a ripple of laughter. Ralph ran up them, two at a time. The chairman saw me and half-coughed yet again, and when he next spoke his voice was rose to block my path, but I waved him back and stepped louder, but also rather hoarse.