Tipping the Velvet (25 page)

‘Yes!'

‘But, we could be careful -'

‘We should never be careful enough! You are too much - Nan, you are too much like a boy ...'

‘Too much - like a boy? You've never said it before! Too much like a boy - yet, you'd rather go with Walter! Do you - love
him?'

She looked away. ‘He's very - kind,' she said.

‘Very kind.' I heard my voice grow hard and bitter at last. I sat up, and leaned away from her. ‘And so you had him come, while I was gone; and he was kind to you, in our bed ...' I got to my feet, suddenly conscious of the soiled sheets and mattress ; of her bare flesh, that he had put his hands upon, his mouth ... ‘Oh, God! How long would you have carried on? Would you let me kiss you,
after him?'

She reached for me, to seize my hand. ‘We planned, I swear, to tell you tonight. Tonight was when you were to know it all...'

There was something queer about the way she said it. I had been pacing at her side; now I grew still. ‘What do you mean?' I said. ‘What do you mean, by
all?'

She took her hand away. ‘We are - oh, Nan, don't hate me for it! We are to be - married.'

‘Married?'
If I had had time to think about it I might have expected it; but I had had no time at all, and the word made me giddier and sicker than ever. ‘Married? But what - but what about me? Where shall I live? What shall I do? What about, what about -' I had thought of something new. ‘What about the act? How shall we work ... ?'

She looked away. ‘Walter has a plan. For a new act. He wants to return to the halls ...'

‘To the halls? After
this?
With you and me -?'

‘No. With me, Just me.'

Just her. I felt myself begin to shake. I said, ‘You have killed me, Kitty.' My voice sounded strange even to my own ears; I believe it frightened her, for she glanced a little wildly to the door, and began to speak, very fast, but in a kind of shrill whisper.

‘You mustn't say such things,' she said. ‘It has been a shock for you. But you will see, in time - we shall be friends again, the three of us!' She reached for me; her voice grew shriller yet quieter still. ‘Can you not see, how this is for the best? With Walter as my husband, who would think, who would say -' I pulled away; she gripped me tighter - then cried at last, in a kind of panic: ‘Oh, you don't think, do you, that I'll let him take me from you?'

At that I pushed her, and she fell back against her pillow. The counterpane was still before her, but it had slipped a little. I caught sight of the swell of her breast, the pink of her nipple. An inch below the downy hollow of her throat - jerking with each breath and pounding heart-beat - hung the pearl that I had bought her, on its silver chain. I remembered kissing it, three days before; perhaps, last night or this morning, Walter had felt it chill and hard against his own tongue.

I stepped towards her, seized the necklace, and - again, just as if I were a character in a novel or a play - I tugged at it. At once the chain gave a satisfying
snap!
and dangled broken from my hand. I gazed at it for a second, then dashed it from me and heard it scutter across the floorboards.

Kitty shouted - I believe she shouted Walter's name. At any rate, the door now opened and he appeared, white-faced above his ginger whiskers, and with his braces still dangling below the hem of his jacket, his collarless shirt still flapping at his throat. He ran to the other side of the bed, and took Kitty in his arms.

‘If you have hurt her -' he said. I laughed outright at that.

‘Hurt her? Hurt her? I should like to kill her! Had I only a pistol on me now I would shoot her through the heart - and myself as well! And leave you to marry a corpse!'

‘You have gone mad,' he said. ‘This has driven you quite crazed.'

‘And do you wonder at it? Do you know - has she told you - what we are - what we
were -
to one another?'

‘Nan!' said Kitty quickly. I kept my eyes fixed upon Walter.

‘I know,' he said slowly, ‘that you were - sweethearts, of a kind.'

‘Of a kind. The kind that - what? Hold hands? Did you think, then, that you were the first to have her, in this bed? Didn't she tell you that I fuck her?'

He flinched - and so did I, for the word sounded terrible: I had never said it before, and had not known I was about to use it now. His gaze, however, remained steady: I saw, with increasing misery, that he knew it all, and did not care; that perhaps - who knows? - he even liked it. He was too much the gentleman to make me a foul-mouthed reply, but his expression - a curious mixture of contempt, complacency, and pity - was a speaking one. It said,
That was not fucking, as the world knows it!
It said,
You fucked her so well, that she has left you!
It said,
You may have fucked her first, but I shall fuck her now and ever after!

He was my rival; and had defeated me, at last.

I took a step away from the bed, and then another. Kitty swallowed, her head still upon Walter's great breast. Her eyes were large and lustrous with unshed tears, her lip red where she had bitten it; her cheeks were pale, and the freckles very dark upon them - there were freckles, too, upon the flesh of her shoulder and chest, where it showed above the blankets. She was about as beautiful as I had ever seen her.

Good-bye,
I thought - then I turned and fled.

I ran down the stairs; my skirts snagged about my feet and I almost stumbled. I ran past the open parlour-door; past the hat-stand, where my coat hung next to Walter's; past the suitcase I had brought from Whitstable. I didn't pause to pick anything up, not even so much as a glove or a bonnet. I could touch nothing in that place now - it had become like a plague-house to me. I ran to the door and pulled it open, then left it wide behind me as I hurried down the steps and into the street. It was very cold, but the air was still and dry. I didn't look behind me.

I continued running until my side began to ache; then I half walked, half trotted, until the pain subsided; then I ran again. I had reached Stoke Newington and was headed south on the long straight road that led to Dalston, Shoreditch, and the City. Beyond that, I could not think: I had wit enough only to keep Stamford Hill - and
her,
and
him
- continually behind me; and to run. I was half-blind with weeping; my eyeballs felt swollen and hot in their sockets, my face was soaked with slobber, and growing icy. People must have stared as I passed by them; I believe one or two fellows reached out to pluck me by the arm; but I saw and heard them not, simply hurried, stumbling over my skirts, until sheer exhaustion made me slow my pace and look about me.

I had reached a little bridge over a canal. There were barges on the water, but they were some way off yet, and the water below me was perfectly smooth and thick. I thought of that night, when Kitty and I had stood above the Thames, and she had let me kiss her ... I almost cried out at the memory. I placed my hands upon the iron rail: I believe that, for a second, I really considered heaving myself over it, and making my escape that way.

But I was as cowardly, in my own fashion, as Kitty herself. I could not bear the thought of that brown water sucking at my skirts, washing over my head, filling up my mouth. I turned away and put my hands before my eyes, and forced my brain to stop its dreadful whirling. I could not, I knew, keep running all day. I should have to find a place to hide myself. I had nothing on me but my dress. I groaned aloud, and gazed about me again - but this time rather desperately.

Then I held my breath. I recognised this bridge: we had driven over it every night since Christmas, on our way to
Cinderella.
The Britannia Theatre was nearby; and there was money, I knew, in our dressing-room.

I set off, wiping my face with my sleeve, smoothing my dress and my hair. The door-man at the theatre eyed me rather curiously when he let me in, but was pleasant enough. I knew him well, and had often stopped to chat with him; today, however, I only nodded to him as I took my key, and hurried by without a smile. I didn't care what he thought; I knew I should not be seeing him again.

The theatre, of course, was still shut up: there were sounds of hammering from the hall as the carpenters finished their work, but apart from that the corridors, the green-room - all were quiet. I was glad: I didn't want to be seen by anyone. I walked very fast but very quietly to the dressing-rooms, until I reached the door that said
Miss Butler and Miss King.
Then very stealthily - for I half-feared, in my fevered state, that Kitty might be on the other side, awaiting me - I unlocked the door and pushed it open.

The room beyond it was dark: I stepped across it in the light from the corridor, struck a match and lit a gas-jet, then closed the door as softly as I could. I knew just what I wanted. In a cupboard beneath Kitty's table there was a little tin box with a pile of coins and notes in it - a portion of our wages went there every week, for us to draw on as we chose. The key to it lay mixed up with her sticks of grease-paint, in the old cigar-box in which she kept her make-up. I took this box, and tipped it up; the sticks fell out, and so did the key — and so, I saw, did something else. There had always been a sheet of coloured paper at the bottom of the box, and I had never thought to lift it. Now it had come loose and behind it was a card. I picked it up with trembling fingers, and studied it. It was creased, and stained with make-up, but I knew it at once. On the front was a picture of an oyster-smack; two girls smiled from its deck through a patina of powder and grease, and on the sail someone had inked, ‘To London'. There was more writing on the back - Kitty's address at the Canterbury Palace, and a message: ‘I can come!!! You must do without your dresser for a few nights, though, while I make all ready ...' It was signed: ‘Fondly, Your Nan'.

It was the card that I had sent her, so long ago, before we had even moved to Brixton; and she had kept it, secretly, as if she treasured it.

I held the card between my fingers for a moment; then I returned it to its box and placed the paper sheet above it, as before. Then I laid my head upon the table, and wept, again, until I could weep no more.

I opened the tin box at last, and took, without counting it, all the money that lay inside - about twenty pounds, as it would turn out, and only a fraction, of course, of my total earnings of the past twelve months; but I felt so dazed and ill at that moment I could hardly imagine what I would ever need money for, again. I put the cash into an envelope, tucked the envelope into my belt, and turned to go.

I hadn't glanced about me, yet, at all; now, however, I took a last look round. One thing only caught my eye, and made me hesitate: our rail of costumes. They were all here, the suits that I had worn upon the stage at Kitty's side - the velvet breeches, the shirts, the serge jackets, the fancy waistcoats. I took a step towards them, and ran my hand along the line of sleeves. I would never take them up again ...

The thought was too much; I couldn't leave them. There were a couple of old sailors' bags nearby - giant great things that we had used once or twice to rehearse with, in the afternoons, when the Britannia stage was quiet and clear. They were filled with rags: very quickly I took one of them and loosened the cord at its neck, and pulled all its stuffing out upon the floor until it was quite empty. Then I stepped to the rail, and began to tear my costumes from it - not all of them, but the ones I could not bear to part with, the blue serge suit, the Oxford bags, the scarlet guardsman's uniform - and stuffed them into the bag. I took shoes, too, and shirts, and neck-ties - even a couple of hats. I didn't stop to think about it, only worked, sweating, until the bag was full and almost as tall as myself. It was heavy, and I staggered when I lifted it; but it was strangely satisfying to have a real burden upon my shoulders - a kind of counterweight to my terrible heaviness of heart.

Thus laden, I made my way through the corridors of the Britannia. I passed no one; I looked for no one. Only when I reached the stage door did I see a face that I was rather glad to see: Billy-Boy sat in the doorman's office, quite alone, with a cigarette between his fingers. He looked up when I approached, and gazed in wonder at my bag, my swollen eyes, my mottled cheeks.

‘Lord, Nan,' he said, getting to his feet. ‘Whatever is up with you? Are you sick?'

I shook my head. ‘Give me your fag, Bill, will you?' He did so, and I pulled on it and coughed. He watched me warily.

‘You don't look right, at all,' he said. ‘Where's Kitty?'

I drew on the fag again, and handed it back to him.

‘Gone,' I said. Then I pulled at the door and stepped into the street beyond. I heard Billy-Boy's voice, lifted in anxiety and alarm, but the closing door shut off his words. I raised my bag a little higher on my shoulder, and began to walk. I took one turning, and then another. I passed a squalid tenement, entered a busy street, and joined a throng of pedestrians. London absorbed me; and for a little while I ceased, entirely, to think.

PART TWO