Tipping the Velvet (33 page)

It was in these spirits that I began to make my way back to Green Street - avoiding, now, the busier routes that I had trod for fun before, and taking back roads: Old Compton Street; Arthur Street; Great Russell Street, which took me by the pale, silent mass of the British Museum; and finally Guilford Street, which would lead me by the Foundling Hospital and on to the Gray's Inn Road.

Even on these quieter routes, however, the traffic seemed unusually heavy - unusually, and puzzlingly, for though few carts and hansoms seemed actually to pass me, the low clatter of wheels and hooves formed a continuous accompaniment to my own slow footfalls. At last, at the entrance to a dim and silent mews, I understood why; for here I paused to tie my lace and, as I stooped, looked casually behind me. There was a carriage moving slowly towards me out of the gloom, a private carriage with a particular, well-greased rumble I now knew for the one that had pursued me all the way from Soho, and a hunched and muffled driver I thought I recognised. It was the brougham that had waited near me in St James's Square. Its shy master, who had watched while I had posed beneath a lamp-post and strolled the pavement with my fingers at my crotch, evidently fancied another look.

My lace tied, I straightened up, but cautiously kept my place. The carriage slowed, then — its dark interior still hidden behind the heavy lace at its windows - it passed me by. Then, a little way on, it drew to a halt. I began, uncertainly, to walk towards it.

The driver; as before, was impassive and still: I could see only the curve of his shoulders and the rise of his hat; indeed, as I approached the rear of the vehicle he disappeared from my view completely. In the darkness the brougham seemed quite black, but where the light from a guttering street-lamp spilled on it, it gleamed a deep crimson, touched here and there with gold. The gent inside, I thought, must be a very rich one.

Well, he would be disappointed; he had followed me for nothing: I quickened my step, and made to move past, head down.

But as I drew level with the rear wheel I heard the soft click of a latch undone: the door swung silently open, blocking my path. From the shadows beyond the doorframe drifted a thread of blue tobacco smoke; I heard a breath, a rustle. Now I must either retrace my steps and cross behind the vehicle, or squeeze between the swinging door and the wall on my left - and catch a glimpse, perhaps, of its enigmatic occupant. I confess, I was intrigued. Any gent who could bring such a sense of drama to the staging of an encounter which, in the ordinary course of things, might be settled so unspectacularly - by a word, or a nod, or the fluttering of one spit-blacked lash - was clearly someone special. I was also, frankly, flattered; and having been flattered, generous. Since he had had to make do so far with admiring my bottom from a distance, I felt it only fair to give him the chance of a closer look — though he must, of course, be content
only
to look.

I advanced a little towards the open door. Within, all was dark; I saw only the vague outline of a shoulder, an arm, a knee, against the lighter square of the far window. Then briefly the end of a cigarette glowed bright in the blackness, and glimmered redly on a pale gloved hand, and a face. The hand was slender, and had rings upon it. The face was powdered: a woman's face.

 

I was too surprised even to laugh - too startled, for a moment, to do anything but stand at the rim of gloom that seemed to spill out from the carriage, and gape at her; and in that moment, she spoke.

‘Can I offer you a ride?'

Her voice was rich and rather haughty, and somehow arresting. It made me stammer. I said: ‘That, that's very kind of you, madam' - I sounded like a mincing shop-boy refusing a tip - ‘but I'm not five minutes from home, and I shall get there all the quicker if you'll let me say good-night, and pass on my way.' I tilted my cap towards the dark place where the voice had come from, and, with a tight little smile, I made to move on.

But the lady spoke again.

‘It's rather late,' she said, ‘to be out on one's own, in streets like these.' She drew on her cigarette, and the tip glowed bright again in the shadows. ‘Won't you let me drop you somewhere ? I have a very capable driver.'

I thought, I am sure you do: her man was still hunched forward in his seat, his back to me, his thoughts his own. I felt suddenly weary. I had heard stories in Soho about ladies like this — ladies who rode the darkened streets with well-paid servants, on the lookout for idle men or boys like me who'd give them a thrill for the price of a supper. Rich ladies with no husbands, or absent husbands, or even (so Sweet Alice claimed) husbands at home, warming the bed, with whom they shared their startled catches. I had never known quite whether to believe in such ladies; here, however, was one before me, haughty and scented and hot for a lark.

What a mistake she had made this time!

I put my hand on the carriage-door and made to swing it to. But again she spoke. ‘If you won't,' she said, ‘let me drive you home, then won't you, as a favour, ride with me a while? As you see, I am quite alone; and I've rather a yearning for company, tonight.' Her voice seemed to tremble - though whether with melancholy, or anticipation, or even laughter, I could not tell.

‘Look missis,' I said then, into the gloom, ‘you're on the wrong track. Let me pass, and get your driver to take you another turn around Piccadilly.' Now I laughed: ‘Believe me, I haven't got what you're after.'

The carriage creaked; the red end of the cigarette bobbed and brightened and illuminated, once again, a cheek, a brow, a lip. The lip curled.

‘On the contrary, my dear. You have exactly what I'm after.'

Still I did not guess, but only thought, Blimey, she's keen! I glanced about me. A few carriages bowled along the Gray's Inn Road, and two or three late pedestrians passed quickly from sight, behind them. A hansom had pulled up at the end of the mews, quite near us, and was letting its passengers dismount ; they disappeared into a doorway, and the hansom rolled by and away, and all was still again. I took a breath, and leaned into the dark interior of the coach.

‘Madam,' I hissed, ‘I ain't a boy at all. I'm -' I hesitated. The end of the cigarette disappeared: she had thrown it out of the window. I heard her give one impatient sigh - and all at once I understood.

‘You little fool,' she said. ‘Get in.'

 

Well, what should I have done? I had been weary, but I was not weary now. I had been disappointed, my expectations for the evening dashed; but with this one, unlooked-for invitation the glamour of the night seemed all restored. True, it was very late, and I was alone, and this woman was clearly a stranger of some determination, and with odd and secret tastes ... But her voice and manner were, as I have said, compelling ones. And she was rich. And my purse was empty. I hesitated for a moment; then she held out her hand and, where the lamplight fell upon her rings, I saw how large the stones were. It was that - only that, just then - which decided me. I took her hand, and climbed into the carriage.

We sat together in the gloom. The brougham lurched forward with a muted creak, and started on its smooth, quiet, expensive way. Through the heavy lace of its windows the streets seemed changed, quite insubstantial. This, I realised, was how the rich saw the city all the time.

I glanced at the woman at my side. She wore a dress or cloak of some sombre, heavy material, indistinguishable from the dark upholstery of the carriage's interior; her face and gloved hands, illuminated by the regular gleam of passing street-lamps, their surface fantastically marbled by the shadow of the drapes, seemed to float, pale as water-lilies, in a pool of gloom. She was, as far as I could tell, handsome, and quite young - perhaps ten years older than myself.

For a full half-minute neither of us spoke; then she tilted back her head, and looked me over. She said, ‘You are, perhaps, on your way home from a costume ball?' Her voice had a new, slightly arrogant drawl to it.

‘A ball?' I answered. To my own surprise I sounded reedy, rather trembly.

‘I thought - the uniform ...' She gestured towards my suit. It, too, seemed to have lost some of its bravado, seemed to be bleeding its crimson into the shadows of the coach. I felt I was letting her down. I said, with an effort at music-hall sauce, ‘Oh, the uniform is my disguise for the streets, not a party. I find that a girl in skirts, on her own in the city, gets looked at, rather, in a way not always nice.'

She nodded. ‘I see. And you don't care for that? - being looked at, I mean. I should never have guessed it.'

‘Well... It depends, of course, on who's doing the looking.'

I was getting back into my stride at last; and she, I could sense it, was also warming up. I felt for a second - what I had not felt, it seemed, for a hundred years - the thrill of performing with a partner at my side, someone who knew the songs, the steps, the patter, the pose ... The memory brought with it an old, dull ache of grief; but it was overlaid, in this new setting, with a keen, expectant pleasure. Here we were, this strange lady and I, on our way to I knew not what, playing whore and trick so well we might have been reciting a dialogue from some handbook of tartery! It made me giddy.

Now she raised her hand to finger the braided collar of my coat. ‘What a little impostor you are!' she said mildly. Then: ‘But you have a brother in the Guards, I think. A brother - or, perhaps, a beau ... ?' Her fingers trembled slightly, and I felt the chillest of whispers of sapphire and gold upon my throat.

I said, ‘I work in a laundry, and a soldier brought this in. I thought he wouldn't notice if I borrowed it.' I smoothed out the creases around my crotch, where the slippery cravat still rudely bulged. ‘I liked the cut,' I added, ‘of the trousers.'

After the briefest of pauses her hand - as I knew it must - moved to my knee, then crept to the top of my thigh, where she let it rest. Her palm felt extraordinarily hot. It was an age since anyone had touched me there; indeed, I had kept such a close guard over my own lap lately, I had to fight back the urge to brush her fingers away.

Perhaps she felt me stiffen, for she removed the hand herself and said, ‘I'm rather afraid that you are something of a tease.'

‘Oh,' I said, recovering, ‘I can tease all right - if that's what you care for ...'

‘Ah.'

‘And besides,' I added pertly, ‘it's you who's the tease: I saw you in St James's Square, watching me. Why didn't you stop me then, if you wanted -
company -
so badly?'

‘And spoil the fun with hastening it? Why, the wait was half the pleasure!' As she said it she raised the fingers of her other hand - her left hand - to my cheek. The gloves, I thought, were rather damp about the tips; and they were scented with a scent that made me draw back in confusion and surprise.

She laughed. ‘But how prim you have turned! You are never so dainty, I'm sure, with the gentlemen of Soho.'

There was a knowingness to the remark. I said, ‘You have watched me before - before tonight!'

She answered: ‘Well, it is rather marvellous what one may catch, from one's carriage, if one is quick and keen and patient. One may follow one's quarry like a hound with a fox - and all the time the fox not know itself pursued - might think itself only about its little private business: lifting its tail, arching its eye, wiping its lips ... I might have had you, dear, a dozen times: but oh! as I said, why spoil the chase! Tonight - what was it, decided me at last? Perhaps it was the uniform; perhaps the moon ...' And she turned her face to the carriage window, where the moon showed - higher and smaller than before, but still quite pink, as if ashamed to look upon the wicked world to which it was compelled to lend its light.

I, too, flushed at the lady's words. What she had said was strange, was shocking - and yet, I guessed, might easily be true. In the bustle and swarm of the streets on which I plied my shadowy trade, a stationary or a lingering carriage would be unremarkable - especially to me, who attended to the traffic of the pavements rather than the roads. It made me horribly uneasy to think she really had been observing me, all those times ... And yet, was it not just such an audience that I had longed for? Had I not lamented, again and again, precisely the fact that my new nocturnal performances must be staged in the dark, under cover, unguessed? I thought of all the parts I had handled, the gents I'd knelt to and the cocks I'd sucked. I had done it all, as cool as Christmas; now, the idea that she had watched me went direct to the fork of my drawers and made me wet.

I said - I didn't know what else to say - I said, ‘Am I then so - special?'

‘We shall see,' she answered.

After that, we spoke no more.

 

She took me to her home, in St John's Wood; and the house, as I guessed it must be, was grand - a high, pale villa in a well-swept square, with a wide front door and tall casement windows with many panes of glass. In one of these a single lamp sat gleaming; the neighbouring houses, however, presented only black, shuttered windows, and the clatter of our carriage sounded atrocious, to me, in the stillness - I was not then used to that total, unnatural hush which fills the streets and houses of the rich, when they are sleeping.

She led me to her door, saying nothing. Her knock was answered by a grim-faced servant, who received her mistress's cloak, looked once at me from beneath her lashes, but after that kept her eyes quite lowered. The lady paused to read the cards upon her table; and I, self-conscious, looked about me. We were in a spacious hall, at the bottom of a wide staircase winding up to darker, higher floors. There were doors - closed - to the left and the right of us. The floor was paved with marble, in squares of black and pink. The walls, to match it, were painted a deep, deep rose; and this darkened further, where the staircase curved and lifted, like the interior whorls of a shell.