Tipping the Velvet (11 page)

Her cheek, against my shallow breast, felt hotter than a flat-I, however, lay awake - just as I had used to lie at Alice's iron.

side. But now I did not dream; I only spoke to myself rather

'How your heart beats!' she said — and at that, of course, it sternly.

beat faster. She sighed again - this time her mouth was at I knew that I would not, after all, pack my bags in the the opening of my nightgown, and I felt her breath upon the morning and bid Kitty farewell; I knew that, having come naked skin beneath - she sighed and said, 'So many times I so far, I could not. But if I were to stay with her, then it lay in that dull room at Mrs Pugh's and thought of you and must be as she said; I must learn to swallow my queer and Alice in your little bed beside the sea. Was it just like this, inconvenient lusts, and call her 'sister'. For to be Kitty's being with her?'

sister was better than to be Kitty's nothing, Kitty's no one.

I didn't answer her. I, too, was thinking back to that little And if my head and my heart -and the hot, squirming centre bed. How hard it had been, having to lie next to slumbering of me - cried out at the shame of it, then I must stifle them.

Alice, my heart and my head all filled with Kitty. How I must learn to love Kitty as Kitty loved me; or never be much harder would it be to have Kitty herself beside me, so able to love her at all.

close and so unknowing! It would be a torture. I thought: I And that, I knew, would be terrible.

shall pack my trunk tomorrow. I shall get up very early and catch the first train back . . .

Chapter 4

Kitty spoke on, not minding my silence. 'You and Alice,'

The Star, when we reached it at noon the next day, turned she was saying again. 'Do you know, Nan, how jealous I out to be not a tenth as smart as those marvellous West End was . . . ?'

halls before which we had leaned, with Mr Bliss, to dream I swallowed. 'Jealous?' The word sounded terrible in the of Kitty's triumph; even so, however, it was quite darkness.

alarmingly handsome and grand. Its manager at this time

'Yes, I -' She seemed to hesitate; then, 'You see,' she went was a Mr Ling; he met us at the stage door and took us to on, 'I never had a sister like other girls did . . .' She let go of his office, to read aloud the terms of Kitty's contract and 87

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secure her signature upon it; but then he rose and shook our

'Thank God, a woman with a cigarette! Give us one, ducks, hands and shouted for the call-boy, and had us shown, would you? I'm quite broke till pay-day.'

rather briskly, to the stage. Here, self-conscious and Kitty was booked to appear that night, a little way into the awkward, I waited while Kitty spoke with the conductor first half of the show. While I helped her with her collar and and ran through her songs with the band. Once a man her neck-tie and her rose, I felt quite steady; but when we approached me, with a broom on his shoulder, and asked walked to the wing to wait for her number to go up, to gaze me rather roughly who I was and what I did there.

from the shadows at the unfamiliar theatre and its vast and

'I'm waiting for Miss Butler,' I said, my voice as thin as a careless crowd, I felt myself begin to tremble. I looked at whistle.

Kitty. Her face was white beneath its layer of paint - though

'Are you, then,' he said. 'Well, sweetheart, you'll have to whether with fear, or with fierce ambition, I could not tell.

wait somewhere else, for I've to sweep this spot, and you With no other motive, I swear, than to comfort her - so are in my way. Go on, now.' And I moved away, blushing mindful was I of that new resolve, to play her sister and horribly, and had to stand in a corridor while boys with nothing more - I took her hand, and pressed it.

baskets and ladders and pails of sand lumbered by me, When the stage-manager finally gave her his nod, however, looking me over, or cursing when I blocked their path.

I had to turn my eyes away. There was no chairman at this Our return visit, however, in the evening, was an easier one, hall to bring the crowd to order, and the act Kitty had to for then we went straight to the dressing-room, where I follow was a popular one - a comedian, who had been knew my part a little better. Even so, when we entered the called back upon the stage four times, and who had had to room I felt my spirits tumble rather, for it was nothing like plead with the audience, in the end, to let him make his exit.

the cosy little chamber at the Canterbury Palace, which They had done so grudgingly; they were disappointed and Kitty had had all to herself, and which I was used to distracted now when the orchestra struck up with the first keeping so neat and nice. Instead it was dim and dusty, with bars of Kitty's opening song. When Kitty herself stepped benches and hooks for a dozen artistes, and one greasy sink out into the glare of the footlights to wave her hat and call that must be shared by all, and a door that must be propped

'Hallo!', there was no answering roar from the gallery, only shut or left to sag and let in every glance of every stage-a half-hearted ripple of applause from the boxes and stalls -

hand and visitor that might be idling in the passageway for the sake, I suppose, of her costume. When I forced my beyond. We arrived late, and found most of the hooks gaze at last into the hall I saw that the audience was restless already taken, and several of the benches occupied by girls

- that people were on their feet, heading for the bar or the and women in varying stages of undress. They looked up lavatory; that boys were perched upon the gallery rail with when we arrived, and smiled, most of them; and when Kitty their backs to us; that girls were calling to friends three took out her packet of Weights and a match, someone cried, rows away, or gossiping with their neighbours, looking 89

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everywhere but at the stage, where Kitty - lovely, clever wasn't so good,' she said at last, 'as I might have wished it.

Kitty - sang and strode and sweated.

There was no-fizz, no sparkle.'

But slowly, slowly, the mood of the theatre changed - not Mr Bliss gave a snort, then spread his hands. 'My dear, your tremendously, but enough. When she finished her first song first night in the capital! A theatre larger than you have ever a man leaned from a balcony to shout, 'Now bring Nibs worked before! The crowd will come to know you, word back on!' - meaning Nibs Fuller, the comedian whom Kitty will spread. You must be patient. Soon they will be buying had replaced. Kitty didn't blink; while the band played the tickets just for you!' At that I saw the manager glance his warm-up to her next number she raised her hat to the man way through narrowed eyes; but Kitty, at least, allowed and called, 'Why, does he owe you money?' The crowd herself to smile. 'That's better,' said Mr Bliss then. 'And laughed -and listened more carefully to her next song, and now, if you'll permit me, ladies, I believe a light little clapped more briskly when she finished it. When, a little supper would be welcome. A light little supper - and, later, another man tried to call for Nibs, he was shushed by perhaps, a heavy large glass with some of that fizz in it, his neighbours; and by the time Kitty got round to her Miss Butler, that you seem so keen on.'

ballad and her bit of business with the rose the hall was on The restaurant to which he took us was a theatre people's her side, attentive and appreciative.

one, not very far away, and filled with gentlemen in fancy From my station at the side of the stage I watched her in waistcoats just like himself, and with girls and boys like wonder. When she stepped into the wing, weary and Kitty, with streaks of greasepaint on their cuffs and crumbs flushed, and her place was taken by a comic singer, I put of spit-black in the corners of their eyes. He seemed to have my hand upon her arm and pressed it hard. Then Mr Bliss a friend at every table, every one of whom saluted him as appeared with Mr Ling the manager. They had been he passed by; but he did not pause to chat with them, only watching from the front, and looked very satisfied; the waved his hat in general greeting, then led us to an empty former took Kitty's hand in both of his and shook it, crying, booth and called to a waiter for a recitation of the bill of

'A triumph, Miss Butler! A triumph, if ever I saw one.'

fare. When this was done, and we had made our choices, he Mr Ling was more restrained. He gave Kitty a nod, then beckoned the man a little closer and murmured something said, 'Well done, my dear. A difficult crowd, and you to him; the waiter withdrew, and returned a minute later handled it admirably. Once the band has grasped the pacing with a champagne bottle, which Mr Bliss proceeded of your business and your strolls — well, you will be ostentatiously to uncork. At that, there was a cheering at the splendid.' Kitty only frowned. I had brought a towel with other tables; and a woman began to sing, amidst much me from the change-room, and this she now caught up, and laughter and applause, that she wouldn't call for sherry, and pressed to her face. Then she took her jacket off, and she wouldn't call for beer, and she wouldn't call for cham handed it to me, and unfastened the bow-tie at her throat. 'It because she knew 'twould make her queer . . .

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I thought of the postcard I would write when I got home: 'I imagine, Miss Astley, all the handsome gentlemen's toggery have had supper in a theatrical restaurant. Kitty made her that languishes, at this very minute, at the bottom of some debut at the Star and they are calling it a triumph ..."

costumier's hamper, waiting, simply waiting, for Kitty Meanwhile, Mr Bliss and Kitty chatted; and when next I Butler to step inside it and lend it life! Only think of all concentrated on their talk I realised that it was rather those more than handsome fabrics -those ivory worsteds, serious.

those rippling silks, those crimson velvets and scarlet

'Now,' Mr Bliss was saying, 'I am going to ask you to do shalloons; only hear the snip of the tailor's scissors, the something which, if I were any other kind of gentleman prick of the sempstress's needle; only imagine her success, than a theatrical agent, I should be quite ashamed to. I am decked as a soldier, or a coster, or a prince . . .'

going to ask you to go about the city - and you must assist He paused at last, and Kitty smiled. 'Mr Bliss,' she said, 'I her, Miss Astley,' he added when he saw me looking - 'you do believe you could persuade a one-armed man into a must both of you go about the city and study the men!'

juggling turn, the way you talk.'

I gazed at Kitty and blinked, and she smiled back He laughed, and struck the table with his hand so that the uncertainly. 'Study the men?' she said.

cutlery rattled: it turned out that he had a one-armed juggler

'Scrutinise 'em!' said Mr Bliss, sawing at a piece of cutlet.

for a client, and was billing him - with great success - as

'Catch their characters, their little habits, their mannerisms

'The Second Cinquevalli: Half the Capacity, Double the and gaits. What are their histories? What are their secrets?

Skill!'

Have they ambitions? Have they hopes and dreams? Have And it was all quite as he promised and directed. He sent us they sweethearts they have lost? Or have they only aching to costumiers and tailors, and had Kitty decked out in a feet, and empty bellies?' He waved his fork. 'You must dozen different gentlemanly guises; and when the suits know it; and you must copy them, and make your audience were made he sent us to photographers, to have her likeness know it in their turn.'

taken as she held a policeman's whistle to her lip, or

'Do you mean, then,' I asked, not understanding, 'to change shouldered a rifle or a sailor's rope. He found songs to fit Kitty's act?'

the costumes, and brought them round to Ginevra Road

'I mean, Miss Astley, to broaden Kitty's repertoire. Her himself, to strike them out on Mrs Dendy's terrible old masher is a very fine fellow; but she cannot walk the piano for Kitty to try, and for the rest of us to listen to and Burlington Arcade, in lavender gloves, for ever.' He gazed consider. Most importantly of all he secured contracts, at at Kitty again, then wiped his mouth with a napkin and halls in Hoxton, and Poplar, and Kilburn, and Bow. Within spoke in a more confiding tone. 'What think you of a a fortnight, Kitty's London career was fairly launched. Now policeman's jacket? Or a sailor's blouse? What think you of she did not change into her ordinary girl's clothes when she peg-top trousers or a pearly coat?' He turned to me. 'Only finished her act at the Star; instead, I stood with her coat 93

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and her basket ready, and when she stepped from before the which I passed on to my landlady to let her dish to us all at footlights we ran together to the stage door, to where our supper. And yet, somehow, my letters home grew more and brougham waited to lumber fitfully with us through the city more infrequent, my replies to their cards and presents traffic to the next theatre. Now, instead of wearing one suit increasingly tardy and brief. 'When are you coming to see for the whole of her turn she wore three or four; and I was us?' they would write at the end of their letters. 'When are her dresser in real earnest, helping her tear at buttons and you coming home to Whitstable?' And I would answer, links while the orchestra played between the songs, and the

'Soon, soon . . .' or, 'When Kitty can spare me ..."

audience waited, half-way between expectation and But Kitty never could spare me. The weeks passed, the impatience, for her to reappear.

season changed; the nights grew longer and darker and The hours we kept now, of course, were rather strange ones, cold. Whitstable became - not dimmer, in my mind, but for as long as Kitty continued to work two, three or four overshadowed. It was not that I didn't think of Father and halls a night we would arrive back at Ginevra Road at half-Mother, of Alice and Davy and my cousins - just that I past twelve or one, weary and aching but still giddy and hot thought of Kitty, and my new life, more . . .

from our moonlit criss-crossings of the city, our anxious For there was so very much to think about. I was Kitty's waits in dressing-rooms and wings. Here we would find dresser, but I was also her friend, her adviser, her Sims and Percy, and Tootsie and her girl- and boy-friends, companion in all things. When she learned a song I held the all fresh and flushed and gay as we, making tea and cocoa, sheet, to prompt her if she faltered. When tailors fitted her I Welsh rabbit and pancakes, in Mrs Dendy's kitchen. Then watched and nodded, or shook my head if the cut was Mrs Dendy herself would appear - for she had kept wrong. When she let herself be guided by the clever Mr theatrical lodgers for so long she had begun to keep Bliss - or 'Walter' I should call him, for so, by now, he had theatrical hours, too - and suggest a game of cards, or a become to us, just as we were 'Kitty' and 'Nan' to him -