Tipping the Velvet (12 page)

song or a dance. It could not long be kept secret, in that when she let herself be guided by Walter, and spent hours house, that I liked to sing and had a pretty voice, and so as he had advised in shops and market squares and stations sometimes I might raise a chorus or two, along with Kitty.

studying the men, I went with her; and we learned together Now I never went to bed before three, and never woke in the constable's amble, the coster's weary swagger, the smart the morning before nine or ten o'clock - so swiftly and clip of the off-duty soldier.

completely had I forgotten my old oyster-maidish habits.

And as we did so we seemed to learn the ways and manners I did not, of course, forget my family or my home. I sent of the whole unruly city; and I grew as easy, at last, with them cards, as I have said; I sent them notices of Kitty's London, as with Kitty herself- as easy, and as endlessly shows, and gossip from the theatre. They sent me letters in fascinated and charmed. We visited the parks - tho'se great, return, and little parcels - and, of course, barrels of oysters, handsome parks and gardens, that are so queer and verdant 95

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in the midst of so much dust, yet have a little of the hardly knew whether to pity, patronise or fear, so closely pavements' quickness in them, too. We strolled the West did they resemble me, so easily might they have had my End; we sat and gazed at all the marvellous sights - not just role, I theirs.

the grand, celebrated sights of London, the palaces and And yet, with all this, she did not become what she longed monuments and picture galleries, but also the smaller, to be, what Walter had promised her she would be: a star.

swifter dramas: the overturning of a carriage; the escape of The halls she worked remained the suburban ones, and the an eel from an eel-man's barrow; the picking of a pocket; better class of East End ones (and once or twice the not-so-the snatching of a purse.

nice ones - Foresters, and the Sebright, where the crowd We visited the river - stood on London Bridge, and threw boots and trotter-bones at the acts they didn't like).

Battersea Bridge, and all the bridges in between, just so that Her name never rose much or grew larger on the music-hall we might look, and marvel, at the great, stinking breadth of notices; her songs were never hummed or whistled about it. It was the Thames, I knew, which widened at its estuary the streets. The problem, Walter said, lay not with Kitty to form the kind, clear, oyster-bearing sea I had grown up herself but with the nature of her act. She had too many on. It gave me an odd little thrill, as I stood gazing at the rivals; male impersonation - once as specialised as plate-pleasure-boats beneath Lambeth Bridge, to know that I had spinning - had suddenly, inexplicably, become a cruelly journeyed against the current - had made the trip from overworked routine.

palpitating metropolis to mild, uncomplicated Whitstable in

'Why does every young lady who wants to do her bit of reverse. When I saw barges bringing fish from Kent I only business on the stage these days want to do it in trousers?'

smiled - it never made me homesick. And when the barge-he asked us, exasperated, when yet another male men turned, to make the journey back along the river, I did impersonator made her debut on the London circuit. 'Why not envy them at all.

does every perfectly respectable comedienne and serio And while we strolled and gazed and grew ever more suddenly want to change her act - to pull a pair of bell-sisterly and content, the year drew to a close; we continued bottoms on, and dance the hornpipe? Kitty, you were born to labour over the act, and Kitty herself became something to play the boy, any fool can see it; were you an actress on of a success. Now, every contract that Walter found her was the legitimate stage you would be Rosalind, or Viola, or longer and more generous than the last; soon she was over-Portia. But these tuppeny-ha'penny impersonators - Fannie booked, and turning offers down. Now she had admirers -

Leslie, Fanny Robina, Bessie Bonehill, Millie Hylton - they gentlemen, who sent her flowers and dinner invitations look about as natural in their dinner-jackets as I would, clad (which - to my secret relief- she only laughed over and put in a crinoline or a bustle. It makes me rage' - he was seated aside); boys, who asked for her picture; girls, who gathered in our little parlour as he spoke, and here he slapped the at the stage door to tell her how handsome she was - girls I arm of his chair, so that the ancient seams gave a fart of 97

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dust and hair - 'it makes me rage to see girls with a tenth of If she were famous, too, then she would also be richer. She your talent getting all the bookings that should be yours -

might buy a house - we should have to leave Ginevra Road and worse! all the fame.' He stood, and placed his hands and all our new friends in it; we should have to leave our upon Kitty's shoulders. 'You are on the very edge of little sitting-room; we should have to leave our bed, and stardom,' he said, giving her a little push so that she had to take separate chambers. I could not bear the thought of it. I grasp his arms to stop herself from falling. There must be had grown used, at last, to sleeping with Kitty at my side. I something, something that we can do to just propel you no longer trembled, or grew stiff and awkward, when she over - something we can add to your act to set it apart from touched me, but had learned to lean into her embraces, to that of all those other prancing schoolgirls!'

accept her kisses, chastely, nonchalantly - and even, But, however hard we worked, we could not find it; and sometimes, to return them. I had grown used to the sight of meanwhile Kitty continued at the lesser theatres, in the her slumbering or undressed. I did not hold my breath in humbler districts - Islington, Marylebone, Battersea, wonder when I opened my eyes upon her face, still and Peckham, Hackney - circling Leicester Square, crossing the shadowed in the thin grey light of dawn. I had seen her strip West End on her nightly trips from hall to hall, but never to wash or to change her gown. I was as familiar with her entering those palaces of her and Walter's dreams: the body, now, as with my own - more so, indeed, because her Alhambra, and the Empire.

head, her neck, her wrists, her back, her limbs (which were To be honest, I didn't much mind. I was sorry, for Kitty's as smooth and as rounded and as freckled as her cheek), her sake, that her great new London career was not quite so skin (which she wore with a marvellous, easy grace, as if it great as she had hoped for; but I was also, privately, were another kind of handsome suit, perfectly tailored and relieved. I knew how clever and charming and lovely she pleasant to wear), were, I thought, so much lovelier and was, and while a part of me wanted, like Walter, to share more fascinating than my own.

the knowledge with the world, a greater part longed only to No, I didn't want a single thing to change - not even when I hug it to myself, to keep it secret and secure. For I was sure learned something about Walter that was rather that, were she truly famous, I would lose her. I didn't like it disconcerting.

when her fans sent flowers, or clamoured at the stage door Inevitably, we had spent so many hours with Walter -

for photographs and kisses; more fame would bring more working upon songs at Mrs Dendy's piano, or supping with flowers, more kisses - and I could not believe that she him after shows - that we had begun to look upon him less would go on laughing at the gentlemen's invitations, could as Kitty's agent and more as a friend, to both of us. In time not believe that one day, amongst all those admiring girls, it wasn't only working-days that we were spending with there wouldn't be one she would like better then me . . .

him, but Sundays, too; eventually, indeed, Sundays with Walter became the rule rather than the exception, and we 99

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began to listen out for the rumble of his carriage in Ginevra sometimes, or grow thick, when he addressed her. I saw and Road, the pounding of his boots upon our attic stairs, his heard it all, now, because - it was the very reason that had rap upon our parlour door, his foolish, extravagant kept me blind and deaf to it before! - because his passion greetings. He would bring bits of news and gossip; we was my own, which I had long grown used to thinking would drive into town, or out of it; we would stroll together unremarkable, and right.

- Kitty with her hand in the crook of one of his great arms, I almost pitied him; I almost loved him. I did not hate him -

me with mine in the crook of the other, Walter himself like or if I did, it was only as one loathes the looking-glass, that a blustering uncle, loud and lively and kind.

shows one one's imperfect form in strict and fearful clarity.

I thought nothing of it, except that it was pleasant, until one Nor did I now begin to resent his presence on those strolls morning as I sat eating my breakfast beside Kitty and Sims and visits that I should otherwise have made with Kitty on and Percy and Tootsie. It was a Sunday, and Kitty and I my own. He was my rival, of sorts; but in some queer way were rather tardy; when Sims heard who it was that we it was almost easier to love her in his company, than out of were rushing for, he gave a cry: 'My word, Kitty, but it. His presence gave me a licence to be bold and gay and Walter must be expecting marvellous things of you! I've sentimental, as he was; to be able to pretend to worship her never known him spend so much time with an artiste

- which was almost as good as being able to worship her in before. Anyone would think he was your beau!' He seemed earnest.

to say it guilelessly enough; but as he did so I saw Tootsie And if I still longed yet feared to hold her - well, as I have smile and give a sideways glance at Percy - and, worse!

said, the fact that Walter felt the same showed that both my saw Kitty blush and turn her face away - and all at once I reticence and my love were only natural and proper. She understood what they all knew, and cursed to think I had was a star - my private star - and I would be content, I not guessed it sooner. A half-hour later, when Walter thought, like Walter, to fly about her on my stiff and distant presented himself at the parlour door, offering a gleaming orbit, unswervingly, for ever.

cheek to Kitty and crying 'Kiss me, Kate!', I didn't smile, I could not know how soon we would collide, nor how but only bit my lip, and wondered.

dramatically.

He was a little in love with her; perhaps, indeed, rather By now it was December - a cold December to match the more than a little. I saw it now - saw the dampness of the sweltering August, so cold that the little skylight above our looks he sometimes turned upon her, and the awkwardness staircase at Ma Dendy's was thick with ice for days at a of the glances which, more hastily, he turned away. I saw time; so cold that when we woke in the mornings our breath how he seized every foolish opportunity to kiss her hand, or showed grey as smoke, and we had to pull our petticoats pluck her sleeve, or place his arm, heavy and clumsy with into bed with us and dress beneath the sheets.

desire, about her slender shoulders; I heard his voice catch, 101

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At home in Whitstable we hated the cold, because it made husband-and-wife team, 'The Teeny Weenies' - were all as the trawler-men's job so much the harder. I remember my complacent as we, and very jolly company.

brother Davy sitting at our parlour fire on January evenings, The show ended at Christmas. I should, perhaps, have and weeping, simply weeping with pain, as the life returned passed the holiday in Whitstable, for I knew my parents to his split and frozen hands, his chilblained feet. I would be disappointed not to have me there. But I knew, remember the ache in my own fingers as I handled pail after too, what Christmas dinner would be like at home. There frigid pail of winter oysters, and transferred fish, endlessly, would be twenty cousins gathered around the table, all from icy sea-water to steaming soup.

talking at once, all stealing the turkey from one another's At Mrs Dendy's, however, everybody loved the winter plates. There would be such a fuss and stir they could not months; and the colder they were, they said, the better.

possibly, I thought, miss me - but I knew that Kitty would if Because frosts, and chill winds, fill theatres. For many I left her for them; and I knew, besides, that I should miss Londoners a ticket to the music hall is cheaper than a her horribly and only make the occasion miserable for scuttle of coal - or, if not cheaper, then more fun: why stay everybody else. So she and I spent it together - with Walter, in your own miserable parlour stamping and clapping to as ever, in attendance - at Mrs Dendy's table, eating goose, keep the cold out when you can visit the Star or the and drinking toast after toast to the coming year with Paragon, and stamp and clap along with your neighbours -

champagne and pale ale.

and with Marie Lloyd as an accompaniment? On the very Of course, there were gifts: presents from home, which coldest nights the music halls are full of wailing infants: Mother forwarded with a stiff little note that I refused to let their mothers bring them to the shows rather than leave shame me; presents from Walter (a brooch for Kitty, a hat-them to slumber - perhaps to death — in their damp and pin for me). I sent parcels to Whitstable, and gave gifts at draughty cradles.

Ma Dendy's; and for Kitty I bought the loveliest thing that I But we didn't worry much over the frozen babies at Mrs could find: a pearl - a single flawless pearl that was Dendy's house that winter; we were merely glad and mounted on silver and hung from a chain. It cost ten times careless, because ticket sales were high and we were all in as much as I had ever spent on any gift before, and I work and a little richer than before. At the beginning of trembled when I handled it. Mrs Dendy, when I showed it December Kitty got a spot on the bill at a hall in to her, gave a frown. 'Pearls for tears,' she said, and shook Marylebone, and played there twice a night, all month. It her head: she was very superstitious. Kitty, however, was pleasant to sit gossiping in the green room between thought it beautiful, and had me fasten it about her neck at shows, knowing that we had no frantic trips to make across once, and seized a mirror to watch it swinging there, an London in the snow; and the other artistes - a juggling inch beneath the hollow of her lovely throat. 'I'll never take troupe, a conjuror, two or three comic singers and a dwarf 103