Tipping the Velvet (13 page)

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it off,' she said; and she never did, but wore it ever after -

money on myself. Now I blushed to think that she had ever even on the stage, beneath her neck-ties and cravats.

thought me dowdy.

She, of course, bought me a gift. It came in a box with a And so I kept the dress for Kitty's sake; and wore it, for the bow, and wrapped in tissue, and turned out to be a dress: first time, a few nights later. The occasion was a party - an the most handsome dress I had ever possessed, a long, slim end-of-season party at the Marylebone theatre at which we evening dress of deepest blue, with a cream satin sash about had spent such a happy month. It was to be a very grand the waist, and heavy lace at the bosom and hem; a dress, I affair. Kitty had a new frock of her own made for it, a knew, that was far too fine for me. When I drew it from its lovely, low-necked, short-sleeved gown of China satin, wrappings and held it up against me before the glass, I pink as the warm pink heart of a rose-bud. I held it for her shook my head, quite stricken. 'It's beautiful,' I said to Kitty, to step into, and helped her fasten it; then watched her as

'but how can I keep it? It's far too smart. You must take it she pulled her gloves on - aching all the time with the back, Kitty. It's too expensive.'

prettiness of her, for the blush of the silk made her red lips But Kitty, who had watched me handle it with dark and all the redder, her throat more creamy, her eyes and hair all shining eyes, only laughed to see me so uneasy. 'Rubbish!'

the browner and more rich. She wore no jewellery but the she said. 'It's about time you started wearing some decent pearl that I had given her, and the brooch that had been frocks, instead of those awful old schoolgirlish things you Walter's gift. They didn't really match - the brooch was of brought with you from home. I have a decent wardrobe -

amber. But Kitty could have worn anything - a string of and so should you. Goodness knows we can afford it. And bottle-tops about her neck - and still, I thought, look like a anyway, it can't go back: it was made just for you, like queen.

Cinderella's slipper, and is too peculiar a size to fit anybody Helping Kitty with her buttons made me slow with my own else.'

dressing; I said that she should go on down without me.

Made just for me? That was even worse! 'Kitty,' I said, 'I When she had done so I pulled on the lovely gown that she really cannot. I should never feel comfortable in it..."

had given me, then stepped to the glass to study myself -

'You must,' she said. 'And, besides' - she fingered the pearl and to frown at what I saw. The dress was so transforming that I had so recently placed about her neck, and looked it was practically a disguise. In the half-light it was dark as away - 'I am doing so well, now. I can't have my dresser midnight; my eyes appeared bluer above it than they really running round in her sister's hand-me-downs for ever. It were, and my hair paler, and the long skirt, and the sash, ain't quite the thing, now is it?' She said it lightly - but all at made me seem taller and thinner than ever. I did not look at once I saw the truth of her words. I had my own income all like Kitty had, in her pink frock; I looked more like a now -I had spent two weeks' wages on her pearl and chain; boy who had donned his sister's ball-gown for a lark. I but I had a Whitstable squeamishness, still, about spending loosened my plait of hair, then brushed it - then, because I 105

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had no time to tie and loop it, twisted it into a knot at the waltzes, and set tables in the wings bearing pastries and back of my head, and stuck a comb in it. The chignon, I jellies, and barrels of beer and bowls of punch, and row thought, brought out the hard lines of my jaw and cheek-upon row of bottles of wine.

bones, made my wide shoulders wider still. I frowned We were much complimented, Kitty and I, on our new again, and looked away. It would have to do - and would dresses; and over me, in particular, people smiled and have the merit, I supposed, of making Kitty look all the exclaimed - mouthing at me across the noisy hall, 'How fine daintier at my side.

you look!' One woman - the conjuror's assistant - took my I went downstairs to join her. When I pushed at the parlour hand and said, 'My dear, you're so grown-up tonight, I door I found her chatting with the others; they were all still didn't recognise you!': just what Mrs Dendy had said an at supper. Tootsie saw me first - and must have nudged hour before. Her words impressed me. Kitty and I stood Percy, beside her, for he glanced up from his plate and, side by side all evening but when, some time after catching sight of me, gave a whistle. Sims turned my way, midnight, she moved away to join a group that had gathered then, and looked at me as if he had never seen me before, a about the champagne tables, I hung back, rather pensive. I forkful of food suspended on its journey to his open mouth.

wasn't used to thinking of myself as a grown-up woman, Mrs Dendy followed his gaze, then gave a tremendous but now, clad in that handsome frock of blue and cream, cough. 'Well, Nancy!' she

satin and lace, I began at last to feel like one -and to realise, said, 'and look at you! You have become quite the indeed, that I was one: that I was eighteen, and had left my handsome young lady - and right beneath our noses!'

father's house perhaps for ever, and earned my own living, And at that, Kitty herself turned to me - and showed me and paid rent for my own rooms in London. I watched such a look of wonder and confusion that it was as if, just myself as if from a distance - watched as I supped at my for a second, she had never seen me before; and I do not wine as if it were ginger beer, and chatted and larked with know whose cheeks at that moment were the pinker - mine, the stage-hands, who had once so frightened me; watched or hers.

as I took a cigarette from a fellow from the orchestra, and Then she gave a tight little smile. 'Very nice,' she said, and lit it, and drew upon it with a sigh of satisfaction. When had looked away; so that I thought, miserably, that the dress I started smoking? I couldn't remember. I had grown so must suit me even less than I had hoped, and readied myself used to holding Kitty's fag for her while she changed suits, for a wretched party.

that gradually I had taken up the habit myself. I smoked so But the party was not wretched; it was gay and genial and often, now, that half my fingers - which, four months loud, and very crowded. The manager had had to build a before, had been permanently pink and puckered, from so platform from the end of the stage to the back of the pit, to many dippings in the oyster-tub — were now stained carry us all, and he had hired the orchestra to play reels and yellow as mustard at the tips.

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The musician - I believe he played the cornet - took a small, he at last gave up on me, and went back to his pals in the insinuating step my way. 'Are you a friend of the manager's, band.

or what?' he said. 'I haven't seen you in the hall before.'

I ran my hands over my sash again. I feared he really had I laughed. 'Yes you have. I'm Nancy, Kitty Butler's dresser.'

spoiled it, but couldn't see well enough to be sure. I finished He raised his eyebrows, and leaned away to look me up and my drink with a gulp - it was, I suppose, my sixth or down. 'Well! and so you are. I thought you was just a kid.

seventh glass - and slipped from the stage. I made my way But here, just now, I took you for an actress, or a dancer.'

first to the lavatory, then headed downstairs to the change-I smiled, and shook my head. There was a pause while he room. This had been opened tonight only so that the ladies sipped at his glass and wiped at his moustache. 'I bet you should have a place to hang their coats, and it was cold and dance a treat, though, don't you?' he said then. 'How about empty and rather dim; but it had a looking-glass: and it was it?' He nodded to the crush of waltzing couples at the back to this that I now stepped, squinting and tugging at my of the stage.

dress to pull it straight.

'Oh, no,' I said. 'I couldn't. I've had too much cham.'

I had been there for no longer than a minute when there He laughed: 'All the better!' He put his drink aside, gripped came the sound of footsteps in the passageway beyond, and his cigarette between his lips, then put his hands on my then a silence. I turned my head to see who was there, and waist and lifted me up. I gave a shriek; he began to turn and found that it was Kitty. She had her shoulder against the dip, in a clownish approximation of a waltz-step. The doorframe and her arms folded. She wasn't standing as one louder I laughed and shrieked, the faster he turned me. A normally stands — as she usually stood - in an evening dozen people looked our way, and smiled and clapped.

gown. She was standing as she did when she was on stage, At last he stumbled and almost fell, then put me down with with her trousers on - rather cockily. Her face was turned a thump. 'Now,' he said breathlessly, 'tell me I ain't a towards me and I couldn't see her rope of hair, or the swell marvellous dancer.'

of her breasts. Her cheeks were very pale; there was a stain

'You ain't,' I said. 'You've made me giddy as a fish, and' - I upon her skirt where some champagne had dripped upon it felt at the front of my dress - 'you have spoiled my sash!'

from an over-spilling glass.

'I'll fix that for you,' he said, reaching for my waist again. I

'Wot cheer, Kitty,' I said. But she did not return my smile, gave a yelp, and stepped out of his grasp.

only watched me, levelly. I looked uncertainly back to the

'No you won't! You can push off and leave me in peace.'

glass, and continued working at my sash. When she spoke Now he seized me, and tickled me so that I giggled. Being at last, I knew at once that she was rather drunk.

tickled always makes me laugh, however little I care for the

'Seen something you fancy?' she said. I turned to her again tickler; but after several more minutes of this kind of thing in surprise, and she took a step into the room.

'What?'

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'I said, "Seen something you fancy, Nancy?" Everybody made me terribly clumsy - at the buttons of my frock. Kitty else here tonight seems to have. Seems to have seen took hold of me again; soon we were almost tussling.

something that has rather caught their eye.'

'I won't have you call me a flirt!' I said as she tugged at me.

I swallowed, unsure of what reply to make to her. She

'How could you call me one? How could you? Oh! If you walked closer, then stopped a few paces from me, and just knew -' I put my hand to the back of my collar; her continued to fix me with the same even, arrogant gaze. 'You fingers followed my own, her face came close. Seeing it, I were very fresh with that horn-player, weren't you?' she felt all at once quite dazed. I thought I had become her said then.

sister, as she wanted. I thought I had my queer desires I blinked. 'We were just having a bit of a lark.'

cribbed and chilled and chastened. Now I knew only that

'A bit of a lark? His hands were all over you.'

her arm was about me, her hand on mine, her breath hot

'Oh Kitty, they weren't!' My voice almost trembled. It was upon my cheek. I grasped her - not the better to push her horrible to see her so savage; I don't believe that, in all the away, but in order to hold her nearer.

weeks that we had spent together, she had ever so much as Gradually we ceased our wrestling and grew still, our raised her voice to me in impatience.

breaths ragged, our hearts thudding. Her eyes were round

'Yes they were,' she said. 'I was watching - me and half the and dark as jet; I felt her fingers leave my hand and move party. You know what they'll be calling you soon, don't against my neck.

you?' "Miss Flirt".'

Then all at once there came a blast of noise from the Miss Flirt! Now I didn't know whether to cry or to laugh.

passageway beyond, and the sound of footsteps. Kitty

'How can you say such a thing?' I asked her.

started in my arms as if a pistol had been fired, and took a

'Because it's true.' She sounded all at once rather sullen. 'I half-dozen steps, very rapidly, away. A woman - Esther, the wouldn't have bought you such a fine dress, if I'd known conjuror's assistant - appeared on the other side of the open you were only going to wear it to go flirting in.'

doorway. She was pale, and looked terribly grave. She said:

'Oh!' I stamped my foot, unsteadily -I was as drunk, I

'Kitty, Nan, you won't believe it.' She reached for her suppose, as she was. 'Oh!' I put my fingers to the neck of handkerchief, and put it to her mouth. 'There's some boys my gown, and began to fumble with its fastenings. 'I shall just come, from the Charing Cross Hospital. They are take the dam' dress off right here and you shall have it saying Gully Sutherland is there' - this was the comic singer back,' I said, 'if that's how you feel about it!'

who had appeared with Kitty at the Canterbury Palace -

At that she took another step towards me and seized my

'they are saying Gully is there - that he has got drunk, and arm. 'Don't be a fool,' she said in a slightly chastened tone. I shot himself dead!'

shook her off and continued to work - quite fruitlessly, It was true - we all heard, next day, how horribly true it since the wine, together with my anger and surprise, had was. I should never have suspected it, but had learned since 111

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coming to London that Gully was known in the business as her shake her head and step away, and seem to search for something of a lush. He never finished a show without me; and when she saw me - waiting for her, in the shadows calling into a public-house on his way home; and on the of the wing - she came and sighed. 'Poor Gully. They say night of our party he had been drinking at Fulham. Here, all his heart was shot right through ..."

hidden in a corner stall, he had overheard a fellow at the bar

'And to think,' I said, 'it was for Gully's sake that I first went say that Gully Sutherland was past his best, and should to Canterbury and saw you ..."