Tipping the Velvet (28 page)

heavy renting to find the old proprietress missing, her chair I didn't stop to answer her, but hurled myself up the overturned, and the door to my chamber splintered and remaining stairs and ran into my room. With the door flung wide. What had happened I never found out for sure; closed behind me I tore the jacket from my shoulders and it seemed that the madam had been taken or chased away -

the trousers from my legs, and stuffed them, with my shirt though whether by a policeman or a rival bawd, no one and drawers, into the little curtained alcove where I hung professed to know. Anyway, thieves had taken advantage of my clothes. I found myself a night-gown, and pulled it on; her absence to steal into the house, to frighten and threaten as I fastened the buttons at the throat, however, I heard the girls and their customers, and help themselves to what I had dreaded to hear: the sound of rapid, heavy anything that they could lift: the oozing mattresses and footsteps on the stairs, followed by a hammering at my door rugs, the broken looking-glasses, the few rickety bits of and Mrs Best's voice, loud and shrill.

furniture - also my frocks, shoes, bonnet and purse. The

'Miss Astley! Miss Astley! It would oblige me if you would loss was not a great one to me; but it meant that I must go open this door. I have found a peculiar item in the home in my masculine attire -I was wearing the old Oxford downstairs passage, and believe that you have someone in bags, and a boater - and attempt to reach my room at Mrs there as you should not!'

Best's without her catching me.

'Mrs Best,' I answered, 'what do you mean?'

It was quite late, and I walked very slowly to Smithfield, in

'You know what I mean, Miss Astley. I am warning you. I the hope that all the Bests might be abed and sleeping by have my son with me!' She caught hold of the door-knob, the time I got there - and, indeed, when I reached the house, and shook it. Above our heads there were more footsteps: the windows were dark and all seemed still. I let myself in the baby had been woken by the noise, and begun to cry.

and stepped silently up the stairs - horribly mindful of the I turned the key, and opened the door. Mrs Best, clad in a last time I had crept, noiselessly, through a slumbering night-dress and a tartan wrap, pushed past me, into the house, and all that the creeping had led to. Perhaps it was room. Behind her, in a shirt and nightcap, stood her son. He the memory that made me blunder: for half-way up I put had a terrible complexion.

my hand to my head - and my hat went soaring over the I turned to the landlady. She was gazing about her in banister to land with a thud in the passageway below. I frustration. 'I know there is a gentleman in here came, cursing, to a halt. I knew I must go down to fetch it; somewhere!' she cried. She pulled the covers from the bed, 235

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then stopped to look beneath it. At last, of course, she I bowed my head; she turned on her heel. Behind her, her headed for the alcove. I darted to stop her, and she curled son at last gave me a sneer. Tart,' he said. Then he spat, and her lip in satisfaction. 'Now we'll have him!' she said. She followed his mother into the darkness.

reached past me and tweaked the curtain back, then stepped Being not exactly overburdened with articles to pack, I was away with a gasp. There were about four suits there, as well out of the house next morning just as soon as I had washed.

as the one that I had just taken off. 'Why, you little Mrs Best curled her lip as I passed by her. Mary, however, strumpet!' she cried. 'I believe you was planning a regular gazed at me with a kind of admiration in her eyes, as if horgyl'

awed and impressed that I had proved myself so normal - so

'A horgy? A horgy?' I folded my arms. 'They're bits of spectacularly normal - at the last. I gave her a shilling, and mending, Mrs Best. It's not a crime, is it, to take in sewing, patted her hand. Then I took a final turn around Smithfield for gentlemen?'

Market. It was a warm morning, and the reek of the She picked up the pair of underthings that I had so recently carcases was terrible, the hum of flies about them as deep kicked off, and sniffed at them. These drawers are still and steady as the buzz of a motor; but for all that, I felt a warm!' she said. 'From the heat of your needle, I suppose kind of bleak fondness for the place, which I had gazed at, you'll be telling me? From the heat of his needle, more so often, in my weeks of madness.

like!' I opened my mouth - but could find no answer to I moved on at last, and left the flies to their breakfast. I had make her. While I hesitated she stepped to the window and only the vaguest ideas about where I should make for, but I looked out of it. This, I suppose, is where they made their had heard that the streets around King's Cross were full of escape. The villains! Well, they won't get far, that's for sure, rooming-houses, and thought perhaps that I might try my in their birthday suits!'

luck up there. In the end, however, I did not get even so far I looked again at her son. He was gazing at my ankles as that. In the window of a shop on the Gray's Inn Road I where they showed beneath my night-gown.

saw a little card: Respectible Lady Seeks Fe-Male Lodger,

'I'm sorry, Mrs Best,' I said. 'I won't do it again, I promise and an address. I gazed at it for a minute or so. The you!'

Respectible was off-putting: I couldn't face another Mrs

'You certainly shan't do it again, in my house! I want you Best. But there was something very appealing about that out of here, Miss Astley, in the morning. I've always found Fe-Male. I saw myself in it - in the hyphen.

you a very peculiar tenant, I don't mind admitting - and I memorised the address. It was for a road named Green now, to go and try and play the hussy on me like this! I Street, which turned out to be wonderfully near - a narrow won't have it; no, certainly I won't! I warned you when you little street off the Gray's Inn Road itself, with a well-kept moved in.'

terrace on one side, and a rather grim-looking tenement on the other. The number I sought was one of the houses, and 237

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looked very pleasant, with a pot of geraniums upon the step these opened on to a little iron balcony, that overlooked and, beside that, a three-legged cat, washing its face. The Green Street and faced the shabby tenement.

cat gave a hop as I approached, and lifted its head for me to

'It'll be eight shillings for the rent,' said Mrs Milne as I tickle.

gazed about me. I nodded. 'You're not the first girl that I've I pulled on the bell, and was greeted by a kind-faced, white-seen,' she went on, 'but, to be honest, I was hoping for an haired lady in an apron and slippers; she let me in at once older lady - I thought perhaps a widow. My niece was here when I explained my visit, introduced herself as 'Mrs until very recently, but had to leave us to get married. You Milne', then spent a moment fussing over the cat. While she might be thinking of getting married yourself, rather soon?'

did so I looked about me, and blinked. The hallway was as

'Oh no,' I said.

crowded with pictures, almost, as Mrs Dendy's old front

'You've no young man?'

parlour. These pictures were not, however, theatrical in

'Not one.'

theme; indeed, so far as I could make out, they had nothing That seemed to please her. She said, 'I am glad. You see, it in common at all save the fact that each of them was very is just myself and my daughter here, and she is rather an brightly-hued. Most seemed rather cheap - some had unusual, trusting sort of girl. I wouldn't like to have young evidently been cut from books and papers, and pinned fellers, coming in and out..."

frameless to the wall - but there were one or two rather There's no young man,' I said firmly.

famous images. Above the umbrella-stand, for example, She smiled again; then seemed to hesitate. 'Might I ask -

hung a copy of that gaudy painting The Light of the World; might I - why you are leaving your present address?' At that beneath it was an Indian picture, of a slender blue god I hesitated - and her smile grew smaller.

wearing spit-black on the eyes, and holding a flute. I To be truthful,' I said, 'there was a little bit of wondered whether Mrs Milne was perhaps some form of unpleasantness with my landlady ..."

religious maniac - a theosophist, or a Hindoo convert.

'Ah.' She stiffened a little, and I realised that in telling the When she saw me looking at the walls, however, she smiled truth I had blundered.

in a most Christian-like way. 'My daughter's pictures,' she

'What I mean,' I began - but I could see her mind working.

said, as if that explained it all. 'She does like the colours.' I What did she think? That my landlady had caught me nodded, then followed her up the stairs.

kissing her husband, probably.

She took me directly to the room that was for rent. It was a

'You see,' she began again, regretfully, 'my daughter . . .'

pleasant, ordinary kind of chamber, and everything in it was This daughter must be a beauty and a half, I thought - or clean. Its chief attraction was its window: this was long, else a complete erotomaniac - if the mother is so eager to and split down the middle to form a pair of glass doors; and keep her safe and close, away from young men's eyes. And yet, just as I had been drawn to that mispelt card in the 239

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shopkeeper's window, so, now, there was something about I had expected some extraordinary beauty. Grace Milne was the house and its owner that tugged at me, unaccountably.

not beautiful - but she was, I saw at once, rather I took a chance.

extraordinary. Her age was hard to judge. She might, I

'Mrs Milne,' I said, 'the fact of it is I have a curious thought, have been anything between seventeen and thirty; occupation - a theatrical occupation, you could call it - that her hair, however, was as yellow and fine as flax, and hung obliges me sometimes to dress in gentlemen's suits. My loose about her shoulders like a girl's. She was clad in an landlady caught me at it, and took against me. I know for odd assemblage of clothes - a short blue dress, and a yellow certain that, if I live here, I shall never bring a chap over pinafore, and beneath that gaudy stockings with clocks your threshold. You may wonder how I know that, but I can upon them, and red velvet slippers. Her eyes were grey, her only say, I do. I shan't ever get behind with my rent; I shall cheeks very pale. Her features had a strange, smooth quality keep myself to myself and you won't hardly know that I am to them, as if her face was a drawing to which someone had here at all. If you and Miss Milne will only not object to the halfheartedly taken a piece of india-rubber. When she spoke sight of a girl in a pair of bags and a neck-tie now and again her voice was thick and slightly braying. I realised then,

- well, then I think I might be the lodger you are seeking.'

what I might have guessed before: that she was rather I had spoken in earnest — more or less — and now Mrs simple.

Milne looked thoughtful. 'Gentlemen's suits, you say,' she I saw all this, of course, in less than a moment. Grace had said - not unkindly or incredulously, but with a rather put her arm through her mother's and, on being introduced interested air. I nodded, then pulled at the cord of my bag to me, had indeed hung back rather shyly. Now, however, and drew out a jacket - it happened to be the top half of the she gazed with obvious delight at the jacket that I held guardsman's uniform. I gave it a shake and held it up before me, and I could see that she was desperate to seize against myself, rather hopefully. 'My eyes,' she said, folding its coloured sleeve and stroke it.

her arms, 'he's a beauty, in' he? Now my little girl would And after all, it was a lovely jacket. I asked her, 'Would you like him.' She gestured to the door. 'If you'll permit me . . .

like to try it on?'

?' She stepped out on to the landing and gave a shout: She nodded, then glanced at her mother: 'If I might.' Mrs

'Gracie!' I heard the sound of footsteps below. Mrs Milne Milne said she might. I raised the jacket for her to step into, tilted her head. 'Now, she's a mote shy,' she said in a low then moved around her to fasten the buttons. The scarlet voice, 'but don't you pay no mind to her if she starts being serge and the gold trim went bizarrely well with her hair, silly on you. It's just her way.' I smiled, uncertainly. In a her eyes, her dress and stockings.

second Gracie had begun her ascent; a few seconds more,

'You look like a lady in a circus,' I said, as her mother and I and she was in the room and at her mother's side.

stood back to study her. 'A ring-master's daughter.' She 241

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smiled - then took a clumsy bow. Mrs Milne laughed and It was like rooming with angels. I could keep the hours I clapped.

liked, wear the costumes I chose, and Mrs Milne said

'May I keep it?' Gracie asked me then. I shook my head.

nothing. I could come home in a jacket crusted, at the To be honest, Miss Milne, I don't believe that I can spare it.

collar, with a man's rash spendings - and she would only Had I only two the same ..."

pluck it from my nervous hands, and wash it at the tap: 'I

'Now Gracie,' said her mother, 'of course you can't keep it.

never saw a girl so careless with her soup!' I could wake Miss Astley needs the costume for her theatricals.' Grace wretched, plagued with memories, and she would pile my pulled a face, but did not seem very seriously dismayed.

breakfast plate the higher, asking nothing. She was as Mrs Milne caught my eye. 'She might borrow it, though, simple, in her way, as her own simple daughter; she was mightn't she,' she whispered, 'from time to time . . . ?'

good to me for Grade's sake, because I liked her, and was

'She can borrow all my suits, all at once, so far as I care,' I kind to her.

said; and when Grace looked up I gave her a wink, and her I was patient, for example, over the issue of Grace's interest pale cheeks pinked a little, and her head went down.

in the colourful. You could not have spent three minutes in Mrs Milne gave a mild tut-tut, and folded her arms that house without noticing it; but after three days there I complacently. 'I do believe that, after all, Miss Astley, you began to sense a kind of system to her mania which, if I had will suit us very well.'