Tipping the Velvet (37 page)

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dozing behind the curtain of her skirts - a handsome little us, then overhear their murmurs - 'Diana's caprice,' they whippet, on a pig-skin leash.

called me, as if I were an enthusiasm for a wonderful food, Dickie and Evelyn rose too, then. Diana inclined her head that a sensitive palate would tire of. Diana herself, however, to Miss Bruce, and I made her a deeper bow. All eyes had once having found me, seemed only increasingly been upon us as we made our entrance; all eyes were on us disinclined to let me go. With that one brief visit to the still, as we headed for the exit. I heard Miss Bruce return to Cavendish Club she had launched me on my new career as her seat, and someone call, 'Quite right, Vanessa!' But her permanent companion. Now came more excursions, another lady held my gaze as I passed her, and winked; and more visits, more trips; and more suits for me to make them from a table near the door a woman rose to say to Diana in. I grew complacent. I had once sat drooping on her that she hoped that Miss King's trousers had not been too parlour chair, expecting her to send me home with a desperately singed .. .

sovereign. Now, when the ladies whispered of 'this freak of The trousers were rather spoiled; back at Felicity Place, Diana Lethaby's', I brushed the lint from the sleeve of my Diana had me walk and bend before Maria and Evelyn and coat, drew my monogrammed hankie from my pocket, and Dickie, in order to decide it. She said she would order me smiled. When the autumn of 1892 became the winter, and another pair, just the same.

then the spring of '93, and still I kept my favoured place at

'What a find, Diana!' said Maria, as Evelyn patted the cloth.

Diana's side, the ladies' whispers faded. I became at last not She said it as she might say it about a statue or a clock that Diana's caprice; but simply, her boy.

Diana had picked up for a song in some grim market. She

'Come to supper, Diana.'

didn't care whether I overheard or not. Why should it matter

'Come for breakfast, Diana.'

that I did? She meant it, she meant it! There was admiration

'Come at nine, Diana; and bring the boy.'

in her eyes. And being admired, by tasteful ladies - well, I For it was always as a boy that I travelled with her now, knew it wasn't being loved. But it was something. And I even when we ventured into the public world, the ordinary was good at it.

world beyond the circle of Cavendish Sapphists, the world Who would ever have thought I should be so good at it!

of shops and supper-rooms and drives in the park. To

'Take off your shirt, Nancy,' said Diana then, 'and let the anyone who asked after me, she would boldly introduce me ladies see your linen.'

as 'My ward, Neville King'; she had several requests for I did so, and Maria cried again, 'What a find!'

introductions, I believe, from ladies with eligible daughters.

These she turned aside: 'He's an Anglo-Catholic, ma'am,'

Chapter 13

she'd whisper, 'and destined for the Church. This is his final Diana's wider circle of friends, I believe, thought our union Season, before taking Holy Orders ..."

a fantastic one. I would sometimes see them look between 315

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It was with Diana that I returned to the theatre again -

did this very often, for she was known - I suppose I might flinching to find her lead me to a box beside the foot-lights, have guessed it, in a way - as a philanthropist, and ladies flinching again as the chandeliers were dimmed. But they courted her for schemes. She gave money to certain were terribly grand, the theatres she preferred. They were lit charities. She sent books to girls in prisons. She was with electricity rather than gas; and the crowd sat hushed. I involved in the producing of a magazine for the Suffrage, could not see the pleasure in it. The plays I liked well named Shafts. She attended to all this, with me at her side.

enough; but I would more often turn my gaze to the If I leaned to pick up a paper or a list and idly read it, she audience - and there was always plenty of eyes and glasses, would take the sheet away, as if gazing too hard at too of course, that were lifted from the stage and fastened on many words might tire me. In the end, I would settle on the me. I saw several faces that I knew from my old renter cartoons in Punch.

days. One time I stood washing my hands in the lavatory of These, then, were my public appearances. There were not a theatre and felt a gent look me over - he didn't know that too many of them -I am describing here a period that lasted he had had my lips on him already, in an alley off Jermyn about a year. Diana kept me close, for the most part, and Street; later I saw him in the audience, with his Wife. One displayed me at home. She liked to limit the numbers who time, too, I saw Sweet Alice, the mary-anne who had been gazed at me, she said; she said she feared that like a so kind to me in Leicester Square. He also sat in a box; and photograph I might fade, from too much handling.

when he recognised me, he blew a kiss. He was with two When I say display, of course, I mean it: it was part of gents: I raised my brows, he rolled his eyes. Then he saw Diana's mystery, to make real the words that other people who it was I sat with - It was Diana and Maria -and he said in metaphor or jest. I had posed for Maria and Dickie stared. I gave a shrug, he looked thoughtful - then rolled his and Evelyn in my trousers with the scorch-mark and my eyes again, as much as to say, What a business!

under-things of silk. When they came a second time, with To all these places, as I have said, I went clad as a boy —

another lady, Diana had me pose for them again in a indeed, the only time I ever dressed as a girl, now, was for different suit. After that, it became a kind of sport with her, our visits to the Cavendish. This was the single spot in the to put me in a new costume and have me walk before her city at which Diana might have put me in trousers and not guests, or among them, filling glasses, lighting cigarettes.

cared who knew it; but after Miss Bruce's complaint they Once she dressed me as a footman, in breeches and a introduced a new rule, and ever after I was taken there in powdered wig. It was the costume I had worn for skirts - Diana having something made up for me, I forget Cinderella, more or less - though my breeches at the Brit the cut and colour of it now. At the club I would sit and had not been so snug, nor so large at the groin.

drink and smoke, and be flirted with by Maria, and eyed by The freak with the breeches inspired her further. She grew other ladies, while Diana met friends or wrote letters. She tired of gentlemen's suits; she took to displaying me in 317

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masquerade - had me set up, behind a little velvet curtain in Then Diana came, and put a pink cigarette between my lips, the drawing-room. This would happen about once a week.

and led me amongst the ladies and had them stroke the Ladies would come for dinner and I would eat with them, in leather. I cannot say if it was Kitty I thought of then, or trousers; but while they lingered over their coffee and the even Diana herself. I believe I thought I was a renter again, trimming of their fags I would leave them, and slip up to in Piccadilly - or, not a renter, but a renter's gent. For when my room to change my gear. By the time they made their I twitched and cried out there were smiles in the shadows; way into the drawing-room I would be behind the curtain, and when I shuddered, and wept, there was laughter.

striking some pose; and when she was ready, Diana would I could help none of it. It was all Diana's doing. She was so pull a tasselled cord and uncover me.

bold, she was so passionate, she was so devilishly clever.

I might be Perseus, with a curved sword and a head of the She was like a queen, with her own queer court -I saw it, at Medusa, and sandals with straps that were buckled at the those parties. Women sought her out, and watched her.

knee. I might be Cupid, with wings and a bow. I was once They brought presents, 'for your collection' - her collection St Sebastian, tied to a stump - I remember what a job it was was talked about, and envied! When she made a gesture, to fasten the arrows so they would not droop.

they raised their heads to catch it. When she spoke, they Then, another night I was an Amazon. I carried the Cupid's listened. It was her voice, I think, which snared them -

bow, but this time had one breast uncovered; Diana rouged those low, musical tones, which had once lured me from the nipple. Next week - she said I had shown one, I might my random midnight wanderings into the heart of her own as well show both - I was the French Marianne, with a dark world. Again and again I heard arguments crumble at a Phyrgian cap and a flag. The week after that I was Salome: cry or a murmur from Diana's throat; again and again the I had the Medusa head again, but on a plate, and with a scattered conversations of a crowded room would falter and beard stuck on it; and while the ladies clapped I danced die, as one speaker after another surrendered the slender down to my drawers.

threads of some anecdote or fancy to catch at the more And the week after that - well, that week I was compelling cadences of hers.

Hermaphroditus. I wore a crown of laurel, a layer of silver Her boldness was contagious. Women came to her, and greasepaint - and nothing else save, strapped to my hips, grew giddy. She was like a singer, shivering glasses. She Diana's Monsieur Dildo. The ladies gasped to see him.

was like a cancer, she was like a mould. She was like the That made him quiver.

hero of one of her own gross romances - you might set her And as the quiver did its usual work on me, I thought of in a chamber with a governess and a nun, and in an hour Kitty. I wondered if she was still wearing suits and a topper, they would have torn out their own hair, to fashion a whip.

still singing songs like 'Sweethearts and Wives'.

I sound weary of her. I was not weary of her then. How could I have been? We were a perfect kind of double act.

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She was lewd, she was daring - but who made that daring But there was one anniversary from the old order of things visible? Who could testify to the passion of her; to the that, even in the enchanted atmosphere of Felicity Place, sympathetic power of her; to the rare, enchanted surrounded by so much narcotic luxury, I could not quite atmosphere of her house in Felicity Place, where ordinary forget. One day, when I had been Diana's lover for a little ways and rules seemed all suspended, and wanton riot less than a year, I was woken by the rustle of news-sheet.

reigned? Who, but I?

My mistress was beside me with the morning paper, and I I was proof of all her pleasures. I was the stain left by her opened my eyes upon a headline. Home Rule Bill, it said; lust. She must keep me, or lose everything.

Irish to Demonstrate June 3rd. I gave a cry. It was not the And I must keep her, or have nothing. I could not imagine a words which arrested me - they meant nothing to me. The life beyond her shaping. She had awakened particular date, however, was as familiar as my own name. June the appetites in me; and where else, I thought, but with Diana, third was my birthday; in a week I should be twenty-three.

in the company of Sapphists - where else would those queer

'Twenty-three!' said Diana when I told her, in a kind of hungers be assuaged?

delight. 'What a really glorious age that is! With your youth I have spoken of the peculiarly timeless quality of my new still hot upon you, like a lover in a pant; and time with his life, of my removal from the ordinary workings of the face around the curtain, peeping on.' She could talk like hours, the days and the weeks. Diana and I often made love this, even first thing in the morning; I only yawned. But until dawn, and ate breakfast at nightfall; or else, we woke then she said that we must celebrate - and at that, I looked at the regular time, but stayed abed with the drapes close-livelier. 'What shall we do,' she said, 'that we haven't done drawn, and took our lunch by candle-light. Once we rang before? Where shall I take you . . . ?'

for Blake, and she came in her night-gown: it was half-past Where she hit upon, in the end, was the Opera.

three, we had woken her from her bed. Another time I was The idea sounded a terrible one to me, though I did not like roused by bird-song: I squinted at the lines of light around to show it - I had not yet grown sulky with her, as I was the shutters, and realised I had not seen the sun for a week.

later to do. And I was still too much of a child, not to be In a house kept uniformly warm by the labour of servants, anything other than enchanted with my own birthday, when and with a carriage to collect us and deposit us where we it finally arrived; and of course, there were presents - and wished, even the seasons lost their meanings or gained new presents never lost their charm.

ones. I knew winter had arrived only when Diana's I was given them at breakfast, in two gold parcels. The first walking-dresses changed from silk to corduroy, her cloaks was large, and held a cloak - a proper opera-going cloak, it from grenadine to sable; and when my own closet rail was, and very grand; but then, I had expected that, and sagged with astrakhan, and camel's-hair, and tweed.

hardly considered it a gift at all. The second parcel, however, proved more marvellous. It was small and light: I 321

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knew at once it must be some piece of jewellery - perhaps, The watch was my finest gift; but there was a present, too, a pair of links; or a stud for my cravats; or a ring. Dickie from Maria herself: a walking-cane, of ebony, with a tassel wore a ring on the smallest finger of her left hand, and I had at the top and a silver tip. It went very well with my new often admired it - yes, I was sure it must be a ring, like opera gear; indeed, we made a very striking couple that Dickie's.

night, Diana and I, for her costume was of black and white But it was not a ring. It was a watch, of silver, on a slender and silver, to match my own. It came from Worth's: I strap of leather. It had two dark arms to show the minutes thought we must look just as if we had stepped out from the and the hours, and a faster, sweeping arm to count the pages of a fashion paper. I made sure, when walking, to seconds. Upon the face, there was glass: the arms were hold my left arm very straight, so the watch would show.