Tipping the Velvet (50 page)

treatment that would ease the bruising at my cheek ...

When the house wasn't being shivered to its foundations by All of Ralph and Florence's circle, in fact, were quite sick-the thud of Janet's footsteps on the stairs, it was trembling eningly kind and earnest and conscientious over matters to the arguments and the laughter of Florence's girl-friends, like this. As I could not help but find out very early on, the who came by regularly to bring books and pamphlets and Banners were big in the local labour movement - they bits of| gossip, and to take tea. I thought them a very quaint always had some desperate project on hand, some plan to breed,; these girls. They all worked; but, like Annie Page, get a parliamentary act passed or opposed; the parlour, as a the sanitary! inspector, not one of them had a dull, consequence, was always full of people holding emergency straightforward kind r* job - making felt hats, or dressing meetings or dreary debates. Ralph was a cutter in a silk feathers, or serving in shop. Instead they all worked for factory, and secretary of the silk workers' union. Florence -

charities or in homes: they a had lists of cripples, or as well as working at the Stratford girls' home, Freemantle immigrants, or orphaned girls, whom was their continual House - volunteered for a thing called the Women's ambition to set up in jobs, houses, ani friendly societies.

Cooperative Guild: it was Guild work (not lists, as I had Every story they told began the same: 'I had a girl come imagined, of friendless girls) which had kept her up so late into the office today ..."

on the night of my arrival at her home - and which, indeed,

'I had a girl come into the office today, fresh from gaol, and kept her up late on many subsequent nights, balancing her mother has taken her baby and disappeared with it..."

budgets and writing letters. In those early days, I would

'I had a poor woman come into the office today: she was occasionally glance at the pages she worked on; but brought over from India as a maid, and now the family whatever I saw, made me frown. 'What does it mean, won't pay her passage back ..."

cooperative!' I asked her once. It was not a word I had ever

'There was a woman come in today: she has been ruined by heard used at Felicity

a gent, and the gent has given her such a thump she -' This Place.

particular story, however, never got finished: the girl who And yet, there were moments at Quilter Street, when I was telling it caught sight of me, perched on an armchair at found myself handing out cups of tea, rolling cigarettes, Florence's elbow; then she flushed pink, and put her cup to nursing babies while other people argued and laughed, her lips, and turned the subject. They had all had my history when I thought I might as well still be in Diana's drawing-

-my pretend history - from Florence herself. When they room, dressed in a tunic. There, no one had ever asked me 427

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anything, because they never thought I might have had an coins to some man who had lost his job. I thought them opinion worth soliciting; but at least they had liked to look mad to do it. We had been kind enough to our neighbours, at me. At Florence's house, no one looked at me at all - and back in Whitstable; but the kindness had had limits to it -

what was worse, they all supposed I must be quite as good Mother had never had time for feckless wives, or idlers, or and energetic as themselves. I lived in a continual panic, drunkards. Florence and Ralph, however, helped therefore, that I would accidentally disenchant them - that everybody, even - or, it seemed to me, especially - those someone would ask me my opinion on the SDF or the ILP, layabout fathers, those slatternly mothers, whom all the rest and my reply would make it clear that, not only had I of Bethnal Green had taken against. Now, hearing confused the SDF with the WLF, the ILP with the WTUL, Florence's plans to visit the family that had the bailiffs but I had absolutely no idea, and never had had, what the coming, I grew sour. 'You're a regular pair of saints, you initials stood for anyway. When I shyly confessed one time, two,' I said, filling a bowl with soapy water. 'You never about six weeks after I moved in there, that I scarcely knew have a minute for yourselves. You have a pretty house -

the difference between a Tory and a Liberal, they took it as now that I am here to make it so - and not one moment to a kind of clever joke. 'You are so right, Miss Astley!' a man enjoy it. You earn a decent wage, between you, and yet you had answered. 'There is no difference at all, and if only give it all away!'

everyone were as clear-sighted as yourself, our task would

'If I wanted to close my doors to my neighbours and gaze be an easier one.' I smiled, and said no more. Then I all night at my pretty walls,' she replied, still passing a hand collected the cups, and took Cyril into the kitchen with me; across her bleary features, 'I would move to Hampstead! I and while I waited for the kettle to boil I sang him an old have lived in this house all my life; there's not a family in song from the music hall, which made him kick his legs and this street who didn't help Mother out, at one time or gurgle. Then Florence appeared. 'What a pretty song,' she another, when we were kids and things were rather hard.

said absently. She was rubbing her eyes. 'Ralph and I are You're right: we do draw a fair wage between us, Ralph and going out - you won't mind watching Cyril, will you? There me; but do you think I could enjoy my thirty shillings, is a family up the road - they are having the bailiffs in. I knowing that Mrs Monks next door must live, with all her said we would go, in case the men get rough . . .' There was girls, on ten? That Mrs Kenny across the street, whose always something like this - always some neighbour in husband is sick, must make do with the three shillings she trouble, and needing money, or help, or a letter writing or a gets making paper flowers, sitting up all night and squinting visit to the police; and it was always Ralph and Florence at the wretched things until she is gone half-blind that they came to -I had not been with them a week before I

'All right,' I said. She made speeches like this often -

saw Ralph leave his supper and run along the street in his sounding always, I thought, like a Daughter of the People in shirt-sleeves, to give some word of comfort and a couple of some sentimental novel of East End life: Maria Jex had 429

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liked to read such novels, and Diana had liked to laugh at I should not have been myself, if her indifference had not her. I didn't say this to Florence, however. I didn't say rather piqued me. I had spent eighteen months at Felicity anything at all. But when she and Ralph and their union Place, shaping my behaviour to the desires of lustful ladies friends had gone, I sat down in an armchair in the parlour, until I was as skilled and as subtle at it as a glove-maker: I rather heavily. The truth was, I hated their charity; I hated could not throw those skills over now, just because I also their good works, their missions, their orphan proteges. I learned the blacking of a grate. On Florence, however, the hated them, because I knew that I was one of them. I had skills proved useless. 'She really can't be a torn,' I would thought that Florence had let me into her house through say to myself - for, if she never flirted with me, then there some extraordinary favour to myself; but what kind of a were plenty of other girls who passed through our parlour, compliment was it, when she and her brother would and I never saw her flirt with a single one of them, not regularly take in any old josser that happened to be once. But then, I never saw her flirting with a fellow, either.

staggering about the street, down on his luck, and give him At last, I supposed she was too good to fall in love with supper? It was not that they were careless with me. Ralph, anyone.

for example, I knew to be the gentlest man that I should And, after all, I had not come to Quilter Street to flirt; I had ever meet: no one, not even the most hardened Sapphist in come to be ordinary. And knowing there was no one's eye the city, could have lived with Ralph without loving him a to charm or set smarting only made me more ordinary still.

little; and I - who liked to think of myself as no very soft My hair - which had lost its military sharpness after a week torn - learned early on to love him a great deal. Florence, or two, anyway -I let grow; I even began to curl it at the too, was pleasant enough to me, in her own tired, distracted ends. My pinching boots became less stiff, the more I sort of way. But though she ate the suppers I cooked; walked in them; but I traded them in, at a second-hand though she handed me Cyril to wash and dress and cradle; clothes stall, for a pair of shoes with bows on. I did the and though, when a month had passed, she had agreed that I same with my bonnet and my rusty frock - exchanged them, might stay if I still cared to, and sent Ralph into the attic to for a hat with a wired flower and a dress with ribbon at the bring me down a little truckle-bed, which she said would be neck. 'Now, there's a pretty frock!' said Ralph to me, when I cosier, in the parlour, than the two armchairs -though she put it on for the first time; but Ralph would have told me I did all these things, she never did them as if she really did looked handsome wrapped in a piece of brown paper, if he them for me. She did them because the suppers and the thought it would make me smile. The truth was, I had baby-minding gave her more hours to devote to her other looked awful ever since leaving St John's Wood; and now, causes. She had given me work, as a lady might give work in a flowery frock, I only looked extraordinarily awful. The to a shiftless girl, come fresh from prison.

clothes I had bought, they were the kind I'd used to wear in Whitstable and with Kitty; and I seemed to remember that I 431

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had been known then as a handsome enough girl. But it was she had worn skirts as bright as mustard, she had laughed as if wearing gentlemen's suits had magically unfitted me and shown her teeth. Florence Banner of Bethnal Green, for girlishness, for ever - as if my jaw had grown firmer, however, was only grave, and weary. Her hair was limp, my brows heavier, my hips slimmer and my hands extra and her dresses were dark, or the colour of rust or dust or large, to match the clothes Diana had put me in. The bruise ashes; and when she smiled, you found you were surprised at my eye faded quickly enough, but the brawl with Dickie's by it, and flinched.

book had left me with a scar at my cheek - I have it there For her temper, I discovered, was fickle. She was kind as an still; and this, combined with the new firmness at my angel to the undeserving poor of Bethnal Green; but at shoulders and thighs, got from carrying buckets and home she was sometimes depressed, and very often cross - I whitening steps, gave me something of the air of a rough.

would see her brother and her friends tiptoeing about her When I washed in the mornings in a bowl in the kitchen, chair, so as not to rouse her: I thought their patience quite and caught sight of myself, from a certain angle, reflected astonishing. She might be gay as you like, for days at a in the darkened window, I looked like a youth in the back-time; but then she would come home from a walk, or wake room of some boys' club, rinsing himself down after a one morning, as if from troubled dreams, dispirited.

boxing match. How Diana would have admired me! At Strangest of all, to my mind, was her behaviour towards Quilter Street, however, as I have said, there was no one to Cyril: for though I knew she loved him as her own, she gasp. By the time Ralph and Florence came down for their would sometimes seem to turn her eyes from him, or push breakfasts, I would have my frock upon me and my hair in his grasping hands away, as if she hated him; then at other a curl; and then, more often than not, Florence would only times she would seize him and cover him with kisses until gulp at her tea and say she had no time to eat, she was he squealed. I had been at Quilter Street for several months calling at the Guild on her way to work. Ralph would help when the talk, one evening, turned to birthdays; and I himself to the red herrings left on her plate - 'My word, realised with a little start of surprise that Cyril's must have Cyril, but don't these look good!' - and she would leave, passed and gone uncelebrated. When I asked Ralph about it without a glance at me, wrapping a muffler about her throat he answered that, just as I'd thought, it had passed in July, like a woman of ninety.

but they had not thought it worthwhile to mark it. I said, However much I thought about her - and I spent many laughing, 'Oh, do socialists not keep birthdays, then?' and hours at it: for there is not much to occupy the brain in he had smiled; Florence, however, had risen without a housework, and I might as well puzzle over her, as over word, and left the room. I wondered again about what story anything -I could not figure her out, at all. The Florence I there might be behind the baby; but Florence offered no had met first, the Green Street Florence, had been gay; she clue to it, and I did not pry. I thought, if I did, that it might had had hair that twisted from her head like bed-springs, prompt her to ask me again about the gent who had 433

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supposedly kept me in luxury, then blacked my eye: she it mine to fatten up Florence, with breakfasts and lunches, had never referred to him after that first night. I was glad with sandwich teas, with dinners and suppers and biscuits she hadn't. She was so good and honest, after all -I should and milk. I had not much success with this, to start with -

have hated to have had to lie to her.

for, though I took to haunting the meat stalls of the Indeed, I should have hated to have had to abuse her, in any Whitechapel Market, buying faggots and sausages, rabbits way. When she worked so hard and grew so weary, it made and tripe, and bagfuls of those scraps of flesh we had used me pace about the room and wring my hands, and want to to call, in Whitstable, 'bits and ears', I was really rather an shake her. It was not her job at the girls' home that so indifferent cook, and was as liable to burn the meat, or exhausted her, it was the endless guild and union work - the leave it bloody, as make it savoury; Florence and Ralph did piles of lists and ledgers she would place upon the supper-not notice, I think, because they were used to nothing table, when the supper-things had been cleared off it, and better. But then, one day at the end of August, I saw that the squint at, all night long, until her eyes were red, and creased oyster season had started up, and I bought a barrel of as currants. Sometimes, since I had nothing better to do, I natives and an oyster-knife; and as I put the blade to the would take a chair and sit beside her, and make her share hinge, it was as if I turned a key which unlocked all my the chores with me: she gave me envelopes to address, or mother's oyster-parlour recipes, and sent them flooding to other little harmless tasks I could not muddle. When, in my finger-ends. I dished up an oyster-pie - and Florence put spring, the Guild set up a local seamstresses' union, and aside the paper she was writing on, to eat it, then picked at Florence began visiting the home-workers of Bethnal Green the crust that was left in the bowl, with her fork. The next