Tipping the Velvet (51 page)

- all the poor women who worked long hours, alone, in night I served oyster-fritters, the next night oyster-soup. I squalid rooms, for wretched pay -I went with her. The made grilled oysters, and pickled oysters; and oysters rolled scenes we saw were very miserable, and the women were in four and stewed in cream.

pleased to be visited, and the Guild was grateful; but it was When I passed a plate of this last dish to Florence, she for Florence's sake I really went. I couldn't bear for her to smiled; and when she had tasted it, she sighed. She took a do the dreary task, and walk the East End streets, at night, piece of bread-and-butter, and folded it to mop the sauce alone.

with; and the bread left cream upon her lips, that she licked And then — as I have said, a housekeeper will look for any at with her tongue, then wiped with her fingers. I little thing to liven her day — I began to labour for her, in remembered another time, in another parlour, when I had the kitchen. She was thin, and the thinness looked wrong on served another girl an oyster-supper, and accidentally her: the sight of the shadows at her cheeks made me feel wooed her; and as I was thinking of this, Florence lifted a sad. So, while the Women's Cooperative Guild made it their spoonful offish, and sighed again.

cause to unionise the home-workers of East London, I made 435

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'Oh,' she said, 'I really think, that if there were one dish, and as lilies at Felicity Place, but now they were red at the one dish only, that had to be served in paradise, that dish knuckles and split at the nails, and scented with soda; and would be oysters - don't you think so, Nance?'

the cuffs above them had frills, that had got spotted with She had never called me 'Nance' before; and I had never, in grease - I hadn't learned the trick of pushing ladies' sleeves all the months that I had lived with her then, known her say back, there seemed never enough material to roll. Now I anything so fanciful. I laughed to hear it; and then so did twitched at one of these cuffs, and bit my lip. The fact was I her brother, and so did she.

didn't know who would be beside me in my paradise. The

'I think it might be oysters," I said.

fact was, there was no one who would want to have me in

'It would be marzipan, in my paradise,' said Ralph: he had a theirs . . .

very sweet tooth.

I looked again at Florence. 'Well, you and Ralph,' I said at

'And there would have,' I said then, 'to be a cigarette beside last, 'I imagine will be in everybody's paradise, instructing the dish, otherwise it would be hardly worth eating.'

them in how to run it.'

'That's true. And my supper-table would be set upon a hill, Ralph laughed. Florence tilted her head, and smiled a sad but overlooking a town - there would not be a chimney in smile of her own. Then, after a moment, she blinked and it; every house would be lit and warmed by electricity.'

caught my gaze. 'And you, of course,' she said, 'will have to

'Oh, Ralph!' I said; 'but only think how dull it would be, to be in mine . . .'

be able to see into all the corners! There wouldn't be

'Really, Florence?'

electric lights, or even houses, in my paradise. There would

'Of course - else, who will stew my oysters?'

be -' Pigmy ponies and fairies on a wire, was what I wanted I had had better compliments paid me - but not recently. I to say, thinking back to my nights at the Brit; but I was not found myself pinking at her words, and dipped my head.

up to explaining it.

When I looked at her again, she was gazing over into the And while I hesitated, Florence said: 'So, are we all to have corner of the room. I turned, to see what it was she was a separate paradise?'

looking at: it was the family portrait, and I guessed she Ralph shook his head. 'Well, you, of course, would be in must be thinking of her mother. But in the corner of the mine,' he said. 'And Cyril.'

frame, of course, there was the smaller picture, of the

'And Mrs Besant, I suppose.' She took another spoonful of grave-looking woman with the very heavy brows. I had her supper, then turned to me: 'And who would be in yours never learned who she was, after all. Now I said to Ralph: then, Nancy?'

'Who is that girl, in the little photo? She don't half need a She smiled, and I had been smiling; but even as she asked hairbrush.'

her question, I felt my smile begin to waver. I gazed at my hands where they lay upon the table: they had grown white 437

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He looked at me, but did not answer. It was Florence who home of a seamstress at Mile End. It was a terribly poor spoke. 'That's Eleanor Marx,' she said, with a kind of quiver home: there was no furniture, hardly, in the woman's to her voice.

rooms, only a couple of mattresses, a threadbare rug, and

'Eleanor Marks? Have I met her? Is she that cousin of one rickety table and chair. In the chamber that passed for a yours, who works at the poulterers?'

parlour, a tea-chest was upturned and had the remains of a She gazed at me then as if I had not asked the question, but sad little supper on it: a crust of bread, a bit of dripping in a barked it. Ralph put down his fork. 'Eleanor Marx,' he said, jar, and a cup half-full of bluish milk. The dinner-table was

'is a writer and a speaker and a very great socialist. . .'

all covered with the paraphernalia of the woman's trade -

I blushed: this was worse than asking what cooperative with folded garments and tissue wrappers, with pins and meant. But when Ralph saw my cheeks, he looked kind: cotton reels and needles. The needles, she said, were always

'You mustn't mind it. Why should you know? I'm sure, you dropping on the floor, and the children were always might mention a dozen writers you have read, and Flo and I stepping on them; her baby had recently put a pin in his would not know one of them.'

mouth, and the pin had stuck in his palate and almost That true,' I said, very grateful to him; but though I had read choked him.

proper books at Diana's, I could think, at that moment, only I listened to her story, and then watched while Florence of the improper ones - and they all had the same author: spoke to her about the Women's Guild, and about the Anonymous.

seamstresses' union it had established. Would she come to a So I said nothing, and we finished our supper in silence.

meeting? Florence asked. The woman shook her head, and And when I looked at Florence again, her eyes were turned said she didn't have the time; that she had no one to mind away from me and seemed rather dark. I thought then that, the children; that she was frightened that the masters at the after all, she would never really want a girl like me in outfitters for whom she worked would hear about it, and paradise with her, not even to stew the oysters for her tea; stop her shillings.

and the thought, just then, seemed a dreary one.

'Besides that, miss,' she said at last, 'my husband wouldn't But I was quite wrong about her. Whether I were in her care for me to go. Not but what he ain't a union man paradise or not, she wouldn't have noticed; and it was not himself; but he don't think much of women having a say in her mother she hoped to see there, nor even Eleanor Marx, all that stuff. He says there ain't the need for it.'

nor even Karl Marx. It was another person altogether that

'But what do you think, Mrs Fryer? Don't you think the she had in mind - but it was not until a few weeks later, one women's union a good thing? Wouldn't you like to see evening in the autumn of that year, that I found out who.

things changed - see the masters made to pay you more, and I had begun, as I have said, to accompany Florence on her work you kinder?' Mrs Fryer rubbed her eyes.

visits for the Guild, and on this night I found myself in the 439

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They would drop me, miss, that's all, and find a gal to do it pick up her youngest child, who had begun to cry. I reached cheaper. There are plenty of 'em - plenty gals what envy me into the pocket of my coat. There was a shilling there, and a even my poor few shillings . . .'

penny, left over from a marketing trip: I took them out and The discussion went on, until at last the woman grew placed them on the table amongst the fancy shirts and fidgety, and said she thanked us, but couldn't spare the time hankies, slyly as a thief.

to hear us any longer. Florence shrugged. Think on it a bit, Mrs Fryer, however, saw, and shook her head.

won't you? I've told you when the meeting is. Bring your

'Oh, now, miss . . .' she said.

babies if you like - we'll find someone to take care of 'em

'For the baby.' I felt more self-conscious and ill than ever.

for an hour or two.' We rose; I looked again at the table, at

'Just for the little one. Please.' The woman ducked her head, the pile of reels and garments. There was a waistcoat, a set and murmured her thanks; and I did not look at her, or of handkerchiefs, some gentlemen's linen -I found myself Florence, until we were both of us out on the street again, drifting towards it all, with fingers that itched to pick the and the dismal room was far behind.

garments up and stroke them. I caught the woman's eye,

'That was kind of you,' said Florence at last. It wasn't kind and nodded at the table-top.

at all; I felt as if I had slapped the woman, not given her a I said, 'What is it you do exactly, Mrs Fryer? Some of these gift. But I didn't know how to tell any of this to Florence.

look very fine.'

'You shouldn't have done it, of course,' she was saying.

'I'm an embroid'rer, miss,' she answered. 'I does the fancy

'Now she will think the Guild is made of women who are letters.' She lifted a shirt, and showed me its pocket: there better than her, not women just like herself, trying to help was a flowery monogram upon it, sewn very neatly in ivory themselves.'

silk. 'It looks a bit queer, don't it,' she went on sadly, 'seeing

'You're not much like her,' I said - a little stung, despite all these scraps of handsomeness in this poor room . . .'

myself, by her remark. 'You think you are, but you're not,

'It does,' I said - but I could hardly get the words out. The not really.'

pretty monogram had reminded me suddenly of Felicity She sniffed. 'You're right, I suppose. I'm more like her, Place, and all the lovely suits that I had worn there. I saw however, than I might be. I'm more like her than some of again those tailored jackets and waistcoats and shirts, those the ladies you see working for the poor and the homeless tiny, extravagant N.K.s that I had thought so thrilling. I had and the out-of-work -'

not known then that they were sewn in rooms like this, by

'Ladies like Miss Derby,' I said.

women as sad as Mrs Fryer; but if I had, would I have She smiled. 'Yes, ladies like that. Miss Derby, your great cared? I knew that I would not, and felt now horribly friend.' She gave me a wink and took my arm; and because uncomfortable and ashamed. Florence had stepped to the it was pleasant to see her so light-hearted I began to forget door, and stood there, waiting for me; Mrs Fryer had bent to the little shock that I had had in the seamstress's parlour, 441

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and to grow gay again. Arm-in-arm we made our slow way, I gazed at all this in a complacent sort of way, then yawned, through the sinking autumn night, to Quilter Street, and and rose to fetch the kettle. 'Stop all that now,' I said to Florence yawned. 'Poor Mrs Fryer,' she said. 'She is quite Florence, nodding at her books. 'Come and sit with me and right: the women will never fight for shorter hours and talk.' It was not a strange request - we had got rather into minimum wages, while there are so many girls so poorly the habit of sitting up when Ralph had gone to bed, chatting off that they'll take any work, however miserable . . .'

over the day's events - and now she looked at me and I was not listening. I was watching the lamplight where, at smiled, and set down her pen.

the edges of her hat, it struck her hair and made it glow; and I swung the kettle over the fire, and Florence rose and wondering if a moth might ever come and settle amongst stretched - then cocked her head.

the curls, mistaking them for candle-flames.

'Cyril,' she said. I listened too, and after a second caught his We reached our home at last, and Florence hung her coat up thin, irregular cry. She moved to the stairs. Til shush him, and began to busy herself, as usual, with her pile of papers before he wakes Ralph.'

and books. I went quietly upstairs, to gaze at Cyril as he She was gone for a full five minutes or so, and when she slumbered in his crib; then I went and sat with Ralph, while returned it was with Cyril himself, his lashes gleaming in Florence worked on. It grew chilly, and I set a little fire in the lamplight and his hair damp and darkened with the the grate: 'The first of autumn,' as Ralph pointed out; and sweat of fretful slumber.

his words - and the idea that I had been at Quilter Street for

'He won't settle," she said. Til let him stay with us a while.'

the turning of three whole seasons - were strangely moving She sat back in the armchair by the fire and the child lay ones. I lifted my eyes to him, and smiled. His whiskers had heavily against her. I passed her her tea, and she took a grown, and he looked more than ever like the sailor on the sideways sip at it, and yawned. Then she gazed at me, and Players' packets. He looked more than ever like his sister, rubbed her eyes.

too, and the likeness made me like him all the more, and

'What a help you've been to me, Nance, these past few wonder how I had ever mistaken him for her husband.

months!' she said.

The fire flamed, then grew hot and ashy, and at half-past

'I only help,' I answered truthfully, 'to stop you wearing ten or so Ralph yawned, and slapped his chair and rose yourself out. You do too much.'

from it and wished us both good-night. It was all just as it

'There's so much to do!'

had been on my first evening there - except that he had a

'I can't believe that all of it should fall to you, though. Do kiss for me, too, these days, as well as for Florence; and you never weary of it?'