Tipping the Velvet (62 page)

prettiest of boys: she looked, as the girl she had sent to me

'Why don't you go to her?' I heard Florence say coldly. 'I had said, like a lady.

daresay she has come to ask you back to St John's Wood.

As I studied her, so she gazed at me. At last she said, 'You You shall never have to think of socialism again, there ..."

seem very different, to when I saw you last..."

I turned to her; and when she saw how pale my cheeks I shrugged. 'Of course. I was nineteen then. I'm twenty-five, were, her expression changed.

now.'

'It's not Diana,' I whispered. 'Oh, Flo! It's not Diana -'

Twenty-five in two weeks' time,' she answered; and her lip It was Kitty.

trembled a little. 'I remembered that, you see.'

I stood for a moment quite dumbfounded. I had seen two I felt myself blush, and could not answer her. She gazed old lovers already today; and here was the third of them -

past me, into the tent. 'You can imagine my surprise,' she 529

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said then, 'when I looked in there just now, and saw you She shrugged. 'Walter was disappointed. We have quite lecturing from the stage. I never thought you'd end up on a forgotten it now, however. It only means that I am not quite platform in a tent, speaking on workers' rights!'

so strong as I once was . . .'

'Neither did I,' I said. Then I smiled, and so did she. 'Why We fell silent. I looked for a second into the crowd, then are you here, at all?' I asked her then.

back at Kitty. She had coloured. Now she said: 'Nan, Bill

'I'm in rooms at Bow. Everyone has been saying all week, told me, when he met you that time, that you were dressed -

that I must come to the park on Sunday, since there was to well, as a boy.'

be such a marvellous thing in it.'

That's right. I was. Quite as a boy.' She laughed and

'Have they?'

frowned at once, not understanding.

'Oh, yes!'

'He said, too, that you were living with a - with a -' 'With a

'And - are you here quite alone, then?'

lady. I was.'

She glanced quickly away. 'Yes. Walter's in Liverpool just She blushed still harder. 'And - are you with her still?' 'No, I now. He has gone back to managing: he has shares in a hall

-I live with a girl now, in Bethnal Green.' 'Oh!'

up there, and has rented a house for us. I'm to join him I hesitated - but then I did what I had done with Zena, two when the house is ready.'

hours before. I moved slightly into the shadow of the tent,

'And you're still working the halls?'

and Kitty followed. That's her over there,' I said, nodding

'Not so much. We ... we had an act together -'

towards the seats before the platform. The girl with the little

'I know,' I said. 'I saw you. At the Middlesex.' Her eyes boy.'

widened. The time that you met Billy-Boy? Oh, Nan, if I Annie and Miss Raymond had moved away, and Florence had only known that you were watching! When Bill came sat alone now. As I gestured to her she looked over at me, back and said he'd seen you -' 'I couldn't look at you for then gazed gravely at Kitty. Kitty herself gave another little long,' I said. 'Were we so bad as that, then?' She smiled, but

'Oh,' and then a nervous smile. 'It's Flo,' I said, 'who's the I shook my head: 'It wasn't that..." Her smile grew fainter.

socialist, and who has got me into all this ..." As I spoke, I said, after a moment: 'So you don't work so much? How's Florence took off her hat: immediately, Cyril began pulling that?'

at the pins that fixed her hair, and twisting the curls about

'Well, Walter is kept busy with the managing now. And his fingers. His tugs made her redden. I watched her for a then - well, we kept it quiet, but I was rather ill.' She little longer, then saw her look again at Kitty; and when I hesitated. 'I was to have a child ..."

turned to Kitty herself I found that her eyes were upon me The thought was horrible to me, in every way. 'I'm sorry,' I and her expression was rather strange.

said.

'I cannot stop myself from gazing at you,' she said, with an uncertain smile. 'When you ran off, I was sure, at first, that 531

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you'd be back. Where did you go? What did you do? We that I would be a star. Because, of course, I did not ever tried so hard to find you. And then, when there was no think that I would really, really lose you . . .' She hesitated.

word of you, I was sure that I would never see you again. I Outside the tent the bustle of the day went on: children ran thought - oh Nan, I thought that you had harmed yourself.'

shrieking; stall-holders called and argued; flags and I swallowed. 'You harmed me, Kitty. It was you that pamphlets fluttered in the May breezes. She took a breath.

harmed me.'

She said: 'Nan, come back to me.'

'I know it, now. Do you think I don't know it? I feel Come back to me ... One part of me reached out to her at ashamed to even talk to you. I am so sorry, for what once, leapt to her like a pin to a magnet; I believe the very happened.'

same part of me would leap to her again - would go on

'You needn't be sorry now,' I said awkwardly. But she went leaping to her, if she went on asking me, for ever.

on as if she had not heard me: that she was so very sorry; Then another part of me remembered, and remembers still.

that what she had done had been so very wrong. That she

'Come back to you?' I said. 'With you, still Walter's wife?'

was sorry, so sorry . . .

'All that means nothing,' she said quickly. 'There's nothing -

At last, I shook my head. 'Oh!' I said. 'What does all that like that - between him and me now. If we were only a little matter now? It matters nothing!'

careful..."

'Doesn't it?' she said. I felt my heart begin to hammer.

'Careful!' I said: the word had made me flinch. 'Careful!

When I did not answer, only continued to stare at her, she Careful! That's all I ever had from you. We were so careful, took a step towards me and began to talk, very fast and low.

we might as well have been dead!' I shook myself free of

'Oh Nan, so many times I thought about finding you, and her. 'I have a new girl now, who's not ashamed to be my planned what I would say When I did. I cannot leave you sweetheart.' But Kitty came close, and seized my arm again.

now without saying it!'

That girl with the baby?' she said, nodding back into the

'I don't want to hear it,' I said in sudden terror; I believe I tent. 'You don't love her, I can see it in your face. Not as even put my hands to my ears, to try to block out the sound you loved me. Don't you remember how it was? You were of her murmurs. But she caught at my arm and talked on, mine, before anyone's; you belong with me. You don't into my face.

belong with her and her sort, talking all this foolish political

'You must hear it! You must know. You mustn't think that I stuff. Look at your clothes, how plain and cheap they are!

did what I did easily, or thoughtlessly. You mustn't think it Look at these people all about us: you left Whitstable to get did not - break my heart.'

away from people such as this!'

'Why did you do it, then?'

I gazed at her for a second in a kind of stupor; then I did as

'Because I was a fool! Because I thought my life upon the she urged me, and glanced about the tent - at Annie and stage was dearer to me than anything. Because I thought Miss Raymond; at Ralph, who was still blinking and 533

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blushing into Mrs Costello's face; at Nora and Ruth, who She swallowed, then stepped towards me again and said in stood beside the platform with some other girls I recognised a lower, chastened tone: 'Nancy, then. Listen to me: I still from the Boy in the Boat, hi a chair at the far side of the have all your things. All the things you left at Stamford tent -I had not noticed her before – sat Zena, her arm looped Hill.'

through that of her broad-shouldered sweetheart; close to

'I don't want them,' I said at once. 'Keep them, or throw 'em them stood a couple of Ralph's union friends - they nodded away: I don't care.'

when they saw me looking, and raised a glass. And in the

'There are letters, from your family! Your father came to midst of them all, sat Florence. Her head was still bent to London, looking for you. Even now, they send me letters, where Cyril clutched at it: he had tugged her hair down to asking if I have heard ..."

her shoulder, and she had raised her hands to pull his My father! I had had a vision, on seeing Diana, of myself fingers free. She was flushed and smiling; but even as she upon a silken bed. Now, more vividly, I saw my father, in smiled, she lifted her eyes to mine, and I saw tears in them -

the apron that fell to his boots; I saw my mother, and my perhaps, only from Cyril's grasping - and, behind the tears, brother, and Alice. I saw the sea. My eyes began to smart, a kind of bleakness, that I did not think I'd ever seen in as if there was salt in them.

them before.

'You can send me the letters,' I said thickly: I thought, I'll I could not meet her smile with one of my own. But when I write, and tell them of Florence. And if they don't care for it turned again to Kitty, my gaze was level; and my voice,

-well, at least they'll know that I'm safe, and happy . . .

when I spoke, was perfectly steady.

Now Kitty came nearer, and lowered her voice still further.

'You're wrong,' I said. 'I belong here, now: these are my There's the money, too,' she said. 'We have kept it all. Nan, people. And as for Florence, my sweetheart, I love her more there's almost seven hundred pounds of yours!'

than I can say; and I never realised it, until this moment.'

I shook my head: I had forgotten about the money. 'I have She let go of my arm and stepped away as if she had been nothing to spend it on,' I said simply. But even as I said it, I struck. 'You are saying these things to spite me,' she said remembered Zena, whom I had robbed; and I thought again breathlessly, 'because you are still hurt -'

of Florence - I imagined her dropping seven hundred I shook my head. 'I'm saying these things because they're pounds into the charity boxes of East London, coin by coin.

true. Good-bye, Kitty.'

Would that make her love me, more than Lilian?

'Nan!' she cried, as I made to move away from her. I turned

'You can send me the money, too,' I said to Kitty at last; back.

and I told her my address, and she nodded, and said she'd

'Don't call me that,' I said pettishly. 'No one calls me that remember.

now. It ain't my name, and never was.'

We gazed at one another then. Her lips were damp and slightly parted; and she had paled, so that her freckles 535

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showed. Involuntarily I thought back to that night at the before her in her clasped, gloved ringers, her veiled head Canterbury Palace, when I had met her first and learned I weaving a little as she tried to pick me out. I don't believe loved her, and she had kissed my hand, and called me she saw me, but she must have guessed that I was watching,

'Mermaid', and thought of me as she should not have.

for after a minute she gave a kind of nod in my direction -

Perhaps the same memory had occurred to her, for now she the slightest, saddest, ghostliest of footlight bows. Then she said, 'Is this how it's to end up, then? Won't you let me see turned; and soon I lost her to the crowd.

you again; you might come and visit -'

I turned then, too, and headed back into the tent. I saw Zena I shook my head. 'Look at me,' I said. 'Look at my hair.

first, making her way out into the sunshine, and then Ralph What would your neighbours say, if I came visiting you?

and Mrs Costello, walking very slowly side by side. I didn't You'd be too afraid to walk upon the street with me, in case stop to speak to them; I only smiled, and stepped some feller called out!'

purposefully towards the row of chairs in which I had left She blushed, and her lashes fluttered. 'You have changed,'

Florence.

she said again; and I answered, simply: 'Yes, Kitty, I have.'

But when I reached it, Florence was not there. And when I She raised her hands to lower her veil. 'Good-bye,' she said.

looked around, I could not see her anywhere.

I nodded. She turned away; and as I stood and watched her,

'Annie,' I called - for she and Miss Raymond had drifted I found that I was aching slightly, as from a thousand over to join the group of toms beside the platform - 'Annie, fading bruises . . .

where's Flo?'

I cannot let you go, I thought, so easily as that! While she Annie gazed about the tent, then shrugged. 'She was here a was still quite near I took a step into the sunshine, and minute ago,' she said. 'I didn't see her leave.' There was looked about me. Upon the grass beside the tent there was a only one exit from the tent; she must have passed me while kind of wreath or bower — part of some display that had I was gazing after Kitty, too preoccupied to notice her . . .

come loose and been discarded. There were roses on it: I I felt my heart give a lurch: it seemed to me suddenly that if bent and plucked one, and called to a boy who was standing I didn't find Florence at once, I would lose her for ever. I idly by, handed the flower to him and gave him a penny, ran from the tent into the field, and gazed wildly about me.

and told him what I wanted. Then I moved back into the I recognised Mrs Macey in the crowd, and stepped up to shadows of the tent, behind the wall of sloping canvas, and her. Had she seen Florence? She had not. I saw Mrs Fryer watched. The boy ran up to Kitty; I saw her turn at his cry, again: had she seen Florence? She thought perhaps she had then stoop to hear his message. He held the rose to her, and spotted her a moment before, heading off, with the little pointed back to where I stood, concealed. She turned her boy, towards Bethnal Green . . .

face towards me, then took the flower; he raced off at once I didn't stop to thank her, but hurried away - shouldering to spend his coin, but she stood quite still, the rose held my way through the crush of people, stumbling and cursing 537