Tipping the Velvet (7 page)

I had not been aware of it, but I had spoken softly, and the Father shook his head, chewing. 'Not at all, Miss Butler, not others had quietened to listen. Now the table was hushed at all. Don't let the beards mislead you. For the oyster, you and still. When I took my eyes from Kitty's I saw a ring of see, is what you might call a real queer fish - now a he, now faces turned my way, and blushed.

a she, as quite takes its fancy. A regular morphodite, in At last, someone spoke. It was Father, and his voice was fact!'

very loud. 'No bolting him down whole now, Miss Butler,'

'Is that so?'

he said, 'like the gormays do. We won't have that at this Tony tapped his plate. 'You're a bit of an oyster, then, table. You go on and give him a real good chew.' He said it yourself, Kitty,' he said with a smirk.

kindly, and Kitty laughed. She peered into the shell in her She looked for a moment rather uncertain, but then she hand. 'And is it really alive?’ she said.

smiled. 'Why, I suppose I am,' she said. 'Just fancy! I've

'Alive alive-oh,' said Davy. 'If you listen very hard, you will never been likened to a fish before.'

hear him shrieking as he goes down.'

'Well, don't take it the wrong way, Miss Butler,' said There were protests at that from Rhoda and Alice. 'You will Mother, 'for spoken in this house, it is something of a make the poor girl sick,' said Mother. 'Don't you mind him, compliment.'

Miss Butler. You just eat your fish, and enjoy it.'

Tony laughed, and Father said, 'Oh, it was, it was!'

Kitty did so. With no more glances at me she threw the Kitty still smiled. Then she half-rose to reach a pepper contents of her shell into her mouth, chewed them hard and castor; and when she sat again she drew her feet beneath fast, and swallowed them. Then she wiped her lips with her her chair, and I felt my thigh grow cool.

napkin, and smiled at Father.

When the oyster-barrel was quite empty, and the lemonade

'Now,' he said, confidentially, 'tell the truth: have you ever and the Bass had all been drunk, and Kitty declared that she tasted an oyster such as that, before, or have you not?'

had never had a finer supper in all her life, we moved our Kitty said that she had not, and Davy gave a cheer; and for chairs away from the table, and the men lit cigarettes, and a while there was no sound at all but the delicate, Alice and Rhoda set out cups, for tea. There was more talk, diminutive sounds of good oyster-supper: the creak of and more questions for Kitty to answer. Had she ever met hinges, the slap of discarded beards, the trickle of liquor Nelly Power? Did she know Bessie Bellwood, or Jenny and butter and beer.

Hill, or Jolly John Nash? Then, on another tack: was it true I opened no more shells for Kitty, for she managed them that she had no young chap? She said she had no time for it.

herself. 'Look at this one!' she said, when she had handled And had she family, in Kent, and when did she see them?

half-a-dozen or so. 'What a brute he is!' Then she looked She had none at all, she said, since her grandmother died.

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Mother tut-tutted over that, and said it was a shame; Davy who had just arrived. Then she whispered to George and to said she could help herself to some of our relations, if she me, and I fetched her a hat of Father's and a walking-cane, liked, for we had more than we knew what to do with.

and she sang us a couple of masher songs, and ended with

'Oh yes?' said Kitty.

the ballad with which she finished her set at the Palace,

'Yes,' said Davy. 'You must have heard the song: about the sweetheart and the rose.

'There's her uncle, and her brother, and her sister, and her We cheered her then, and she had her hand shaken, and her mother,

back slapped, ten times over. She looked very flushed and And her auntie, and another, who is cousin to her mother..."

hot at the end of it all, and rather tired. Davy said, 'How No sooner had he finished the verse, indeed, than there was about a song from you now, Nance?' I gave him a look.

the sound of our street-door opening, and a shout up the

'No,' I said. I wouldn't sing for them with Kitty there, for stairs; and three of our cousins themselves appeared, anything.

followed by Uncle Joe and Aunt Rosina - all got up in their Kitty looked at me curiously. 'Do you sing, then?' she said.

Sunday best, and all just popped in, they said, for a 'peek' at

'Nancy's got the prettiest voice, Miss Butler,' said one of the Miss Butler, if Miss Butler had no objection.

cousins, 'you ever heard.'

More chairs were brought up, and more cups; a fresh round

'Yes, go on, Nance, be a sport!' said another.

of introductions was made, and the little room grew stuffy

'No, no, no!' I cried again - so firmly that Mother frowned, with heat and smoke and laughter. Somebody said what a and the others laughed.

shame it was we had no piano for Miss Butler to give us a Uncle Joe said, 'Well, that's a shame, that is. You should song; then George - my eldest cousin - said, 'Would a hear her in the kitchen, Miss Butler. She's a regular song-harmonica serve the purpose?' and produced one from his bird, she is, then: a regular lark. Makes your heart turn over, jacket pocket. Kitty blushed, and said she couldn't; and to hear her.' There were murmurs of agreement throughout everyone cried, 'Oh please, Miss Butler, do!'

the room, and I saw Kitty look blinkingly my way. Then

'What do you think, Nan,' she said to me, 'should I shame George whispered rather loudly that I must be saving my myself?'

voice for serenading Freddy, and there was a fresh round of

'You know you won't,' I said, pleased that she had turned to laughter that set me gazing and blushing into my lap. Kitty me at the last, and used my special name before them all.

looked bemused.

'Very well, then,' she said. A little space was cleared for She asked then, 'Who is Freddy?'

her, and Rlioda ran down to her house, to fetch her sisters

'Freddy is Nancy's young feller,' said Davy. 'A very to come and watch.

handsome chap. She must've boasted about him to you?'

She sang The Boy I Love is Up in the Gallery', and The

'No,' said Kitty, 'she has not.' She said it lightly, but I Coffee Shop Girl' - then The Boy' again for Rhoda's sisters, glanced up and saw that her eyes were strange, and almost 55

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sad. It was true that I had never mentioned Fred to her. The My jug and bowl were on the side. I poured a little water fact was, I barely thought of him as my beau these days, for out and carried it to her, for her to wash her hands and since her arrival in Canterbury I had had no evenings spare splash her face. The water spotted her dress, and dampened to spend with him. He had recently sent me a letter to say, the fringe of her hair into dark little points.

did I still care? — and I had put the letter in a drawer, and She had a purse swinging at her waist, and now she dipped forgotten to reply.

her fingers into it and drew out a cigarette and a box of There was more chaff about Freddy, then; I was glad when matches. She said, 'I am sure your mother would one of Rhoda's sisters caused a fuss, by snatching the disapprove, but I'm just about busting for a smoke.' She lit harmonica from George and giving us a tune so horrible it the cigarette, and drew upon it heavily.

made the boys all shout at her, and pull her hair, to make We gazed at one another not speaking. Then, because we her stop.

were weary and there was no where else for us to sit, we sat While they quarrelled and swore, Kitty leaned towards me upon the bed, side by side, and quite close. It was terribly and said softly, 'Will you take me to your room, Nan, or strange to be with her in the very room - on the very spot! -

somewhere quiet, for a bit - just you and me?' She looked where I had spent so many hours dreaming of her, so so grave suddenly I feared that she might faint. I got up, immodestly. I said, 'It ain't half strange -' But as I said it she and made a path for her across the crowded room, and told also spoke; and we laughed. 'You first,' she said, and drew my mother I was taking her upstairs; and Mother - who was again upon her fag.

gazing trou-bledly at Rhoda's sister, not knowing whether

'I was just going to say, how funny it is to have you here, to laugh at her or to scold - gave us a nod, distractedly, and like this.'

we escaped.

'And I,' she said, 'was going to say how funny it is to be The bedroom was cooler than the parlour, and dimmer, and here! And this is really your room, yours and Alice's? And

— although we could still hear shouts, and stamping, and your bed?' She looked about her, as if in wonder - as if I blasts from the harmonica - wonderfully calm compared to might have taken her to a stranger's chamber, and be trying the room we had just left. The window was raised, and to pass it off as my own - and I nodded.

Kitty crossed to it at once and placed her arms upon the sill.

She was silent again, then, and so was I; and yet I sensed Closing her eyes against the breeze that blew in from the that she had more to say, and was only working up to bay, she took a few deep, grateful breaths.

saying it. I thought, with a little thrill, that I knew what it

'Are you poorly?' I said. She turned to me and shook her was; but when she spoke again it wasn't about the contract, head, and smiled; but again, her smile seemed sad.

but about my family -about how kind they were, and how

'Just tired.'

much they loved me, and how lucky I was to have them. I remembered that she was an orphan, of sorts, and bit back 57

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my protests, and let her talk; but my silence seemed only to

'London!' I could only echo her in disbelief. This was dampen her spirits the further.

terrible beyond all words. Had she gone to Margate or At last, when her cigarette was finished and thrown into the Broadstairs, I might have visited her sometimes. If she went grate, she took a breath and said what I had been waiting to London I would never see her again; she might just as for. 'Nan, I have something to tell you - a piece of good well go to Africa, or to the moon.

news, and you must promise to be happy for me.'

She went talking on, saying how Mr Bliss had friends at the I couldn't help myself. I had been longing to smile about it London halls, and had promised her a season at them all; all afternoon, and now I laughed and said, 'Oh Kitty, I know how he had said she was too good for the provincial stage; your news already!' She seemed to frown then, so I went on that she would find fame in the city, where all the big quickly, 'You mustn't be cross with Tony, but he told me -

names worked, and all the money was ... I hardly listened, just today.'

but grew more and more miserable. At length I placed a

'Told you what?'

hand before my eyes, and bowed my head, and she grew

'That Tricky wants you to stay on, at the Palace; that you silent.

will be here till Christpas at least!'

'You're not happy for me, after all,' she said quietly.

She looked at me rather strangely, then lowered her gaze

'I am,' I said - my voice was thick - 'but I am more unhappy, and gave an awkward little laugh. 'That's not my news,' she for myself.'

said. 'And nobody knows it but me. Tricky does want me to There was a silence then, broken only by the sound of stay on - but I've turned him down.'

laughter and scraping chairs from the parlour below, and

'Turned him down?' I stared at her. Still she would not catch the shriek of gulls outside the open window. The room my eye, but got to her feet, and crossed her arms over her seemed to have darkened since we entered it, and I felt waist.

colder, suddenly, than I had all summer.

'Do you remember the gentleman who called on me last I heard her take a step. In a second she was sitting beside night,' she said,' - Mr Bliss?' I nodded. She hadn't me again, and had taken my hand from my brow. 'Listen,'

mentioned him today; and in all my fussing over her visit, I she said. 'I have something to ask you.' I looked at her; her had forgotten to ask after him. Now she went on: 'Mr Bliss face was pale, except for its cloud of freckles, and her eyes is a manager - not a theatre manager, like Tricky, but a seemed large. 'Do you think that I look handsome today?'

manager for artistes: an agent. He saw my turn and - oh, she said. 'Do you think I have been kind, and pleasant, and Nan!' - she couldn't help but be excited now - 'he saw my good? Do you think your parents like me?' Her words turn and liked it so much, he has offered me a contract, at a seemed wild. I did not speak, but only nodded wonderingly.

music hall in London!'

'I came,' she said, 'to make them. I wore my smartest frock, so they would think me grander than I am. I thought, they 59

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might be the meanest and most miserable family in all of

'It's the flower I gave you.' She took it from me, and held it.

Kent; yet I will work so hard at being nice, they'll trust me It was dry and limp, and its petals were brown at the edges like a daughter.

and coming loose; and it was rather flat, because I had slept

'But oh, Nan, they're not miserable or mean, and I didn't many nights with it beneath my pillow.

have to play at being nice at all! They are the kindest family

'When you threw this to me,' I said to her, 'my life changed.

I ever met; and you are all the world to them. I cannot I think I must have been - asleep - till that moment: asleep, ask'you to give them up . . .'

or dead. Since I met you, I've been awake - alive! Do you My heart seemed to stop - and then to pound, like a piston.

think I could give that up, now, so easily?'

'What do you mean?' I said. She looked away.

My words startled her - as well they might, for I had never

'I meant to ask you to come with me. To London.'

spoken like this before, to her or to anyone. She looked I blinked. 'To go with you? But how?'

away from me, about the room, and ran her tongue over her