Tipping the Velvet (9 page)

track at the Derby to me, so deafening and dizzying was the I did not wonder for long, I am afraid to say, for the thrill of clatter of the traffic, so swift the passage of the horses. I felt being with Kitty - of hearing her talk again of the rooms we safer in the carriage, and only rather queer, to be so close to were to share, and the kind of life we were to have together a gentleman I did not know, being transported I knew not in the city, where she was to make her fortune - soon where, in a city that was vaster and smokier and more overcame my grief. My family would have thought me alarming than I could have thought possible.

cruel, I know, to see me laugh while they were sad at home There was much, of course, to look at. Mr Bliss had without me; but oh! I could no more not have smiled, that suggested we take in the sights a little before we headed for afternoon, than not drawn breath, or sweated.

Brixton, so now we rolled into Trafalgar Square - towards 69

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Nelson on his pillar, and the fountains, and the lovely, took a turn before the footlights - as 'Walter Waters, bone-coloured front of the National Gallery, and the view Character Baritone' - for sheer love of the profession. I down Whitehall to the Houses of Parliament.

knew none of this that day in the brougham - but I began to

'My brother,' I said, as I pressed my face to the window to guess a little of it. For we had reached Pall Mall and turned gaze at it all, 'said I would be run down by a tram in into the Haymarket, where the theatres and the music halls Trafalgar Square, if ever I came to London.'

begin; and as we rumbled past them he raised his hand and Mr Bliss looked grave. 'Your brother was very sensible to tilted the brim of his hat in a kind of salute. I have seen old warn you, Miss Astley - but sadly misinformed. There are Irishwomen, passing before a church, do something similar.

no trams in Trafalgar Square - only buses and hansoms, and

'Her Majesty's,' he said, nodding to a handsome building on broughams like our own. Trams are for common people; his left: 'my father saw Jenny Lind, the Swedish you should have to go quite as far as Kilburn, I'm afraid, or Nightingale, make her debut there. The Haymarket: Camden Town, in order to be struck by a tram.'

managed by Mr Beerbohm Tree. The Criterion, or Cri: a I smiled uncertainly. I did not know, quite, what to make of marvel of a theatre, built entirely underground.' Theatre Mr Bliss, to whom my future and my happiness had been so upon theatre, hall upon hall; and he knew all their histories.

recently, and so unexpectedly, entrusted. While he

'Ahead of us, the London Pavilion. Down there' - we addressed himself to Kitty, and directed our attention every squinted along Great Windmill Street - 'the Trocadero so often to some scene or character in the street beyond, I Palace. On our right, the Prince's Theatre.' We passed into studied him. He was a little younger, I saw, than I had taken Leicester Square; he took a breath. 'And finally," he said -

him to be at first. That night in Kitty's dressing-room I had and here he removed his hat entirely, and held it in his lap -

thought him almost middle-aged; now I guessed him to be

'finally, the Empire and the Alhambra, the handsomest one- or two-and-thirty, at the most. He was an impressive, music halls in England, where every artiste is a star, and the rather than a handsome, man, but for all his flash and his audience is so distinguished that even the gay girls in the speeches, rather homely: I thought he must have a little gallery - if you'll pardon my French, Miss Butler, Miss wife who loved him, and a baby; and that if he did not -

Astley - wear furs, and pearls, and diamonds.'

which, in fact, was the case - that he should have. I knew He tapped on the ceiling of the brougham, and the driver nothing, then, of his history, but learned later that he came drew to a halt at a corner of the little garden in the middle from an old, respectable, theatrical family (his real name of the square. Mr Bliss opened the carriage door, and led us was no more Bliss, of course, than Kitty's was Butler); that to its centre. Here, with William Shakespeare on his marble he had left the legitimate stage when he was still a young pedestal at our backs, we gazed, all three of us, at the man, in order to work the halls as a comic singer; and that glorious fagades of the Empire and the Alhambra - the he managed, now, a dozen artistes, but still, on occasion, former with its columns and its glinting cressets, its stained 71

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glass and its soft electric glow; the latter with its dome, its or next month, perhaps, but soon, soon, I promise you - you minarets and fountain. I had not known there were theatres will stand within it, your feet upon its stage. Then it will be like this in the world. I had not known that there was such a you that sets the heart of London racing! You that makes place as this, at all - this place that was so squalid and so the throats of the city shout, "Brava!"'

splendid, so ugly and so grand, where every imaginable As he spoke he lifted his hat, and punched the air with it; manner of person stood, or strolled, or lounged, side by one or two passers-by turned their faces towards us, then side.

looked away quite unconcerned. His words, I thought, were There were ladies and gentlemen, stepping from carriages.

marvellous ones - and I knew Kitty thought so, too, for she There were girls with trays of flowers and fruit; and coffee-gripped my hand at the sound of them, and gave a little sellers, and sherbet-sellers, and soup-men.

shudder of delight; and her cheeks were flushed, as mine There were soldiers in scarlet jackets; there were off-duty were, and her eyes, like mine, were shining and wide.

shop-boys in bowlers and boaters and checks. There were We didn't linger very long in Leicester Square after that. Mr women in shawls, and women in neck-ties; and women in Bliss hailed a boy, and gave him a shilling to fetch us three short skirts, showing their ankles.

foaming glasses from the sherbet-seller, and we sat for a There were black men, and Chinamen, and Italians and minute in Shakespeare's shadow, sipping our drinks and Greeks. There were newcomers to the city, gazing about gazing at the people who passed us by, and at the notices them as dazed and confounded as I; and there were people outside the Empire, where Kitty's name, we knew, would curled on steps and benches, people in clothes that were soon be pasted in letters three feet high. But when our crumpled or stained, who looked as if they spent all their glasses were empty, he slapped his hands together and said daylit hours here - and all their dark ones, too.

we must be off, for Brixton and Mrs Dendy - our new I gazed at Kitty, and my face, I suppose, showed my landlady - awaited; and he led us back to the brougham and amazement, for she laughed, and stroked my cheek, then handed us to our seats. I felt my eyes, that had been so wide seized my hand and held it.

and dazzled, grow small again in the gloom of the coach,

'We are at the heart of London,' said Mr Bliss as she did so, and I began to feel, not thrilled, but rather nervous. I

'the very heart of it. Over there' - he nodded to the wondered what kind of lodgings he had found for us, and Alhambra -'and all around us' - and here he swept his hand what kind of lady Mrs Dendy would be. I hoped that neither across the square itself - 'you see what makes that great would be very grand.

heart beat: Variety! Variety, Miss Astley, which age cannot I need not have worried. Once we had left the West End wither, nor custom stale.' Now he turned to Kitty. 'We and crossed the river, the streets grew greyer and quite dull.

stand,' he said, 'before the greatest Temple of Variety in all The houses and the people here were smart, but rather the land. Tomorrow, Miss Butler - tomorrow, or next week, uniform, as if all Grafted by the same unimaginative hand: 73

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there was none of that strange glamour, that lovely, queer Inside, too, the house was rather cheerier. We were met at variety of Leicester Square. Soon, too, the streets ceased the door by Mrs Dendy herself - a white-haired, rather even to be smart, and became a little shabby; each corner portly lady, who greeted Mr Bliss like a friend, calling him that we passed, each public house, each row of shops and

'Wal', and offering him her cheek to kiss - and shown into houses, seemed dingier than the one before. Beside me, her parlour. Here she had us sit and remove our hats, and Kitty and Mr Bliss had fallen into conversation; their talk bade us make ourselves quite cosy; and a girl was called, was all of theatres and contracts, costumes and songs. I kept then swiftly dispatched to bring some cups and brew some my face pressed to the window, wondering when we should tea on our behalf.

ever leave behind these dreary districts and reach When the door was closed behind her Mrs Dendy gave us a Greasepaint Avenue, our home.

smile. 'Welcome, my dears,' she said - she had a voice as At last, when we had turned into a street of tall, flat-roofed damp and fruity as a piece of Christmas cake — 'Welcome houses, each with a line of blistered railings before it and a to Ginevra Road. I do hope that your stay with me will be a set of sooty blinds and curtains at its windows, Mr Bliss happy, and a lucky one.' Here she nodded to Kitty. 'Mr broke off his talk to peer outside and say that we were Bliss tells me that I'm to have quite a little star twinkling almost there. I had to look away from his kind and smiling beneath my eaves, Miss Butler.'

face, then, to hide my disappointment. I knew that my first, Kitty said modestly that she didn't know about that, and excited vision of Brixton - that row of golden make-up Mrs Dendy gave a chuckle that turned into a throaty cough.

sticks, our house with the carmine-coloured roof - was a For a long moment the cough seemed to quite convulse her, foolish one; but this street looked so very grey and mean. It and Kitty and I sat up, exchanging glances of alarm and was no different really, I suppose, from the ordinary roads dismay. When the fit was passed, however, the lady seemed that I had left behind in Whitstable; it was only strange -

just as calm and jolly as before. She drew a handkerchief but therefore slightly sinister. As we stepped from the from her sleeve, and wiped her lips and eyes with it; then carriage I glanced at Kitty to see if she, too, felt any she reached for a packet of Woodbines from the table at her stirrings of dismay. But her colour was as high, and her elbow, offered us each a cigarette, and took one for herself.

eyes as damp and shining, as before; she only gazed at the Her fingers, I saw then, were quite yellow with tobacco house to which our chaperon now led us, and gave a little, stains.

tight-lipped smile of satisfaction. I understood, suddenly -

After a moment the tea things appeared, and while Kitty what I had only half perceived before - that she had spent and Mrs Dendy busied themselves with the tray I looked her life in plain, anonymous houses like this one, and knew about me. There was much to look at, for Mrs Dendy's no better. The thought gave me a little courage - and made parlour was rather extraordinary. Its rugs and furniture were me ache, as usual, with sympathy and love.

plain enough; its walls, however, were wonderful, for every 75

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one of them was crowded with pictures and photographs -

'I dare say you would like to see your rooms, and give your so crowded, indeed, that there was barely enough space faces a bit of a splash,' she said pleasantly. She turned to Mr between the frames to make out the colour of the wallpaper Bliss who had risen politely, when she had. 'Now, if you beneath.

could just apply your obliging arm to the young ladies'

'I can see you are quite taken with my little collection,' said boxes and things, Wal. . .' Then she led us from the parlour, Mrs Dendy as she handed me my tea-cup, and I blushed to and up the stairs. We climbed for three flights, the stairwell find all eyes suddenly turned my way. She gave me a smile, growing dimmer as we ascended, then lightening: the last and lifted her yellowed fingers to fiddle with the crystal set of steps were slim and uncarpeted, and had a little drop that hung, on a brass thread, from the hole in her ear.

skylight above them, a quartered pane streaked with soot

'All old tenants of mine, my dear,' she said; 'and some of and pigeon-droppings, through which the blue of the them, as you will see, rather famous.'

September sky showed unexpectedly vivid and clear - as if I looked at the pictures again. They were all, I now saw, the sky itself were a ceiling, and, climbing, we had come portraits - signed portraits most of them - of artistes from nearer to it.

the theatres and the halls. There were, as Mrs Dendy had At the top of these steps there was a door, and behind this a claimed, several faces that I knew - the Great Vance, for very small room - not a bed-sitting room as I had expected, instance, had his photograph upon the chimney-breast, with but a tiny parlour with a pair of ancient, sagging armchairs Jolly John Nash, posed as 'Rackity Jack', at his side; and set before a hearth, and a shallow, old-fashioned dresser.

above the sofa there was a framed song-sheet with a Beside the dresser was another door, leading to a second sprawling, uneven dedication: 'To Dear Ma Dendy. Kind chamber which a sloping roof made even smaller than the thoughts, Good wishes. Bessie Bell wood'. But there were first. Kitty and I stepped to its threshold and stood, side by many more that I did not recognise, men and women with side, gazing at what lay beyond: a wash-hand stand; a lyre-laughing faces, in gay, professional poses, and with backed chair; an alcove with a curtain before it; and a bed -

costumes and names so bland, exotic or obscure - Jennie a bed with a high, thick mattress and an iron bedstead, and West, Captain Largo, Shinkaboo Lee -I could guess nothing beneath it a chamberpot - a bed rather narrower than the about the nature of their turns. I marvelled to think that they one I was used to sharing with my sister at home.

had all stayed here, in Ginevra Road, with comely Mrs

'You won't mind doubling up, of course,' said Mrs Dendy, Dendy as their host.

who had followed us to the bedroom. 'You'll be quite on top We talked until the tea was drunk, and our landlady had of each other in here, I'm afraid - though not so tight as my smoked two or three more cigarettes; then she slapped her boys downstairs, who only have the one room. But Mr Bliss knees and got slowly to her feet.