Tipping the Velvet Read online

  She came about a half-hour later. I didn’t look at her or say her name, and she didn’t greet me, only moved very quietly about the room - assuming, I suppose, I was asleep, for I was lying very straight on my side and had my eyes hard shut. There was a little noise from the rest of the house - a laugh, and the closing of a door, and the rushing of water through distant pipes. But then all was calm again; and soon there were only the gentle sounds of her undressing: the tiny volley of thuds as she pulled at the buttons on her bodice; the rustle of her skirt, and then of her petticoat; the sighing of the laces through the eyes of her stays. At last there came the slap of her feet on the floorboards, and I guessed that she must be quite naked.

  I had turned the gas down, but left a candle burning for her. I knew that if I opened my eyes now, and tilted my face, I should see her clad in nothing but shadows and the candle-flame’s amber glow.

  But I did not turn; and soon there was another rustling, that meant she had pulled on her nightgown. In a moment the light was extinguished; the bed creaked and heaved; and she was lying beside me, very warm and horribly real.

  She sighed. I felt her breath upon my neck and knew that she was gazing at me. Her breath came a second time, and then a third, then: ‘Are you asleep?’ she whispered.

  ‘No,’ I said, for I could pretend no longer. I rolled on to my back. The movement brought us even closer together - it really was an extremely narrow bed - so I shifted, rather hurriedly, to my left, until I could not have shifted any further without falling out. Now her breath was upon my cheek, and warmer than before.

  She said, ‘Do you miss your home, and Alice?’ I shook my head. ‘Not just a little?’

  ‘Well...’

  I felt her smile. Very gently - but quite matter-of-factly - she moved her hand to my wrist, pulled my arm above the bedclothes, and ducked her head beneath it to place her temple against my collar-bone, my arm about her neck. The hand that dangled before her throat she squeezed, and held. Her cheek, against my shallow breast, felt hotter than a flat-iron.

  ‘How your heart beats!’ she said - and at that, of course, it beat faster. She sighed again - this time her mouth was at the opening of my nightgown, and I felt her breath upon the naked skin beneath - she sighed and said, ‘So many times I lay in that dull room at Mrs Pugh’s and thought of you and Alice in your little bed beside the sea. Was it just like this, being with her?’

  I didn’t answer her. I, too, was thinking back to that little bed. How hard it had been, having to lie next to slumbering Alice, my heart and my head all filled with Kitty. How much harder would it be to have Kitty herself beside me, so close and so unknowing! It would be a torture. I thought: I shall pack my trunk tomorrow. I shall get up very early and catch the first train back ...

  Kitty spoke on, not minding my silence. ‘You and Alice,’ she was saying again. ‘Do you know, Nan, how jealous I was ... ?’

  I swallowed. ‘Jealous?’ The word sounded terrible in the darkness.

  ‘Yes, I -’ She seemed to hesitate; then, ‘You see,’ she went on, ‘I never had a sister like other girls did...’ She let go of my hand, and placed her arm over my middle, curling her fingers around the hollow of my waist. ‘But we’re like sisters now, aren’t we Nan? You’ll be a sister to me - won’t you?’

  I patted her shoulder stiffly. Then I turned my face away - quite dazed, with mixed relief and disappointment. I said, ‘Oh yes, Kitty,’ and she squeezed me tighter.

  Then she slept, and her head and arm grew slack and heavy.

  I, however, lay awake - just as I had used to lie at Alice’s side. But now I did not dream; I only spoke to myself rather sternly.

  I knew that I would not, after all, pack my bags in the morning and bid Kitty farewell; I knew that, having come so far, I could not. But if I were to stay with her, then it must be as she said; I must learn to swallow my queer and inconvenient lusts, and call her ‘sister’. For to be Kitty’s sister was better than to be Kitty’s nothing, Kitty’s no one. And if my head and my heart - and the hot, squirming centre of me - cried out at the shame of it, then I must stifle them. I must learn to love Kitty as Kitty loved me; or never be able to love her at all.

  And that, I knew, would be terrible.

  Chapter 4

  The Star, when we reached it at noon the next day, turned out to be not a tenth as smart as those marvellous West End halls before which we had leaned, with Mr Bliss, to dream of Kitty’s triumph; even so, however, it was quite alarmingly handsome and grand. Its manager at this time was a Mr Ling; he met us at the stage door and took us to his office, to read aloud the terms of Kitty’s contract and secure her signature upon it; but then he rose and shook our hands and shouted for the call-boy, and had us shown, rather briskly, to the stage. Here, self-conscious and awkward, I waited while Kitty spoke with the conductor and ran through her songs with the band. Once a man approached me, with a broom on his shoulder, and asked me rather roughly who I was and what I did there.

  ‘I’m waiting for Miss Butler,’ I said, my voice as thin as a whistle.

  ‘Are you, then,’ he said. ‘Well, sweetheart, you’ll have to wait somewhere else, for I’ve to sweep this spot, and you are in my way. Go on, now.’ And I moved away, blushing horribly, and had to stand in a corridor while boys with baskets and ladders and pails of sand lumbered by me, looking me over, or cursing when I blocked their path.

  Our return visit, however, in the evening, was an easier one, for then we went straight to the dressing-room, where I knew my part a little better. Even so, when we entered the room I felt my spirits tumble rather, for it was nothing like the cosy little chamber at the Canterbury Palace, which Kitty had had all to herself, and which I was used to keeping so neat and nice. Instead it was dim and dusty, with benches and hooks for a dozen artistes, and one greasy sink that must be shared by all, and a door that must be propped shut or left to sag and let in every glance of every stage-hand and visitor that might be idling in the passageway beyond. We arrived late, and found most of the hooks already taken, and several of the benches occupied by girls and women in varying stages of undress. They looked up when we arrived, and smiled, most of them; and when Kitty took out her packet of Weights and a match, someone cried, ‘Thank God, a woman with a cigarette! Give us one, ducks, would you? I’m quite broke till pay-day.’

  Kitty was booked to appear, that night, a little way into the first half of the show. While I helped her with her collar and her neck-tie and her rose, I felt quite steady; but when we walked to the wing to wait for her number to go up, to gaze from the shadows at the unfamiliar theatre and its vast and careless crowd, I felt myself begin to tremble. I looked at Kitty. Her face was white beneath its layer of paint - though whether with fear, or with fierce ambition, I could not tell. With no other motive, I swear, than to comfort her - so mindful was I of that new resolve, to play her sister and nothing more - I took her hand, and pressed it.

  When the stage-manager finally gave her his nod, however, I had to turn my eyes away. There was no chairman at this hall to bring the crowd to order, and the act Kitty had to follow was a popular one - a comedian, who had been called back upon the stage four times, and who had had to plead with the audience, in the end, to let him make his exit. They had done so grudgingly; they were disappointed and distracted now when the orchestra struck up with the first bars of Kitty’s opening song. When Kitty herself stepped out into the glare of the footlights to wave her hat and call ‘Hallo!’, there was no answering roar from the gallery, only a half-hearted ripple of applause from the boxes and stalls - for the sake, I suppose, of her costume. When I forced my gaze at last into the hall I saw that the audience was restless - that people were on their feet, heading for the bar or the lavatory; that boys were perched upon the gallery rail with their backs to us; that girls were calling to friends three rows away, or gossiping with their neighbours, looking everywhere but at the stage, where Kitty - lovely, clever Kitty - sang and strode and sweated.

  But sl
owly, slowly, the mood of the theatre changed - not tremendously, but enough. When she finished her first song a man leaned from a balcony to shout, ‘Now bring Nibs back on!’ - meaning Nibs Fuller, the comedian whom Kitty had replaced. Kitty didn’t blink; while the band played the warm-up to her next number she raised her hat to the man and called, ‘Why, does he owe you money?’ The crowd laughed - and listened more carefully to her next song, and clapped more briskly when she finished it. When, a little later, another man tried to call for Nibs, he was shushed by his neighbours; and by the time Kitty got round to her ballad and her bit of business with the rose the hall was on her side, attentive and appreciative.

  From my station at the side of the stage I watched her in wonder. When she stepped into the wing, weary and flushed, and her place was taken by a comic singer, I put my hand upon her arm and pressed it hard. Then Mr Bliss appeared with Mr Ling the manager. They had been watching from the front, and looked very satisfied; the former took Kitty’s hand in both of his and shook it, crying, ‘A triumph, Miss Butler! A triumph, if ever I saw one.’

  Mr Ling was more restrained. He gave Kitty a nod, then said, ‘Well done, my dear. A difficult crowd, and you handled it admirably. Once the band has grasped the pacing of your business and your strolls - well, you will be splendid.’

  Kitty only frowned. I had brought a towel with me from the change-room, and this she now caught up, and pressed to her face. Then she took her jacket off, and handed it to me, and unfastened the bow-tie at her throat. ‘It wasn’t so good,’ she said at last, ‘as I might have wished it. There was no — fizz, no sparkle.’

  Mr Bliss gave a snort, then spread his hands. ‘My dear, your first night in the capital! A theatre larger than you have ever worked before! The crowd will come to know you, word will spread. You must be patient. Soon they will be buying tickets just for you!’ At that I saw the manager glance his way through narrowed eyes; but Kitty, at least, allowed herself to smile. ‘That’s better,’ said Mr Bliss then. ‘And now, if you’ll permit me, ladies, I believe a light little supper would be welcome. A light little supper - and, perhaps, a heavy large glass with some of that fizz in it, Miss Butler, that you seem so keen on.’

  The restaurant to which he took us was a theatre people’s one, not very far away, and filled with gentlemen in fancy waistcoats just like himself, and with girls and boys like Kitty, with streaks of greasepaint on their cuffs and crumbs of spit-black in the corners of their eyes. He seemed to have a friend at every table, every one of whom saluted him as he passed by; but he did not pause to chat with them, only waved his hat in general greeting, then led us to an empty booth and called to a waiter for a recitation of the bill of fare. When this was done, and we had made our choices, he beckoned the man a little closer and murmured something to him; the waiter withdrew, and returned a minute later with a champagne bottle, which Mr Bliss proceeded ostentatiously to uncork. At that, there was a cheering at the other tables; and a woman began to sing, amidst much laughter and applause, that she wouldn’t call for sherry, and she wouldn’t call for beer, and she wouldn’t call for cham because she knew ’twould make her queer ...

  I thought of the postcard I would write when I got home: ‘I have had supper in a theatrical restaurant. Kitty made her debut at the Star and they are calling it a triumph...’

  Meanwhile, Mr Bliss and Kitty chatted; and when next I concentrated on their talk I realised that it was rather serious.

  ‘Now,’ Mr Bliss was saying, ‘I am going to ask you to do something which, if I were any other kind of gentleman than a theatrical agent, I should be quite ashamed to. I am going to ask you to go about the city - and you must assist her, Miss Astley,’ he added when he saw me looking - ‘you must both of you go about the city and study the men!’

  I gazed at Kitty and blinked, and she smiled back uncertainly. ‘Study the men?’ she said.

  ‘Scrutinise ’em!’ said Mr Bliss, sawing at a piece of cutlet. ‘Catch their characters, their little habits, their mannerisms and gaits. What are their histories? What are their secrets? Have they ambitions? Have they hopes and dreams? Have they sweethearts they have lost? Or have they only aching feet, and empty bellies?’ He waved his fork. ‘You must know it; and you must copy them, and make your audience know it in their turn.’

  ‘Do you mean, then,’ I asked, not understanding, ‘to change Kitty’s act?’

  ‘I mean, Miss Astley, to broaden Kitty’s repertoire. Her masher is a very fine fellow; but she cannot walk the Burlington Arcade, in lavender gloves, for ever.’ He gazed at Kitty again, then wiped his mouth with a napkin and spoke in a more confiding tone. ‘What think you of a policeman’s jacket? Or a sailor’s blouse? What think you of peg-top trousers or a pearly coat?’ He turned to me. ‘Only imagine, Miss Astley, all the handsome gentlemen’s toggery that languishes, at this very minute, at the bottom of some costumier’s hamper, waiting, simply waiting, for Kitty Butler to step inside it and lend it life! Only think of all those more than handsome fabrics - those ivory worsteds, those rippling silks, those crimson velvets and scarlet shalloons; only hear the snip of the tailor’s scissors, the prick of the sempstress’s needle; only imagine her success, decked as a soldier, or a coster, or a prince ...’

  He paused at last, and Kitty smiled. ‘Mr Bliss,’ she said, ‘I do believe you could persuade a one-armed man into a juggling turn, the way you talk.’

  He laughed, and struck the table with his hand so that the cutlery rattled: it turned out that he had a one-armed juggler for a client, and was billing him - with great success - as ‘The Second Cinquevalli: Half the Capacity, Double the Skill!’

  And it was all quite as he promised and directed. He sent us to costumiers and tailors, and had Kitty decked out in a dozen different gentlemanly guises; and when the suits were made he sent us to photographers, to have her likeness taken as she held a policeman’s whistle to her lip, or shouldered a rifle or a sailor’s rope. He found songs to fit the costumes, and brought them round to Ginevra Road himself, to strike them out on Mrs Dendy’s terrible old piano for Kitty to try, and for the rest of us to listen to and consider. Most importantly of all he secured contracts, at halls in Hoxton, and Poplar, and Kilburn, and Bow. Within a fortnight, Kitty’s London career was fairly launched. Now she did not change into her ordinary girl’s clothes when she finished her act at the Star; instead, I stood with her coat and her basket ready, and when she stepped from before the footlights we ran together to the stage door, to where our brougham waited to lumber fitfully with us through the city traffic to the next theatre. Now, instead of wearing one suit for the whole of her turn she wore three or four; and I was her dresser in real earnest, helping her tear at buttons and links while the orchestra played between the songs, and the audience waited, half-way between expectation and impatience, for her to reappear.

  The hours we kept now, of course, were rather strange ones, for as long as Kitty continued to work two, three or four halls a night we would arrive back at Ginevra Road at half-past twelve or one, weary and aching but still giddy and hot from our moonlit criss-crossings of the city, our anxious waits in dressing-rooms and wings. Here we would find Sims and Percy, and Tootsie and her girl- and boy-friends, all fresh and flushed and gay as we, making tea and cocoa, Welsh rabbit and pancakes, in Mrs Dendy’s kitchen. Then Mrs Dendy herself would appear - for she had kept theatrical lodgers for so long she had begun to keep theatrical hours, too - and suggest a game of cards, or a song or a dance. It could not long be kept secret, in that house, that I liked to sing and had a pretty voice, and so sometimes I might raise a chorus or two, along with Kitty. Now I never went to bed before three, and never woke in the morning before nine or ten o’clock - so swiftly and completely had I forgotten my old oyster-maidish habits.

  I did not, of course, forget my family or my home. I sent them cards, as I have said; I sent them notices of Kitty’s shows, and gossip from the theatre. They sent me letters in return, and little parcels - and, of course, barrels of
oysters, which I passed on to my landlady to let her dish to us all at supper. And yet, somehow, my letters home grew more and more infrequent, my replies to their cards and presents increasingly tardy and brief. ‘When are you coming to see us?’ they would write at the end of their letters. ‘When are you coming home to Whitstable?’ And I would answer, ‘Soon, soon ...’ or, ‘When Kitty can spare me ...’

  But Kitty never could spare me. The weeks passed, the season changed; the nights grew longer and darker and cold. Whitstable became - not dimmer, in my mind, but overshadowed. It was not that I didn’t think of Father and Mother, of Alice and Davy and my cousins - just that I thought of Kitty, and my new life, more...

  For there was so very much to think about. I was Kitty’s dresser, but I was also her friend, her adviser, her companion in all things. When she learned a song I held the sheet, to prompt her if she faltered. When tailors fitted her I watched and nodded, or shook my head if the cut was wrong. When she let herself be guided by the clever Mr Bliss - or ‘Walter’ I should call him, for so, by now, he had become to us, just as we were ‘Kitty’ and ’Nan’ to him - when she let herself be guided by Walter, and spent hours as he had advised in shops and market squares and stations studying the men, I went with her; and we learned together the constable’s amble, the coster’s weary swagger, the smart clip of the off-duty soldier.