Tipping the Velvet

by Sarah Waters

  The next day, if anything, was worse. Mother said straight out that I must not think of spoiling my dress and hurting my hands by trying to help them in the kitchen; that I was here to have a holiday, not to work. I had read the Police News from cover to cover: all there was now was Father’s Fish Trades Gazette, and I couldn’t bear the thought of a day upstairs with that. I put my travelling-dress back on and went out walking; I started out so early that by ten o’clock I had strolled as far as Seasalter and back. At last, desperate for some amusement, I took the train to Canterbury - and while my parents and sister laboured in the oyster-house, I passed the day as a tourist, wandering about the cloisters of a cathedral which, in all the years that I had lived so near to it, I’d never cared to visit.

  But on the way back to the station I passed before the Palace. It looked very different to me, now that I had an eye for halls; and when I stepped up to the posters to look at the bill, I saw that all the acts were rather second-rate. The doors, of course, were closed, and the foyer dark; but I couldn’t resist it, and wandered round to the stage door and asked for Tony Reeves.

  I had my hat and veil on: when he saw me, he didn’t recognise me. When he knew me at last, however, he smiled and kissed my hand.

  ‘Nancy! What a treat!’ He, at least, had not changed at all. He led me to his office and sat me down. I said I was here on a visit, and had been sent out to keep myself amused. I said, too, that I was sorry to hear about him and Alice.

  He shrugged. ‘I knew she’d never marry me or nothing like that. But I do miss her; and she was a lovely looker - though not quite as lovely, if you don’t mind my saying so, as her sister has gone and turned out ...’

  I didn’t mind, for I knew that he was only flirting - indeed, it was rather pleasant to be flirted with by an old beau of Alice’s. Instead I asked him about the hall - about how it did, who he had had there, what they had sung. At the end of it he picked up a pen that lay on his desk, and began to fiddle with it.

  ‘And when are we to have Miss Butler back again?’ he asked. ‘I gather you and she’ve teamed up properly now.’ I stared, then felt my cheeks grow red; but he only meant, of course, the act: ‘I hear you’re working the halls together; and are quite a pair, by all accounts.’

  Now I smiled. ‘How did you find that out? I am very quiet about it with my family.’

  ‘I read the Era, don’t I? “Kitty Butler and Nan King”. I know a stage-name when I see one ...’

  I laughed, ‘Oh, isn’t it funny, Tony? Isn’t it just the most marvellous thing? We are in Cinderella at the minute, at the Brit. Kitty’s the Prince, and I’m Dandini. I have to speak, sing, dance, slap my thigh, the works, in velvet breeches. And the crowd go mad for it!’

  He smiled at my pleasure - it was lovely to be allowed to be pleased with myself, at last! - then shook his head. ‘Your folks, from what I’ve heard them say, don’t know the half of it. Why don’t you have them up to see you on the stage? Why the big secret?’

  I shrugged, then hesitated; then, ‘Alice doesn’t care for Kitty ...’ I said.

  ‘And you and Kitty: you’re still in her pocket? You’re still struck with her like you always was?’ I nodded. He sniffed. ‘Then, she’s a lucky girl ...’

  He seemed only to be flirting again; but I had the queerest impression, too, that he knew more than he was letting on - and didn’t care a fig about it. I answered, ‘I’m the lucky one,’ and held his gaze.

  He tapped with his pen again upon his blotter. ‘Maybe.’ Then he winked.

  I stayed at the Palace until it became rather obvious that Tony had other business to get on with, then took my leave of him. Once outside, I stood again before the foyer doors, reluctant to resign the reek of beer and grease-paint and confront the altogether different scents of Whitstable, our Parlour and our home. It had been good to talk of Kitty - so good that, seated at the supper-table later, between silent Alice and nasty Rhoda with her tiny, flashing sapphire, I missed her all the more. I was due to spend another day with them, but now I thought I could not face it. I said, as we started on our puddings, that I had changed my mind and would take the morning, rather than the evening train tomorrow - that I had remembered things that I must do at the theatre, that I shouldn’t put off till Thursday.

  They didn’t seem surprised, though Father said it was a shame. Later, as I kissed them good-night, he cleared his throat. ‘There you are,’ he said, ‘back up to London in the morning, and I’ve barely had time for a proper look at you.’ I smiled. ‘Have you had a nice time with us, Nance?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘And you will take care of yourself, in London?’ asked Mother. ‘It seems very far away.’

  I laughed. ‘It’s not so far.’

  ‘Far enough,’ she said, ‘to keep you from us for a year and a half.’

  ‘I’ve been busy,’ I said. ‘We have been terribly busy, both of us.’ She nodded, not much impressed: she had heard all this before, in letters.

  ‘Just make sure it’s not so long before you come home again. It is very nice to get your parcels; it was very nice to get those gifts; but we would rather have you, than a hairbrush or a pair of boots.’ I looked away, abashed; I still felt foolish when I thought about the presents. Even so, I didn’t think she needed to be quite so rusty about it, quite so hard.

  Having made the decision to leave sooner, I grew impatient. I packed my bags that night, and rose, next morning, even earlier than Alice. At seven, when the breakfast things were cleared away, I was ready to go. I embraced them all, but my parting was not so sad, nor so sweet, as it had been the first time I had left them; and I had no premonition of anything to come, to make it sadder. Davy was kind, and made me promise I would come home for his wedding, and said I might bring Kitty if I liked, which made me love him all the more. Mother smiled, but her smile was tight; Alice was so chill that, in the end, I turned my back on her. Only Father hugged me to him as if really loath to get me go; and when he said that he would miss me, I knew he meant it.

  No one could be spared, this time, to walk me to the station, so I made my own way there. I didn’t look at Whitstable, or the sea, as my train pulled away from it; I certainly did not think, I shan’t see you again, for years and years - and if I had, I am ashamed to say it would not much have troubled me. I thought only of Kitty. It was still only half-past seven; she wouldn’t rise, I knew, till ten, and I planned to surprise her - to let myself into our rooms at Stamford Hill, and creep into her bed. The train rolled on, through Faversham and Rochester. I was not impatient now. I did not need to be impatient. I merely sat and thought of her warm, slumbering body that I would soon embrace; I imagined her pleasure, her surprise, her rising love, at seeing me returned so soon.

  Our house, when I gazed up at it from the street, was, as I had hoped, quite dark and shuttered. I walked on tip-toe up the steps, and eased my key into the lock. The passageway was quiet: even our landlady and her husband seemed still abed. I laid down my bags, and took off my coat. There was a cloak already hanging from the hat-stand, and I squinted at it: it was Walter’s. How queer, I thought, he must have come here yesterday, and forgotten it! - and soon, creeping up the darkened staircase, I forgot it myself.

  I reached Kitty’s door, and put my ear to it. I had expected silence, but there was a sound from beyond it - a kind of lapping sound, as of a kitten at a saucer of milk. I thought, Damn! She must be awake already and taking her tea; then I caught the creak of the bedstead, and was sure of it. Disappointed, but gay with the expectation of seeing her, I caught hold of the door-handle and entered the room.

  She was indeed awake. She sat in bed, propped up against a pillow, with the blankets raised as far as her armpits and her naked arms upon the counterpane. There was a lamp lit, and turned high; the room was not at all dark. At a little wash-hand stand at the foot of the bed there was another figure. Walter. He was jacketless, and collarless; his shirt was tucked roughly into his trousers, but his braces dangled, almost to
his knees. He was bending over the bowl of water, bathing his face - that had been the lapping sound that I had heard. His whiskers were dark and gleaming where he had wet them.

  It was his eye that I caught first. He gazed at me in sheer surprise, his hands lifted, the water running from them into his sleeves; then his face gave a kind of twitch, horrible to behold - and at the same time, from the corner of my eye, I saw Kitty twitch, too, beneath the bedclothes.

  Even then, I think, I didn’t quite understand.

  ‘What’s this?’ I said, and laughed a little, nervously. I looked at Kitty, waiting for her to join in my laughter - to say, ‘Oh, Nan! How funny this must look to you! It isn’t how it seems, at all.’

  But she did not even smile. She gazed at me with fearful eyes, and pulled the blankets higher, as if to hide her nakedness from me. From me!

  It was Walter who spoke.

  ‘Nan,’ he said hesitantly - I had never heard his voice so dry and bare - ‘Nan, you have surprised us. We didn’t look for you until tonight.’ He took up a towel and rubbed at his face with it. Then he stepped very quickly to the chair, seized his jacket and pulled it on. His hands, I saw, were shaking.

  I had never seen him shake before.

  I said, ‘I caught an earlier train ...’ My mouth, like his, had dried; my voice, in consequence, sounded slow and thick. ‘Indeed, I thought it was still very early. How long, Walter, have you been here?’

  He shook his head, as if the question pained him, and took a step towards me. Then he said rather urgently: ‘Nan, forgive me. This is not for your eyes. Will you come downstairs with me and let us talk ... ?’

  His tone was strange; and hearing it, I knew for certain.

  ‘No!’ I folded my hands over my belly: there was a hot, sour churning in there, as if they had fed me poison. At my cry Kitty shivered and grew white. I turned to her. ‘It isn’t true!’ I said. ‘Oh tell me, tell me - say it ain’t true!’ She wouldn’t look at me, only placed her hands before her eyes and began to weep.

  Walter came closer and put his hand upon my arm.

  ‘Get away!’ I cried, and stepped free of him towards the bed. ‘Kitty? Kitty?’ I knelt beside her, took her hand from her face, and held it to my own lips. I kissed her fingers, her nails, her palm, her wrist; her knuckles, that were damp from her own weeping, were soon drenched with tears and slobber. Walter looked on, appalled, still trembling.

  At last, she met my gaze. ‘It’s true,’ she whispered.

  I gave a start, and a moan - then heard her shriek, felt Walter’s fingers grip my shoulders, and realised that I had bitten her, like a dog. She pulled her hand away and gazed at me in horror. Again I shook Walter off, then turned to scream at him. ‘Get away, get out! Get out, and leave us!’ He hesitated ; I kicked at his ankle with my foot until he stepped away.

  ‘You are not yourself, Nan -’

  ‘Get out!’

  ‘I am afraid to leave you -’

  ‘Get out!’

  He flinched. ‘I shall go beyond the door - no further.’ Then he looked at Kitty, and when she nodded he left, closing the door behind him very gently.

  There was a silence, broken only by the sound of my ragged breathing, and Kitty’s gentle weeping: just so had I seen my sister weep, three days before. Nothing that Kitty ever did was good! she had said. I placed my cheek upon the counterpane where it covered Kitty’s thighs, and closed my eyes.

  ‘You made me think he was your friend,’ I said. ‘And then you made me think he didn’t care for you, because of us.’

  ‘I didn’t know what else to do. He was only my friend; and then, and then-’

  ‘To think of you and him - for all that time -’

  ‘It wasn’t what you think, before last night.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Oh Nan, it’s true, I swear! Before last night - how could there have been anything? - before last night, there was only talk and - kisses.’

  Before last night ... Before last night I had been glad, beloved, content, secure: before last night I had known myself so full of love and desire I thought I should die of it! At Kitty’s words I saw that the pain of my love was not a tenth, not a hundredth, not a thousandth part of the pain I should suffer, at her hands, now.

  I opened my eyes. Kitty herself looked ill and frightened. I said, ‘And the - kisses: when did they start?’ But even as I asked it, I guessed the answer: ‘That night, at Deacon’s ...’

  She hesitated - then nodded; and I saw it all again, and understood it all: the awkwardness, the silences, the letters. I had pitied Walter - pitied him! When all the time it had been I who was the fool; when all the time they had been meeting, whispering together, caressing ...

  The thought was a torment to me. Walter was our friend - mine, as well as hers. I knew he loved her, but - he seemed so old, so uncle-ish, still. Could she ever, really, have brought herself to want to lie with him? It was as if I had caught her in bed with my own father!

  I began, once more, to weep. ‘How could you?’ I said through my tears: I sounded like a stage husband in some penny gaff. ‘How could you?’ Beneath the blankets I felt her squirm.

  ‘I didn’t like to do it!’ she said miserably. ‘At times I could hardly bear it -’

  ‘I thought you loved me! You said that you loved me!’

  ‘I do love you! I do, I do!’

  ‘You said there was nothing you wanted, but me! You said we would be together, for ever!’

  ‘I never said -’

  ‘You let me think it! You made me think it! You said, so many times, how glad you were. Why couldn’t we have gone on, as we were ... ?’

  ‘You know why! It is all right, that sort of thing, when you are girls. But as we got older ... We’re not a couple of scullery-maids, to do as we please and have no one notice it. We are known; we are looked at -’

  ‘I don’t want to be known, then, if it means losing you! I don’t want to be looked at, if not by you, Kitty ...’

  She pressed my hand. ‘But I do,’ she said. ‘I do. And so long as I am looked at, I cannot bear also to be - laughed at; or hated; or scorned, as a -’

  ‘As a tom!’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘But, we could be careful -’

  ‘We should never be careful enough! You are too much - Nan, you are too much like a boy ...’

  ‘Too much - like a boy? You’ve never said it before! Too much like a boy - yet, you’d rather go with Walter! Do you - love him?’

  She looked away. ‘He’s very - kind,’ she said.

  ‘Very kind.’ I heard my voice grow hard and bitter at last. I sat up, and leaned away from her. ‘And so you had him come, while I was gone; and he was kind to you, in our bed ...’ I got to my feet, suddenly conscious of the soiled sheets and mattress ; of her bare flesh, that he had put his hands upon, his mouth ... ‘Oh, God! How long would you have carried on? Would you let me kiss you, after him?’

  She reached for me, to seize my hand. ‘We planned, I swear, to tell you tonight. Tonight was when you were to know it all...’

  There was something queer about the way she said it. I had been pacing at her side; now I grew still. ‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘What do you mean, by all?’

  She took her hand away. ‘We are - oh, Nan, don’t hate me for it! We are to be - married.’

  ‘Married?’ If I had had time to think about it I might have expected it; but I had had no time at all, and the word made me giddier and sicker than ever. ‘Married? But what - but what about me? Where shall I live? What shall I do? What about, what about -’ I had thought of something new. ‘What about the act? How shall we work ... ?’

  She looked away. ‘Walter has a plan. For a new act. He wants to return to the halls ...’

  ‘To the halls? After this? With you and me -?’

  ‘No. With me, Just me.’

  Just her. I felt myself begin to shake. I said, ‘You have killed me, Kitty.’ My voice sounded strange even to my ow
n ears; I believe it frightened her, for she glanced a little wildly to the door, and began to speak, very fast, but in a kind of shrill whisper.

  ‘You mustn’t say such things,’ she said. ‘It has been a shock for you. But you will see, in time - we shall be friends again, the three of us!’ She reached for me; her voice grew shriller yet quieter still. ‘Can you not see, how this is for the best? With Walter as my husband, who would think, who would say -’ I pulled away; she gripped me tighter - then cried at last, in a kind of panic: ‘Oh, you don’t think, do you, that I’ll let him take me from you?’

  At that I pushed her, and she fell back against her pillow. The counterpane was still before her, but it had slipped a little. I caught sight of the swell of her breast, the pink of her nipple. An inch below the downy hollow of her throat - jerking with each breath and pounding heart-beat - hung the pearl that I had bought her, on its silver chain. I remembered kissing it, three days before; perhaps, last night or this morning, Walter had felt it chill and hard against his own tongue.

  I stepped towards her, seized the necklace, and - again, just as if I were a character in a novel or a play - I tugged at it. At once the chain gave a satisfying snap! and dangled broken from my hand. I gazed at it for a second, then dashed it from me and heard it scutter across the floorboards.

  Kitty shouted - I believe she shouted Walter’s name. At any rate, the door now opened and he appeared, white-faced above his ginger whiskers, and with his braces still dangling below the hem of his jacket, his collarless shirt still flapping at his throat. He ran to the other side of the bed, and took Kitty in his arms.

  ‘If you have hurt her -’ he said. I laughed outright at that.

  ‘Hurt her? Hurt her? I should like to kill her! Had I only a pistol on me now I would shoot her through the heart - and myself as well! And leave you to marry a corpse!’

  ‘You have gone mad,’ he said. ‘This has driven you quite crazed.’

  ‘And do you wonder at it? Do you know - has she told you - what we are - what we were - to one another?’