Tipping the Velvet

by Sarah Waters

  ‘But is it natural, that babies should die for want of milk? Is it natural, that women should sew skirts and coats long into the night, in cramped and suffocating workshops? That men and boys should be killed or crippled to provide the coal upon your fires? That bakers should be choked, baking your bread?’

  My voice had risen as I spoke; and now I bellowed.

  ‘Do you think that’s natural? Do you think that’s just?’

  ‘No!’ came a hundred voices at once. ‘No! No!’

  ‘Neither do socialists!’ cried Ralph: he had crushed his speech between his fingers, and now shook it at the crowd. ‘We are sick of seeing wealth and property going straight into the pockets of the idle and the rich! We don’t want a portion of that wealth - the bit that the rich man cares, from time to time, to chuck at us. We want to see society quite transformed! We want to see money put to use, not kept for profit! We want to see working women’s babies thriving - and workhouses pulled to the ground, ‘cause no one needs ’em!’

  There were cheers at that, and he raised his hands. ‘You are cheering now,’ he said; ‘it is rather easy to cheer, perhaps, when the weather is so gay. But you must do more than cheer. You must act. Those of you that work - men and women alike - join unions! Those of you that have votes - use ’em! Use ‘em to put your own people into parliament. And campaign for your womenfolk - for your sisters and daughters and wives - that they might have votes of their own, to help you!’

  ‘Go home tonight,’ I went on, moving forward again, ‘and ask yourselves the question that Mr Banner has asked you today: Why Socialism? And you will find yourselves obliged to answer it as we have. “Because Britain’s people,” you will say, “have laboured under the capitalist and the landlord system and grown only poorer and sicker and more miserable and afraid. Because it is not by charity and paltry reforms that we shall improve conditions for the weakest classes - not by taxes, not by electing one capitalist government over another, not even by abolishing the House of Lords! - but by turning over the land, and industry, to the people who work it. Because socialism is the only system for a fair society: a society in which the good things of the world are shared, not amongst the idlers of the world, but amongst the workers” - amongst yourselves: you, who have made the rich man rich, and been kept, for your labours, only ill and half-starved!’

  There was a second’s silence, then a burst of thunderous applause. I looked at Ralph - his cheeks were red, now, and his lashes wet with tears - then seized his hand, and raised it. And then, as the cheers at last died down, I looked at Florence, who had moved to join Annie and Cyril, and was watching me with her fingers at her lips.

  Behind us, the chairman approached to shake our hands; and when this was done we made our way off the platform, and were surrounded at once by smiles and congratulations and more applause.

  ‘What a triumph!’ Annie called, stepping forward to greet us first. ‘Ralph, you were magnificent!’

  Ralph blushed. ‘It was all Nancy’s doing,’ he said self-consciously. Annie smirked, and turned to me. ‘Bravo!’ she said. ‘What a performance! If I had had a flower, I would have thrown it!’ She could not say any more, however, for behind her had come an elderly lady, who now pushed forward to catch my eye. It was Mrs Macey, of the Women’s Cooperative Guild.

  ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘I must congratulate you! What a really splendid address! They tell me you were an actress, once ... ?’

  ‘Do they?’ I said. ‘Yes, I was.’

  ‘Well, we cannot afford to have such talents in our ranks, you know, and let them lie unused. Do say that you will speak for us another time. One really charismatic speaker can work wonders with an indecisive crowd.’

  ‘I’ll gladly speak for you,’ I said. ‘But you, you know, must write the speech ...’

  ‘Of course! Of course!’ She clasped her hands together and raised her eyes. ‘Oh! I foresee rallies and debates, even - who knows? - a lecture tour!’ At that, I gazed at her for a second in real alarm; then I felt my attention sought by a figure at my side, and turned to find Emma Raymond’s sister, Mrs Costello, looking flushed and excited.

  ‘What a wonderful address!’ she said shyly. ‘I felt moved almost to tears by it.’ Her lovely face was indeed pale and grave, her eyes large and blue and lustrous. I thought again what I had thought before - what a shame it was that she was not a tom ... But then I remembered what Annie had said about her: how she had lost her gentle husband, and sought another.

  ‘How kind you are,’ I said earnestly. ‘But, you know, it’s really Mr Banner who deserves your praises, for he composed the entire speech himself.’ As I said it I reached for Ralph, and pulled him over. ‘Ralph,’ I said, ‘this is Mrs Costello, Miss Raymond’s widowed sister. She very much enjoyed your address.’

  ‘I did,’ said Mrs Costello. She held out her hand, and Ralph took it, then gazed blinking into her face. ‘I have always found the world to be so terribly unjust,’ she went on, ‘but felt only powerless, before today, to change it ...’

  They still held hands, but had not noticed. I left them to it, and rejoined Annie and Miss Raymond, and Florence. Annie put her hand upon my shoulder.

  ‘A lecture tour, eh?’ she said. ‘My word!’ Then she turned to Flo: ‘And how should you like that?’

  Florence had not smiled at me since I had stepped from the stage; and she did not smile now. When she spoke at last, her expression was sad and grave and almost bewildered - as if astonished at her own bitterness.

  ‘I should like it very much,’ she said, ‘if I thought that Nancy really meant her speeches, and wasn’t just repeating them like a - like a dam’ parrot!’

  Annie looked uneasily at Miss Raymond, then said, ‘Oh Florrie, for shame ...’ I did not say anything, but gazed hard at Florence for a second, then looked away - my pleasure at the speech, at the shouts of the crowd, all dimmed, and my heart all heavy.

  The tent, now, was quiet: there was no speaker on the platform, and people had taken advantage of the break to drift outside into the sunlight and the bustle of the field. Miss Raymond said brightly, ‘Let us all sit down, shall we?’ As we moved to occupy a row of empty seats, however, a little girl came trotting up, and caught my eye.

  ‘Excuse me, miss,’ she said. ‘Are you the gal what give the lecture?’ I nodded. ‘There is a lady just outside the tent, then, says will you please step up and have a word?’

  Annie laughed, and raised her eyebrows. ‘Another lecture tour offer, perhaps?’ she said.

  I looked at the girl, and hesitated.

  ‘A lady, you say?’

  ‘Yes miss,’ she said firmly. ‘A lady. Dressed real smart, with her eyes all hid behind a hat with a veil on it.’

  I gave a start, and looked quickly at Florence. A lady in a veil: there was only one person that could be. Diana must have seen me after all, and watched me give my speech, and now sought me out for- who knew what queer purpose? The idea made me tremble. When the girl stepped away I turned to gaze after her, and Florence shifted in her seat, and stared with me. In the corner of the tent there was a square of sunlight, where the canvas had been tied back to form a doorway - it was so bright I had to narrow my eyes to look at it, and blink. At one edge of the square of light stood a woman, her face concealed, as the girl had said, by a broad hat and a width of net. As I studied her, she lifted her arms to her veil, and raised it. And then I saw her face.

  ‘Why don’t you go to her?’ I heard Florence say coldly. ‘I daresay she has come to ask you back to St John’s Wood. You shall never have to think of socialism again, there ...’

  I turned to her; and when she saw how pale my cheeks were, her expression changed.

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

  It was Kitty.

  I stood for a moment quite dumbfounded. I had seen two old lovers already today; and here was the third of them - or, rather, the first of them: my original love; my one true love - my real love, my be
st love - the love who had so broken my heart, it seemed never to have fired quite properly again ...

  I went to her, without another glance at Florence, and stood before her and rubbed my eyes against the sun — so that, when I looked at her again, she seemed surrounded by a thousand dancing points of light.

  ‘Nan,’ she said, and she smiled, rather nervously. ‘You have not forgotten me, I hope?’ Her voice shook a little, as it had used to do, sometimes, in passion. Her accent was rather purer, with slightly less colour to it, than I remembered.

  ‘Forgotten you?’ I said then, finding my own voice at last. ‘No. I’m only so very surprised, to see you.’ I gazed at her, and swallowed. Her eyes were as brown as ever, her lashes as dark, her lip as pink ... But she had changed, I had seen it at once. There were one or two creases beside her mouth and at her brow, that told of the years that had passed since we were sweethearts; and she had let her hair grow, so that it curved above her ears in a great, glossy pompadour. With the creases and the hair she did not look, any more, like the prettiest of boys: she looked, as the girl she had sent to me had said, like a lady.

  As I studied her, so she gazed at me. At last she said, ‘You seem very different, to when I saw you last ...’

  I shrugged. ‘Of course. I was nineteen then. I’m twenty-five, now.’

  ‘Twenty-five in two weeks’ time,’ she answered; and her lip trembled a little. ‘I remembered that, you see.’

  I felt myself blush, and could not answer her. She gazed past me, into the tent. ‘You can imagine my surprise,’ she said then, ‘when I looked in there just now, and saw you lecturing from the stage. I never thought you’d end up on a platform in a tent, speaking on workers’ rights!’

  ‘Neither did I,’ I said. Then I smiled, and so did she. ‘Why are you here, at all?’ I asked her then.

  ‘I’m in rooms at Bow. Everyone has been saying all week, that I must come to the park on Sunday, since there was to be such a marvellous thing in it.’

  ‘Have they?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’

  ‘And - are you here quite alone, then?’

  She glanced quickly away. ‘Yes. Walter’s in Liverpool just now. He has gone back to managing: he has shares in a hall up there, and has rented a house for us. I’m to join him when the house is ready.’

  ‘And you’re still working the halls?’

  ‘Not so much. We ... we had an act together -’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I saw you. At the Middlesex.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘The time that you met Billy-Boy? Oh, Nan, if I had only known that you were watching! When Bill came back and said he’d seen you -’

  ‘I couldn’t look at you for long,’ I said.

  ‘Were we so bad as that, then?’ She smiled, but I shook my head: ‘It wasn’t that ...’ Her smile grew fainter.

  I said, after a moment: ‘So you don’t work so much? How’s that?’

  ‘Well, Walter is kept busy with the managing now. And then - well, we kept it quiet, but I was rather ill.’ She hesitated. ‘I was to have a child ...’

  The thought was horrible to me, in every way. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  She shrugged. ‘Walter was disappointed. We have quite forgotten it now, however. It only means that I am not quite so strong as I once was ...’

  We fell silent. I looked for a second into the crowd, then back at Kitty. She had coloured. Now she said: ‘Nan, Bill told me, when he met you that time, that you were dressed - well, as a boy.’

  ‘That’s right. I was. Quite as a boy.’ She laughed and frowned at once, not understanding.

  ‘He said, too, that you were living with a - with a -’

  ‘With a lady. I was.’

  She blushed still harder. ‘And - are you with her still?’

  ‘No, I - I live with a girl now, in Bethnal Green.’

  ‘Oh!’

  I hesitated - but then I did what I had done with Zena, two hours before. I moved slightly into the shadow of the tent, and Kitty followed. ‘That’s her over there,’ I said, nodding towards the seats before the platform. ‘The girl with the little boy.’

  Annie and Miss Raymond had moved away, and Florence sat alone now. As I gestured to her she looked over at me, then gazed gravely at Kitty. Kitty herself gave another little ‘Oh,’ and then a nervous smile. ‘It’s Flo,’ I said, ‘who’s the socialist, and who has got me into all this ...’ As I spoke, Florence took off her hat: immediately, Cyril began pulling at the pins that fixed her hair, and twisting the curls about his fingers. His tugs made her redden. I watched her for a little longer, then saw her look again at Kitty; and when I turned to Kitty herself I found that her eyes were upon me and her expression was rather strange.

  ‘I cannot stop myself from gazing at you,’ she said, with an uncertain smile. ‘When you ran off, I was sure, at first, that you’d be back. Where did you go? What did you do? We tried so hard to find you. And then, when there was no word of you, I was sure that I would never see you again. I thought - oh Nan, I thought that you had harmed yourself.’

  I swallowed. ‘You harmed me, Kitty. It was you that harmed me.’

  ‘I know it, now. Do you think I don’t know it? I feel ashamed to even talk to you. I am so sorry, for what happened.’

  ‘You needn’t be sorry now,’ I said awkwardly. But she went on as if she had not heard me: that she was so very sorry; that what she had done had been so very wrong. That she was sorry, so sorry ...

  At last, I shook my head. ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘What does all that matter now? It matters nothing!’

  ‘Doesn’t it?’ she said. I felt my heart begin to hammer. When I did not answer, only continued to stare at her, she took a step towards me and began to talk, very fast and low. ‘Oh Nan, so many times I thought about finding you, and planned what I would say when I did. I cannot leave you now without saying it!’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it,’ I said in sudden terror; I believe I even put my hands to my ears, to try to block out the sound of her murmurs. But she caught at my arm and talked on, into my face.

  ‘You must hear it! You must know. You mustn’t think that I did what I did easily, or thoughtlessly. You mustn’t think it did not - break my heart.’

  ‘Why did you do it, then?’

  ‘Because I was a fool! Because I thought my life upon the stage was dearer to me than anything. Because I thought that I would be a star. Because, of course, I did not ever think that I would really, really lose you ...’ She hesitated. Outside the tent the bustle of the day went on: children ran shrieking; stall-holders called and argued; flags and pamphlets fluttered in the May breezes. She took a breath. She said: ‘Nan, come back to me.’

  Come back to me ... One part of me reached out to her at once, leapt to her like a pin to a magnet; I believe the very same part of me would leap to her again - would go on leaping to her, if she went on asking me, for ever.

  Then another part of me remembered, and remembers still.

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

  ‘All that means nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘There’s nothing - like that - between him and me now. If we were only a little careful ...’

  ‘Careful!’ I said: the word had made me flinch. ‘Careful! Careful! That’s all I ever had from you. We were so careful, we might as well have been dead!’ I shook myself free of her. ‘I have a new girl now, who’s not ashamed to be my sweetheart.’

  But Kitty came close, and seized my arm again. ‘That girl with the baby?’ she said, nodding back into the tent. ‘You don’t love her, I can see it in your face. Not as you loved me. Don’t you remember how it was? You were mine, before anyone’s; you belong with me. You don’t belong with her and her sort, talking all this foolish political stuff. Look at your clothes, how plain and cheap they are! Look at these people all about us: you left Whitstable to get away from people such as this!’

  I gazed at her for a second in a kind of stupor; then I did as she urged m
e, and glanced about the tent - at Annie and Miss Raymond; at Ralph, who was still blinking and blushing into Mrs Costello’s face; at Nora and Ruth, who stood beside the platform with some other girls I recognised from the Boy in the Boat. In a chair at the far side of the tent - I had not noticed her before - sat Zena, her arm looped through that of her broad-shouldered sweetheart; close to them stood a couple of Ralph’s union friends — they nodded when they saw me looking, and raised a glass. And in the midst of them all, sat Florence. Her head was still bent to where Cyril clutched at it: he had tugged her hair down to her shoulder, and she had raised her hands to pull his fingers free. She was flushed and smiling; but even as she smiled, she lifted her eyes to mine, and I saw tears in them - perhaps, only from Cyril’s grasping - and, behind the tears, a kind of bleakness, that I did not think I’d ever seen in them before.

  I could not meet her smile with one of my own. But when I turned again to Kitty, my gaze was level; and my voice, when I spoke, was perfectly steady.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ I said. ‘I belong here, now: these are my people. And as for Florence, my sweetheart, I love her more than I can say; and I never realised it, until this moment.’

  She let go of my arm and stepped away as if she had been struck. ‘You are saying these things to spite me,’ she said breathlessly, ‘because you are still hurt -’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m saying these things because they’re true. Good-bye, Kitty.’

  ‘Nan!’ she cried, as I made to move away from her. I turned back.

  ‘Don’t call me that,’ I said pettishly. ‘No one calls me that now. It ain’t my name, and never was.’

  She swallowed, then stepped towards me again and said in a lower, chastened tone: ‘Nancy, then. Listen to me: I still have all your things. All the things you left at Stamford Hill.’

  ‘I don’t want them,’ I said at once. ‘Keep them, or throw ’em away: I don’t care.’