Tipping the Velvet

  ‘She’s a bit romantic, ain’t she? said Zena, wrinkling her nose again. ‘I might throw her over for the other one, yet ...’ I shook my head, looked at the paper another time, then placed it in the pocket of my skirt.

  We chatted for another few moments; and then Zena said, ‘And so, you’re quite happy, are you, in Bethnal Green? It ain’t quite what you was used to in the old days ...’

  I pulled a face. ‘I hate to think of those days, Zena. I’m all changed now.’

  ‘I dare say. That Diana Lethaby, though - well! You’ve seen her, of course?’

  ‘Diana?’ I shook my head. ‘Not likely! Did you think I’d go back to Felicity Place, after that dam’ party ... ?’

  Zena stared at me. ‘But, don’t tell me you didn’t know it? Diana is here — !’

  ‘Here? She can’t be!’

  ‘She is! I tell you, all the world is here this afternoon - and her amongst ’em. She is over at the table of some paper or magazine. I saw her, and nearly fainted dead away!’

  ‘My God.’ Diana, here! The thought was awful — and yet ... Well, they do say that old dogs never forget the tricks their mistresses beat into them: I had felt myself stir, faintly, at the first mention of her hateful name. I looked once into the tent, and saw Florence, on her feet again and still shaking her arm at the platform; then I turned to Zena. ‘Will you show me,’ I asked, ‘where?’

  She gave me one swift warning sort of look; then she took my arm and led me through the crowd, towards the bathing lake, and came to a halt behind a bush.

  ‘Look, there,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Near that table. D’you see her?’ I nodded. She was standing beside a display - it was for the women’s journal Shafts, that she sometimes helped with the running of — and was talking with another lady, a lady I thought might be one of the ones who had come dressed as Sappho to the fancy-dress ball. The lady had a Suffrage sash across her bosom. Diana was clad in grey, and her hat had a veil to it — though this was, at the moment, turned up. She was as haughty and as handsome as ever. I gazed at her and had a very vivid memory - of myself, sprawled beside her with pearls about my hips; of the bed seeming to tilt; of the chafing of the leather as she straddled me and rocked ...

  ‘What do you think she would do,’ I said to Zena, ‘if I went over?’

  ‘You ain’t going to try it!’

  ‘Why not? I’m quite, you know, out of her power now.’ But even as I said it, I looked at her and felt that doggishness come over me again — or doggishness, perhaps, is not the term for it. It was like she was some music-hall mesmerist, and I a blinking girl, all ready to make a mockery of myself, before the crowd, at her request ...

  Zena said, ‘Well I ain’t going nowhere near her ...’; but I didn’t listen. I glanced quickly again at the speakers’ tent, then I stepped out from behind the bush and made my way towards the stall - straightening the knot in my necktie, as I did so. I was within about twenty yards of her, and had lifted a hand to remove my hat, when she turned, and seemed to raise her eyes to mine. Her gaze grew hard, sardonic and lustful all at once, just as I remembered it; and my heart twitched in my breast - in fright, I think! - as if a hook had caught it.

  But then she opened her mouth to speak; and what she said was: ‘Reggie! Reggie, here!’

  That made me stumble. From somewhere close behind me came a gruffer answering cry — ‘All right’ - and I turned, and saw a boy picking his way across the grass, his eyes in a scowl and fixed on Diana’s, his hand bearing a sugared ice, which he held before him and sucked at very gingerly, for fear it would drip and spoil his trousers. The trousers were handsome, and bulged at the fork. The boy himself was tall and slight; his hair was dark, and cut very short. His face was a pretty one, his lips pink as a girl’s ...

  When he reached Diana she leaned and drew the handkerchief from his pocket, and began to dap with it at his thigh - it seemed, he had spilt his ice-cream after all. The other lady at the stall looked on, and smiled; then murmured something that made the pretty boy blush.

  I had stood and watched all this, in a kind of astonishment; but now I took a slow step backwards, and then another. Diana may have raised her face again, I cannot say: I didn’t stop to see it. Reggie had lifted his hand to lick at his ice, his cuff had moved back, and I had caught the flash of a wrist-watch beneath it ... I blinked my eyes, and shook my head, and ran back to the bush where Zena still stood peeping, and put my face against her shoulder.

  When I looked again at Diana, through the leaves, she had her arm in Reggie’s and their heads were close, and they were laughing. I turned to Zena, and she bit her lip.

  ‘It is only the devils what prosper in this world, I swear,’ she said. But then she bit her lip again; and then she tittered.

  I laughed, too, for a moment. Then I cast another bitter look towards the stall, and said: ‘Well, I hope she gets all she deserves!’

  Zena cocked her head. ‘Who?’ she asked. ‘Diana, or — ?’

  I pulled a face, and would not answer her.

  We wandered back to the speakers’ tent, then, and Zena said she had better try to find her Maud.

  ‘We’ll be friends, won’t we?’ I said as we shook hands.

  She nodded. ‘You must be sure to introduce me to Miss Banner, anyway; I should like that.’

  ‘Yes, well — you must at least come round some time and tell her you’ve forgiven me: she thinks me a regular brute, over you.’

  She smiled - then something caught her eye, and she turned her head. ‘There’s my other sweetheart,’ she said quickly - she gestured to a wide-shouldered, tommish-looking woman, who was studying us as we chatted, and frowning. Zena pulled a face. ‘She likes to come the uncle, that one ...’

  ‘She does look a bit fierce. You’d better go to her: I don’t want to end up with another blacked eye.’

  She smiled, and pressed my hand; and I saw her step over to the woman and kiss her cheek, then disappear with her into the crush of people between the stalls. I ducked back into the tent. It was fuller and hotter than ever in there, the air thick with smoke, the people’s faces sweating and jaundiced-looking where they were struck, through the canvas, by the afternoon sun. On the platform a woman was stumbling hoarsely through some speech or other, and a dozen people in the audience were on their feet, arguing with her. Florence was back in her chair before the dais, with Cyril kicking in her lap. Annie and Miss Raymond were beside her, with a pretty fair-haired girl I did not know. Ralph was nearby, his forehead gleaming and his face stiff with fright.

  There was an empty seat next to Florence, and when I had made my way across the grass I sat in it and took the baby from her.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she asked above the shouting. ‘It has been terrible in here. A load of boys have come in, intent on causing a stir. Poor Ralph is to speak next: he is so feverish you could fry an egg on him.’

  I bounced Cyril upon my knee. ‘Flo,’ I said, ‘you will never believe who I have just seen!’

  ‘Who? she asked. Then her eyes grew wide. ‘Not Eleanor Marx?’

  ‘No, no - nobody like that! It was Zena, that girl I knew at Diana Lethaby’s. And not only her, but Diana herself! The both of them here at once, can you imagine? My heart, when I saw Diana again - I thought I should die!’ I jiggled Cyril until he began to squeal. Florence’s face, however, had hardened.

  ‘My God!’ she said; and her tone made me flinch. ‘Can we not enjoy even a socialist rally without your wretched past turning up to haunt us? You have not sat and listened to one speech here today; I suppose you have not so much as glanced at one of the stalls. All you have eyes and thoughts for is yourself; yourself, and the women you have - the women you have -’

  ‘The women I have fucked, I suppose you mean,’ I said in a low voice. I leaned away from her, really shocked and hurt; then I grew angry. ‘Well, at least I got a fuck out of my old sweethearts. Which is more than you got out of Lilian.’

  At that, her mouth fell open, an
d her eyes began to gleam with tears.

  ‘You little cat,’ she said. ‘How can you say such things to me?’

  ‘Because I am sick to death of hearing about Lilian, and how bloody marvellous she was!’

  ‘She was marvellous,’ she said. ‘She was. She should have been here to see all this, not you! She would have understood it all, whereas you -’

  ‘You wish she was here, I suppose,’ I spat out rashly, ‘instead of me?’

  She gazed at me, the tears upon her lashes. I felt my own eyes prickle, and my throat grow thick. ‘Nance,’ she said, in a gentler tone - but I raised my hand, and turned my face away.

  ‘We agreed it, didn’t we?’ I said, trying to keep the bitterness from my voice. And then, when she wouldn’t answer: ‘God knows, there are places I’d sooner be, than here!’

  I said it to spite her; but when she rose and moved away from me with her fingers before her eyes, I felt desperately sorry. I put my hand to my pocket for a handkerchief: what I drew out was the programme that Miss Skinner had given me, for Flo to sign; I found myself gazing at it, quite bewildered by the sudden turns the afternoon had taken. And all the time, the woman on the platform talked hoarsely on, arguing with the hecklers in the audience - the air seemed clotted with shouts and smoke and bad feeling.

  I looked up. Florence was standing near the wall of canvas, beside Annie and Miss Raymond: she was shaking her head, as they leaned to put their hands upon her arm. When Annie drew back I caught her eye, and she walked over and gave me a wary smile.

  ‘You should have learned better than to argue with Florrie,’ she said, taking the seat beside me. ‘She is about as sharp-tongued as anyone I know.’

  ‘She tells the truth,’ I said miserably. ‘Which is sharper than anything.’ I sighed; then, to change the subject, I asked: ‘Have you had a good day, Annie?’

  ‘I have,’ she said. ‘It has all been rather wonderful.’

  ‘And who is that girl with your Emma?’ I nodded to the fair-haired woman at Miss Raymond’s side.

  ‘That’s Mrs Costello,’ she said, ‘Emma’s widowed sister.’

  ‘Oh!’ I had heard of her before, but never expected her to be so young and pretty. ‘How handsome she is. What a shame she ain’t - like us. Is there no hope of it?’

  ‘None at all, I’m afraid. But she is a lovely girl. Her husband was the kindest man, and Emma says she is just about despairing that she will ever find another to match him. The only men who want to court her turn out to be boxers ...’

  I smiled dully; I was not much bothered about Mrs Costello, really. While Annie talked I kept glancing over to Florence. She now stood at the far side of the tent, a handkerchief gripped between her fingers but her cheeks dry and white. However long and hard I looked at her, she would not meet my gaze.

  I had almost decided to make my way over to her, when there came a sudden clamour: the lady on the platform had finished her speech, and the crowd was reluctantly clapping. This meant, of course, that it was time for Ralph’s address; Annie and I turned to see him hover uncertainly at the side of the little stage, then stumble up the steps as his name was announced, and take up his place at the front of the platform.

  I looked at Annie and grimaced, and she bit her lip. The tent had quietened a little, but not much. Most of the afternoon’s serious listeners seemed to have grown tired and left: their seats had been taken by idlers, by yawning women and by more rowdy boys.

  Before this careless crowd Ralph now stood and cleared his throat. He had his speech, I saw, in his hand - to refer to, I guessed, if he forgot his lines. His forehead was streaming with sweat; his neck was stiff. I knew he would never be able to project his voice to the back of the tent, with his throat so stiff and tense.

  With another cough, he began.

  “‘Why Socialism?” That is the question I have been invited to discuss with you this afternoon.’ Annie and I were sitting in the third row from the front, and even we could hardly hear him; from the mass of men and women behind us there came a cry - ‘Speak up!’ - and a ripple of laughter. Ralph coughed yet again, and when he next spoke his voice was louder, but also rather hoarse.

  “‘Why Socialism?” I shall keep my answer rather brief.’

  ‘Thank God for something, then!’ called a man at that - as I knew somebody would - and Ralph gazed wildly around the tent for a second, quite distracted. I saw with dismay that he had lost his place, and was forced to glance at the sheets in his hand. There was a horrible silence while he found the spot; when he next spoke, of course, it was into the paper, just as he had used to do in our Quilter Street parlour.

  ‘How many times,’ he was saying, ‘have you heard economists say that England is the richest nation in the world ... ?’ I found myself reciting it with him, urging him on; but he stumbled, and muttered, and once or twice was forced to tilt his paper to the light, to read it. By now the crowd had begun to groan and sigh and shuffle. I saw the chairman, seated at the back of the platform, making up his mind to step over to him and tell him to speak up or to stop; I saw Florence, pale and agitated to see her brother so awkward - her own griefs, for the moment, quite forgotten. Ralph started on a passage of statistics: ‘Two hundred years ago,’ he read, ‘Britain’s land and capital was worth five hundred million pounds; today it is worth - it is worth -’ He tilted the paper again; but while he did so, a fellow stood up to shout: ‘What are you, man? A socialist, or a schoolmaster?’ And at that, Ralph sagged as if he had been winded. Annie whispered: ‘Oh, no! Poor Ralph! I can’t bear it!’

  ‘Neither can I,’ I said. I jumped to my feet, thrust Cyril at her, then hurried to the steps at the side of the platform and ran up them, two at a time. The chairman saw me and half-rose to block my path, but I waved him back and stepped purposefully over to the sweating, sagging Ralph.

  ‘Oh, Nance,’ he said, as close to tears as I had ever seen him. I took his arm and gripped it tight, and held him in his place before the crowd. They had grown momentarily silent - through sheer delight, I think, at seeing me leap, so dramatically, to Ralph’s side. Now I took advantage of their hush to send my voice across their heads in a kind of roar.

  ‘So you don’t care for mathematics?’ I cried, picking up the speech where Ralph had let it falter. ‘Perhaps it’s hard to think in millions; well, then, let us think in thousands. Let us think of three hundred thousand. What do you think I am referring to? The Lord Mayor’s salary?’ There were titters at that: there had been a bit of a scandal, a couple of years before, about the Lord Mayor’s wages. Now I gratefully singled out the titterers and addressed myself to them. ‘No missis,’ I said, ‘I’m not talking of pounds, nor even of shillings. I am talking of persons. I am talking of the amount of men, women, and children who are living in the workhouses of London - of London! the richest city, in the richest country, in the richest empire, in all the world! - at this very moment, as I speak now ...’

  I went on like this; and the titters grew less. I spoke of all the paupers in the nation; and of all the people who would die in Bethnal Green, that year, in a workhouse bed. ‘Shall it be you that dies in the poorhouse, sir?’ I cried — I found myself adding a few little rhetorical flourishes to the speech, as I went along. ‘Shall it be you, miss? Or your old mother? Or this little boy?’ The little boy began to cry.

  Then: ‘How old are we likely to be, when we die?’ I asked. I turned to Ralph - he was gazing at me in undisguised wonder - and called, loudly enough for the crowd to hear, ‘What is the average age of death, Mr Banner, amongst the men and women of Bethnal Green?’

  He stared at me dumbfounded for a second, then, when I pinched the flesh of his arm, sang out: ‘Twenty-nine!’ I did not think it was loud enough. ‘How old?’ I cried - for all the world as if I were a pantomime dame, and Ralph my cross-chat partner - and he called the figure out again, louder than before: ‘Twenty-nine!’

  ‘Nine-and-twenty’ I said to the audience. ‘What if I were a lady, Mr Banner? What if I
lived in Hampstead or - or St John’s Wood; lived very comfortably, on my shares in Bryant and May? What is the average age of death amongst such ladies?’

  ‘It is fifty-five,’ he said at once. ‘Fifty-five! Almost twice as long.’ He had remembered the speech and now, at my silent urging, kept on with it, in a voice that was soon almost as strong as my own. ‘Because for every one person that dies in the smart parts of the city, four will die in the East End. They will die, many of ’em, of diseases which their smart neighbours know perfectly well how to treat or prevent. Or they will be killed by machines, in their workshops. Or perhaps they will simply die of hunger. Indeed, one or two people will die in London this very night, of pure starvation ...

  ‘And all this, after two hundred years in which - as all the economists will tell you - Great Britain’s wealth has increased twenty times over! All this in the richest city on earth!’

  There were some shouts at that, but I waited for them to die before taking up the speech where he had left it; and when I did speak at last, I did it quietly, so that people had to lean, and frown, to hear me. ‘Why is this so?’ I said. ‘Is it because working people are spendthrifts? Because we would rather use our money to buy gin and porter, and trips to the music hall, and tobacco, and on betting, than on meat for our children and bread for ourselves? You will see all these things written, and hear them said, by rich men. Does that make them true? Truth is a queer thing, when it comes to rich men talking about the poor. Only think: if we broke into a rich man’s house, he would call us thieves, and send us to prison. If we set a foot on his estate, we would be trespassers - he would set his dogs upon us! If we took some of his gold, we would be pickpockets; if we made him pay us money to get the gold back, we would be swindlers and con-men!

  ‘But what is the rich man’s wealth but robbery, called by another title? The rich man steals from his competitors; he steals the land, and puts a wall about it; he steals our health, our liberty; he steals the fruits of our labour, and obliges us to buy them back from him! Does he call these things robbery, and slave-holding, and swindling? No: they are termed enterprise; and business skill; and capitalism. They are termed nature.