Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

an old My last morning at home was — like every last morning in leather suitcase with a strap about it, that held my clothes; a history, I suppose - a sad one. We breakfasted together, the cap-box for my hats; and a little black tin trunk for five of us, and were bright enough; but there was a horrible everything else. The trunk was a goodbye gift from Davy.
    sense of expectation in the house that made anything except He had bought it new, and had my initials painted on the lid sighing, and drifting aimlessly from job to job, seem quite in swooning yellow capitals; and inside it he had pasted a impossible. By eleven o'clock I felt as penned and as stifled map of Kent, with Whitstable marked on it with an arrow -
    as a rat in a box, and made Alice walk with me to the to remind me, he said, where home was, in case I should beach, and hold my shoes and stockings while I stood at the forget.
    water's edge one final time. But even this little ritual was a 67

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    We did not talk much, Father and I, on the drive to And soon, too, I had London to gaze at and marvel over; for Canterbury. At the station we found the train already in and in an hour we had arrived at Charing Cross. Here Kitty steaming, and Kitty, her own bags and baskets at her side, found a porter to help us with our bags and boxes, and frowning over her watch. It wasn't like my anxious dreams while he loaded them on to a trolley we looked round at all: she gave a great wave when she saw us, and a smile.
    anxiously for Mr Bliss. At last, 'There he is!' cried Kitty,
    'I thought you might have changed your mind,' she cried, 'at and her pointing finger showed him striding up the the very last moment.' And I shook my head - in wonder platform, his whiskers and his coat-tails flying and his face that she could still think such a thing, after all I'd said!
    very red.
    Father was very kind. He greeted Kitty graciously and,
    'Miss Butler!' he cried when he reached us. 'What a when he kissed me good-bye he kissed her, too, and wished pleasure! What a pleasure! I feared I would be late; but here her happiness and luck. At the last moment, as I leaned you are exactly as we planned, and even more charming from the carriage to embrace him, he drew a little chamois than before.' He turned to me, then removed his hat - the bag from his
    silk, again - and made me a low, theatrical bow. '"Off goes pocket and placed it in my hand, and closed my fingers his bonnet to an oyster-wrench!'" he said, rather loudly.
    over it. It held coins - sovereigns - six of them, and more, I
    'Miss Astley - late of Whitstable, I believe?' He took my knew, than he could afford to part with; but by the time I hand and gripped it briefly. Then he snapped his fingers at had drawn open the neck of the bag and seen the gleam of the porter, and offered us each an arm.
    the gold inside it, the train had begun to move, and it was He had left a carriage waiting for us on the Strand; the too late to thrust them back. Instead, I could only shout my driver touched his whip to his cap when we approached, thanks, and kiss my fingers to him, and watch as he raised and jumped from his seat to place our luggage on the roof. I his hat and waved it; then place my cheek against the looked about me. It was a Sunday and the Strand was rather window-glass when he was gone from sight, and wonder quiet - but I didn't know it; it might have been the race-when I should see him next.
    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