Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters Page B

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    glass and its soft electric glow; the latter with its dome, its or next month, perhaps, but soon, soon, I promise you - you minarets and fountain. I had not known there were theatres will stand within it, your feet upon its stage. Then it will be like this in the world. I had not known that there was such a you that sets the heart of London racing! You that makes place as this, at all - this place that was so squalid and so the throats of the city shout, "Brava!"'
    splendid, so ugly and so grand, where every imaginable As he spoke he lifted his hat, and punched the air with it; manner of person stood, or strolled, or lounged, side by one or two passers-by turned their faces towards us, then side.
    looked away quite unconcerned. His words, I thought, were There were ladies and gentlemen, stepping from carriages.
    marvellous ones - and I knew Kitty thought so, too, for she There were girls with trays of flowers and fruit; and coffee-gripped my hand at the sound of them, and gave a little sellers, and sherbet-sellers, and soup-men.
    shudder of delight; and her cheeks were flushed, as mine There were soldiers in scarlet jackets; there were off-duty were, and her eyes, like mine, were shining and wide.
    shop-boys in bowlers and boaters and checks. There were We didn't linger very long in Leicester Square after that. Mr women in shawls, and women in neck-ties; and women in Bliss hailed a boy, and gave him a shilling to fetch us three short skirts, showing their ankles.
    foaming glasses from the sherbet-seller, and we sat for a There were black men, and Chinamen, and Italians and minute in Shakespeare's shadow, sipping our drinks and Greeks. There were newcomers to the city, gazing about gazing at the people who passed us by, and at the notices them as dazed and confounded as I; and there were people outside the Empire, where Kitty's name, we knew, would curled on steps and benches, people in clothes that were soon be pasted in letters three feet high. But when our crumpled or stained, who looked as if they spent all their glasses were empty, he slapped his hands together and said daylit hours here - and all their dark ones, too.
    we must be off, for Brixton and Mrs Dendy - our new I gazed at Kitty, and my face, I suppose, showed my landlady - awaited; and he led us back to the brougham and amazement, for she laughed, and stroked my cheek, then handed us to our seats. I felt my eyes, that had been so wide seized my hand and held it.
    and dazzled, grow small again in the gloom of the coach,
    'We are at the heart of London,' said Mr Bliss as she did so, and I began to feel, not thrilled, but rather nervous. I
    'the very heart of it. Over there' - he nodded to the wondered what kind of lodgings he had found for us, and Alhambra -'and all around us' - and here he swept his hand what kind of lady Mrs Dendy would be. I hoped that neither across the square itself - 'you see what makes that great would be very grand.
    heart beat: Variety! Variety, Miss Astley, which age cannot I need not have worried. Once we had left the West End wither, nor custom stale.' Now he turned to Kitty. 'We and crossed the river, the streets grew greyer and quite dull.
    stand,' he said, 'before the greatest Temple of Variety in all The houses and the people here were smart, but rather the land. Tomorrow, Miss Butler - tomorrow, or next week, uniform, as if all Grafted by the same unimaginative hand: 73

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    there was none of that strange glamour, that lovely, queer Inside, too, the house was rather cheerier. We were met at variety of Leicester Square. Soon, too, the streets ceased the door by Mrs Dendy herself - a white-haired, rather even to be smart, and became a little shabby; each corner portly lady, who greeted Mr Bliss like a friend, calling him that we passed, each public house, each row of shops and
    'Wal', and offering him her cheek to kiss - and shown into houses, seemed dingier than the one before. Beside me, her parlour. Here