Free Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters Page B

has offered me a contract, at a music hall in London!’
    â€˜London!’ I could only echo her in disbelief. This was terrible beyond all words. Had she gone to Margate or Broadstairs, I might have visited her sometimes. If she went to London I would never see her again; she might just as well go to Africa, or to the moon.
    She went talking on, saying how Mr Bliss had friends at the London halls, and had promised her a season at them all; how he had said she was too good for the provincial stage; that she would find fame in the city, where all the big names worked, and all the money was... I hardly listened, but grew more and more miserable. At length I placed a hand before my eyes, and bowed my head, and she grew silent.
    â€˜You’re not happy for me, after all,’ she said quietly.
    â€˜I am,’ I said - my voice was thick - ‘but I am more unhappy, for myself.’
    There was a silence then, broken only by the sound of laughter and scraping chairs from the parlour below, and the shriek of gulls outside the open window. The room seemed to have darkened since we entered it, and I felt colder, suddenly, than I had all summer.
    I heard her take a step. In a second she was sitting beside me again, and had taken my hand from my brow. ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I have something to ask you.’ I looked at her; her face was pale, except for its cloud of freckles, and her eyes seemed large. ‘Do you think that I look handsome today?’ she said. ‘Do you think I have been kind, and pleasant, and good? Do you think your parents like me?’ Her words seemed wild. I did not speak, but only nodded wonderingly. ‘I came,’ she said, ‘to make them. I wore my smartest frock, so they would think me grander than I am. I thought, they might be the meanest and most miserable family in all of Kent; yet I will work so hard at being nice, they’ll trust me like a daughter.
    â€˜But oh, Nan, they’re not miserable or mean, and I didn’t have to play at being nice at all! They are the kindest family I ever met; and you are all the world to them. I cannot ask you to give them up ...’
    My heart seemed to stop - and then to pound, like a piston.
    â€˜What do you mean?’ I said. She looked away.
    â€˜I meant to ask you to come with me. To London.’
    I blinked. ‘To go with you? But how?’
    â€˜As my dresser,’ she said, ‘if you’d care to. As my - anything, I don’t know. I have spoken to Mr Bliss: he says there will not be much money for you at first - but enough, if you share my diggings.’
    â€˜Why?’ I said then. She raised her eyes to mine.
    â€˜Because I - like you. Because you are good for me, and bring me luck. And because London will be strange; and Mr Bliss may not be all that he seems; and I shall have no one...’
    â€˜And you truly thought,’ I said slowly, ‘that I would say no?’
    â€˜This afternoon - yes. Last night, and this morning, I believed - Oh, it was so different in the dressing-room, when it was just the two of us! I didn’t know then how it was for you here. I didn’t know then that you had a - a chap.’
    Her words made me bold. I drew my hand away from hers and got to my feet. I walked to the head of the bed, where there was a little cabinet, with a drawer in it. I opened it, and took something from it, and showed it to her. ‘Do you know this?’ I said, and she smiled.
    â€˜It’s the flower I gave you.’ She took it from me, and held it. It was dry and limp, and its petals were brown at the edges and coming loose; and it was rather flat, because I had slept many nights with it beneath my pillow.
    â€˜When you threw this to me,’ I said to her, ‘my life changed. I think I must have been - asleep - till that moment: asleep, or dead. Since I met you, I’ve been awake - alive! Do you think I could give that up, now, so