Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters Page A

her arm, very tall, even without his hat, and was dressed rather I felt a little pang of disappointment. This swiftly turned, fashionably in chequered trousers and a fancy waistcoat.
    however - as always - to desire, and then to pride, for she Across his stomach there was a golden watch-chain as thick looked terribly smart and handsome on that dusty as the tail of a rat; and more gold, I noticed, flashed from Whitstable platform. She kissed my cheek when I went up his fingers. His head was large, his hair a dull ginger; gin-to her, and took my arm, and let me lead her from the gerish, too — and somehow at once both impressive and station to our house, across the sea-front. She said, 'Well!
    rather comical - were the whiskers that swept from his top And this is where you were born, and grew up?'
    lip to his ears, and his eyebrows, and the hair in his nose.
    'Oh yes! Look there: that building, beside the church, is our His skin was as clear and shiny as a boy's. His eyes were old school. Over there - see that house with the bicycle by blue.
    the gate? - that's where my cousins live. Here, look, on this When Kitty returned his card to him, he asked if he might step, I once fell down and cut my chin, and my sister held speak with her a moment, and at once she stood aside to let her handkerchief to it, the whole way home ..." So I talked him pass. With him in it, the little room seemed very full and pointed, and Kitty nodded, biting her lip. 'How lucky and hot. I rose, reluctantly, and put on my gloves and my you are!' she said at last; and as she said it, she seemed to hat, and said that I should go; and then Kitty introduced me sigh.
    - 'My friend, Miss Astley,' she called me, which made me I had feared that the afternoon would be dismal and hard, in feel a little gayer - and Mr Bliss shook my hand.
    fact, it was merry. Kitty shook hands with everyone, and Tell your Mother,' said Kitty as she showed me to the door, had a word for them all, such as, 'You must be Davy, who
    'that I shall come tomorrow, any time she likes.'
    works in the smack', and 'You must be Alice, who Nancy
    'Come at four,' I said.
    talks about so often, and is so proud of. Now I can see why'
    'Four it is, then!' She briefly took my hand again, and kissed
    - which made Alice blush, and look to the floor in my cheek.
    confusion.
    Over her shoulder I saw the flashy gentleman fingering his With my father she was kind. 'Well, well, Miss Butler,' he whiskers, but with his eyes turned, politely, away from us.
    said when he took her hand, nodding at her skirts, 'this is I can hardly say what a curious mix of feelings mine were, rather a change, ain't it, from your usual gear?' She smiled the Sunday afternoon when Kitty came to call on us in and said it was; and when he added, with a wink, 'And Whitstable. She was more to me than all the world; that she something of an improvement, too - if you don't mind a should be visiting me in my own home, and supping with gentleman saying so', she laughed and said that, since my family, seemed both a delight too lovely to be borne 49

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    gentlemen were usually of that opinion, she was quite used room!', Kitty said that she was quite all right, Mrs Astley, to it, and did not mind a bit.
    really; and I shifted a quarter of an inch to my right, but All in all she made herself so pleasant, and answered their kept my foot pressed against hers, and felt her leg, all hot, questions about herself, and the music hall, so sweetly and against my own.
    cleverly, that no one - not even Alice, or spiteful Rhoda -
    Father handed out the oysters, and Mother offered beer or could dislike her; and I - watching her gaze from the lempnade. Kitty picked up a shell with one hand and her windows at Whitstable Bay, or incline her head to catch a oyster-knife with the other, and brought them together story of my father's, or compliment my mother on some rather ineffectually. Father saw, and gave a shout.
    ornament or picture (she admired the shawl,