Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

wasn’t like my anxious dreams at all: she gave a great wave when she saw us, and a smile.
    â€˜I thought you might have changed your mind,’ she cried, ‘at the very last moment.’ And I shook my head - in wonder that she could still think such a thing, after all I’d said!
    Father was very kind. He greeted Kitty graciously and, when he kissed me good-bye he kissed her, too, and wished her happiness and luck. At the last moment, as I leaned from the carriage to embrace him, he drew a little chamois bag from his pocket and placed it in my hand, and closed my fingers over it. It held coins - sovereigns - six of them, and more, I knew, than he could afford to part with; but by the time I had drawn open the neck of the bag and seen the gleam of the gold inside it, the train had begun to move, and it was too late to thrust them back. Instead, I could only shout my thanks, and kiss my fingers to him, and watch as he raised his hat and waved it; then place my cheek against the window-glass when he was gone from sight, and wonder when I should see him next.
    I did not wonder for long, I am afraid to say, for the thrill of being with Kitty - of hearing her talk again of the rooms we were to share, and the kind of life we were to have together in the city, where she was to make her fortune - soon overcame my grief. My family would have thought me cruel, I know, to see me laugh while they were sad at home without me; but oh! I could no more not have smiled, that afternoon, than not drawn breath, or sweated.
    And soon, too, I had London to gaze at and marvel over; for in an hour we had arrived at Charing Cross. Here Kitty found a porter to help us with our bags and boxes, and while he loaded them on to a trolley we looked round anxiously for Mr Bliss. At last, ‘There he is!’ cried Kitty, and her pointing finger showed him striding up the platform, his whiskers and his coat-tails flying and his face very red.
    â€˜Miss Butler!’ he cried when he reached us. ‘What a pleasure! What a pleasure! I feared I would be late; but here you are exactly as we planned, and even more charming than before.’ He turned to me, then removed his hat - the silk, again - and made me a low, theatrical bow. ‘“Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wrench!’” he said, rather loudly. ‘Miss Astley - late of Whitstable, I believe?’ He took my hand and gripped it briefly. Then he snapped his fingers at the porter, and offered us each an arm.
    He had left a carriage waiting for us on the Strand; the driver touched his whip to his cap when we approached, and jumped from his seat to place our luggage on the roof. I looked about me. It was a Sunday and the Strand was rather quiet - but I didn’t know it; it might have been the race-track at the Derby to me, so deafening and dizzying was the clatter of the traffic, so swift the passage of the horses. I felt safer in the carriage, and only rather queer, to be so close to a gentleman I did not know, being transported I knew not where, in a city that was vaster and smokier and more alarming than I could have thought possible.
    There was much, of course, to look at. Mr Bliss had suggested we take in the sights a little before we headed for Brixton, so now we rolled into Trafalgar Square - towards Nelson on his pillar, and the fountains, and the lovely, bone-coloured front of the National Gallery, and the view down Whitehall to the Houses of Parliament.
    â€˜My brother,’ I said, as I pressed my face to the window to gaze at it all, ‘said I would be run down by a tram in Trafalgar Square, if ever I came to London.’
    Mr Bliss looked grave. ‘Your brother was very sensible to warn you, Miss Astley - but sadly misinformed. There are no trams in Trafalgar Square - only buses and hansoms, and broughams like our own. Trams are for common people; you should have to go quite as far as Kilburn, I’m afraid, or Camden Town, in order to be