Tipping the Velvet

Nan finds a cheap apartment in a lower-class tenement, which she rents with money taken from the theater. Her landlady, Mrs. Best, assumes that Nan is a sex worker and warns her against bringing home men. Nan self-isolates in her own room and refuses to leave. Mary, a servant, brings Nan food and does her errands, worried that Nan will grow sick from not eating. After Mary brings Nan a pie wrapped in a newspaper, Nan sees Kitty and Walter’s picture in the newspaper with an announcement of their marriage, honeymoon, and new act. Nan starts to laugh before she stops herself.

As Nan takes a bath, she has a vision and remembers an old neighbor in Whitstable who died after her heart hardened. Thinking that her own heart has hardened, Nan begins to scratch at her chest and then rises from the tub. Crumpling the newspaper up, she dresses as a woman and goes for a walk. Finding herself the object of looks and suspicion as a lone woman walking through London, Nan decides to dress as a boy. Renting a room by the hour in a building of rooms frequented by sex workers, Nan uses it to change into her costumes.