50 pages • 1 hour read
Tipping the Velvet
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Part 3, Chapter 18-AfterwordChapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3, Chapter 18 Summary
After Florence’s disclosure, the mood lightens at the house. Nan begins to look at Florence with desire and at the rug Lillian made with disgust. Nan has grown more comfortable with her queerness. She starts to wear trousers again, growing more at home at Florence’s house. In February, after going to the market, Nan returns and overhears Annie and Florence discussing women. Nan can hear Annie tell Florence that she can’t grieve forever, especially not with such a beautiful bird caged in front of her. Guessing correctly that she’s the bird, Nan listens, until she knocks over a broom entering the room.
Florence invites Nan out to a public house that has a space for women, the Boy in the Boat. Nan dresses up and wears a tie, which Florence notices is crooked, and she reties it. They go to the bar, and people recognize Nan as Nan King; they coax her to sing. She and Florence return home late, and they have sex. Sleeping together in bed, Florence asks about her past. Nan confesses to her previous sex work, which shocks Florence. Nan describes how she dressed as a man. Once she begins to tell Florence her history, she doesn’t stop, fleshing out her relationship with Diana, how she lost contact with Ms. Milne, and how she loved Kitty. Upset at her revelations, Florence begins to go upstairs, and Nan stops her, knowing she will dream of Lillian. They agree to enjoy each other in the present.
Part 3, Chapter 19 Summary
Nan moves into Florence’s room, and they move the trundle bed back to the attic. Florence and Nan continue to grow closer, and they discuss more of Florence’s sexual history; Florence tells Nan she expected Nan would have been a one-sided lover. Florence continues to mention Kitty and then asks Nan to sing some of the songs that they sang together. Skeptical of the idea, Nan nevertheless sings. Florence reads Carpenter’s Towards Democracy as Nan makes love to her. From that moment on, they keep Towards Democracy next to their bed.
Annie, dating Emma Raymond, asks Nan and Florence if anything is better than love. Annie saw a pussywillow in the sun that reminded her of Emma, and she wept. Florence teases Annie, and she wonders if either she or Nan ever see the other in nature. Without sentiment, both respond jokingly, and Nan ponders that she saw Florence’s face in a flounder at a fish market. They discuss the upcoming gathering of socialists and unions that Florence is helping to organize in Victoria Park, and Nan complains that she will have to do work. According to Nan, Florence overextends herself, and then Nan takes over the work to help her girlfriend.
Ralph’s union asks him to speak at the gathering, and Nan helps him practice so he can memorize the speech. Ralph worries about his speech, and Nan tries to console him but makes him more anxious, as she regales him with stories from the theater.
Nan sees Zena at the rally, and they talk about her move to and back from Australia. Nan tells her that she and Florence are lovers and that Zena has a girlfriend as well. Zena tells Nan that Diana has come to the rally, as she’s the patron for one of the magazines that has a booth there. Nan attempts to confront Diana but loses her nerve. Nan returns to the tent, finding Florence in a peevish mood. Nan tells Florence that she’s seen Diana, and Florence complains that they can’t attend a rally without bumping into Nan’s former lovers. Hurt, Nan responds that she at least slept with these women, unlike Florence and Lillian.
Florence moves away, and Ralph begins to give his speech on the need for socialism, but soon he’s speaking haltingly and forgetting words. Nan rushes to the stage, takes over, and gives the speech. Met with thunderous applause, Nan goes to find Florence when Mrs. Macey, of the Women’s Cooperative Guild, enlists Nan’s help in the future due to her speech. Florence dismisses Nan’s speech, calling her a parrot and wishing she meant the words. Then, a visitor approaches to see Nan. Kitty has come to the rally, and she tries to convince Nan to come back to her—Kitty and Walter remain married, but she tells Nan if they are discreet, then they can have a love affair. Kitty confesses that there’s no attraction or love between her and Walter. Despite Kitty’s entreaties, Nan tells her that she loves Florence and she wants nothing to do with Kitty. Kitty offers to send her the money that belongs to Nan and the letters from her parents—Nan discovers her father had come to London to find her. Leaving Kitty, Nan returns to the tent and sees that Florence has left. Meeting her near the boating lake, Florence assumes that Nan will leave her. Nan tells her she’s recited everyone’s words this whole time. Now, she wants to speak her words, and she loves Florence and wants to be with her. Nan kisses Florence publicly, receiving applause from the gathered crowd.
Afterword Summary
In the Afterword, Waters examines her book, its history, and its impact. Responding to questions from people who found out she was writing a novel, Waters would explain the title—it refers to cunnilingus—and the subject matter. These answers “outed” her, she says. She wrote the book while finishing her PhD and hoped that lesbians would enjoy it. She was shocked that it became popular. LGBTQ+ people in Great Britain now enjoy unparalleled civil rights, 20 years since she published the book.
She discusses the book’s influences and the shadow that Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf cast on her work—describing the “leanness of the lesbian archive” (475), she admits that writing this historical fiction meant creating material herself. Waters concludes by listing how she would improve the novel—by fleshing out Billy as a more complete character, rather than a Black character who helps a white character’s “moral education.”
Part 3, Chapter 18-Afterword Analysis
The final chapters argue that LGBTQ+ identity, class solidarity, and working-class movements are all related, intertwining the novel’s three main themes. These chapters depict how Nan finally matures, growing into a community that accepts her fishmonger background, her sexuality, and her gender identity. Florence creates a family unit that merges her true self and her moral character; Nan’s inclusion in this family unit signifies a sense of belonging that her other communities did not provide. If Kitty makes queerness a secretive performance and Diana makes it cruel and selfish, Florence transforms it into a positive experience.
Nan’s comfort wearing trousers and men’s suits in Florence’s home signifies her growth as a character. These clothes, however, are not the costumes of the masher or the fancy suits tailored at Diana’s request, but clothes that serve Nan in and out of her house. Reflecting on Gender and Performance, these chapters trouble Nan’s previous outfits, linking her new trousers to a new comfort with her sexuality and gender. Integrating into her working-class neighborhood, Nan “become[s] known in the district as something of a trouser-wearer” (407). Her clothes, however, don’t cause the scandal they did on stage, in Diana’s parlor, or in the Cavendish Club. Clothing serves a utilitarian purpose on Bethnal Green, and often there “it [is] a luxury to have any sort of clothes at all” (407). The lack of surprise, condemnation, or attention validates Nan’s queerness as an integral part of herself. Nan’s new clothing weds her identity to working-class utilitarian purpose.
These chapters concentrate on Nan finding her purpose, apart from the pleasure and applause she courted with Kitty and Diana. As she helps Florence prepare for the socialist rally, they bicker over Florence’s workload. This conflict marks their relationship as adult and mature—Nan couldn’t argue with Diana who controlled shelter, money, and power, and Nan couldn’t advocate for herself with Kitty, who needed to be the star and keep Nan a secret. The dynamics that Nan explores in these relationships reflect the dynamics of Class and Society in Victorian England; only Florence belongs to the same economic class as Nan. When Kitty confronts Nan at the socialist rally, she notices how Nan’s dress and interests have changed, which reflects her contact with socialists. Kitty argues that Nan “doesn’t belong with [Florence] and her sort, talking all this foolish political stuff,” and she points out that Nan’s dress “is plain and cheap” (466). Observing that Nan “left Whitstable to get away from people such as this” (466), Kitty demonstrates that Nan has reconciled her past and future. Kitty uses her descriptors as an insult, while Nan wears “plain and cheap” with pride now.
Kitty’s classist beliefs reflect that these chapters concern the Authentic Lives and Coming Out of both Florence and Nan. Retreating from Diana’s despotic behavior, Nan “had come to Quilter Street to be ordinary; now [she is] more of a tom than ever” (403). Finding the value in her upbringing in Whitstable means that Nan has processed her shame over her queerness, both in her upbringing and her love for Florence. Desiring to find her own words and not repeat those of a script—either supplied by Kitty, Diana, or Ralph—Nan “want[s] to make a speech of [her] own” (471). Declaring her love for Florence, Nan kisses her in public, and “[f]rom the speakers’ tent there [comes] a muffled cheer, and a rising ripple of applause” (472). The applause could be for socialism or for their love; the undiscernible cause of the applause links the expression of their queer identities to their socialist politics.
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