Gypsy

by Lesley Pearse

  Theo put the candle down and dropped his hat on the bed. ‘Oh God,’ he exclaimed. ‘She’s lost our baby? Please, Jack, sit down and tell me what happened and how she is.’

  Jack could see that Theo was shocked and horrified, but that didn’t appease him. He clenched his fist and took a swing at Theo, catching him squarely on the jaw, and Theo staggered back from the force of it.

  ‘I’d beat the shit out of you without any qualms,’ Jack hissed at him. ‘But I don’t want to smash up this room Beth has tried to make nice. Did you ever notice that? Did you see how rough her hands have become? She was someone in Philly, she wore pretty dresses and she was happy too, but you took all that away from her.’

  ‘I suppose you had a better plan then?’ Theo said with a sarcastic edge. ‘One you never voiced, eh?’

  ‘You smug bastard,’ Jack yelled at him, and was just about to hit him again when Sam came running into the room and caught his arm.

  ‘Fighting won’t make anything better,’ he said angrily, getting between his two friends. ‘God knows I’d like to pulverize Theo too for neglecting Beth, but she’ll be devastated at losing her baby, and if she comes home to find Theo gone too, she’ll never recover.’

  ‘I wouldn’t leave Beth even if you two pummelled me to a pulp,’ Theo said indignantly. ‘You’re acting like I’m responsible for this. How could I be? I didn’t even know. Now, will you sit down and explain what happened and tell me how she is, for God’s sake? I love her, surely you know that?’

  At that unexpected declaration of love, Jack’s anger faded. ‘Why did you leave her here all the time then?’ he asked brokenly. ‘Couldn’t you have introduced her to your new friends? She’s a real lady, she would never have embarrassed you.’

  Theo sighed and slumped down on to a chair, running his fingers through his hair. ‘I was trying to get something for all of us. If I’d known I was going to be a father—’ He broke off suddenly, overcome by emotion, and covered his face in his hands.

  ‘For pity’s sake, tell me how she is,’ he said in a strangled voice after a few moments. ‘Surely I’m entitled to that much?’

  Theo stood at the ward door, looking at Beth through the small glass panel. She was lying on her side in the bed, one arm hiding her face, and he knew she was crying. He braced himself to enter the room, hoping that when he took her in his arms he’d be able to find the right words to comfort her.

  His face was sore from Jack’s punch a few hours earlier, but not as sore as his heart. He couldn’t claim ever to have thought how it would be to become a father, yet he felt unbearably sad that he’d unwittingly created a baby with Beth and now it had gone.

  Pushing the door open, he took a deep breath and walked in. Beth moved her arm from her face and he saw her eyes were red and swollen.

  ‘You poor darling,’ he said softly. ‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t here with you yesterday.’

  Her expression was so bleak he couldn’t bear to see it. ‘You should have told me,’ he said as he leaned over her and scooped her into his arms. ‘I love you, Beth, I know I don’t always show you, but you shouldn’t have kept this from me.’

  ‘They said I nearly died,’ she sobbed against his chest. ‘I wish I had, Theo. What is there for me in the future without ever having a child to love?’

  ‘We don’t know for certain that’s true,’ Theo said, and tears ran down his cheeks too. ‘We’ll see another doctor, we’ll make it come right.’

  ‘There are some things that can’t be made right,’ she said, her voice muffled against his chest.

  Instinct told Theo that she felt she had been punished for having sexual relations with a man she wasn’t married to. ‘I don’t believe that,’ he said. ‘I’ll take care of you, and when you’re well again, everything will look different, you’ll see. We’ll get married one day and we’ll go home to England to see Molly. Even if we can’t have another baby, we’ll still have each other.’

  She just cried against his chest, and he felt powerless to ease her pain. What could he say? He’d never hungered to have a child, he doubted any man did. He could understand Beth’s grief and disappointment, but he couldn’t presume to know how it felt.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered. ‘Sorry that I haven’t taken better care of you. Sorry that I didn’t tell you often enough that I love you. And I’m so very sorry we lost our baby. But don’t give up on me, Beth. Things may look bleak now, but they’ll get better. I promise you that much.’

  Chapter Twenty-four

  June 1897

  ‘Break out of it, sis, I’m sick of seeing that sad face!’

  Beth blushed with embarrassment, for Sam’s voice seemed to boom around the railway carriage.

  ‘Why don’t you shout a little louder?’ she retorted sarcastically. ‘I’m sure that the people right at the back would like to hear too.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, looking abashed. ‘I didn’t realize I was shouting. But it seems like years since I heard you laugh or even sound excited about anything. We’ve come clean across Canada and seen so much; we’ll be in Vancouver tonight, so can’t you just perk up?’

  ‘Scrubbing floors, washing up and waiting on tables were hardly things to get excited about,’ she said waspishly. ‘If you can guarantee Vancouver will be better, then I might start laughing again.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll get a chance to play your fiddle there.’ Beth forced herself to smile. ‘Maybe, but excuse me if I don’t count on it.’

  It was four months since she lost her baby, and physically she had recovered from it within a week. But hearing she would never have another child left her totally dispirited. Sometimes she stayed in bed all day, she didn’t care if the room was dirty or untidy, and when she did venture out, she avoided speaking to anyone.

  Theo couldn’t have been kinder in those first three or four weeks. He brought her home delicacies, tonics, fresh fruit and chocolates, he took her out on a horse-drawn sleigh up on Mount Royal, and bought her a new dress from one of the best shops in Sherbrooke Street. Many evenings he stayed at home with her, and but for that she might have lapsed into permanent melancholy.

  She was glad when the boys suggested moving on. She felt as soon as she was seeing new scenery and meeting new people that her old spirit would return.

  They left Montreal by train in late March, when it was still very cold and the rivers still frozen, but spring was on its way. Theo’s theory was that the new railway running all the way across Canada to Vancouver would have created some boom towns along the route. He was right in as much as small towns had sprung up wherever the train stopped, but they weren’t the kind to yield the kind of opportunities Theo had hoped for.

  A saloon, usually doubling as a hotel, dried goods, clothing and hardware shops, a timber yard, stabling and a blacksmith were about all most of these towns had to offer. The immigrants who had bought farmland in these remote places were sober, diligent and staid, not the kind to gamble with hard-earned money. Beth thought the only way to make a quick fortune in these towns would be to bring in bolts of dress material, hats and other luxuries to sell, for most of the women were starved of anything pretty to wear.

  Yet leaving Montreal had been good for her. She had stopped dwelling on never having another child, and found the energy to work when the opportunity arose. She began to care about how she looked again, and kept up practice on her fiddle.

  In most places they stopped at, the boys usually managed to find some kind of casual work, on farms, at logging camps and in sawmills. In one town Sam had helped a boot repairer out and earned nearly forty dollars. But for Beth the only work available was cleaning, laundry and occasionally some farm work, seeding and hoeing out weeds. Sometimes she had to stay alone in a rooming house while the boys stayed in the bunkhouse wherever they were working, so she was lonely too.

  She had played her fiddle a few times in saloons, but although she got wild applause, her audience’s appreciation didn’t run to more than a few dimes in the
hat. It was hard not to think back to New York and Philadelphia, and how good it had felt to be making a living doing what she loved best of all. She feared she would never get the chance to do so again.

  Yet for all the disappointments, hardships and anxieties, it had been, as Sam said, an incredible journey right across this huge country, and the astounding scenery had staggered her at every turn: snow-capped mountains, vast lakes and pine forests, tumbling waterfalls, prairies that stretched almost to infinity. She could hardly believe that her world had once been confined to Church Street in Liverpool, and that a park was her idea of wide open space.

  The reason for her long face today was simply weariness. She was tired of the nomadic life, tired too of approaching a new town and seeing the boys get excited, only to leave in disappointment a few days later. She felt unable to raise any enthusiasm for Vancouver as she was sure it would be no different to anywhere else.

  Theo was convinced that this was where all his dreams would come true. Right now he was out on the viewing platform at the end of the carriage with Jack, and she had no doubt they were once again planning their dream gambling house.

  She had known that Jack and Theo had had a fight after she lost the baby, for she’d seen the bruise on Theo’s cheek. Yet whatever animosity lay behind it had vanished, for they were the best of friends now, and Jack had more than proved his worth on this trip. When it came to hard manual work, he had no equal, for he was immensely strong and capable. He covered for Theo and Sam when they lagged behind, and his tough stance deterred any would-be troublemakers from picking on them.

  All three of them were more muscular and fit now, handsome too, with sunburnt faces. Even if Beth couldn’t share their boyish excitement about Vancouver, she was still very glad to be with them.

  ‘This will do, won’t it?’ Jack looked nervously at Beth as he led her into the rooms he’d found for them in Gas Town.

  They had arrived in Vancouver in the early hours of the morning, so they’d dozed in the station waiting room till it was daylight. Jack had gone off on his own while they were eating breakfast, and returned an hour later to tell them he’d taken this place, just a couple of streets away from the station.

  ‘It’s fine, Jack,’ Beth replied, too tired to care what it was like. There were two rooms, stained mattresses on the beds, a chair with only three legs, a gas stove and a sink in the corner of the back room which overlooked the docks. But they had stayed in much worse places.

  ‘It was the best of the ones I saw,’ Jack said anxiously. ‘Maybe we’d get a better place elsewhere, but I was told Gas Town is where all the saloons and gambling dives are, and it looks like our kind of place. I bet they won’t be against pretty fiddlers here.’

  Beth was touched he had thought of her and smiled wearily. ‘You did well to find it, Jack. But then you always do well, whatever you do.’

  Theo and Sam came up the stairs then. Theo wrinkled his nose, and Sam gave a strained smirk. ‘Why do we always get such consistently grim rooms? You’d think once in a while we’d stumble on something decent,’ he said.

  Beth felt compelled to reassure them. ‘At least it’s quite a new building. I even saw an inside lavatory and a bathroom as we came up the stairs. I can fix it up for us, we’re going to do all right here.’

  ‘If you’re happy then we all will be,’ Theo said, going over to the window and looking out. ‘We’ve got a good view of the ships, and if we find Gas Town isn’t to our taste, we can sail away somewhere on one of them.’

  ‘As long as it isn’t to the north,’ Beth said, as she opened up her valise to unpack. ‘I’ve had enough of cold and snow.’

  Beth woke later to hear banjo music coming from somewhere close by. It was fast and hot, reminding her of a negro banjo player who used to play in the streets back in Philadelphia. It seemed the best of omens.

  All four of them had lain down fully dressed on the bare mattresses for a nap, but that must have been hours ago for she could see by the low sun that it was early evening now.

  Theo was sound asleep, curled up around her back, and she wriggled away from him, suddenly energized and wanting to turn the room into a home for them.

  She had unrolled their bundle of bedding, hung her dresses up in the closet, and was just dragging the table across to the window, when Theo woke.

  ‘That’s a good sign,’ he said, watching her spread a checked tablecloth on it. ‘Does that mean you feel at home?’

  ‘I feel at home anywhere you are,’ she said teasingly. ‘But get your lazy carcase off that bed so I can make it up.’

  He did as she asked but then came across the room to her and put his arms around her. ‘I’ve put you through such a lot,’ he said regretfully.

  That was something of an understatement, and if she’d been in the mood for sniping at him she could have given him a long list of hurts, starting with the inevitable feast-or-famine lifestyle of a gambler. There were the unexplained absences, flirting with other women, unreliability and selfishness too. But she wasn’t in the mood for recriminations now.

  ‘Not all of it bad,’ she said, and wound her arms around his neck to kiss him. He responded eagerly, his tongue flickering into her mouth as he pressed himself up against her, and to her surprise she felt a real stirring of desire for him too.

  Since she’d lost the baby she had stopped wanting him the way she used to. She had continued to go through the motions, pretending she did, out of kindness to him, but each time she faked rapture she felt unbearably sad and cheated, for their lovemaking had been such a big part of what was good between them.

  He sat down on a chair and pulled her on to his knees so she sat astride him, then unfastened the bodice of her dress and released her breasts to caress and kiss them. It felt good, just the way it used to, and as his hand crept up under her skirt and petticoats to fondle her, she knew this time there would be no faking.

  The indecency of knowing that Sam and Jack were just the other side of the door while Theo was arousing her to fever pitch with his fingers was so erotic that she climaxed even before he unbuttoned his trousers and slid into her. The banjo player out on the street seemed to be in time with them. She threw back her head, pressing her breasts into Theo’s face with abandon, loving the sensual delight of him inside her.

  He came with a roar of delight, digging his fingers into her bottom. ‘That was like winning a thousand dollars on the turn of a card,’ he whispered against her shoulder. ‘I love you so much, Beth.’

  It was not until after ten that the four of them went out to get something to eat. They had been forced to take cold baths, for the water only got hot when the furnace in the basement was lit. But they were all reinvigorated, and Beth felt so radiant from the lovemaking earlier that she laughed at everything the boys said.

  She had put on her red satin dress, even though it was creased from being packed away in her valise for so long. ‘I’m taking my fiddle with me,’ she announced as they left their rooms. ‘I’m feeling lucky tonight.’

  After a dinner of fried chicken and potatoes in a restaurant close by they walked down the main street of Gas Town.

  As they understood it, Vancouver originated here. In 1867 it had been just a cluster of wooden shacks and warehouses by the wharves until John Deighton, known as Gassy Jack, arrived and opened the first saloon. The city dignitaries wanted to call the area Granville, but it had remained Gas Town to its residents.

  After the sedate, quiet little towns they’d visited during the past months it was a delight to find Gas Town was buzzing with activity, noise and less pious pleasures.

  People were spilling out of saloons on to the pavements with their drinks and there were stalls selling all kinds of food from baked potatoes and hot dogs to bowls of noodles. Music wafted out from a dozen different sources, and drunken sailors lurched along in groups, singing as they went.

  There were touts trying to get the unwary into card games down back alleys, and whores lounging suggestively in doo
rways. Beggars, buskers, street entertainers and pedlars all added to the hurly-burly.

  Jack stopped them at a very busy saloon on a street corner in Water Street. ‘Let’s make a nuisance of ourselves in here,’ he said with a grin. ‘There’s no music, so maybe we can persuade them they need some!’

  Waiting by the door with Theo while Jack and Sam went to the bar to get drinks, Beth reflected on how the dynamics of their group had changed since they left Philadelphia. Theo had been their undisputed leader then, by force of personality and breeding and because he was the one who had the money. Sam was his right-hand man, and Jack’s role was almost that of servant.

  Once in Montreal, with Theo prone to disappearing, Jack and Sam had begun to make decisions for themselves. Yet even then Theo only had to click his fingers and they fell in with his plans.

  Once out of Montreal, everything changed; Theo and Sam were both too refined and citified to be in harmony with the tough, strong farmers, lumberjacks and construction men they met up with. But these men took to Jack, recognizing him as one of their own.

  Suddenly it was Jack making the decisions, and he carried Sam and Theo with him. On some of the jobs they did, they wouldn’t have lasted a day without Jack helping them and covering up their inadequacies. Sam soon began to toughen up, and took a pride in learning new skills and keeping up with Jack and the other men. But Theo was like a fish out of water; he couldn’t adjust. He got by solely on his charm, and Beth often overheard men referring to him disparagingly as ‘the English gent’.

  She wondered whether now they were here, in the kind of environment Theo was at home in, he’d push his way back to being group leader again.

  Jack and Sam returned with the drinks and they were grinning broadly.

  ‘We asked the landlord if you could play,’ Sam said. ‘He said, “If you dare.“So do you dare, sis?’