Gypsy (31 page)

She didn’t ask, for she was so scared herself that she thought she might be sick. Sweet reason told her that if she could play in Heaney’s, she could play anywhere. But back there she’d never had anyone championing her; if she failed, it would only be she who lost face. She knew Theo, Sam and Jack must all have sung her praises, so if she was a disaster, they’d look foolish.

Her stomach churned alarmingly as they walked into the Bear. It was much bigger than Heaney’s, and the high ceiling and narrow windows set in eight feet up above the ground indicated it had been built as a warehouse, but a new wood floor had been added. A long bar ran right down one side; on the other, a raised area behind a low balustrade held tables and chairs. At the far end opposite the door was a stage. The new electric lighting had been put in, twinkling in the vast mirror behind the bar.

It was already very busy, men three deep at the bar waiting to be served, and another couple of waiters taking orders from those sitting in the raised section. There was an entirely different kind of atmosphere to Heaney’s too, perhaps because there were more women. Not the kind of low types that Beth was used to seeing in saloons, but ordinary, neatly and soberly dressed women, the kind who might work in offices or shops. She felt afraid of playing in front of them, sure they would not approve of her.

She could see both Sam and Jack serving, but they didn’t appear to have noticed her.

‘I’ll take you in to meet Frank now,’ Theo said, taking her arm and leading her briskly through the tables.

Beth clutched at her fiddle case with both hands as they went through a door beside the stage, down a short passageway and then stopped outside another door while Theo knocked.

‘He’s a good man. Don’t be scared,’ he whispered.

Frank Jasper was a huge, bull-like man, with a bald head, thick neck, splayed nose and pockmarked skin. He looked like a man who had come up the hard way, but his elegant evening clothes were evidence of his success.

‘So this is your little fiddle player,’ he said to Theo after he’d looked Beth up and down. ‘I sure hope she’s as good as you claim or they’ll throw her to the bear.’

Beth had no idea then that Frank was in the habit of using the bear his saloon was named after as a joke. She thought he meant his customers were very hard to please and she quaked in her boots. The size of the saloon was another worry — she wasn’t sure if she would even be heard over a couple of hundred noisy drinkers.

The men left her alone in Frank’s office for at least twenty nail-biting minutes. Frank hadn’t told her how long she’d got to play for, or even what numbers she was going to play, and as she waited she thought she’d sooner be a laundry maid than face this kind of terror. She was just considering looking to see if there was a back door she could slip out of when Jack came in to get her.

‘I’m too scared,’ she admitted. ‘I won’t be able to play a note.’

Even he looked unfamiliar in his striped barman’s apron and bow tie, and the noise from the saloon was becoming more raucous by the minute.

Jack put his arms around her. ‘You’ll be fine, Beth, you aren’t up there on your own, Frank’s got a double bass player and a pianist with you.’

‘He has?’ Beth instantly felt more confident. ‘But why didn’t he tell me?’

‘Maybe he wanted to see if you’d lose your nerve,’ Jack said with a grin. ‘You go on in there and show him what you’re made of.’

Beth slipped off her coat and lifted her fiddle and bow from the desk where she’d left it after tuning up. ‘I’m ready.’

As Jack opened the door through to the bar, she heard someone ringing a bell for silence.

Then Frank spoke, welcoming his customers to the Bear, and Jack held Beth back, indicating she was to wait until she was introduced. ‘Most of you already know Herb on piano, and of course Fred on double bass,’ Frank said. ‘But some of you have been saying you wanted someone good to look at too. So tonight, for the very first time in Philadelphia, we’ve got a real live English doll to play. I heard tell they called her Gypsy in New York, cos she set all their feet a-tapping with her fiddle-playing. So a big hand now for Miss Beth Bolton!’

‘Go,’ Jack said, and gave her a push towards the stage steps.

Hearing applause again was like taking a big swig of rum, and Beth ran up the stairs and bowed to the audience, then quickly turned to the pianist, an older man with a mournful face. ‘ “Kitty O’Neill’s Champion“?’ she asked.

‘Sure thing,’ he said with a smile and then a nod to the double bass player.

The two musicians played an introduction and Beth smiled at the audience as she tucked her fiddle firmly under her chin and lifted her bow. Her fear was gone now, she was back on stage where she belonged, playing one of her favourite Irish-American folk songs. She was going to be Miss Sassy from now on, and touch the heart of every man in the bar.

Frank took his cigar from his lips and leaned closer to Theo across the table. ‘You didn’t string me a line this time — she’s red-hot.’

Theo nodded and smiled. His heart was bursting with pride, for Beth wasn’t just hot, she was burning the whole place up. He’d been afraid she might have lost her fire because of that ordeal in the cellar, but she was playing even better than she had at Heaney’s.

He and Frank were at a table on the raised platform at the side of the saloon with an excellent view of the stage. Beth looked very small up there, like a scarlet flame in her red dress. She’d won the crowd with ‘Kitty O’Neill’, but then she’d gone on to play ‘Tom Dooley’, ‘Days of ’49’ and ‘ The Irish ’69’, all numbers that meant a great deal to Americans. But she really came into her own with her fast Irish jigs, and down in the main part of the room they could see a hundred heads nodding and feet tapping.

Theo smirked at Frank. ‘So I win the hundred bucks?’

‘Sure, you son of a gun. She’s good. I guess Pearl took to her too, she’s wearing her feathers.’

Theo picked up his whisky and drank it down in one. He was a happy man: he’d won his bet, Sam and Jack had proved to be assets, and he had all the gaming tables in Philadelphia awaiting him. And his little gypsy to seduce.

Chapter Twenty-one

‘So what do you think of my new home?’ Theo asked. ‘Are you shocked into silence because of its grandeur?’

Beth giggled. She’d had a few too many drinks at the Bear tonight and Theo had sweet-talked her into coming back here with him.

He was joking about the grandeur. It was just two rooms above a coach house, not unlike the ones she and Sam had lived in at Falkner Square. The furnishings were much nicer though — thick curtains, a bright rug on the floor and an old brocade couch that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a country mansion. But its real appeal was the heat coming from the enamelled pot-bellied stove in the centre of the living room. Outside in the street the snow was three feet deep, and Beth had expected that it would be equally cold inside.

‘I’m impressed by the tidiness and the warmth,’ she said, speaking slowly so she didn’t slur her words.

‘That I cannot take credit for,’ Theo replied, opening the door of the stove and putting another shovel of coal into it. ‘I have a maid. Actually she belongs to the people I am renting this place from, but I crossed her palm with silver and now she takes care of me too. She is old and as ugly as sin, but I appreciate how comfortable she makes me.’

Beth smiled. Theo was destined always to have some woman waiting on him hand and foot. Pearl hadn’t wanted him to leave her place, for he had charmed her just as he had Miss Marchment and Miss Doughty before her.

‘That will keep it going all night,’ Theo said as he closed the stove door. ‘Now, let me take your coat and get you a drink.’

It was the beginning of March now, but even when the church bells had rung out on New Year’s Eve to welcome in 1896, and she’d only been in Philadelphia a couple of days, Beth knew she was going to be happy here.

Pearl’s genteel Federal-style house in Spruce Street showed no outward signs of what went on behind its shiny, black-painted door, yet close by in Camac Street and the many narrow alleys that ran off it, brothels, gambling dens and taverns abounded. Respectable people bemoaned the crime and brawling, but to Beth and the boys the whole area was an extraordinarily colourful and joyous conclave of free spirits, who were not bound by the rigid social mores that prevailed elsewhere in the city.

The Bear was situated between Pearl’s and Camac Street. Although the majority of its clientele were hard-working artisans who lived in the area, the number of artists, musicians, dancers and actors who frequented it too attracted many middle- and upper-class people who liked being seen in a place deemed risque´.

Beth had it pointed out to her that many of the men who slipped into Pearl’s or other brothels on a Friday night were professional men and captains of industry. She had heard too about ladies of quality who sent their servants off to get them opium from the dives along the wharves. Even Ma Connelly, the tiny Irishwoman who assisted with unwanted pregnancies, claimed to have more genteel customers than whores or domestic servants.

Philadelphia meant ‘The City of Brotherly Love’, and it certainly was a more friendly place than New York, lacking the often menacing and dangerous edge she’d sensed there. There was perhaps just as much poverty, especially amongst the negro and Irish communities, but by and large immigrants appeared more settled here, and the different nationalities more integrated.

It had been terribly cold. On her nineteenth birthday in February there had been a blizzard with drifts of snow feet thick. But Pearl’s kitchen was always warm, and the Bear was only a few streets away. When she got back late at night there was always a hot brick in her bed, and she’d wake in the morning to the smell of frying bacon or pancakes.

On the nights she didn’t play her fiddle, she still worked at the saloon, serving drinks and collecting glasses, and she got to hear other musicians and singers. She’d made many friends too, with both the customers and the other staff.

Frank Jasper had a reputation for being hard-headed and ruthless, but Beth had found him to be jovial and fair-minded. All the money customers put into the hat for the musicians was divided between them equally, and he didn’t take a percentage of it. But then, he was a real music lover, and he took pride in seeking out and nurturing new talent. Some nights he got Beth merely to accompany other musicians or singers, other nights she was the star turn, but whether she was playing, or just watching and listening from the floor, she was constantly learning, and she sensed that was Mr Jasper’s intention.

He was a great enthusiast of the Italian Paganini, and the Spaniard Pablo Sarasate, both great violinists, and he’d been fortunate enough to hear Sarasate play at a concert in New York. Miss Clarkson had told Beth about these two men, and taken her to a concert where the orchestra played some of their music, so she could understand Mr Jasper’s enthusiasm. Theo had said he would take her to some concerts here in Philadelphia to broaden her knowledge of other musicians.

Homesickness for England was a thing of the past. Beth wrote to the Langworthys just as regularly, and looked forward eagerly to their letters with news of Molly, but she no longer ached to go home.

It was living at Pearl’s that had changed Beth’s outlook the most. It was hard to disapprove of what went on in the house when she heard so much laughter and gaiety from the rooms above. She’d got to know all the girls, and none of them were hapless creatures who had been forced into the profession. They had chosen it. Some just wanted easy money, some were adventurers, and Missy had admitted to Beth she loved sex and saw no reason why she shouldn’t be paid for having it too.

Pearl’s entire house had a seductive atmosphere, with the girls’ scent, cigar smoke and the tinkling of the piano in the parlour. Even the laundry room down by Beth’s bedroom was always festooned with scanty silk and lace garments. Late at night, when she heard the sounds of bedsprings creaking, Beth found herself yearning to be in bed with Theo, to discover all that joy the girls alluded to.

She loved him, and she was reasonably secure that he cared for her too, for why else would he turn up at the end of an evening to escort her home, take her out for luncheon or bring her little presents of chocolates, flowers or a decoration for her hair? Pearl had pointed out that red-blooded men needed sex, and if they didn’t get it from the one they loved, they went elsewhere. She said only a fool would believe otherwise. And Pearl should know: a constant stream of married and betrothed men came to her door every evening.

It seemed to Beth that once this hurdle was cleared, Theo would give up his disappearing acts and be more open about every aspect of his life. Marriage wasn’t as important to her as it had once been. She just wanted him to say that she was his girl and make plans that included her.

Beth sat down on the couch as Theo poured her a glass of wine. ‘Are you warm enough?’ he asked, handing it to her.

‘Yes, thank you,’ she replied, suddenly nervous. She loved his kisses and being held and caressed by him, but she had no real knowledge of what came next, whether Theo would undress her, or if she had to do that. Would it hurt her? And would he know how to make sure she didn’t end up with a baby?

Beth had made it her business to find out from Pearl how women could protect themselves. There were douches and tiny sponges which she’d seen, and learned the theory of how they worked. But it was all theory. Pearl had said that rubber sheaths for men were what she advocated, but she had added that most men were reluctant to use them.

Theo sat down beside her and watched as she took a gulp of her wine. ‘What’s going on in that pretty head?’ he asked.

‘Just that it is a big step coming here with you,’ she replied.

He looked tenderly at her, then took her glass away and put his arms around her. ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said softly. ‘I only want to show you the delights of lovemaking.’

He kissed her then, the tip of his tongue flitting in and out of her lips in a way that always made her belly tighten and her nipples grow hard. In the past such kisses had either taken place late at night in the cold as they walked home, or standing in the corridor of the basement at Pearl’s, with Jack or Sam expected back at any minute, so Beth was always tense.