Gypsy (21 page)

He turned and walked away then, not even glancing back to see if she was watching him.

Chapter Fourteen

When Beth woke up on Sunday morning to find it was still raining just as heavily as it had been the previous evening, her first thought was of Jack. Since she and Sam moved into Houston Street, he’d always come round here on Sundays to take her out somewhere.

She pulled back the dividing curtain, only to find Sam’s bed hadn’t been slept in again. All at once she realized how dependent she’d become on Jack’s company and how lonely it would be without him. Knowing he’d be too bruised to come calling today, or any day, unless she apologized and told him she loved him, she pulled the covers up tightly to her neck and tried to go back to sleep.

Sam didn’t arrive back until two and was very surprised to find her still in bed.

‘Are you ill?’ he asked, sitting down beside her.

Beth told him about Jack. ‘There just didn’t seem to be anything to get up for,’ she finished.

‘If you do really care for him then you’d better get round to his place and make it up with him,’ Sam said, rubbing his stubbly chin. ‘But it’s always been my view you could do very much better than him.’

Beth sat up and glowered at her brother. ‘Just tell me how I’ll meet someone suitable. Heaney never lets me talk to anyone. You never introduce me to any of your friends. And it wouldn’t be right to go round to Jack’s and give him false hope just because I don’t want to be on my own.’

Sam looked thoughtful. ‘Practically every man that comes into Heaney’s would like a chance to meet you. But none of them are good enough for you either.’

‘Why should you decide that?’ she snapped. ‘I bet whoever you were with last night isn’t right for you either, but that doesn’t seem to bother you.’

‘It’s different for men.’

‘Well, I don’t see why it should be,’ she said indignantly. ‘If I can perform in one of the busiest saloons in New York, I don’t see why I can’t mix with anyone I choose to.’

Sam just looked at her for a moment. ‘Get up and get dressed, we’ll go out,’ he said at length. ‘I don’t like to see you looking sad.’

On Monday evening when Beth went to Heaney’s, she found Jack had been in earlier and left a note for her.

She had never seen his writing before, and the childlike print and terrible spelling were confirmation of the gulf between their upbringings. Yet however uneducated Jack was, his deep feelings for her shone through. He said he would still like to be her friend and he wouldn’t expect anything else of her.

Beth was sorry she’d hurt him, and her instinct was to write back immediately and say there would always be room in her life for him. But she knew if she did they’d just slip back into the old routine, and before long it would erupt again. Perhaps it would be best to do nothing for a while.

On Tuesday at Ira’s they had a big clear-out of summer clothes. Items that were too shabby or unfashionable would be collected by a man with a stall in Mulberry Bend, down in Five Points. The good things were packed away in boxes to be stored until next spring.

It was nice to be busy, and Beth realized at five o’clock, when she put on her coat and hat to leave, that she hadn’t thought about Jack once all day.

She had only just stepped out of the shop and closed the door behind her when she saw the man from the ship leaning nonchalantly against the lamp-post and grinning at her. ‘Hello, Miss Discretion!’ he said.

Beth was dumbfounded to see him. But she instinctively knew it wasn’t by chance.

‘How about coming and having a cup of coffee with me?’ he said. ‘Unless of course you’ve got something better to do?’

‘But I don’t even know your name,’ she said.

‘Well, that’s easy enough to fix.’ He grinned. ‘It’s Theodore Cadogan. Known to my friends as Theo.’

‘Well, Mr Cadogan,’ she said, suppressing the desire to laugh that he’d had the cheek to ask around to find out where she was. ‘What makes you think I’m in the habit of going off with men I barely know?’

‘Then how can you get to know anyone? I did only suggest coffee, not selling you to the white slave trade.’

‘Who told you where I was?’

‘Your brother, and I promised him as a gentleman that my intentions were strictly honourable.’

Beth doubted his honourable intentions, but Sam must have liked and approved of him or he wouldn’t have told him where to find her. Besides, he was so handsome and he made her feel bubbly inside. ‘Just a cup of coffee then,’ she agreed.

An hour later they were still in the coffee shop. Beth was calling him Theo and he was calling her Beth. She had told him of the events which led up to her coming to America, and he had told her that his father was a wealthy landowner in Yorkshire, but as the younger son he wouldn’t inherit the estate.

‘Father wanted me to study law, but that bored me,’ he said with a theatrical yawn. ‘Mother thought I should go into the Church, but I certainly had no calling for that. I toyed with the idea of the army too.’

‘So what made you come here?’ Beth asked.

He rolled his eyes in a manner that said he didn’t want to admit to the real reason.

‘It was Clarissa, wasn’t it?’ she laughed.

He sighed. ‘Not entirely. But let’s just say I was duped into believing her marriage was an unhappy one. I booked to come on the same ship as them, imagining foolishly that it would all work out and he’d just let her go when we got to New York. But she was only toying with me, she never had any intention of leaving him.’

‘Oh dear, Theo,’ Beth tutted, ‘you must have been destroyed.’

‘Only dented, my dear,’ he said with a grin. ‘And once here in the land of opportunity, I realized I’d found the perfect outlet for my talents, and I certainly don’t regret coming.’

‘What are your talents?’ she asked teasingly. ‘That is, apart from being something of a charmer and ladies’ man?’

‘I play cards rather well,’ he said.

Beth laughed. ‘Will that make you a fortune?’

‘I hope so.’ He smiled roguishly. ‘It has stood me in good stead so far.’

‘If you play with men like Heaney you’ll get fleeced,’ she said.

‘You underestimate me, my dear,’ he said. ‘I intend to own gambling places, not lose my shirt to them.’

He laughed at her look of surprise. ‘And you, my pretty little gypsy, can play your fiddle in my very first one if you wish. I feel it was fate that we met up again, and that our fortunes will be inextricably linked.’

Beth felt fluttery inside as his hand reached out across the table and took hers. She thought he was going to kiss it, but instead he turned it and studied her palm, tracing the lines on it with his forefinger.

‘There is great passion in your hand,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I see strength and courage too. Money will come to you, but love, both of men and your music, will always be more important.’

Beth giggled. ‘You sound like a gypsy now! Can you see a husband and children?’

‘Is that what you want?’

‘Don’t all women?’

‘You are all told that is what you want from an early age,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Our society encourages that idea too and creates no alternatives. But I think it would be such a waste for you to marry young and spend your life bringing up a brood of children when you have so much talent.’

He was still holding her hand, and slowly he bent his head down and put his lips to it. Beth felt a sharp pull inside her, a hot flush washed all over her and her skin tingled. She had to resist the urge to reach out and run her fingers through his hair. Instantly she recognized her feelings were the start of passion.

Three days later, Beth was with Ira in the back room of the shop where they repaired and laundered clothes, when Ira asked the name of the man Beth was seeing.

‘I know you are seeing someone,’ she said, looking sharply at Beth. ‘You’ve been lost in a daydream since Wednesday.’

Beth lifted the flat iron from the top of the stove and spat on it to see if it was hot enough to iron the white cotton petticoat. She didn’t want to answer Ira’s question; she felt if she voiced anything about Theo, especially her feelings towards him, it might jinx everything.

He had asked her to supper when they eventually came out of the coffee shop, and much later he had walked her home to Houston Street. It was a cold evening and the street was deserted, just a handful of young men standing around the grog shop on the corner.

‘I suppose you live somewhere smart?’ she said as they came to a stop outside her place.

‘Not really,’ he said, and reached out to caress her cheek. ‘Don’t be embarrassed by being poor, Beth. The will to succeed is always strongest when you have the least.’

His hand on her cheek made that strange pulling feeling in her belly return. She wanted him to kiss her so badly that she felt faint with it. She didn’t even care who saw her.

‘Will I see you again?’ she asked weakly, knowing that was too forward but unable to stop herself.

He kissed her then, as though it was his answer to her question. His lips touched hers, so gently at first, awakening every nerve ending in her body. Then, just as she was aching for something stronger, his arms went around her tightly, the tip of his tongue insinuated its way into her mouth, and she seemed to erupt inside.

She couldn’t help but press herself closer to him; his kiss was so thrilling that her body was acting on its own volition. She could feel her nipples hardening and a kind of throbbing in her private parts, and she shamelessly slid her tongue into his mouth too.

It was he who extricated himself first. ‘You kiss as beautifully as you play the fiddle,’ he said softly. ‘You’d make any man lose his head.’

Then he said he had to go and she remained there on the doorstep dizzy with desire, watching him walk back down the street. He moved with the grace of a panther, straight-backed, chin up. As he got to the street light on the corner he turned and waved and she felt her heart might burst.

Sleep eluded her that night, for she relived that kiss over and over again until her body was on fire. She was reminded of a neighbour’s cat back in Liverpool that lay writhing on its back out in the backyard, making an odd, crying sound. Her mother had said it was in season and she threw a bucket of water over it to make it go away, for two tom cats were sitting on the wall watching the display. Mama said she didn’t want any of that nastiness in her backyard. Beth hadn’t understood the significance of how the female cat was behaving then, but she did now.

Since she was old enough to be curious about love, marriage and having children, she’d been led to believe that it was men who got the pleasure and women tolerated the act for their sake. Even pragmatic Miss Clarkson hadn’t suggested otherwise. Her mother’s dying confession was the first inkling Beth had that perhaps women could want or need sex, but she had been too horrified by the consequences of that illicit affair to have any sympathy.

‘Not answering my question won’t deter me,’ Ira said, coming closer and putting one hand on Beth’s shoulder. ‘It’s quite normal for a girl of your age to fall in love, but I know it isn’t Jack you are mooning over. So who is this new man, and where did you meet him?’

‘He’s called Theodore Cadogan and I met him coming over on the ship,’ Beth said somewhat reluctantly. ‘I only spoke to him once then because he was in first class. But I ran into him again last week in Heaney’s and when I came out of here on Tuesday evening he was waiting for me.’

‘So he’s a gentleman?’

Beth nodded glumly.

‘What was he doing in Heaney’s then?’

Beth sighed; she had seen that question coming. ‘He had gone there for a card game.’

Ira sucked in her cheeks. ‘A gambler, eh! Well, they are usually very entertaining, I’ll give you that. But you keep your head, girl, I wouldn’t want to see you led astray.’

‘I really like him,’ Beth said weakly.

Ira looked hard at her until Beth blushed. ‘I see,’ she said at length. ‘He’s stirred up feelings you don’t understand. Is that it?’

Beth just looked at her feet.

Ira laughed. ‘You’ve been told good girls don’t have those kind of feelings, I suppose? Well, that’s plain daft, there’d be precious few babies come into this world if that was the case! I’ll tell how I see it, there aren’t women who like it and another bunch who don’t, there are just women who’ve got good lovers and ones who haven’t.’

‘He isn’t my lover,’ Beth exclaimed, alarmed that Ira would even think such a thing. ‘I’ve only spent one evening with him.’

Ira chuckled. ‘If he can make you feel that way in one chaste evening I’d say you’d better not chance being alone with him, unless of course you want to find out what a good lover can do for a woman.’

Beth squirmed with embarrassment, making Ira laugh louder. ‘I know there’s plenty who will tell you that you must have a ring on your finger before you try the goods. But I was always glad I tried out my Gunter before marriage.’

‘I may never see him again anyway,’ Beth said in an attempt to wrap up this conversation which she was finding excruciatingly embarrassing.

‘I’m sure you will,’ Ira said. ‘Not just for your looks or your curvy body, but your gaiety, brains, manner and your fiddle-playing. You are quite a prize, my dear. But you’ve got to protect yourself. Don’t believe everything he tells you, don’t loan him any money, don’t expect him to marry you, and get some advice about how to stop yourself having a baby. That’s been the ruin of many a good woman.’

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Beth said in horror. ‘Risk having a baby, I mean.’

‘Don’t be so sure.’ Ira patted her cheek affectionately. ‘In my experience when a woman is physically attracted to a man, she loses her common sense.’

Beth had to play that evening, and Heaney got a cab to take her home as Sam was working late. She woke on Saturday morning from a dream about Theo, and that made her start worrying about what Ira had said on the subject.

She pulled back the curtain slightly between her and Sam’s beds. To her disappointment it was empty once again, and the day loomed ahead of her devoid of any company.

When she heard Amy’s voice out on the stairs a couple of hours later, Beth called down to ask if she’d like to come up for some tea.