Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [110]
‘We can’t leave you here to face the music,’ he said weakly. ‘Jack’s coming as well.’
‘Jack was involved too?’ Beth’s voice rose an octave.
‘He only helped us get away.’
Beth’s eyes were prickling with tears and she could barely fasten her stays, her fingers were trembling so much. ‘What about Pearl and Frank?’
‘We weren’t at Frank’s place, we won’t be in trouble with him. I wish we could tell Pearl about it now and prepare her, but we can’t, Beth. We’ve got to get out now.’
Jack appeared in the room just as Beth had finished dressing. He was carrying Sam’s and his own bag. Without saying a word, he put them down on the floor and began laying Beth’s dresses on the bed and rolling them up to put into her valise.
‘So we’ve got to slip out of here like thieves in the night?’ Beth said. ‘Not a word of thanks for all Pearl’s done for us?’
‘We’ll write and apologize,’ Sam said, hastily picking up more of Beth’s things and stuffing them into the valise. ‘I’m so sorry, sis.’
Less than ten minutes later the three of them with their bags, and Beth carrying her fiddle case, were out in the dark street, hurrying away to meet the cab around the corner.
It was already there. The horse made a shuffling sound with its hooves as they approached and Theo leapt out.
‘I’m so sorry, Beth,’ he said as he helped her in. ‘I’ll make it up to you somehow.’
‘Where are we going?’ Beth asked as the cab moved away.
‘Wherever the first train out takes us,’ Theo replied.
Chapter Twenty-two
‘I’m freezing,’ Beth said, wrapping a muffler more firmly around her neck as she and the boys made their way out of Montreal station. ‘If it’s as cold as this when it’s only September, what will it be like in the middle of winter?’
The first train out of Philadelphia station was bound for New York, but as Jack pointed out on the journey, it wouldn’t be wise to stay there for they’d soon be found.
At Grand Central station they saw there was a train going to Canada just a couple of hours later. Theo thought that was the perfect destination for them to escape American justice.
‘We won’t be here that long. We’ll just wait for the hue and cry to die down, then we can go back,’ Theo said blithely.
‘We can’t go back to Philly or New York,’ Jack said. He was shivering for he wore only a thin jacket. He’d accidentally left his overcoat hanging on the door at Pearl’s. ‘But maybe the West Coast of America, somewhere miles away, and warm.’
It was now thirty hours since they’d left Philadelphia. It had been a tedious, cold journey overnight, and none of them had been able to doze for more than a few minutes at a time. Beth felt as if her skin, hair and eyes were full of grit, and although Montreal looked as civilized as anywhere else she’d been, she hadn’t expected it to be so cold.
‘It isn’t that cold, you’re just feeling it because you’re tired,’ Theo said, taking Beth’s arm. ‘We’ll find a hotel. A hot bath, breakfast, then a sleep will put everything right.’
‘Nothing is going to make murder right,’ she said tersely.
‘It was self-defence,’ Theo retorted. ‘The man had a knife at my throat and he would have used it. To my mind Sam’s a hero — he saved my life.’
Beth woke later to find Theo’s arms wrapped around her. For just a few moments she thought she was in his bed in Philadelphia, and lay there listening to his soft breathing and luxuriating in the warmth. Then she remembered where she was, and why, and all the anger she’d struggled to suppress on the journey here rose up.
It was pitch dark, but she didn’t know if it was early evening or the middle of the night. She was tempted to thump Theo awake rudely and ask him; in fact she had a great deal more to ask other than the time. But after a moment or two’s reflection she thought it better to put her own mind in order before tackling him.
She wriggled out of his arms and the bed, took the comforter from it and wrapped it around her, then went over to the window and lifted the edge of the curtain to see out.
The street outside,