Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [116]
Beth sometimes felt aggrieved that he lazed around in luxury while she cooked for forty men, but she understood he was working on getting backers for a gambling house which would benefit them all. Besides, he did bring money back for her and the boys, and she knew in her heart that if he didn’t love her or didn’t consider Sam and Jack his best friends, he would have moved on long ago.
But Theo hadn’t included a baby in his long-term plans, and Beth feared it might upset the whole apple cart. It hadn’t been in hers either, and at first she’d been horrified. Yet as the weeks had crept by she had found herself reliving the joy of caring for Molly, and now she wanted this baby wholeheartedly. But the fact remained that the boys were likely to view it with dismay.
She couldn’t keep it secret for much longer. She reckoned she was four and a half months pregnant, the baby due in July, and the only reason no one had noticed her changing shape was because of the layers of thick winter clothes she wore. Even in bed she never removed her flannelette nightdress, and as she was mostly asleep when Theo came home, there had been no lovemaking for weeks.
‘I will tell him tonight,’ she resolved aloud. He didn’t usually go out before she got home, and she could leave him to tell Sam and Jack the news the following morning before they went to work.
It was difficult walking in such thick snow, and treacherous too as there could be hidden obstacles beneath it, and in the darkness it wasn’t easy to see a slight mound which might warn her. She took cautious little steps, her mind on her own fledgling plan for the future.
For all Theo’s faults, he was loving and caring, and she was fairly certain he’d marry her to give the baby his name. But she also knew that she couldn’t hope to turn him into a traditional husband who went to work each day in a bank or some other regular employment to keep his wife and child.
Beth’s idea was that they should rent a whole house in a better area, then she could take in boarders to make a living. Theo could carry on with his plans, and Sam and Jack too. Even if the boys had to move away from Montreal, she’d be secure, and if she couldn’t play her fiddle in public, at least she’d be mistress of her own house and wouldn’t need to leave her baby with anyone while she worked.
As she turned into Fuller Street where the bunkhouse was, she was so busy thinking of how she’d present this idea to the boys that she stopped looking at the ground in front of her. Suddenly her feet slipped from under her and she fell backwards on to the snow, jarring her buttocks painfully.
As she rolled over and got cautiously up on to her knees, she saw that she’d stepped on a sheet of ice. Someone must have thrown some water out and it had frozen solid.
She expected she would have a big bruise later, but thankfully her legs and ankles felt fine.
It wasn’t until she was in the bunkhouse, stirring the stove which had been banked up all night, filling the kettles and lighting the gas to start cooking, that she realized she felt a bit woozy and shaken up. But there was no time to dwell on that as the men would be up soon.
Breakfast was always more difficult than cooking the evening meal, for which she had all day to prepare. In the morning she had less than an hour to cook some eighty fried eggs, bacon and sausages in huge frying pans, slice up six large loaves of bread and make several pots of coffee and tea.
The bunkhouse had one large communal room where the men ate and relaxed. Their dormitories and washroom were out the back. The walls were rough, unpainted