Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [168]
But then, women generally had a poor deal in Dawson. They baked bread, did laundry and cooked in restaurants, and though some of them made an excellent living, they had to work incredibly hard, and often had men who spent it as fast as they earned it. Those who were married to miners spent their days panning for gold in remote creeks, living in terrible conditions with no other female company.
Only a small percentage of women lived the high life, and they were the actresses, singers and dance-hall girls. Most of the dance-hall girls took far more from men than they gave. For a dollar, a man got less than a minute with them in his arms before they moved on to their next partner. One girl had a belt made with seventeen twenty-dollar gold pieces, a present from a miner. Almost all the girls made no secret of the fact that they were there to separate the men from their pokes.
Beth worked too hard and for too long hours to live the high life, but she didn’t mind, for it stopped her dwelling on Sam and Molly. True to his word, Theo had bought furniture for their rooms upstairs, including the promised brass bed and carpets too. Every night in the saloon was fun, and to see it becoming such a big success gave her great satisfaction.
When sad thoughts came into her mind, she reminded herself she was living her dream. It wasn’t hard to be happy in Dawson; people were warm and friendly, and never a day passed without someone doing something outrageous that made them all laugh. She might feel a little disappointed that she and Theo had so little time together alone, but as August arrived and the cold weather and dark days grew imminent, many people began departing on the boats for the Outside, and she knew their time alone would come.
She knew, too, that she had forged herself a place in Dawson’s folklore. There were many fiddle players in town, but no one as good as she, and they were all men. She was also considered the prettiest girl in Dawson, something Theo and Jack took great pride in.
People in Dawson liked stories, and there were enough bandied around about the Eldorado Kings, the fortunes they’d won and lost at gambling tables, and all the lesser characters, to fill several books. It didn’t surprise her one bit when she found people were embellishing tales of her, Theo and Jack. One night in the saloon, she overheard one man telling another that Theo had carried her on his shoulders up the Chilkoot Pass. Then he went on to describe how Sam died in Squaw Rapids, as if he’d been standing there while it happened.
Yet what intrigued people most, it seemed, was her relationship with Theo and Jack, for word had got around that she wasn’t married to Theo.
She was well aware that many of the dance-hall girls had their eyes on him. She couldn’t blame them — he was handsome, charismatic and rich now too, for they were making money hand over fist. It made Beth smile when they came slinking into the Golden Nugget in their best finery, flirted with him and tried to lure him away to whatever dance hall they worked in. She knew Theo well enough to be fairly certain that if he was to be lured away by another woman, it wouldn’t be a mere dance-hall girl.
One rainy evening in early August a man came into the Golden Nugget who not only had a story to tell but was to start a chain of events that would alter everything for Beth.
She was playing her fiddle as he walked in, a tall man in a mackinaw and a broad-brimmed hat who looked slightly familiar, but the saloon was too dark and smoky to see him clearly.
As always, she played for around half an hour before having a short break, and as she went up to the bar to get a drink, the man caught hold of her arm.
‘Howdy, Miss Gypsy,’ he said. ‘I was hoping I’d run into you.’
Looking up into his