Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [187]
Everything was so tidy too. Plates and dishes were stacked away on the shelves, a shirt hung drying on a rack by the stove, and he’d even made his bed.
It was while looking at the bed that she saw the pictures. They were pinned to the wall in the alcove and wouldn’t be seen by anyone just coming into the cabin for tea and a chat.
One was of Jack and herself when they first got to New York, which they’d had taken in a booth down by South Seaport. Beth’s copy was lost when they had to move so hastily out of the flat on Houston Street, and it was good to see it again. Another picture was of her playing her fiddle at the Bear in Philadelphia. She had no idea who had taken it or when, as she’d never seen it before.
There was one of Jack and her taken at Skagway. That one, she remembered, was taken by a man who was compiling a photographic journal of the Chilkoot Trail. She didn’t know how Jack had got a copy of it, for they never saw the man again. Finally, there was one of her playing on the opening night at the Golden Nugget. It was taken by the editor of Dawson’s newspaper, The Nugget, and it appeared in the paper along with an article about her, Jack and Theo, and how they’d lost Sam on the trail. Jack must have begged him for a copy of the picture.
She felt warm inside at him displaying pictures of her. She thought most miners would have pictures of pretty, scantily dressed ladies, not just an old friend.
∗
‘Those pictures of yours brought back a few memories,’ she said later when he got back.
He looked a little sheepish. ‘It’s good to look at them when I go to bed,’ he said. ‘I had the one with the four of us taken in Skagway up there for a while too, but I took it down because Sam’s face made me sad, and Theo’s made me angry.’
Beth pointed to the one of them together in New York. ‘You look so young and skinny,’ she said. ‘And I look very prim. How we’ve changed!’
‘You wouldn’t even invite me up to your room in those days.’ He grinned. ‘And here we are all this time later, alone together miles from anywhere. That’s progress!’
In the days following her arrival at Jack’s, Beth felt like a tightly coiled spring gradually unwinding. The fire in Dawson, helping the homeless and the unpleasantness with John afterwards must have taken a lot out of her.
It was good to wake in the morning to absolute silence and to know the day ahead would make no demands on her. Sometimes Jack took her out for an exhilarating ride on the sledge, with Oz’s dogs, Flash and Silver, pulling them. But mostly she read a little, mended Jack’s torn clothes and took walks along the frozen creek or up through the woods, with the dogs happily accompanying her.
The temperature had risen, and when the sun came out it felt almost like spring. Jack was the easiest of people to live with, always calm, never complaining. His face broke into a wide smile when she took him coffee and cake while he was digging, and appreciated it when she’d heated hot water for him to wash when he came in. But he didn’t expect anything.
Yet the thing she liked best of all was that he made her laugh. She would be sitting reading and she’d suddenly look up to see his face pressed grotesquely at the window. Once she heard a growling and scraping at the door and took fright, thinking it was a bear, but it was only him playing the fool. Most of the laughter, however, came from light-hearted banter between them, shared memories or observations about people. She realized that she hadn’t really had that with Theo, nor long conversations either. She suspected that if they hadn’t always had Sam and Jack around them, they might have been very bored.
The days were growing longer now and sometimes they