Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [49]
Later, back in the single women’s cabin, Beth lay in her canvas bed listening to the other girls whispering excitedly about the young men they’d met tonight, and she felt proud that her brother appeared to be the one they all admired most. She could still hear the sound of the old man’s fiddle ringing in her ears, such joyful, wild music, as if he was pouring every experience of his life into it. She had never heard the instrument played quite that way before, and she felt inspired to emulate him.
She put out her arm and groped around under her bed until her fingers met the worn black case with its peeling leather. Just touching it was enough. Her talisman for good fortune.
‘Huge, ain’t it?’
Beth was startled by the male voice behind her on the deck, and turned to see it was one of the lads she’d danced with fleetingly last night; she recognized him by the scar on his right cheek. It was the scar, which looked as if it had been made with a knife, that had made her wary of him. He was tall and whip-thin, the mop of black hair she remembered thinking needed a wash and a cut now hidden beneath a cap. Although he was probably a couple of years older than her, his shabby, too large jacket and moleskin trousers gave him the look of a young street urchin.
‘So huge you could get scared by it,’ she replied. ‘It makes me feel very small.’
‘They say it’s that cold if you fell in you’d die of shock in two minutes,’ he said.
‘That’s a cheerful thought!’ she said with some sarcasm. ‘Why don’t you try it? I’ll check if they’re right.’
He laughed. ‘You’ve got an acid tongue. Just like me ma.’
‘Is that why you’re going to America, to get away from her?’
‘In a way, s’pose I am,’ he said with a grin. ‘Not to mention Pa, with his drinkin’ an’ all. Why are you going?’
‘Same as most of us,’ she shrugged. ‘To seek my fortune; for the adventure.’
‘You’re Sam Bolton’s sister, ain’t yer?’ he said.
Beth nodded. ‘I’m Beth Bolton. And you?’
‘Jack Child,’ he said, and gingerly held out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
She shook his hand briefly. ‘Where are you from? That’s not an Irish or a Liverpool accent.’
‘Down south, from the East End of London. I came to Liverpool a year ago to get on a ship for America, but I had my money stolen and so I had to find work until I had enough to get another ticket.’
‘That was bad luck,’ she said, warming to him a little because he had soft brown eyes and an engaging, lopsided grin.
‘It’s made me more cagey,’ he said thoughtfully, leaning on the rail beside her. ‘But that’s a good thing. They say New York is full of rogues and they prey on us immigrants.’
‘Really?’
He nodded sagely. ‘A pal of mine went six months ago. He wrote and said men lie in wait outside the immigration hall looking for suckers to fleece. They offer to get you work and a place to live, but once you’ve handed over some money they scarper.’
Sam had told Beth that men down in the docks in Liverpool sold forged tickets for passages on ships that didn’t exist; they promised to take foreigners to hotels and then stole their luggage. She supposed such things went on everywhere in the world.
‘We’ll just have to be on our guard then.’ She shrugged.
‘You and Sam will make good,’ Jack said. ‘You’ve both got something about you.’
‘And what’s that?’ Beth asked, amused by the way he was studying her. By no stretch of the imagination was he handsome — he had a raw complexion and his features looked too big for his face. His accent, a mixture of London and Liverpool, sounded peculiar, yet there was something very likable about him.
He looked a bit sheepish. ‘Well, Sam, he’s ’andsome and got that cock-o’-the-walk way about him. You’re classy and beautiful.’