Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [53]
Beth might have been jealous if he hadn’t smuggled her back cake and fruit. Jack was awestruck by Sam’s cool-headed nerve and by his bearing which enabled him to get away with it.
‘If I walked through one of those grids they’d know straight off where I came from,’ he said with a wry grin. ‘I’d do better to nick a steward’s jacket and carry a tray to get in there. But the minute I opened me mouth the game would be up.’
‘They say there’s no class distinction in America,’ Beth pointed out. ‘All you need to better yourself is the ability to work hard.’
Beth hadn’t really been aware of class distinction until her mother died. Before that, almost everyone she came into contact with had been the middling sort, respectable and industrious, just like her family. She was of course aware of the very poor; she saw them daily begging in the streets. But the gentry were so far removed from her, with their big houses, servants and fancy carriages, that they never touched her life.
Going to work and later to live in Falkner Square had changed all that. Then she was a servant, observing the gentry from close quarters, and she became aware of the huge, unbridgeable gulf between her and them. The Langworthys had never made her feel inferior, but she had been made to feel so on this voyage just because they couldn’t afford a higher fare.
At night as she lay in her bed, trying to blank out the groans of the sick around her and the ever-present smell of vomit, she would think about the promised classless society in America. Clearly there had to be some kind of hierarchy there too, but if it was based on wealth rather than birth or education, maybe if she and Sam worked hard they could end up with the kind of status the Langworthys held.
Chapter Eleven
‘Land’s been sighted!
At the excited yell from one of her fellow steerage passengers, Beth rushed to get her coat and joined the throng of other people pushing and shoving to get up on deck. It was early afternoon, eight days since they left Liverpool, and it seemed odd that even those who had spent the entire voyage prostrate with seasickness had suddenly found the strength to get up.
Rain was coming down heavily, the visibility very poor, and all Beth could see ahead was a slightly darker grey line on the horizon, yet that didn’t send anyone back to the warmth below decks. All around her she could hear people asking one another how long it would be until they landed, and then discussing what they’d do first once they’d been through immigration.
After having the entire deck to herself for most of the voyage, it felt strange to be jostled by so many people. Sam wasn’t there — she assumed he was with Annabel — and she couldn’t see Jack either. To try to avoid the crush, and to find a spot from where she might get her first glimpse of land, she elbowed her way through the throng of people, right up to the railings that separated them from first class.
There, to her surprise, just the other side of the railing, was Clarissa, huddled under an umbrella with a gentleman.
Beth might have only had a brief glimpse of her in the dark, but she knew without any doubt it was Clarissa, even before she heard her speak. She was wearing a long, light brown fur coat and matching hat, a few tendrils of blonde hair fluttering in the breeze around her face.
Beth kept looking straight ahead, but her eyes were swivelling sideways to study the woman. She was what most people would call a classical beauty: an oval face, porcelain-like complexion, a perfect straight nose and high cheekbones. Beth couldn’t see her eyes straight on, but she assumed they’d be blue. Yet her looks were not as interesting as the way she was with her companion. He held the umbrella above them with one hand, but she was holding his other arm almost possessively and looking right up into his eyes each time he spoke.
Beth assumed he must be yet another admirer, because he didn’t fit the image of an old, stout man she had created in her mind for this woman’s husband. He was around forty and tall, with a little