Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [58]
By the time Beth was called forward to the doctor, she felt faint with hunger and thirst, but the doctor only looked her up and down and waved her on. The questions were simple enough: how much money she had, what sort of work she would be doing, and a few others which were obviously intended to discover if she was mentally competent.
After waiting for so long for the interview, it seemed absurdly brief, almost a disappointment. She was waved on, Sam right behind her, and suddenly they realized it was all over. They’d been accepted and they could get aboard the ferry bound for the city.
The hours on Ellis Island had been horrible, frustrating and tiring, and they had expected that once they were over that, everything would be fine. But as they walked down the gangway from the ferry on to the quay in New York, Beth was terrified.
It was now after eight in the evening, dark and cold, and it felt like being thrown headlong into a maelstrom: thousands of bewildered, luggage-laden people, and preying on them the jackals who were determined to relieve them of some of their money.
Intimidating burly men in checked suits and homburg hats elbowed their way through the crowds, offering to change their money into dollars and get them a hotel room or a bus or train ticket. There were ragged, barefooted urchins tugging at their clothes begging for money or offering to carry their bags, and a huge negress with a turban on her head urged them to come to her restaurant for something to eat. One stout man wearing a frock coat and top hat blocked their way, insisting that he could take them to a ‘swanky apartment’ for a small consideration.
Beth might have been tempted to put her trust in someone, for she was hungry and cold, wanting a cup of tea and a sit-down more than anything in the world, but Sam, carrying their luggage, swept her on, brushing aside all these pedlars and warning her to keep a tight hold on her fiddle.
‘Annabel’s father told me of a hotel to make for,’ he said. ‘We’ll just get away from here and find something to eat, then we’ll take a cab to the hotel.’
‘What about Jack?’ she asked, for she’d turned and seen him trying to catch up with them.
‘Jack can look out for himself,’ he said sharply.
Chapter Twelve
‘I never thought it would be so hard to find somewhere to live,’ Sam sighed despairingly. ‘Nor that there would be so many people out to cheat us. I really don’t know where to turn next.’
Beth was unpicking the lining of her jacket by the light of a candle to get at the last of the money they’d brought from England. As Sam spoke, she looked across to where he sat hunched by the meagre fire, a picture of misery.
They had been in New York for a whole month, but they had not bargained with being the target for quite so many crooks. It was almost as if they were wearing placards saying ‘Greenhorn’.
There was the booth down by the docks which invited immigrants to register for work. The form they had to fill in looked official; the man who advised them was smartly dressed and seemed concerned for them. The twenty-dollar fee didn’t seem that much, not if it meant they would be sent out to good, well-paid work. But after three days, when no message arrived at their hotel as he’d promised, they called back to the booth, only to find it had gone, and their twenty dollars with it.
Another time they answered an advertisement for accommodation in the newspaper. They met the landlord at the boarding house and were shown two pleasant rooms which they were told the present tenant would be vacating at the end of the week. They paid him twenty-five dollars’ advance rent and were given a key. But when they turned up, ready to move in, the key didn’t open the front door of the building, and when they managed to rouse one of the other