Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [59]
It didn’t make them feel any better to discover that dozens of other people had fallen for these tricks too. They had lost what seemed like a fortune to them, and they felt embittered that such trickery was commonplace, yet no one had warned them about it.
There were many other unhappy incidents too, offers of work which turned out to be a hoax, accommodation they rushed to see, only to find it consisted of sharing one room with half a dozen other people. They’d been spun very believable hard luck stories and been talked into ‘Sure Thing’ gambling games which would make them rich. Mostly they were realistic about the latter, and only risked a dollar at most, but they had fallen for some of the hard luck stories, and realized after they’d parted with money that they’d been suckered.
This hotel was the fourth they’d stayed in, each time moving to somewhere cheaper until they got to this flea-pit in Division Street. But although the room was tiny, grubby, cheerless and cold, they knew it was a palace compared with most of the accommodation on offer to immigrants with little money.
Unless they found work soon, though, they wouldn’t be able to afford to stay even here. Sam might not know where to turn to next, but Beth did, and she knew her brother wasn’t going to like it.
‘We could turn to Jack,’ she said quietly, bracing herself for his anger. ‘I saw him earlier today.’
‘What!’ Sam exclaimed, his face darkening.
Beth shrugged. ‘I know you don’t approve because he’s sweet on me, but he can help us. He’s already got a job, he knows people here, and with him on our side we won’t be fleeced any more.’
‘We don’t need help from someone like him,’ Sam said woodenly.
‘You’re holding out for someone from Fifth Avenue to rescue us, I suppose?’ Beth said sarcastically. ‘Or waiting for the Waldorf to send someone round to beg you to be their new barman?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he snapped. ‘You know how many jobs I’ve been after.’
‘Yes, but they’ve all been well out of your league,’ she retorted bluntly.
Sam had such grand ideas that he’d gone after jobs far beyond his limited experience. He was only eighteen and he’d only ever mended shoes, kept ledgers and served drinks. But he’d got it into his head that he could leap into a top position here just because he was English.
‘Don’t be a snob about Jack,’ she said reprovingly. ‘He might be a bit rough and ready but he’s a good sort, and he’s sharp too. We aren’t; we get taken for suckers because we don’t know what’s what. The only way we are going to make our way in this country is by getting down there with common folk, learn the ropes and then find a way to climb them.’
‘We weren’t brought up to live in a slum,’ he said sullenly. ‘Surely you haven’t forgotten that place?’
Beth hadn’t. She still shuddered at the thought of the area they’d stumbled upon by accident on their first night in the city.
Sam had been given directions to Broadway and a reasonably priced hotel, but they must have taken a wrong turning in the dim light and ended up in the hideous slum area they now knew was the infamous Five Points, named because five streets, including Park and Worth, converged there.
It was a thousand times worse than any slum in Liverpool, a poorly lit, veritable rabbit warren of narrow alleys lined with decaying old houses. Filthy, ragged and barefoot children huddled in doorways, bent old men were hugging open fires on waste ground, and slatternly-looking women yelled abuse as they walked by. The five-storey tenements, which loomed over the older houses like grim fortresses, appeared to house thousands, judging by the cacophony of noise coming from them.
By then it was almost ten in the evening, the stench was like walking through an open sewer and everyone appeared to be drunk or demented. They were approached threateningly several times, harassed for money, and savage-looking dogs snarled at them. They actually feared for their lives.
The following day, in the temporary