‘Folk were making their way west then in wagon trains,’ she explained. ‘They were mostly good folk too and we tagged along helping them out with their children, the washing and the cooking in return for food. We meant to go all the way to Oregon, but a story got about that men had found gold in San Francisco, and a whole bunch of the folk on the train broke away to go there. Ma thought we should go too cos we could get work as cooks.’
Beth listened spellbound while Pearl described making their way over the Sierra Nevada to California as winter came upon them. ‘It was so cold and the snow so deep we feared we’d die up there, like some of the others did,’ she said. ‘But we got through to San Francisco somehow. There weren’t too many women there then, and it was a wild, rough place, but Ma was right, cooks were badly needed. We set up our tent as soon as we got there, made a big pot of stew and sold it ten cents a bowl as quick as look at you.’
Beth was expecting that Pearl would soon be telling her that she and her mother eventually found it easier to sell their bodies than their stews, but she was wrong. They continued cooking, gradually increasing both their prices and the range of dishes. They charged miners for washing and mending their clothes, and even opened a ‘hotel’.
‘It sure weren’t like no hotel you’d recognize.’ Pearl chuckled. ‘Just a big tent, and our lodgers got a straw-filled palliasse on the ground, and provided their own blankets. We made a bath-house out the back too. I could hardly lift those buckets of hot water off the fire, they were so heavy. But we made money, more than we’d ever dreamed of. We got a real hotel built in ’52, a fancy place with furniture and mirrors brought all the way from France, but by then respectable women were arriving and they didn’t want to stay in a place owned by darkies. They were real mean to us; if they’d had their way they’d have got us run out of town. So Ma turned the place into a brothel to teach them a lesson.’
She laughed uproariously at this, and Beth joined in, for by then she was seeing the scene through Pearl’s eyes. ‘But surely that would get you run out of town even quicker?’ she said, spluttering with laughter.
Pearl put her hands on her wide hips and rolled her eyes. ‘Ma knew a thing or two about men, especially those stuffed shirts who ran the city. She hired the kinda girls that turned those men inside out and made them come back howling for more. The polite ladies brayed for the place to be closed down, and their men nodded and agreed, but those same men slunk in the back way any chance they got.’
Beth could see why men would prefer the company of Pearl and her mother… She could imagine those sharp-featured, cold-hearted wives gossiping over afternoon tea, while their pompous but sex-starved husbands indulged themselves elsewhere. ‘And what about you?’ she asked. ‘What role did you play in the business?’
‘By day I cleaned rooms, cooked and did the laundry, but by night I sang in the saloon,’ Pearl said. ‘I was never a whore. I ain’t saying there weren’t men in my bed. But I never took no money for it.’
Beth could believe that. ‘Were you a good singer?’ she asked.
‘They said so,’ Pearl replied modestly. ‘I loved to sing right from a small child; to me it was as natural as breathing. I had to sing, it was like my spirit being allowed to fly free. But I guess you feel the same way about playing your fiddle. I was young and pretty then too, I loved the attention, to be dressed in silk and satin, to have men looking at me as if I was their love. I’d come a long way from being a barefoot and hungry slave at the mercy of the master.’
Beth guessed that the reason Pearl’s mother ran away with her daughter was probably because she wanted to protect her from that master. Although Beth hadn’t suffered the kind of hardships Pearl had experienced, she understood that need to perform. ‘I feel just like that when I’m playing,’ she agreed. ‘I know I haven’t been a slave, but you can still feel bound by your background and the way you’ve been brought up.’
‘Respectability.’ Pearl nodded sagely. ‘Well, I’ve never had that, I never will. But I get respect from my girls, and the men who come here. That’s all I need.’
She went on to tell Beth that her mother was knocked down by a carriage and crippled, and it was her belief it was no accident. Her mother never walked again and Pearl had to take care of her and the business. ‘But I stayed on there till she died ten years later. I wasn’t going to let them win,’ she said proudly. ‘Then I sold the place and came here and bought this one.’
‘Why here?’ Beth asked.
Pearl smiled. ‘A man, honey, why else would I come clear across the country?’
‘Is he Frank, the friend Theo mentioned?’
Pearl nodded. ‘He’s good to me and a real gentleman, but a gambler and a charmer like Theo. Now, you listen closely to my advice! Don’t go dreaming of happy ever after. It don’t come with men like Frank or Theo. You have the good times with him, but make sure you hold on to the money you earn and anything he gives you. Give him your body freely, but don’t give him your heart, for he’ll break it.’
Beth was just going to try to get Pearl to enlarge on that when the girls began coming down to the kitchen. The blonde with the sulky expression was Missy, the two brunettes Lucy and Anna, and the beautiful redhead was Lola. Missy, Lucy and Anna were no more than eighteen, Lola perhaps twenty-three. All of them were wearing dressing gowns and slippers, their faces pale from lack of fresh air.
Beth sensed they weren’t entirely happy at finding a strange girl in their midst and she made her excuses and went back to the basement to see if Sam and Jack were awake.
They were, but both had sore heads from the previous night’s drinking. Jack went off to the kitchen to get them coffee and give Beth a chance to speak to her brother alone.
‘I’ve kind of got over the shock of staying in a brothel,’ she said cautiously. ‘I’ve been talking to Pearl and I like her. I guess last night I panicked, but that was Theo’s fault. He should’ve warned me.’
‘I was worried about how you’d react,’ Sam admitted.
‘Pearl made me see things from a different viewpoint,’ Beth said. ‘But enough of that. Tell me what you and Jack are doing.’
‘I’m managing the Bear, a big saloon just a few streets from here,’ Sam said. ‘Jack’s learning the ropes, the bar and the cellar. But Frank Jasper, the owner, runs several gambling places and he’s training me in that. He’s great, sis, nothing like Heaney, a real Southern gentleman.’
Beth smiled. She wondered if he knew that Frank was, or had been, Pearl’s lover. Somehow she doubted it, Sam wasn’t as interested in people as she was. ‘Are the wages good?’ she asked.
‘We haven’t been here long enough to see how it will go,’ he said. ‘But he gave us both ten dollars last night and said he’d talk to us about it in the New Year. We don’t have to pay for our keep here either, and Pearl is a great cook.’
‘Theo said I would be making my debut tonight. Is it to be in your place?’
‘I guess so, because as soon as we got here Frank wanted to know when you’d be coming. It seems Theo told him about you some time ago. You’ll go down well, sis, it’s a good place, not a rough house like Heaney’s.’
‘How do you get on with the girls upstairs?’ Beth raised her eyebrows enquiringly.
Sam grinned mischievously. ‘Pearl doesn’t let them give free ones, she made that quite clear on our first night here. And anyway, we’ve hardly seen them. Only time we go up there is when Pearl calls us for our dinner.’
They talked for a little while, Beth telling him about how it was over Christmas.
‘I hope Theo behaved himself.’ Sam sniffed. ‘I like him, but I don’t trust him.’
‘Pearl seems to think highly of him.’
‘She just likes men,’ Sam said wisely. ‘And I guess at her age she doesn’t need to worry about whether they can be trusted. But now you’re here, Jack and I will look out for you.’
‘I can look out for myself, thank you,’ Beth said, but she softened the remark with
a smile. ‘I’ll leave you now to get up and dressed, and perhaps you and Jack will take me out and show me around while it’s still daylight. I don’t want to get a pasty face like the girls upstairs.’
The hair ornament Pearl gave Beth was a pearl-studded comb with a spray of red feathers. ‘Frank gave that to me when we first met back in ’Frisco,’ she said as she fixed it into Beth’s hair, up in the kitchen. ‘It was my lucky charm, and I wore it every time I sang. You look even prettier with it than I did, and I think Frank will be pleased to see it again. He’ll know I like you.’
Beth went into the hallway to look at herself in the big mirror. The brisk walk around the town with Sam and Jack had put colour back into her cheeks, and the way Pearl had caught up some of her curls at the side of her head with the comb made her look more sophisticated. She had always been a little nervous about the red dress because the neckline was low, but the feathers in her hair seemed to balance it better.
Pearl was watching Beth from the kitchen and she smiled to herself. The girl looked a picture with her black curls tumbling around her creamy shoulders. Such a pretty, expressive face, wide eyes, plump lips, the kind of girl any man would want.
She wished she could go to the Bear tonight to hear her play, but her place was here. Frank would tell her about it anyway.
As Sam and Jack had left for work some time earlier, Theo escorted Beth to the Bear. He was wearing his usual evening attire of a snowy-white shirt, bow tie, impeccably cut tail coat and top hat, with his heavy satin-lined cloak flung loosely over his shoulder.
‘The Bear got its name because in an old ale house somewhere nearby, the owner kept a bear out the back,’ Theo said as they walked down the street. ‘If anyone made any trouble he would threaten to throw them out with the bear.’
Beth knew he was nervous because he often told her old stories when he wanted to conceal his feelings. She didn’t know if he was worried that she might not live up to his expectations tonight or might be about to complain again about staying in a brothel. Or perhaps he was just a bit apprehensive because he would be playing cards later.
She didn’t ask, for she was so scared herself that she thought she might be sick. Sweet reason told her that if she could play in Heaney’s, she could play anywhere. But back there she’d never had anyone championing her; if she failed, it would only be she who lost face. She knew Theo, Sam and Jack must all have sung her praises, so if she was a disaster, they’d look foolish.
Her stomach churned alarmingly as they walked into the Bear. It was much bigger than Heaney’s, and the high ceiling and narrow windows set in eight feet up above the ground indicated it had been built as a warehouse, but a new wood floor had been added. A long bar ran right down one side; on the other, a raised area behind a low balustrade held tables and chairs. At the far end opposite the door was a stage. The new electric lighting had been put in, twinkling in the vast mirror behind the bar.
It was already very busy, men three deep at the bar waiting to be served, and another couple of waiters taking orders from those sitting in the raised section. There was an entirely different kind of atmosphere to Heaney’s too, perhaps because there were more women. Not the kind of low types that Beth was used to seeing in saloons, but ordinary, neatly and soberly dressed women, the kind who might work in offices or shops. She felt afraid of playing in front of them, sure they would not approve of her.
She could see both Sam and Jack serving, but they didn’t appear to have noticed her.
‘I’ll take you in to meet Frank now,’ Theo said, taking her arm and leading her briskly through the tables.
Beth clutched at her fiddle case with both hands as they went through a door beside the stage, down a short passageway and then stopped outside another door while Theo knocked.
‘He’s a good man. Don’t be scared,’ he whispered.
Frank Jasper was a huge, bull-like man, with a bald head, thick neck, splayed nose and pockmarked skin. He looked like a man who had come up the hard way, but his elegant evening clothes were evidence of his success.
‘So this is your little fiddle player,’ he said to Theo after he’d looked Beth up and down. ‘I sure hope she’s as good as you claim or they’ll throw her to the bear.’
Beth had no idea then that Frank was in the habit of using the bear his saloon was named after as a joke. She thought he meant his customers were very hard to please and she quaked in her boots. The size of the saloon was another worry — she wasn’t sure if she would even be heard over a couple of hundred noisy drinkers.
The men left her alone in Frank’s office for at least twenty nail-biting minutes. Frank hadn’t told her how long she’d got to play for, or even what numbers she was going to play, and as she waited she thought she’d sooner be a laundry maid than face this kind of terror. She was just considering looking to see if there was a back door she could slip out of when Jack came in to get her.
‘I’m too scared,’ she admitted. ‘I won’t be able to play a note.’
Even he looked unfamiliar in his striped barman’s apron and bow tie, and the noise from the saloon was becoming more raucous by the minute.
Jack put his arms around her. ‘You’ll be fine, Beth, you aren’t up there on your own, Frank’s got a double bass player and a pianist with you.’
‘He has?’ Beth instantly felt more confident. ‘But why didn’t he tell me?’
‘Maybe he wanted to see if you’d lose your nerve,’ Jack said with a grin. ‘You go on in there and show him what you’re made of.’
Beth slipped off her coat and lifted her fiddle and bow from the desk where she’d left it after tuning up. ‘I’m ready.’
As Jack opened the door through to the bar, she heard someone ringing a bell for silence.
Then Frank spoke, welcoming his customers to the Bear, and Jack held Beth back, indicating she was to wait until she was introduced. ‘Most of you already know Herb on piano, and of course Fred on double bass,’ Frank said. ‘But some of you have been saying you wanted someone good to look at too. So tonight, for the very first time in Philadelphia, we’ve got a real live English doll to play. I heard tell they called her Gypsy in New York, cos she set all their feet a-tapping with her fiddle-playing. So a big hand now for Miss Beth Bolton!’
‘Go,’ Jack said, and gave her a push towards the stage steps.
Hearing applause again was like taking a big swig of rum, and Beth ran up the stairs and bowed to the audience, then quickly turned to the pianist, an older man with a mournful face. ‘ “Kitty O’Neill’s Champion“?’ she asked.
‘Sure thing,’ he said with a smile and then a nod to the double bass player.
The two musicians played an introduction and Beth smiled at the audience as she tucked her fiddle firmly under her chin and lifted her bow. Her fear was gone now, she was back on stage where she belonged, playing one of her favourite Irish-American folk songs. She was going to be Miss Sassy from now on, and touch the heart of every man in the bar.
Frank took his cigar from his lips and leaned closer to Theo across the table. ‘You didn’t string me a line this time — she’s red-hot.’
Theo nodded and smiled. His heart was bursting with pride, for Beth wasn’t just hot, she was burning the whole place up. He’d been afraid she might have lost her fire because of that ordeal in the cellar, but she was playing even better than she had at Heaney’s.
He and Frank were at a table on the raised platform at the side of the saloon with an excellent view of the stage. Beth looked very small up there, like a scarlet flame in her red dress. She’d won the crowd with ‘Kitty O’Neill’, but then she’d gone on to play ‘Tom Dooley’, ‘Days of ’49’ and ‘ The Irish ’69’, all numbers that meant a great deal to Americans. But she really came into her own with her fast Irish jigs, and down in the main part of the room they could see a hundred heads nodding and feet tapping.
Theo smirked at Frank. ‘So I win the hundred bucks?’
‘Sure, you son of a gun.
She’s good. I guess Pearl took to her too, she’s wearing her feathers.’
Theo picked up his whisky and drank it down in one. He was a happy man: he’d won his bet, Sam and Jack had proved to be assets, and he had all the gaming tables in Philadelphia awaiting him. And his little gypsy to seduce.
Chapter Twenty-one
‘So what do you think of my new home?’ Theo asked. ‘Are you shocked into silence because of its grandeur?’
Beth giggled. She’d had a few too many drinks at the Bear tonight and Theo had sweet-talked her into coming back here with him.
He was joking about the grandeur. It was just two rooms above a coach house, not unlike the ones she and Sam had lived in at Falkner Square. The furnishings were much nicer though — thick curtains, a bright rug on the floor and an old brocade couch that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a country mansion. But its real appeal was the heat coming from the enamelled pot-bellied stove in the centre of the living room. Outside in the street the snow was three feet deep, and Beth had expected that it would be equally cold inside.
‘I’m impressed by the tidiness and the warmth,’ she said, speaking slowly so she didn’t slur her words.
‘That I cannot take credit for,’ Theo replied, opening the door of the stove and putting another shovel of coal into it. ‘I have a maid. Actually she belongs to the people I am renting this place from, but I crossed her palm with silver and now she takes care of me too. She is old and as ugly as sin, but I appreciate how comfortable she makes me.’
Beth smiled. Theo was destined always to have some woman waiting on him hand and foot. Pearl hadn’t wanted him to leave her place, for he had charmed her just as he had Miss Marchment and Miss Doughty before her.
‘That will keep it going all night,’ Theo said as he closed the stove door. ‘Now, let me take your coat and get you a drink.’
It was the beginning of March now, but even when the church bells had rung out on New Year’s Eve to welcome in 1896, and she’d only been in Philadelphia a couple of days, Beth knew she was going to be happy here.
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