Eva's Sins.

XVII

  "A faithful heart is always waiting"

  Standing in front of the "Red Pony," after opening the doors for the clients, Beth looked in the distance but saw nothing. The street was empty and this was weird because she has never seen this narrow street without anybody walking on it at that time of day since she arrived in Brighton three months ago.

   "Come on, girl, come in and help me," Miss Almont's thick voice was heard from inside.

  "I'm coming, Miss Almont. I'm just ... looking if clients are coming," answered Beth, but even she didn't believe what she said.

  "They will come. On their own feet, even if you don't wait for them," said the "Red Pony" owner this time with mockery.

  Miss Almont wasn't a bad person. She was just the owner of a small liquor store, forced to learn even more things than a woman should know about men's world only to survive and this made her act like a man in a woman's body. She was taller than Beth thought the first time she saw her, but the fact that she gained weight with the passing of time, made her look like a chubby bear in a monkey cell at the circus.

  She had dark eyes, nothing special, similar to many which were met all around those days, dark hair, always unkempt or combed, and a crowned nose like the crows 'beak and because of this she was known in the town like Miss White Crow too.

  But Miss White Crow was popular among men due to her natural charm. She knew what to say to everybody, she could tell a good joke when the mood was to laugh or to curse those who thought that they were smart and tried to go without paying. But Miss Almont hasn't a crowned nose only to have it. She could smell such an intruder from far away and when one of them was trying to escape through the rear door, a long, gnarled broomstick was touching in his back and the one targeted, was always turning back with his tail between his veins and with a shaking hand was paying his debts to the owner.

  Receiving her money, Miss Almont never forgot to sketch a smile and, grabbing the intruder from his coat, lifting him from the ground, she was forcing him to ask for one more round while saying: "now we are friends, you can't walk away without drinking a little bit more" and poor guy, because he dared to confront her, was forced to drink until he was losing consciousness, and when he definitely wasn't able to stand, Miss Almont was throwing him in the street without anything on him.

  If they were lucky to be a summer night, then sleeping the sleep of a naked drunkard wasn't so bad, but not the same smile had those who were waking up covered with snow and with a lot of lookie-loos staring at their ... things, those things one is always trying to keep at warm and at safe.

  It wasn't only one of those "lucky guys" who ran away ashamed, covering his lower part with cardboard, while behind him "sweet words" were said to him.

  But there also were those who never woke up and this was a view of sorrow to watch when the lifeless, naked body was covered with a white cloth loathingly thrown over him and taken away on a cold stretcher.

  Not just once Miss Almont has been on the brink of seeing what a dungeon looks like from inside, but she had been saved, at the last moment, by some unexpected witness who testified in her favor, saying that the guy undressed alone and nobody touched him.

  Such testimony was never-ending well. Miss Almont was always forced not only to spend the night with the Good Samaritan but also to pay him a nice amount of money and that left her practically in ruins.

  Despite all those, Miss Almont knew how to stand up again. She was just wiping away her tears, swearing that is the last time she acted like this, but she always was returning to the same habits.

  "What are you always doing on the street at this hour?" said Miss Almont when Beth sat on the second chair and started to peel onions.

  "Nothing. I just ... I like to watch how people are walking around. That's all." But Beth was lying. In her free time, she was spending hours in the street looking for Eva, but instead of her young Mistress she only saw people walking around in a hurry or boring faces that were only exiting their houses to do something.

  Once Stan told her that he heard somebody calling Eva's name in the house of rich people, but when they went there looking for her, instead of a beautiful young Miss Stonebridge, a 60-year-old Miss Eva met them.

  Beth still remembers the feeling she had in her chest when she understood that finding Miss Stonebridge here, in this crowded town, is almost impossible. It's like trying to find the needle in a haystack. She always cried a lot after such attempts of finding her and only Stan was next to her to listen to her sorrow.

  In the beginning, she didn't like him. He seemed so arrogant and idiot in her eyes, but Beth started to appreciate his stubbornness and the fact that he was spending his free time looking for Miss Eva.

  Beth thought that he was doing this search because he was bored, but in fact, Stan was doing this because he was sad for the girl. At least at the beginning, he felt sorrow for her, but in time something awakened in his heart and he liked to watch her while she was smiling and, finding out one day that she will be the happiest person in the world if she finds Miss Stonebridge, he decided to bring that happiness in her life.

  "Good afternoon, ladies," shouted Stan right from the entrance. "I have good news for you," continued the boy. "Today you are lucky. This man will be with you all night long". And he stretched his arms aside, taking the pose of an artist after finishing his representation.

  Miss Almont just nodded while lighting a cigar and small, grey clouds exited from her mouth, but Beth smiled, and only for this, just to see her smile, Stan was doing such a buffoonery.

  He was waiting for the spring to come. He knows so many beautiful places where to take her and he also is planning to bring her flowers. He doesn't know why, but he heard that gentlemen are bringing flowers to their ladies and because women are so simple and so dumb to fall in love only smelling those flowers, in his small heart, Stan believed that this way he will reach happiness that he dreamed so much about.