As Matilda made her way home down Broadway she felt sick and shaky. She had believed her childhood in Finders Court was a kind of protection against shock. Yet what she’d just seen made the slums of London and Bristol look like paradise.
She looked around her in bewilderment at the well-fed, fashionably dressed people going about their business in Broadway. The street was congested with fancy carriages, shops were stuffed to capacity with every kind of luxury imaginable and enough food to feed countless armies. Yet just five minutes away people were living in conditions worse than animals, without even the most basic of necessities like clothes and food.
Were all these prosperous-looking people unaware of what was so close to them?
Matilda found she couldn’t eat anything that evening. The thick pork chop on her plate reminded her of the pigs she’d seen earlier in the day, the vegetable dish piled high with roasted potatoes and carrots was like a silent reproach that she should be offered so much when that boy Sidney was starving. When Tabitha left the crust of her bread uneaten, she had a mental picture of the child she’d seen snatching stale bread from the filth in the street.
‘Have you been eating pastries while you were out this afternoon?’ Lily asked, giving her a scathing look.
‘No, I just don’t feel quite right,’ she said, hoping her mistress wouldn’t press her.
‘Maybe you’d better take a dose of castor oil before going to bed,’ Lily replied ‘You look a little peaky.’
After prayers later in the evening Lily retired for the night, leaving her husband reading in the parlour and Matilda in the kitchen making the oatmeal for the morning.
She was just placing it in the stove when Giles came in. ‘What’s troubling you this evening, Matty?’ he asked. ‘I’ve never known you refuse food or stay silent for so long. Yet I know you aren’t ill, whatever Mrs Milson might think.’
She hesitated, afraid he might be angry with her if she told him the truth.
‘Are you homesick?’
‘No,’ she said, amazed that he’d think of such a thing. She thought about her father and Dolly a great deal, and missed them, but London to her was a place of hardship, the only really good memories of it were connected with the Milsons. ‘This is home to me now.’
‘I’m very glad to hear that,’ he said with a smile. ‘But if this is your home, that makes you part of my family, therefore you should be able to tell me what’s ailing you.’
He sat down at the table and folded his arms, waiting for her reply. In the year and a half Matilda had worked for him she had come to see he wasn’t a man to be fobbed off easily. He was intuitive, curious, and persistent. Those dark eyes of his looked deep into people’s souls, she could swear sometimes he even heard thoughts. But she also knew he used these abilities only to help people, not to intimidate them.
‘I’m not ill or homesick,’ she said. ‘Just troubled by something I saw today. I think if you’d seen it too, you wouldn’t have been able to eat either.’
She sat down opposite him, took a deep breath and blurted it all out, her eyes cast down at the table. It was only when she had got to the part where she thought the man with the cudgel was going to hurt her that she dared look up. He was resting his head on one hand, his fingers smoothing his brow as if what he was hearing was distressing him.
‘He didn’t hit me,’ she said quickly. ‘I ran for it, and I got a boy to show me the way out. But it was such a terrible place, sir, I know if you were to see it you’d want to do something about it.’
When he didn’t reply immediately she felt very uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she whispered, assuming he thought she was being presumptuous. ‘I’m being what Madam calls “uppity”.’
‘You aren’t being uppity at all,’ he said in a strained voice. ‘I wish everyone in New York could see what you have seen and react to it as you have done. Of those who have seen it, most believe the conditions are appropriate for the animals who dwell there.’
‘You have seen it then?’ she said in surprise.
‘Oh yes, Matty, I have. You are right, it’s the most Godforsaken, terrible place I have ever encountered. I can only feel relief right now that you got out without being hurt, for believe me, as well as the conditions there being an affront to a supposedly civilized city, it is an extremely dangerous place to go into alone and unprotected.’
‘But if you’ve been in it too, how could you keep quiet about it?’ She was staggered that he could sound so calm.
‘Why didn’t you come straight home and tell Mrs Milson about it?’
Matilda looked at him – one of his eyebrows was raised questioningly, a half-smile playing at his lips.
‘She would have had hysterics,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have put it past her to lock me in the shed outside too, until she was sure I hadn’t brought some disease home.’
He gave a tight little laugh. ‘That’s exactly why I haven’t spoken of it at home, and she would have made me promise that I would never go there again. So we both understand why neither of us could talk about it. But tell me, Matty, now that you’ve seen the horrors of Five Points, for that’s what it is called, what do you think should be done about it?’
‘Get the people out into proper houses, feed them and burn the place to the ground.’
He smiled. ‘You echo my first thoughts about it. But I soon discovered I had to think with my head, not my heart,’ he said. ‘To find a real solution to the problems there, we have to act logically and dispassionately.’
‘How can anyone be dispassionate about it?’ Her voice rose indignantly.
‘Well, first one has to look at the underlying reasons as to how that place came about, and why,’ he said, spreading his hands out on the table. ‘America has enough room for tens of millions of people and its government has an open-door policy to anyone who wants to come here. Yet there are no agencies to make sure there is work and housing for all. And no checks are made to see that immigrants have enough money to keep themselves and their families while they look for work.
‘Now, those ramshackle houses you saw today were once decent, one-family homes, but as the owners’ wealth increased, they moved out, further uptown and rented out their old houses. The newly arrived immigrants couldn’t afford to pay rent for a whole house, so they took just one room. Those who didn’t find a job immediately were soon forced to share that one room with another family, to pay the rent.
‘When each one of those houses becomes home for fifty people or so, and the landlord makes no repairs, it soon escalates into a slum situation. Those that are in work will find somewhere less crowded to move on to, but the poor devils at the bottom of the heap have no choice but to stay and put up with the conditions.’
Matilda nodded in understanding. Finders Court was just the same. The only happy person was the landlord who lived miles away and sent someone else to collect the rents.
‘But why doesn’t someone stop the landlords exploiting the poor?’ she asked.
‘Maybe because those landlords have become rich and powerful,’ he said wryly. ‘I dare say that if one was to check out who owns those properties we’d find many of them sitting on the city council and in every seat of authority.’
‘But that’s wicked,’ she said in horror.
Giles shrugged. ‘It is, but who will speak out against them, Matty? No one, not even those with a degree of humanity and charity, really wants the people who live in Five Points now living next door to them. That place is out of sight and out of mind, and therefore an ideal spot in most people’s minds for the flotsam and jetsam who can’t or won’t work.’
Matilda thought of Seven Dials back in London. She knew only too well that most of its residents chose to live there because they were amongst their own kind. But then they were thieves, prostitutes and beggars.
‘But they can’t all be bad people in Five Points,’ she said. ‘Almost everyone I saw looked so sick and hungry.’
‘They are, Matty. Wh
at you saw today are those at the very bottom of life’s ladder, without the strength or will to climb to the next rung. You may have noticed that around half of them were Negroes, the other half are mainly Irish. Now, why do you think that it is just those two races there, not some English, Italians or Germans?’
Matilda shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘People in this city would be very quick to suggest it is because Negroes and Irish are indolent by nature,’ he said with a sneer. ‘It makes them feel better to make such sweeping statements because they don’t want to take any responsibility for the atrocities which have been heaped on these two races. The English have been abusing the Irish for centuries, and the Americans have enslaved the black men. So what the Irish and Negroes have in common is that they both come from backgrounds of extreme deprivation. Hunger and appalling living conditions are nothing new to them. They arrive here in the city with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, and the only place where they can find shelter is amongst their own.’
‘Why can’t they find jobs?’
‘The strong, bright and ambitious do. For every Irish man or woman who ends up in Five Points there are another hundred who have risen above their backgrounds, you will find them driving cabs, running businesses, in just about every field you can think of. It’s the same for the Negroes too, though they have even more prejudice to overcome, and mostly end up in manual or domestic work. But for the unlucky ones who end up in Five Points it becomes a trap. You once said to me you couldn’t get a better job than selling flowers because of your clothes and the way you spoke. It’s much like that for them.’
‘But I got out of it because you helped me,’ she said. ‘Surely that’s all we have to do for them.’
‘Matty,’ he said wearily, ‘we are talking about people who are in the main deficient in some way. Most are illiterate, with no skills, others are sick, and that place brutalizes them all.’
‘I’m sure they could be taught to do something,’ she said angrily. ‘People can’t just ignore them.’
‘I agree,’ he said gently. ‘But how do we reach out to those who have sunk so low that they seek only the oblivion of drink? We aren’t talking about fresh-faced young girls and boys who are eager to grasp any opportunity, but sick, worn-down people who have mainly lost all sense of morality. Five Points is a cesspit, Matty. People are murdered there nightly, thieving and prostitution are often their only means of survival.’
‘But surely the children could be saved,’ she said weakly, thinking of her brother George.
Giles looked at Matilda and seeing the same anguish in her eyes that he felt in his own heart, he wanted to let her into the plans he and Darius Kirkbright had been working on for the past few weeks. Yet the thought of Lily asleep upstairs completely unaware that his ministry work had taken him into such unsavoury places troubled him greatly. How would she react if she discovered he had confided in a servant but not in her?
‘The orphans could be rescued,’ he said hesitantly, trying to sound as if the thought had only just occurred to him. ‘I believe there are hundreds of them, tiny ones sometimes less than three years old, just rooting around in the muck. I suppose they could be rounded up and taken to somewhere they could be cared for.’
Matilda was just about to say what a sound idea that was when it suddenly dawned on her that the authoritative way he’d spoken about the problems in Five Points meant he’d been in and out of there many times. Knowing him as she did, there was no way that he would walk away from what he’d seen.
‘You’ve already planned to do it, haven’t you?’ she blurted out.
He blushed and looked away.
‘Oh, sir!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’ve been working on this for weeks, haven’t you? What on earth will Mrs Milson say when she finds out? She thinks you’ve been off visiting the sick and mixing with the toffs at the church.’
Although she was shocked, his hangdog expression made her want to laugh. She had seen that look on her brothers’ faces when she caught them out at something.
‘I cannot bring myself to think how she’ll react,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I daresay she’ll threaten to take Tabitha and go back to England. But I have to do it, Matty. A man cannot turn his back on such mammoth suffering and still call himself a man. If Mrs Milson had married a soldier she would expect him to go into battle. I am one of God’s soldiers, and this is my battle. Would she have me desert my duty just for peace and harmony at home?’
Matilda’s heart swelled up with admiration for him. He wasn’t brash like Darius Kirkbright, who truly believed a wife should comply with her husband’s wishes. Giles was a sensitive man who believed marriage should be a true partnership. Now she saw why he hadn’t been talking about his work at home, and she could understand perfectly how troubled he must be by being forced to conceal what he was doing, just to keep his wife content.
‘You are right to fight for those poor people,’ she said softly. ‘But you are wrong to keep it from Madam, however much she might not like it. She has a kind heart, sir, she loves you for what you are too, and though she probably will throw a fit, I think she’ll accept it in time, and help you too.’
He put his elbows on the table and covered his face with his hands for a moment. Matilda watched him, knowing he was wrestling with his conscience.
It was some time before he spoke again. ‘My dear Matty,’ he said eventually, ‘you are wise beyond your years sometimes, and I agree in principle with everything you’ve said. But I know my wife better than anyone, and I know what would happen if she got only the briefest glimpse of what you saw today. Her fear of dirt and disease is deeply rooted, the real reason she refused to come out of the cabin on the ship was because of those steerage passengers. It was just their presence which made her sick.’
Matilda was tempted to laugh and say he was being silly, but then she recalled Lily had been looking at them fearfully while they were all still on the deck as they sailed down the river Avon. She had always refused Tabitha permission to go up on deck at times when they were allowed up there too. And that was why she was so hard when that little boy died.
‘Maybe that’s so, but she’s got better since then,’ she said stoutly.
‘No Matty, she hasn’t.’ He shook his head. ‘She feels safe in this house, and mixing with the gentlefolk at church. Aside from her glimpse of the dock area when we arrived she imagines that all of New York is much the same as it is around here. I don’t doubt she would assist me in fund-raising for the poor, or the opening of a Foundling Home, just as long as I glossed over the details of the recipients of that charity. I know if the real horrors of it all were revealed to her, she’d –’ He broke off suddenly, as if afraid to say what he feared.
Matilda was just about to retort that Lily would never leave him for that, when suddenly she realized that wasn’t what he imagined at all. Just the deeply troubled expression in his eyes spelled it out, what he was afraid of was pushing his wife over the edge into insanity!
If any other man had hinted at such a thing she would have laughed at him. But Giles Milson was a man who really knew about people, and his own wife better than anyone. She had witnessed Lily’s hysterics and her dark moods so many times herself, and a gut feeling told her he could be right.
‘Is there anything I could do to help?’ she asked.
He gave her a long and thoughtful look before replying. ‘Matty, you’ve put me in a precarious position. On the one hand I’m very glad to find I have an ally in you, but on the other it also means that if I am to continue with my work I have to ask you to assist me in shielding Mrs Milson from this. But that will put you in an impossible situation too.’
‘Not really,’ she said with a shrug. ‘I know what you are doing is a good thing. Keeping quiet about it is the least I can do. I just wish I could do something more practical.’
When he didn’t reply Matilda wondered if that was the wrong answer. Should she swear never to tell Madam?
&
nbsp; ‘You could do something more,’ he said eventually. ‘You could work alongside me.’
Matilda’s mouth fell open. ‘How? I’m just a nursemaid.’
‘It’s the talents that come with nursemaiding I need,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘I saw how you reacted to that sick child on the ship, remember. I watched you pick him up, wash him and try to feed him, I saw your tears when he died.’
‘You don’t mean you want me to help in Five Points, do you?’ Her voice rose in her surprise.
‘Who better, Matty? I know you won’t recoil from a dirty child because you were one yourself once. You know too what it is to be lifted out of hunger and poverty. You aren’t squeamish, you have courage and common sense. Do you think you could help in rounding up some of those orphans?’
Matilda wondered fleetingly if he was the one on the edge of insanity. He had told his wife nothing, and now he was proposing to take her servant to help him. She quickly pointed this out to him.
To her further surprise he laughed. ‘But don’t you see that would allay her fears somewhat? She already knows that the church has given funds to open a Foundling Home out in New Jersey. It’s almost ready to receive children. If I tell her that Reverend Kirkbright and I have located some children in need of care and attention, and that we want your help in taking them to the home to ease their distress, she would never imagine they were anything other than ordinary orphans, grieving for their mothers, and she would be only too happy for you to help.’
Matilda didn’t know what to think now. In one way it sounded such terrible deceit. Yet how could it be wicked to rescue sick, hungry children? Especially as the Reverend Kirkbright was involved in the plan?
‘Tell me about this Home?’ she asked.
He leaned closer to her, his eyes shining with excitement. ‘It’s to be called “Trinity Waifs’ and Strays’ Home”, and it will be funded by the parish. It’s a sturdy house, surrounded by open countryside, it was once used as a quarantine hospital. As I said, it’s almost ready, equipped and staffed.’ He paused for a moment, looking into her eyes. ‘Our biggest problem is reaching the right children to fill it, and getting them out of Five Points. As you probably know far better than I do, children living on the streets are suspicious of everyone, even more so of clergymen. With a young woman like yourself with us, someone who can speak their language, listen to their fears, and explain what we are trying to do for them, that problem could be solved.’
Never Look Back Page 16