Never Look Back

by Lesley Pearse

  The women were mainly very young, aside from a few older Italian ladies brought in as chaperones, who sat on the sidelines gossiping to each other. The girls’ average age was seventeen to twenty and they were dressed diversely in everything from a treasured national costume rich with peasant embroidery to calico and hooped satin gowns. Some girls wore a flower in their hair, others ribbons, the German girls had their hair tightly braided, many of the Irish had loose unruly curls, yet pretty or plain they were all in demand as dancing partners as there were two men for every girl.

  Matilda knew that what she was seeing was a cross-section of immigrants, bound together in their status as ‘greenhorns’ and the will to make something of themselves in their adopted country. There was no apathy here, work and bad living conditions forgotten as soon as they walked through the door. Shiny shoes, boiled shirts, newly washed hair and clean fingernails, all showed that they’d come to enjoy themselves and maybe find romance.

  The air was thick with cheap scent, cigars and sweat, but there was hope too, and happiness. Matilda drank it all in, thrilled finally to find herself among people she could identify with. But Flynn gave her little time to watch others, he wanted to dance every dance. Her hair she’d taken so long to pin up into a sophisticated style she’d seen in a magazine began to shed its pins and tumble on to her shoulders, and later when the music grew slower, Flynn ran his fingers through it, looking into her eyes with adoration.

  ‘To be sure you’re the greatest beauty here tonight,’ he whispered, his lips just touching her hot cheek. ‘I feel like one of the kings of Ireland, and you are my queen.’

  Under dim lights, with no thick outer garments to act as a shield between them, her body felt as if it was on fire and yearning to be closer still to him. He swayed to the music, his hand on her waist, and she closed her eyes and let her body flow with his.

  It was almost one in the morning when they got home to State Street.

  ‘Can I stay here just tonight?’ Flynn whispered outside the door. ‘I’ll sleep anywhere, on the kitchen floor if you like. But we have the whole of tomorrow to spend together and it would be a shame if I went home now and then overslept.’

  On the previous night Matilda had felt very scared alone in the house, for she’d never spent one night of her life alone before. It would be comforting to have him there. Faced with such a strong argument against sending him home, what little will she had left vanished.

  ‘Just tonight,’ she said. ‘But you must sleep in the parlour and no coming upstairs or I’ll be cross.’

  She lit a lamp, stirred the fire back into life while Flynn walked around looking at everything in the room. He felt the frames of pictures, stroked a velvet cushion and fingered the dainty china.

  Matilda watched him, suddenly aware that things which had become commonplace to her were new and awe-inspiring to him. It touched her deeply, reminding her of those first few days in the parsonage at Primrose Hill when she had done just what he was doing now.

  ‘How much of this came with you from England?’ he asked, picking up a porcelain shepherdess from the mantelpiece.

  ‘All of it apart from the furniture,’ she said. ‘Why?’

  ‘I was just thinking how much stuff the rich have,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I could put everything I own in one small bag.’

  ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘But the Milsons aren’t rich, Flynn, most of the things you see were their wedding presents from relatives.’

  ‘We won’t have much when we get married then,’ he said. ‘My folks couldn’t afford to even send a candle.’

  His wistful tone surprised her, he never expressed regret about anything in his past life, and only optimism about the future.

  ‘We’ll buy everything we want ourselves,’ she said, going up to him and slipping her hands round his waist. ‘Maybe we’ll get rich enough one day so we don’t even look at the prices.’

  ‘When I’m with you I can believe that will happen,’ he said, drawing her closer and bending to kiss her. ‘But right now I have everything I want right here in my arms.’

  He had given her kisses that sent her senses reeling a hundred times or more, but now, alone in a warm and cosy room without the possibility of being seen or interrupted, there was nothing to hold back the passion. One kiss led to another, they moved on to the couch, and then slowly sank down on to the rug in front of the fire.

  Matilda had never imagined that love-making could be such bliss, or that she’d be so shameless. As his hand crept up under the skirt of her dress and his fingers probed into her, she found herself arching her back against him for more and pulling his shirt out of his pants so she could run her hands over his back.

  His skin felt so smooth and warm, and it thrilled her to hear his sighs of pleasure. He knelt up to remove his shirt entirely, and bare-chested, his black curls glimmering in the firelight, he had never looked more handsome.

  ‘We must take this dress off you before it’s spoiled,’ he whispered, and sitting behind her, kissing her neck he slowly unhooked it, then pulled it off over her head, leaving her in her underclothes and stays.

  Matilda gasped as he undid the ribbon on her chemise, exposed her breasts and fondled them. He had touched her there a hundred times before, but through thick serge the sensation was muted, and as his hands cupped and squeezed her breasts she knew she was in danger of going too far.

  ‘We mustn’t,’ she gasped, trying to cover herself.

  ‘Oh Matty, I won’t go the whole way with you,’ he murmured against her breast. ‘Just let me love you a little.’

  The chemise disappeared, and Flynn unfastened her stays, wincing at the cruel marks it had made on her skin. ‘Women shouldn’t have to wear such things,’ he whispered, kissing and licking at the red marks. ‘When we’re married you’ll never wear them again for your body is the most beautiful shape all on its own.’

  Finally she was naked, he’d stripped off every last stitch, even her stockings, and Matilda could hardly believe that she could allow a man, even the one she intended to marry, to do such things to her. He kissed and sucked at her breasts, his fingers probed into her, her whole body was on fire and screaming for more.

  She stiffened when he removed his pants, but he kissed her deeply and took her hand and placed it on himself. ‘I won’t go inside you, I promise,’ he said. ‘Just hold me and pleasure me too.’

  It was something of a shock to find that a man’s penis could be so hard and so big, but his moan of pleasure as she held it was a joy to hear, she had never expected that two people could give each other such exquisite pleasure.

  ‘Matty, my angel,’ he murmured, pushing his fingers hard inside her, and moving his body against hers. ‘Hold me tighter, rub me. It’s so good.’

  *

  He carried her upstairs in his arms later and tucked her into her bed. ‘I love you, my darlin’,’ he whispered, kissing her forehead, then her lips.

  She moved over in the narrow bed, expecting him to get in beside her. But he moved back towards the door. ‘Aren’t you coming in with me?’ she asked. There was no candle, only the moonlight coming through the window, and although his naked white body was clear enough, she couldn’t see his face.

  ‘I don’t trust myself in there with you all night,’ he said gruffly. ‘We must wait until we’re married before I can stay in your bed. I’ll sleep downstairs.’

  He was gone before she could protest, and she lay there, listening to his bare feet padding down the stairs. It had been so heavenly, yet just a bit disappointing that once his seed came out it all ended. She could feel it still on her thigh, dry now, like flour-and-water paste.

  She wished Flynn was holding her now, she wanted more touching, more reassurance he really did love her, and that he didn’t think she was loose letting him do all that to her. But if he hadn’t really loved her he would have gone the whole way, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t care if he left her carrying his child.

  Her father’s words on how
a woman could tell if a man truly loved her came back to her then. ‘When he knows what’s right for her. When he’d row right across the river without thinking how far it was. When he’d give his life willingly for her.’

  Well, Flynn did what was right for her, she didn’t think many men would be so restrained. She could believe now that he truly loved her.

  The next ten days passed in a flash, and though Flynn had to work most evenings at the saloon, they had all the days together. He didn’t stay at State Street again, he said it was too much of a risk, but that made Matilda love him even more because he was so strong-minded and concerned for her reputation with the neighbours.

  Even the weather seemed to be in sympathy with them for the sun shone every day. A picnic in Washington Square near Greenwich Village, a ferry-boat ride to Staten Island and a longer one still to see Coney Island and look at the hotels where rich people took their holidays. They paddled in the icy water and chased each other along the deserted sands. Flynn hired an old nag for a few hours, and with Matilda sitting up behind him, clinging to his waist, they explored the open countryside.

  ‘We must fix this in our minds so we can tell our children and grandchildren,’ he said reflectively as they made their way back to the ferry later in the afternoon to go home. ‘For it will all be changed by then. So many thousands of immigrants are arriving each week now that in thirty years or so there won’t be any more room in New York.’

  ‘There isn’t any room now,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, there is, Matty,’ he said, smiling at her ignorance. ‘But then I don’t suppose you’ve been much beyond 20th Street, so you wouldn’t know how fast things change here. In 1928, just thirteen years ago, Broadway only went as far as 10th Street! Now it’s up to 42nd Street. Miles of new streets laid and houses built in a blink of an eye. Now they’ve finished the Croton aqueduct, water will be piped into millions of homes soon, not just a few thousand like now. Fewer people will die from diseases and the population will rise and rise.’

  ‘But you say there’s still room?’

  ‘Yes, loads of it. Beyond the reservoir there’s a huge area of ugly wasteland, where rag-pickers and Irish labourers live in shanties. I heard that some of the higher-minded men in the city want to turn that into a vast park, then build houses all around it right up to Harlem at the northern end of the island. Yet at the rate the population is growing it won’t take long to fill it, and you can bet these new houses will only be for the rich, and the poorer people will still be ignored and expected to shift for themselves in the old slums. That’s mostly why I want to get away There’s so much injustice, I feel stifled by it, and I hope this won’t hurt your feelings, Matty, but I hate the strong English influence here more than anything.’

  She was a little hurt, he was always making disparaging remarks about the English, and even if he did only mean the gentry, they were still her countrymen. But in the days that followed he took her to see so many different places that finally she felt as if she’d stepped out of the little English bubble she’d been in since her arrival in America and saw for herself that it really was a place of great opportunity.

  She stared in wonder at the opulent mansions on Fifth Avenue and listened to Flynn’s fantastic stories about how the owners made their fortunes. She admired the neat rows of new brown-stone houses and wished they could start married life in somewhere so nice. She looked in horror at the rag-pickers’ shanty town with the goats and pigs wandering in the mire and felt the injustice as keenly as Flynn when he pointed out that it was Irishmen who had built the aqueduct, dug ditches for water pipes and built the roads and houses, yet while they toiled for the rich, their wages barely kept them from starvation.

  ‘They’ll rise up one day and rebel,’ Flynn said wryly. ‘There’s too many of us to keep down for long. But we won’t be here to see it. We’ll be down South making a new, better life for ourselves.’

  He painted word pictures of the vast areas of rich farmland, mountains and forests that lay down there, of the steamboats on the Mississippi, of fur traders who went right out into the wilderness to the West and the Indians who lived out on the great plains. His passion fired her up too, and she vowed to herself that when the Milsons came home she would tell them about Flynn, and prepare them for the day when she would be leaving to start a new life with him.

  It was on their last afternoon together that Matilda suddenly discovered Flynn was intending to leave for the South very soon. They were in Hester Street, an area on the East Side which was predominantly Jewish. He stopped to look at a dark green tailcoat with silver buttons, hanging from one of the second-hand clothes stalls. Although it was extraordinarily good-quality cloth and beautifully cut it was marked at only two dollars.

  ‘It was made for you, my boy,’ the old man said, and before Flynn could walk away he had it down and was holding it out for him to try.

  It fitted as if it was made for him. Matilda laughed and said that if he could find an equally good-fitting pair of pants and riding boots he could easily pass for an Irish lord.

  Much to her surprise he said he’d take it and promptly handed over the money. ‘That was a bit rash,’ she said as they walked away, Flynn carrying the coat wrapped in brown paper. ‘You aren’t going to find pants to go with it so cheap.’

  ‘I’ve already got them,’ he said with a wide smile. ‘And the right boots. I met a young dandy who had big gambling debts, and bought them off him. I wouldn’t mind betting that the coat came from the same man, it’s his style. So now I’m all set.’

  ‘You say that as if you’re about to go and buy a ticket on the boat,’ she said teasingly.

  ‘Not this week,’ he grinned. ‘Next.’

  She was stunned. She couldn’t believe that he’d up and go so suddenly, especially after all they’d been to one another these past days.

  ‘Don’t look like that, darlin’,’ he said, putting his arm around her. ‘It’s best I go now.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, her eyes filling with tears.

  ‘Do you really think we can go back to waiting for Friday to come round so we can meet and hold hands?’ he said, wiping away her tears with his thumb. ‘It will be purgatory, Matty.’

  Matilda knew exactly what he meant. Since that night in State Street, every time he kissed her she wanted him to fondle her again. She could barely think of anything else and in her heart she knew that if such an opportunity arose again, they wouldn’t have stopped just at intimate touches. But for his strong will, not hers, a baby could already be growing inside her.

  He pulled her close to him, his forehead touching hers. ‘Let me go with your blessing,’ he murmured. ‘For the sooner I go, the sooner I can send for you and we can be married.’

  Tears filled her eyes. It was tough enough only seeing him once a week, but at least she knew he was in the same city. Charleston was over 700 miles away.

  ‘You aren’t afraid I will forget you?’ he asked, kissing away her tears. ‘I’ll write just as soon as I get there. Trust me, Matty, and let me go.’

  He left her on the corner of State Street an hour or two later – he said he couldn’t go into the house one last time because it would break his resolve. Matilda watched him walk away with tears rolling down her cheeks. His jaunty step, the baggy suit, grey derby and his black corkscrew curls were suddenly all so overpoweringly precious to her that she wanted to run to him and beg him to take her with him now.

  But she couldn’t do that. The Milsons would be home tomorrow, she had beds to air, bread to bake. She owed them more than slipping away like a thief in the night.

  May slipped into June, and as the temperature began to soar and it became increasingly difficult to sleep, so Matilda nightly prepared herself to tell the Milsons about Flynn. Yet every morning there seemed to be a good reason for putting it off for another day. When the Milsons first arrived home from their holiday, she couldn’t speak out then for she felt they’d suspect Flynn had been in the house duri
ng their absence, so she waited. Then Giles was anxious about two children from the Home who had run away after being sent up to Connecticut to prospective adoptive parents and he spent a great deal of time going backwards and forwards to New Jersey, hoping they’d reappear there.

  Next the Reverend Kirkbright fell from a horse and broke his leg, so Giles had to take over all the services at the church. Meanwhile, on top of all this, Matilda still hadn’t received a letter from Flynn, so without being able to say exactly where he was, or how long it would be before she wanted to leave, she decided to wait a little longer.

  Early one morning in mid-July Matilda was just dishing up eggs and bacon for Giles and Tabitha’s breakfast when her mistress came downstairs, fully dressed. Matilda was surprised to see her up so early, because ever since the hot weather began she had preferred to have a breakfast tray up in her bedroom where it was cooler.

  ‘Good morning,’ Matilda said with a smile. ‘Did the smell of the bacon tempt you down?’

  To her consternation, Lily blanched, swayed on her feet and then rushed out through the scullery and into the back yard.

  Matilda didn’t even stop to ask Giles what he thought was wrong, but plonked the two plates of food on the table and ran after her mistress. The privy door was open, Lily’s skirts protruding from it, and Matilda could hear her retching.

  For a moment or two Matilda just stood there, unsure whether to offer comfort or to withdraw and give the woman some privacy. Lily had a very delicate stomach and was often sick after eating something rich, but Matilda couldn’t think of anything she’d eaten on the previous day which might have upset her.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ Matilda called out once the retching seemed to be stopping. ‘Or shall I help you back upstairs?’