Never Look Back

by Lesley Pearse

  He silently drank his coffee, his one good eye staying right on her. Matilda was willing him to invite her here. She didn’t care if he offered her a bed in the kitchen in return for some housekeeping duties. Anything would be better than having to trudge around those filthy streets again.

  He put his cup down and sighed. ‘Well, Mrs Jennings, I never could resist a lady in distress, and I know my wife Alicia would be glad of some feminine company,’ he said. ‘You must stay here with us, and perhaps in a day or two we can talk about your timber too.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ she asked, tempted to jump up and kiss him. She didn’t care that he had a funny eye and no neck, she was overwhelmed by his generosity. ‘That really is too kind of you!’

  ‘Not at all, Mrs Jennings,’ he said with a smile. ‘We have plenty of room in our house, and it will be delightful to have someone new and interesting to talk to.’

  It seemed to Matilda that Henry Slocum must be starved of company, for he kept her talking for quite some time, and told her a great deal more about himself and the town. He came from Virginia, where he studied architecture, but he had spent some years in South America before arriving here. He and his wife had no children, which he laughingly called a ‘mixed blessing’, adding that San Francisco wasn’t a suitable place for them. Matilda got the impression from odd things he said that he was something of a maverick, who slotted himself into places where he could rise to a position of authority, possibly making a living out of town-planning schemes.

  He spoke with some anxiety about fire being an ever-present danger in the town, and the need for something more than the volunteer fire fighters they had now. He wanted the streets graded and new houses to be built from brick. The lack of sanitation concerned him greatly.

  Yet he showed no dismay about the wildness of the town at all. ‘Yes, we need a police force,’ he said. ‘People get themselves shot every day here, both the innocent and the rogues. Just the other day a bullet meant for someone else brushed past my coat and singed it. In fights knives are invariably pulled. But there is no theft to speak of, these rough people have their own code. Should someone try to steal another man’s property he is dealt with swiftly and mercilessly. You could have left your bag down on the waterfront, Mrs Jennings, and I could guarantee it would still be there now untouched. Likewise up in the hills, if a man stakes a claim, no one will try to take it from him.’

  That at least made sense of the merchandise left in the streets, but Matilda wasn’t so sure a place in which you could be shot or stabbed, but not robbed, could be said to have a high moral tone.

  At seven that evening as Matilda changed for dinner, she was so excited by her good luck she could hardly fasten the buttons on her dress. Alicia Slocum had been a little chilly, but considering her husband had sprung a house guest on her the moment she came in, giving her no chance to consider whether she wanted a stranger in her home, that wasn’t so surprising.

  Alicia was a very elegant woman, tall, with lustrous, rather bulbous eyes and thick chestnut hair. Matilda got the impression she thought herself better than anyone else, she had a disconcerting way of looking down her long, thin nose, and merely nodding rather than attempting to strike up a real conversation. But as Matilda intended to be out all day anyway, she wasn’t going to let that bother her. The room she’d been given was splendid. A big brass bed with lace-trimmed sheets, mahogany furniture, even an odd-looking kind of couch in front of the window which Alicia had called a chaise longue.

  The bay with its many ships at anchor was just forty or so yards from her window, and now at sunset it looked so beautiful. Even better, there was a china hip bath decorated with pink flowers in the closet adjoining the room, and Maria the Mexican maid had come up unasked and filled it with hot water for her.

  Nothing could compare with the delight of stripping off her clothes and getting into that hot water, it took her right back to the first bath she had after the nightmare trip down the Columbia. On the boat coming here she had been lucky if she could get a jugful of water to wash in, and washing her hair was out of the question. She wallowed in it luxuriously, promising herself she would make so much money that one day she could have a bath every single day.

  Her hands bothered her though, they really did look appalling – one fingernail was missing, ripped off back on the wagon train when she caught it in the folding legs of the table, and it hadn’t regrown. There were scars, calluses and brown liver-spots, even the goose-grease she’d been putting on them every night on the boat hadn’t improved them.

  Cissie had suggested she wore Lily’s lacy gloves, even indoors, and that had seemed a good idea, but did ladies wear gloves while they were eating dinner? Somehow she didn’t think so.

  When she got out of the bath she found Maria had unpacked her clothes, pressed her two dresses and hung them up in the closet. She decided she would keep the gloves on at all times – she might be considered odd, if no one else did, but that was better than having her hands stared at.

  ‘You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’ Matilda was reminded many times in the ensuing days of the phrase her father had so often used. By day, going about in the town she felt confident. Being bold, female and English gave her a distinct advantage, businessmen agreed to see her even when they were busy. John had given her enough information about his timber to speak knowledgeably, and her fast arithmetic impressed these men, so she got the orders she wanted.

  But each evening back at the Slocum house, she was only too aware of her shortcomings, and she felt as though she was being put through slow torture. Time and again she was tempted to fake a headache to excuse herself from having dinner with them and their many guests, but she couldn’t do that. She sensed Mr Slocum hadn’t invited her to stay purely from kindness, rather that in this male-dominated town she was something of a trophy which he wanted to display. Perhaps too as timber was such a valuable commodity, he wanted to keep her right where he could see her.

  Maybe if she’d been brave enough to confide in Alicia right away that she wasn’t accustomed to mixing with society folk, the woman might have made things easier for her, but by saying her late husband was a doctor, she had inadvertently set a trap for herself.

  She had believed the Milsons had trained her well enough to mix with anyone, but she was wrong. Their ways were country ways, their food was plain, and there was never any wine. The Slocums served fancy food she had no idea how to tackle, their guests seemed to bring out the worst in her, and she soon discovered her clothes were all wrong too.

  The first night here had been humiliating, though in fairness to the Slocums it was her own fault, not theirs. Unused to wine being served, when she saw her full glass she thought she must drink it or they’d consider her odd. The guest that night was Jose de Galvez, a swarthy, black-eyed man with an oiled moustache and large sparkling white teeth, who paid her far too much attention. Matilda gathered, before the wine took effect and made her head swim, that the Slocums had met him and his family when they were living in South America. Jose had a large cattle ranch there, and he had come to San Francisco to make some deals for his beef.

  ‘Henry he tell me you drove a wagon all alone from Missouri to Oregon,’ he said with a heavy Spanish accent. ‘That ees remarkable, Mrs Jennings. Weren’t you afraid?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘There were sixty or more wagons with me, being exhausted was the worse thing, but then of course I was pregnant.’

  The moment that word came out she knew she’d made her first drastic mistake. No lady ever used it, they wouldn’t even speak of ‘a delicate condition’ in mixed company.

  Maybe if she’d stopped right there it wouldn’t have been so bad, but she tried to justify herself. ‘I’m sorry, I know one isn’t supposed to use that word. I can’t think why, it’s the right one. But then in America you can’t even say “pants”, can you? It’s sit-me-downs, nether garments or even unmentionables.’

  Alicia’s bulbous eyes nearly popped out
of her head. Henry blushed and Jose smirked.

  ‘Of course, Mrs Jennings is English,’ Alicia simpered to Jose. ‘I do believe the English enjoy teasing us Americans.’

  Alicia’s remark, along with the stimulating effect of the wine, made Matilda forget the lessons Lily had taught her about sticking to light, frothy conversation at the dinner table. She brought up the subject of slavery, the plight of the poor in New York, and when Jose and Henry made patronizing remarks about their wives, she couldn’t let them pass by.

  First Henry said something about Alicia’s head being too stuffed with gossip to take in anything about world affairs, then Jose laughingly said his wife was so lacking even in knowledge of her own people’s history that she had thought Spain must be a town somewhere in South America.

  ‘Do you ever take your wife travelling with you?’ Matilda asked Jose, suddenly seeing a mental picture of a lonely Spanish woman left all alone on a ranch while her husband travelled the world.

  ‘Oh no, my dear Mrs Jennings,’ he replied, rolling his dark eyes. ‘Rosita stay home with our children always, she has no interest in other places.’

  ‘How would you know if you never take her anywhere?’ she asked.

  He looked at Henry as if for support.

  ‘South American women are very different from Europeans, Mrs Jennings,’ Henry said feebly. ‘They like to stay at home.’

  Matilda chortled with laughter. ‘I wish I’d got a dollar for every time I heard that statement on the wagon train,’ she said. ‘They would say it about German women, Dutch, Indian squaws, French and Americans. It’s rubbish, women are basically the same everywhere, just as men are. Given half a chance, all women would welcome seeing new places.’

  ‘I’m not so sure that’s true, Mrs Jennings,’ Alicia piped up, her face a little flushed. ‘Very few women have chosen to come with their men to San Francisco.’

  Dressed for dinner in a coffee and cream lace gown and her chestnut hair swept up into a coif on top of her head, Alicia was a handsome woman. Matilda had been fooled by her looks, imagining her to be intelligent and strong-willed, but that foolish remark proved she was neither.

  ‘Their men didn’t offer their women the chance to come here, any more than Mr Galvez offered it to Rosita,’ Matilda retorted. ‘They just took off from their homes with scarcely a thought for their wives and children. Judging by the amount of saloons and gambling dens I saw here this morning, most will slink back with less than they came with. And as I also saw plenty of evidence of prostitution, I dare say they’ll take a few nasty diseases home too.’

  It was then she realized she had drunk too much and she was being rude, not amusing. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, blushing at her outburst. ‘I just get cross when I think of what some women have to bear.’

  ‘You are quite a leetle firebrand’ Jose said with a smirk. ‘You should go far in your business.’

  She managed to get through the rest of the meal without disgracing herself further, but when the men retired to Henry’s study for a cigar she tried to explain herself to Alicia and asked if she didn’t get angry when men made such foolish remarks about women.

  ‘Angry?’ Alicia exclaimed, raising one perfectly arched eyebrow. ‘Why should it make me angry? Men don’t wish their wives to interest themselves in anything outside their homes because it’s their way of protecting us from unpleasantness.’

  ‘It isn’t’ Matilda retorted. ‘It’s their way of keeping us down. In my opinion most women have far more common sense than men and if they’d only stand up for themselves, learn about things outside their home, they could use their influence to make this a better, fairer world.’

  ‘It’s fair enough to me as it is,’ Alicia said. ‘As long as I have a husband to look after me and pay my housekeeping and dressmaker’s bills, I’m perfectly happy.’

  ‘I can’t really believe that’s all you care about,’ Matilda said, her eyes widening with shock. ‘Don’t you ever look at the filthy streets in this town and think of putting pressure on your husband and his friends to get something done about them? Don’t you worry that all these men in the town have deserted their wives and children to come looking for gold? Are your dressmaking bills more important than that?’

  ‘Well, I can see you don’t spend money on dressmakers,’ Alicia replied, looking pointedly at Matilda’s dark blue velvet dress. ‘But if you can take your mind off business or our dirty streets for an hour or two while you are here, I’d be happy to introduce you to my French dressmaker. She instinctively knows what is right for one.’

  Matilda was stopped short. She had thought that Lily’s dress was perfection and that it would take her anywhere. She knew Lily had had it for several years, but that meant nothing to a girl who had once owned only one shabby dress. But worse than having her dress sneered at was the knowledge Alicia had seen through her pose as a ‘lady’. She was probably angry at her husband for inviting her to stay, irritated that Matilda set herself above other women by taking an interest in business, and jealous because she was both pretty and outspoken. Sniping at her dress was an attempt to shake her confidence.

  ‘Clothes don’t mean a thing to me,’ Matilda said airily. ‘I have always thought women who follow fashion are rather like sheep. I am far more concerned with important things, like my children’s future. This dress is a few years old, but it’s good enough for this town.’

  She got a twinge of pleasure at seeing Alicia’s supercilious smile fade, but almost immediately she felt ashamed, after all she was only a guest, and an uninvited one at that.

  ‘I think I’d better go to bed now,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I can’t thank you enough for your hospitality. You really are so kind.’ She rushed off to her room then, and once there gave way to tears. It wasn’t clever to set Alicia against her, she was missing her children dreadfully, and if she didn’t get any orders for John, it would all be for nothing.

  But she did get the orders. Nine days later, only one man out of over thirty she’d seen had turned her down. Henry had given her a huge order for the planking he needed for his wharf, and he said if the first shipment was good quality and came within four months, he’d give John a regular contract. This helped to keep up her spirits when she had to put on her velvet dress night after night, and saw Alicia’s sneers. It helped her to refrain from saying anything subversive to the Slocums’ dinner guests, no matter how much they riled her. It soothed the ache of missing her children, and she found she could escape from the tedious evenings by letting her mind slip away to imagining Cissie’s and John’s pleasure when she came back with a full order book.

  Yet being here alone, away from her friends and children, had taught her a great deal, and perhaps the most valuable lesson of all was that she must accept herself as she really was. She remembered how she’d once told Flynn she was neither fish nor fowl, and she saw it was even truer now than it had been then. She didn’t have the background, or the frivolous softness to pose as a real lady. She also knew she had lost the docility she once had, so she could never step back and become anyone’s servant again.

  But she had proved she had a head for business by her full order book. She also knew now she had the nerve, brains and ambition to reach any goal she set herself.

  Sadly, she knew that she had gone as far as it was possible to go on John’s account. He couldn’t physically cope with any more work than she’d already got him. While he was going to be delighted with her, once the timber was felled, sawn and shipped down here, the buyers would then deal directly with him for repeat orders and she’d be obsolete.

  Matilda knew John would want to continue giving her commission on all accounts she’d opened. But after a taste of business, she wanted more than just living on her commission in a remote cabin. She wanted something that was all her own. A business which she could build, perhaps to pass on to her children and grandchildren.

  Each day as she went around San Francisco she studied the town and its people carefully. The h
orror she’d felt on her first day here had left her once she discovered more about it. Two years ago the population of San Francisco was just some 800. It had little to recommend it, with its chilly mists and sparse vegetation, other than its safe harbour. But since gold was discovered in the surrounding hills, that population had soared to well over 25,000, with hundreds more arriving every day, by sea and across land from the East. She’d heard tell that in one week alone some 600 vessels lay out in the bay, and the captains were unable to sail away as their crews had deserted them.

  The gold-seekers didn’t stay in San Francisco, they brought their equipment and provisions then hastily left for the mountains. But they came back to sell their gold, have some fun and spend their money. When the fall came and it was too wet and cold in the mountains, they returned again. The whole town’s prosperity was built on just this, which was why no one was anxious to calm the madness, or clean up the seedier side of it. Gold was the only export from the town. Everything the ever-increasing population needed, from food, drink and clothes to equipment and machinery was imported and sold on at a vast profit.

  One day she watched a man standing on top of Telegraph Hill sending semaphore messages with flags. Henry had told her it was this man’s job to spot ships coming into the bay, then alert businessmen about what sort of ship it was and the cargo it was carrying, so that they could be first at the wharf to meet it and offer a price for the entire cargo. The auctioneer she’d seen on her first day was one of many, and even an absolute novice bystander could make a swift and handsome profit by bidding for a crate of cigars, silk handkerchiefs, shovels or pails, then hawking them off around the town.