Never Look Back

by Lesley Pearse

  Captain Russell had been so very astute when he said the smart people wouldn’t go mining. Each day as she walked around the town, Matilda saw the bankers from the casinos, the restaurant owners, the builders and even fishermen with great wads of money. And she wondered what she could supply to this town that someone else hadn’t already thought of.

  Nothing came to her. Someone had thought of everything, there was even a man making and selling chocolate, women offering to wash shirts for five dollars each. The only thing she’d noticed was missing were flowers. But even if it were possible to ship flowers here before they wilted, who would buy them? Certainly not the miners.

  On Matilda’s ninth day in town, it was after five when she got back to Montgomery Street, and when Alicia opened the door to her with red-rimmed eyes, instead of Maria, she guessed immediately that the maid had left.

  Matilda wasn’t too surprised by this, she’d heard Alicia laying into Maria countless times, and often seen slap marks on the girl’s face. A young, pretty girl could go straight to any of the casinos and get well-paid work immediately; if she wanted a husband she could take her pick from hundreds of eligible men.

  ‘I’m so glad you’ve come home. Maria has left me,’ Alicia blurted out, breaking into fresh tears. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. You can’t get a maid anywhere in this town.’

  Matilda groaned inwardly. Alicia was stupid, vain, and far too self-righteous, and although she had tried very hard to find something she liked about her, she hadn’t yet discovered it. Yet remembering that but for Henry’s kindness in taking her in she might have been forced to sleep in a canvas cubicle, she knew she must comfort and console his wife.

  ‘How awful for you,’ she said, putting her arm round the woman and taking her into the parlour and sitting her down. She poured her some brandy, and sat down by her to listen.

  As Alicia sobbed out how well they had treated the girl, giving her food to take home for her family, old clothes and even an entire day off now and again, and she couldn’t understand why she’d gone, Matilda had to bite her tongue not to say perhaps the girl didn’t feel appreciated.

  Instead she offered the idea that maybe someone had made the girl a better offer. At that Alicia suddenly sat up straight and blew her nose.

  ‘I know all the quality people in this town,’ she said archly. ‘Not one of them would stoop to poaching one’s maid. It just isn’t done.’

  ‘Well then, perhaps she’s gone to work at something else,’ Matilda replied. She wished now she’d thanked Maria personally for bringing up her bath water. Two flights of stairs was a long distance to carry several pails of water. She of all people knew how heavy they were.

  ‘What could she do? She doesn’t even speak good English,’ Alicia snapped, full of indignation. ‘There’s something very peculiar about this,’ she went on. ‘When I said she was being foolish running out on me, she muttered something to the effect that she could get paid ten times for doing the same as she did here. Do you know, Mrs Jennings, that I paid her four dollars a week? No one would pay more than that for a maid.’

  Four dollars a week was very good wages for a maid. Matilda had only got two dollars a month. But then everything was overpriced in this town.

  ‘She even said something nasty about Mr Slocum,’ Alicia went on. ‘She said he was mean and implied he didn’t give her something he’d promised. I tried to find out what it was, but she pretended not to understand. What do you make of that!’

  Matilda hesitated, that sounded very much like complaints other flower-girls had aired about the men in their life. ‘I expect he promised to get her an extra day off or something,’ she said quickly. ‘Then he forgot about it.’

  Could Henry have been having his way with Maria, she wondered. Men had been known to promise the moon for just that. She knew countless girls who’d never got what they were promised.

  It was feasible. Maria had slept down in a little room at the back of the kitchen. Henry always seemed to stay up long after Alicia retired to bed. One night when Matilda couldn’t sleep she’d heard Henry’s footsteps coming up the stairs just as the clock down in the parlour struck two. Had he been in Maria’s room?

  Then there was the remark about getting paid ten times more for doing what she did here. She couldn’t get forty dollars a week as a maid anywhere, but she could as a prostitute. If Maria had been submitting to her master’s lust on top of all her real work, she probably did think she might as well join the women who got paid well for it.

  Matilda was horrified to think a man in Henry’s position would do such a thing, but even more worried about Maria. Unable to say anything to Alicia, she offered to make some tea.

  As she entered the kitchen she groaned. It was in the most appalling mess, with the previous evening’s plates, pots and pans still unwashed on the table, along with the breakfast things.

  Exactly how this house was run hadn’t ever concerned her, she always went out straight after breakfast, and stayed out as long as she could. But she did know another woman came in daily to prepare and cook the evening meal, as Alicia had boasted she was lucky to get her, for she was the best cook in San Francisco. Clearly Maria had decided to stop work after last night’s dinner, and only served breakfast this morning just to avoid a scene with her master before he left for his office.

  Matilda’s first thoughts were that she should get out of this house as soon as possible. But if she did that Henry might cancel his order for timber. He could even persuade others to do so too. There was no point in her being righteous about him and Maria, she could be wrong. Besides, Henry had shown her great kindness, and if she was to start a business in this town, she would need his support.

  She made the tea and took it back to Alicia, who was now lying down on the couch.

  ‘Maria didn’t wash up before she left,’ Matilda reported, though she was sure Alicia already knew that. ‘I’ll do it now. You stay where you are and rest.’

  Predictable Alicia gave her a watery smile. ‘Oh Mrs Jennings, I can’t let you do that.’

  ‘I’ve had a little experience of washing up,’ Matilda said light-heartedly ‘You don’t want to lose your cook, do you? She’ll be off too if she comes in to see that lot.’

  It took her over an hour to put the kitchen straight. By the time she got back to the parlour, Alicia had composed herself with the aid of another brandy.

  ‘It’s fortunate we have no guests tonight,’ she said, yawning and lying back on the cushions. ‘Mr Slocum has a business meeting so he won’t be in either. So it will be just us for dinner. I shan’t dress, I’m feeling too weary, so don’t feel you have to either, my dear. Cook will be in any minute so I’ll just pop down to speak to her. Maybe she’ll know someone who can take Maria’s place.’

  That evening seemed interminable. Alicia had no conversational skills, she would ask a question, but then as Matilda answered it, she would look away, or say something else, entirely unrelated. By the end of the evening Matilda was even beginning to feel sympathetic towards Henry. While she disapproved of him seducing the maid, she could understand perfectly why he might take a mistress, and indeed why he’d invited her to stay, knowing very little about her. His wife was just so empty-headed and utterly dull, almost anyone would make a welcome diversion.

  ‘You’ve been very kind having me as your guest,’ Matilda said, just before she made her excuses to go to bed. ‘But I think I must see if I can get a boat home tomorrow. I have a full order book now, and I’m missing my children terribly’

  She saw pleasure creep into the woman’s bulbous eyes, but predictably she pretended to be distraught.

  ‘Oh no, you can’t go just yet,’ she said, holding out her hands to take Matilda’s. ‘It has been so nice to have another woman to talk to, and you have been so kind to me today.’

  ‘A little washing up was nothing,’ Matilda replied. ‘Especially after you’d looked after me so well. But I hope we will see one another again soon. I expe
ct I shall be back. Hopefully someone will have built a real hotel by then and I won’t have to impose on kind people like yourselves.’

  Next morning Matilda came downstairs to find Henry standing over the kitchen stove with a look of bewilderment on his face.

  ‘I put some water on for coffee some time ago,’ he said. ‘But it won’t boil.’

  Matilda wanted to laugh, but she didn’t dare. ‘It has to be raked out and lit each day,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll do it.’

  It took her only a few moments to see to it, Henry stood there looking at her in wonderment as she lit twists of paper and then fed in small pieces of wood.

  ‘You are a marvel,’ he said once she had a good blaze going. ‘Where on earth did you learn to do that?’

  ‘As a child in London,’ she said with a smile. ‘We had no maid in our family. It proved a very useful talent on the wagon train, you have to learn to make a fire even when it’s raining.’

  Alicia was still in bed and Matilda thought she’d probably stayed there purposely, so she offered to make the breakfast, and as she whisked up some eggs, she told Henry she was intending to see if there was a boat to Oregon leaving today.

  ‘First Maria, and now you,’ he exclaimed in some alarm. ‘I do hope you aren’t leaving for the same reason.’

  That remark suggested he blamed his wife for Maria’s hasty departure. There was certainly no guilt in his eyes, only a look of concern.

  ‘There’s no connection, I assure you,’ she said, suddenly feeling a lot easier being alone with him. ‘I’ve got all the orders I need now and I miss my children too much to stay any longer.’

  ‘I tend to forget you have a family,’ he said. ‘Last night I heard there is a boat leaving at four this afternoon. If you really are set on going I’ll take you down there after breakfast and make sure you get a decent cabin.’

  Matilda thanked him and they chatted quite comfortably about the children, and Oregon, while they waited for the stove to get hot. After a breakfast of scrambled eggs, ham and coffee, which they ate in the kitchen, Matilda took a tray upstairs to Alicia, and said her goodbyes. She was so relieved to be leaving that she even kissed the woman with some warmth.

  ‘What a lovely morning’ Henry said as they left the house a little later.

  There was no mist for once, the sun rising up in a clear blue sky, and before them the bay with its many ships looked enchanting.

  ‘It is, isn’t it,’ Matilda agreed, smiling at him. He was wearing a silk top hat and a dark grey tail-coat, and he cut quite an imposing figure, even carrying her carpet-bag. ‘If I wasn’t so overjoyed at the prospect of seeing my children again, I could almost be sad to go.’

  ‘I should have said this first thing this morning’ he said a little hesitantly. ‘I was appalled Mrs Slocum allowed you to clean up the kitchen for her yesterday. I regret to say she can be rather presumptuous, and not a little disagreeable.’

  ‘I didn’t mind tidying the kitchen at all,’ she said, sensing that he was trying to tell her his marriage was not an entirely happy one. Wanting him to feel she sympathized with him, she put her hand on his arm. ‘Mrs Slocum and I have such different backgrounds and interests I’m afraid we were destined never to be real friends. But I was very grateful for your hospitality, and I do hope I haven’t offended either of you. I’m afraid I am a little outspoken.’

  ‘You did not offend me in any way,’ he said, looking sideways at her. ‘I found you to be an interesting, stimulating guest, and I very much admire your business acumen.’

  ‘Well thank you, sir,’ she smiled, fluttering her eyelashes just a little. ‘I would really like to start a business of my own here. I sincerely hope I could count on your advice and knowledge if and when I do.’

  ‘My dear Mrs Jennings,’ he said. ‘I would consider it an honour to help in any way I can. I believe you are a very rare bird, not only beautiful, warm and amusing, but with a fine brain tucked away under that pretty hair. You could do well in this town.’

  Henry said goodbye after arranging her passage home and inspecting her cabin. A short while later Matilda left the boat for one last look around the town and to buy some small presents for the children.

  She had finished her shopping within an hour and was on her way back to the boat when she stopped to look in the window of a cigar store, amused by a display of stuffed racoons, each with a large cigar in its mouth. Suddenly she saw reflected in the glass a young girl passing on the other side of the narrow street. Just the way she appeared to glide, rather than walk, reminded her of Maria.

  She turned abruptly. This girl was wearing a stylish bright yellow dress and a straw bonnet, but her glossy black hair and golden skin were most definitely Mexican.

  Maybe if the girl hadn’t looked across at Matilda, and paused for just a second, a look of alarm on her face, Matilda would have thought she was mistaken, but with that the girl suddenly broke into a run, rushed up a flight of wooden stairs at the side of a chandlery and disappeared.

  Without stopping to think, Matilda darted after her.

  The steps led to a wooden veranda, which went round the back of the upper floor of the building. There were several chairs and tables, and two doors. Matilda knocked on the first one.

  It was only as she waited that she questioned why she was chasing the girl. They had established no rapport in her stay at the Slocums’, and Maria was bound to see her as an enemy. Was it really any of her business why she left?

  However, it wasn’t Maria who opened the door, but an old woman dressed entirely in black with a mantilla of black lace over her white hair.

  ‘I just saw Maria come in here,’ Matilda said. ‘Could I speak to her for a moment?’

  ‘What business do you have with her?’ the old lady asked. She had a tinge of a foreign accent, though Matilda couldn’t identify it, her eyes were bright blue and very sharp, and they seemed to bore right into her.

  ‘No real business at all,’ Matilda said. ‘I was a guest at the house where she was working and I was concerned about why she left so suddenly I have left that house now too, but when I spotted her just now I just wanted to be certain she was all right.’

  ‘Why would you care about a Mexican maid?’ the woman said scornfully, looking her up and down.

  Matilda riled up. ‘I’d like to think I could spare a thought for anyone who had been ill treated, whatever their position or nationality,’ she snapped back.

  To her utmost surprise the woman smiled. She had only two teeth left in her mouth, and smiling should have made her look older still, but instead she suddenly looked years younger.

  ‘You must be the English woman everyone is talking about,’ she said. She cocked her head on one side and looked quizzically at Matilda. ‘You are every bit as pretty as they said, but that green cape and bonnet doesn’t do much for you.’

  The woman might be old, and her face as crumpled as an ageing apple, yet there was something very attractive about both her and her voice. Even her personal remark had a note of humour about it.

  ‘I didn’t wear it for any other reason than to keep warm,’ Matilda retorted. ‘Now, may I speak to Maria for a moment?’

  ‘Would you like to step inside?’ the old lady asked, opening the door wider to reveal a small hall decorated in dark red and gold. ‘I wouldn’t normally ask a lady like yourself in, but since you are concerned about Maria, I feel it would be better for you not to be on public display up here on my veranda.’

  In a sudden flash of intuition Matilda realized that this place had to be a brothel and the woman the madam.

  ‘You do know what this house is?’ the woman said before she could back away. She smiled as if amused by Matilda’s shock.

  The smile was a challenge to Matilda. She was too proud to admit she’d blundered up here without realizing. She was also curious.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said as boldly as she could manage. It was after all the middle of the day and she couldn’t see that she could com
e to any harm in broad daylight. ‘But I can only stay a few minutes as I am booked on to a boat leaving soon.’

  The old woman left the front door wide open and led the way through another door. Matilda followed, fully expecting squalor, but instead she found herself in a large and very luxurious room. It was gloomy, for the light from windows overlooking the street below was muted with heavy lace curtains, stale cigar smoke mingling with the smell of fresh polish. The walls were deep gold, the many couches dark red, and a chandelier hung from the ceiling.

  For a second she thought she had jumped to the wrong conclusion about the nature of the place, until she turned and saw a painting of an almost naked woman reclining on a bed, hanging over the fireplace.

  A tinkling laugh from the old lady startled her. ‘My dear! Your face is a picture. I am so sorry, you said you knew what this house was.’

  ‘I did,’ Matilda said with more confidence than she felt. ‘But I have never been in a brothel before.’

  ‘A brothel!’ the woman exclaimed with some indignation. ‘This, my dear, is a parlour house.’

  Cissie had used that term occasionally and from what Matilda remembered it meant the ‘girls’ were high-class whores, operating in a place which was something like a fancy gentlemen’s club, where the members had a few drinks, danced and ate a good supper. Cissie of course had never got anywhere near such refined surroundings, but her view was that this was the top branch of the tree.

  ‘I’m afraid I wouldn’t know the distinction,’ Matilda said. She was very nervous now, wondering if she ought to run for the open door. ‘Perhaps you ought to enlighten me?’

  The woman showed absolutely no sign of embarrassment as she explained. It seemed it was much as Cissie had said, only the woman claimed that not all men came looking to buy the company of a girl, rather that they saw it as a congenial place to meet and make friends, to talk in comfortable surroundings. She called her girls ‘her boarders’, just as if they were merely guests, there to make the place more decorative.