Never Look Back

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘I sure don’t like the look of the man, he’s an animal,’ Sidney said, breathless from the ride home. ‘But he’s a worker and no mistake. Said they’d been felling from first light till dusk.’

  Matilda felt like falling down on her knees to offer a prayer of thanks. ‘Let’s just hope he’s as good at the rest of the job,’ she said. ‘But I’ll come with you tomorrow to see.’

  If Matilda had thought work on the land back at the cabin was gruelling, she was soon to find running a sawmill was even more so. MacPherson and his assistant never let up on the sawing regardless of how hot it was. The saw buzzed, wood chips flew, the dust got right into her chest, even when she escaped up to the tiny office above the wood shed, it followed her. But she rarely stopped to rest, for there were so many small jobs she could do while Sidney helped the men. She swept and shovelled up the sawdust and chips, for that could be sold later to the paper mill further along the river. Bark and small off-cuts could be used for fires, and the larger off-cuts stored to be sold to carpenters.

  As the sawn planks gradually piled up, she and Sidney carried them between them to start the piles for each customer. Mostly the orders were for pine planking, but there were also some for oak and ash, and she soon learned to tell the difference.

  Meanwhile the other two men kept returning with further loads, dumping it and going on back for more. It was Matilda who led the oxen down to the river to let them drink and graze before the next load, and she wondered at their gentle docility when they were treated so callously by the men.

  At the end of each day she often envied the men when she saw them run off to the river to swim and wash their grimy, sawdust-covered bodies before going along to the saloon. Their lives might be hard, but they were uncomplicated by domestic problems. From what little she learned of the men from Sidney, they had been moving between jobs like this for years, the wages they earned all spent in saloons and brothels, none of them had ever stayed in one place long enough to marry Sidney said their conversations with one another were all about the gold in California, where they believed they would strike it rich, and never need to work again.

  Their arrogance amused her. They all knew she had been to San Francisco, yet not one of them had asked her for advice, or even her opinion about the place, because she was a woman. If they had, she might have advised them to delay going until early spring, for if they arrived in the fall, it would be too wet and cold to pan for gold. As it was, she thought it would serve them right when their money ran out and the only shelter they had was a tent. But at least that lust for gold was making them work hard.

  It was as she arranged the shipping of the timber and booked her own passage with it for the morning of 12 September that Zandra came back into Matilda’s mind. Half the orders were completed now, well before time, and in all that had happened since she returned from San Francisco she hadn’t had time even to think about her, much less to sit down and write a letter. That visit to the parlour house was the one story she’d omitted to tell Cissie and Sidney. It didn’t seem appropriate after John’s death, Cissie didn’t need reminders of her past at such a difficult time.

  But she had liked the woman very much, and Zandra had offered to help her find accommodation. She might even have some ideas about a business Matilda could run with Cissie to support the children. Her friend was on the mend now, she was gaining weight, her old energy was back, and even though she still lapsed into mournful tears sometimes, on many an occasion she’d expressed a wish to live somewhere with a bit of life and colour.

  Knowing there was a boat sailing to San Francisco at the end of the week, which would be carrying mail, Matilda sat down in the sawmill office and wrote several letters, first to all her customers advising them of the shipping date. She stated that she would be sailing with the timber and that she expected it to be collected and paid for at the wharf on docking. Then she wrote to Zandra.

  It was the first week in September when Zandra’s maid Dolores came in with two letters from the mail office. Zandra was feeling very disconsolate as both her knees were badly swollen and she had been unable even to walk down the stairs, much less make it to the mail office. Joining the line of men waiting patiently for news from home was one of her little pleasures, it was here she often overheard the most interesting gossip. Men who couldn’t read themselves often asked her to read their letters to them, and it gave her a chance to touch the very pulse of the bustling little town.

  But when Dolores handed her the mail, she forgot her aching knees, that the doctor had said she must accept old age graciously, and that the parlour mirrors hadn’t been polished as she liked to see them. The first letter was from a lawyer friend, Charles Dubrette, in New Orleans. He had decided to come out to California to see what was going on there himself, by sea to Panama and then overland to the Pacific, and should be arriving around the end of September. The other letter was from Matilda.

  Zandra was delighted by Charles’s letter, she was very fond of him, but even more by Matilda’s, for everything in it proved she was right in her feelings about the girl.

  Contessa Alexandra Petroika had always preferred men’s company to women’s. Never in her entire life could she remember ever opening up to any woman as she had to Matilda, or particularly wanting friendship with her own sex. Her relationship with her ‘boarders’ was akin to that of a schoolmistress with her children. She taught them how to behave, how to dress, scolded them when they misbehaved and looked after them when they were sick. But they rarely touched her emotions.

  Yet there was something about Matilda which had touched her, and she’d thought about her a great deal since that one, rather brief meeting. She thought perhaps it was because she recognized a very similar character to her own: a good-hearted, feisty woman who looked life right in the eye and refused to be brought down by either tragedy or misfortune.

  Now as she read Matilda’s letter she saw she’d had more misfortune with her friend’s husband dying, yet nowhere in the letter was there any self-pity. Zandra guessed that Matilda had taken the entire burden of looking after her friend and her children on to her own shoulders, and she knew too how hard it must have been for a woman to organize getting that timber felled and ready to ship. Most would just have covered their faces with their apron and wept.

  Zandra read between the lines of the letter and recognized that same indomitable spirit which had driven her to Paris at a similar age, where, penniless, with nothing but her wits and her looks, she’d risen to become the most fêted and influential courtesan in the city.

  She could have stayed in her beloved Paris, accepted any one of many offers of marriage to ensure she would be cared for in her old age. But her pride wouldn’t allow her to do that, these men had been lovers and friends for many years, and she wanted to remain in their hearts as she was when she was young and beautiful. So at forty-five, twenty-two years ago, she packed her bags and slipped out of Paris to take a chance on America.

  She opened her first ‘parlour house’ in New Orleans. It took her entire savings to get a house in the right location, to pay for the lavish decorations and elegant furnishings. Her ‘boarders’, as the girls were known, were selected equally carefully, not just for their looks, but for their warmth and personality. She opened with a grand soirée, inviting only the richest men in town, and laying on champagne, fine wines and superb food. She recouped the cost in just the first few weeks, for her gentlemen soon discovered an evening in her sophisticated ‘parlour’ was not only the best fun in town, but utterly discreet.

  Twenty years later, at sixty-five, Zandra was growing tired, and she felt it was time to retire. She had one last glittering party, said her goodbyes, sold up and moved to Charleston, taking Dolores her maid with her. She might have stayed there for ever but for hearing a whisper that a carpenter had found some gold near Sacramento. In the early spring of the following year she booked a passage for herself and Dolores on a ship sailing right around the Horn, just to take a look.
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br />   It certainly wasn’t a desire for gold which prompted this hazardous trip by sea. Zandra had enough money to see out her days in luxury, but her curiosity and her adventuring spirit made her want to discover if there was any truth in the rumour, and if so, to be an observer of the madness which would surely follow.

  Zandra arrived in San Francisco in June, to find the tiny port almost deserted. She heard that on 12 May, just a month earlier, Sam Brannan, a Mormon Elder and editor of the California Star, after returning from Sacramento to investigate the rumours, had marched down Montgomery Street waving a whiskey bottle full of gold dust and announced the American river was full of gold. Almost every able-bodied man had taken off to get some for themselves.

  Zandra found herself unexpectedly marooned in the dreary little town. Ships sailed in every day, bringing in more and more gold-hungry men, but they couldn’t sail away again, for their crews deserted to find riches too.

  After the sophisticated life she was used to, she viewed the cluster of primitive adobe dwellings which made up the town with utter horror. But as she couldn’t leave, experience told her to make the best of it, and she bought a piece of land and erected a tent as temporary accommodation. Dolores, who had shared so much with her in the past, accepted it, if not with pleasure, with resignation. With persistence, bribery and endless cajoling, Zandra managed to get herself a shingle and timber place built. It was two storeys, consisting of a spacious and by anyone’s standards in the town luxurious apartment above for herself, and beneath it two stores which she intended to offer for rent.

  By the fall, when the rain came and men began returning from the mountains, their pockets full of gold, entrepreneurs began arriving in their thousands. Gambling halls cropped up like mushrooms around the plaza, canvas-walled saloons and restaurants were put up in the blinking of an eye. Zandra was offered three times the amount she had expected for her two stores. She looked at her apartment with new eyes and decided to come out of retirement and back into the parlour house business.

  Zandra’s parlour was very busy the evening after she’d received Matilda’s letter. The candles in the chandelier cast a subdued but twinkling light over the room, the pianist played everything from spirited polkas to gentle Mozart, and her twelve girls, in gaily coloured satin gowns with carefully coiffured hair, mingled with her gentlemen.

  As always, she greeted the men personally at the door, took their hats and then got one of her girls to bring them drinks. She refused entry to anyone who wasn’t smartly dressed, or the worse for drink. Guns and knives were confiscated and kept in her locked drawer until the owners left.

  Zandra’s role was to make sure no man was ignored by her girls, and that strangers in town were introduced to regulars. While her doorman discreetly watched out for potential troublemakers, Dolores escorted gentlemen to the three boudoirs at the back of the house, and it was into her hands that the money was slipped. Later Dolores would go back to the room to change the bed linen.

  Although Zandra was unable to provide the French champagne and the superb suppers she’d offered back in New Orleans, or even facilities for gentlemen wishing to stay all night with the girl they’d chosen, she had kept her high standards of hygiene, and cared for her girls. She insisted they bathed each day, she introduced them to the European-style wax pessaries which prevented pregnancy, and kept them vigilant for any symptom of disease. They were well fed and paid, receiving half the sum paid for their personal services.

  Most madams here and in other towns provided fancy dresses and lingerie but then charged exorbitant prices for them, keeping their girls constantly in debt to them. They turned a blind eye to rough stuff from the gentlemen, kept the girls virtually prisoners, some even encouraged the use of opiates to make them more docile. But Zandra only charged the real cost of the clothes, any man treating a girl badly was thrown out and never allowed in again, and she gave her girls freedom. For she had learned long ago that by treating them well, their happiness was reflected in their work.

  But tonight Zandra’s heart wasn’t in it. Her knees were throbbing, the smoke from the men’s cigars were making her eyes sting, and she felt drained of all energy.

  ‘I’m too old for this now,’ she thought as she watched Maria smiling seductively up at the man she was dancing with. ‘I think it’s almost time to retire for good.’

  ‘That’s yer lot, ma’am,’ MacPherson called out to Matilda during the afternoon of 6 September. ‘All the orders completed ready to go down to Portland tomorrow.’

  She was up in the office above the wood sheds sorting out old customer orders of John’s. MacPherson’s voice carried through the open window, and she rushed down the narrow ladder to see for herself.

  MacPherson was lounging against one pile of timber, as always chewing tobacco. Sidney was standing on another pile, fastening a rope around it.

  Few things had ever looked so beautiful to her as those neat stacks, each with the owner’s name chalked on it, stretching from one side of the yard to the other. She didn’t need to ask if Sidney had checked it all, not one cracked plank got past his sharp eyes, and he wouldn’t have allowed MacPherson to call her unless he was satisfied.

  ‘Well done, Mr MacPherson,’ she said. ‘You’ve done a grand job. I just hope there aren’t any problems getting it down to the ship and loaded.’

  ‘There won’t be, ma’am,’ he said. ‘And we’ve got a few days to spare anyway. I just hopes you gets your money the other end. From what I’ve heard there’s a lot of rogues down there.’

  Matilda suppressed a smile. The men down in San Francisco would be pussycats next to MacPherson. After half the orders were completed he’d started getting above himself, she’d come in early one morning to find him loading another man’s cart with some of their timber, clearly intending to pocket the cash. When she ordered him to unload it, he swore at her and claimed it was his timber, as he’d felled it. She pointed out that all timber once it had been brought into the yard was Mrs Duncan’s property, and if he didn’t obey her she would call the sheriff. He backed down then, but she suspected he’d previously pocketed money for other loads she didn’t know about.

  He had argued about everything in the past week, claimed he was left with nothing after paying his men, that she was the hardest woman he’d ever met, and that Sidney was a jumped-up little snot. But none of that mattered now the job was done.

  ‘Can I have me bonus now?’ he asked. ‘I got some things I got to see to.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ she said, guessing he was intending to be on the boat leaving for San Francisco tonight. ‘The deal was you get the bonus once it’s on the ship.’

  He scowled at her, spat noisily on the ground and walked away.

  ‘It’s all ready for shipping,’ Matilda said gleefully as she came into the cabin at dusk with Sidney. Cissie was bathing Amelia and Susanna in the washing tub, Tabitha was laying the table for supper, and Peter playing with Treacle on the floor. ‘And to celebrate we’ve all got presents.’

  ‘It’s all done!’ Cissie exclaimed, scooping Amelia out of the tub and wrapping her in a towel. ‘Already!’

  ‘We have to thank the nasty MacPherson for that,’ Matilda laughed, and put some brown paper packages on Tabitha’s bed. ‘Now, who wants to have their present first?’

  ‘Where did you get money for presents?’ Cissie asked suspiciously.

  ‘I did have some left from the sale of my wagon,’ Matilda said, a little hurt by her friend’s tone. Just lately Cissie had begun to act as if she was her servant, and she didn’t like it. ‘I haven’t stooped to selling any of your timber, if that’s what you think.’

  Cissie didn’t apologize, but then she rarely did, any more than she gave Matilda much credit for sorting out her husband’s affairs.

  Matilda had brought little rag dolls for Susanna and Amelia. Peter had a lead soldier and Tabitha a book on medicine. Sidney had already opened his present of a new woollen shirt on the way home.

  ‘Come
on then, open yours,’ Matilda urged Cissie, taking Amelia from her arms. ‘And make any more nasty remarks and I’ll take it back.’

  ‘I haven’t had a present since I first met John,’ Cissie said, suddenly looking tearful. ‘He brought me some red woolly gloves.’

  As she opened the parcel she gasped with pleasure. It was an emerald-green wool dress, with tiny pearl buttons down the bodice.

  She held it up to herself and her eyes welled over. ‘Oh Matty, it’s beautiful and my favourite colour. Where did you get it?’

  ‘I had it made for you,’ Matilda replied, ‘at a dressmaker’s in town. I took the measurements of your Sunday dress to her. So you’d better try it on and see if it fits.’

  ‘What’s in those parcels then?’ Cissie asked, looking down at the two lying on the bed.

  ‘The small one is Amelia’s birthday present. I’m not going to tell you what it is, you’ll have to wait till the day after tomorrow. The other one is the dress I was going to marry Giles in. I got it altered. I thought I’d need something a bit more fashionable to wear in case I run into Alicia Slocum again.’

  ‘Let’s try them together,’ Cissie said.

  The children laughed and clapped as they tried on their dresses. Cissie’s was a little loose as she was still much thinner than she once was, but she looked lovely in it. Matilda’s blue wedding dress had been altered to give it a lower neckline and an elegant bustle and it now fitted her to perfection, accentuating her small waist.

  ‘Don’t we look a pair of grand ladies!’ Cissie said, mincing around the cabin with one hand on her hip. ‘If I’d had this back in my days in New York I’d have been able to work in a parlour house at least.’

  Matilda put a finger to her lips to remind her the children were listening. Tabitha rarely missed anything and was likely to ask her what she meant.