Never Look Back

by Lesley Pearse

  She described her fun palace in detail, and how people she’d spoken to down there thought she’d make a fortune, as long as she jumped in now while the gold was still pouring into the town.

  ‘There was a place like that in the Bowery,’ Cissie said, her face animated with excitement. ‘All the toffs used to go in there. It was packed every night. You gotta do it, Matty, it’s a great idea.’

  ‘But there’s a big problem,’ Matilda said, her lips trembling because every time she even thought about it she felt she could never do it. She glanced out of the window to check the children weren’t about to come in. ‘I can’t see how I can take Tabitha and Amelia with me, not at the moment. It’s a filthy, dangerous place and I can’t expose them to it. Maybe in a year or so it will be more civilized, but right now it’s not safe.’

  ‘Well, leave them with me,’ Cissie said without any hesitation.

  ‘How can I do that?’ Matilda sighed. ‘You’ve got enough to do with your own.’

  ‘Tabby’s worth her weight in gold,’ Cissie said with a shrug. ‘I can’t imagine how I’d cope without her help anyway. But it ain’t just that, Matty, I love both her and ‘Melia as if they were me own.’

  ‘I know you do,’ Matilda replied. ‘But I love them so much I don’t know if I can bear to leave them, not even with you. Besides, you said you were frightened of being alone without me.’

  Cissie gave her a long, hard look. ‘I won’t be scared once I really understand the money. Specially if I can go and live in town, ‘cos there’ll be people around I can ask things. Anyways, from what you’ve said about San Francisco, I guess Tabby and ‘Melia will be happier staying here than down there. But that ain’t really the point, is it? You’ve gone and set your heart on doing this, ain’t you?’

  Matilda nodded. ‘It’s burning inside me, I can hardly think of anything else. The mother in me tells me I should stay here, get some land and be satisfied with just that. But I know I’m not cut out for farming, Cissie.’

  ‘You’ll be a bad mother to them if you ain’t happy’ Cissie said evenly. ‘I reckon you gotta do it. If you don’t, well, you’ll always be wishing you had. Anyways, it ain’t like you’s goin’ for ever. If you’re the boss you can come home anytime you please.’

  Matilda heard Tabitha approaching, talking to Peter. She put her finger to her lips.

  ‘We’ll talk about it more tonight,’ she said warningly. ‘Now, why don’t we drive into town and show Mr Weinburg that money.’

  ‘I’ll tell him to give you your lot,’ Cissie said, and held out her arms for a hug. ‘I sure am sorry that I said those mean things, Matty. You’re the best pal anyone could ever have, and I truly never want to lose you.’

  It was almost Christmas, just a few days after Tabitha’s tenth birthday, when Matilda got a letter from Charles Dubrette telling her the land in San Francisco was now legally hers.

  Cissie’s future was settled now. The mill had been sold at an excellent price and Sidney had been given a job there with the new owners. After getting a very good offer for the cabin, land and livestock from the family from Connecticut, Cissie had found a little house in Oregon City to move into after Christmas, so both Tabitha and Peter could start school in January. It would be easier for Sidney living so close to his work too, and he was taking great pride in the fact he would be man of the house now. Matilda had of course been intending to help with the move and stay on with Cissie for some time in the town, perhaps until the spring, but this letter from Dubrette meant she’d have to go much sooner.

  He had costed the whole project – the building, a well to be dug, furniture, equipment, and the initial stock of drink – to be around 5,500 dollars. He went on to say that if Matilda still wanted to proceed, he considered her stake, the land itself, should be counted at 1,500, for the moment the building went up, that would be its true value. With four other people each putting in 1,000, she could remain the largest shareholder.

  He said that he would like to be one of these shareholders himself, as would Zandra, Henry Slocum and a friend of Henry’s, Simeon Greenstater. If Matilda was agreeable to this, he would like her to come to San Francisco as soon as possible so that the legal documents could be signed, architectural plans approved and the building work commence immediately. He pointed out that each of the four shareholders would be bringing their expertise into the project. Henry was an architect, Greenstater a builder, Zandra and himself would act in an advisory capacity in the areas of the business they knew well.

  Her first reaction to this letter was to panic. Five and a half thousand dollars was an enormous sum of money – up here in Oregon it would build several streets of houses – and she hadn’t expected Dubrette to start moving so quickly. But if Henry believed in it enough to put money into it, and draw up the plans, it must be a good idea, for he was no fool. She didn’t know Greenstater, but Henry had brought him into it, so he must be okay too, and he had the expertise to build it.

  After much deep thought, she couldn’t see what she had to lose. The land would still be hers, even if the place burned down. If Greenstater, Henry, Zandra and Dubrette, all astute business people, were prepared to back her idea with their money, what possible reason could she have for declining it?

  Matilda had met Dubrette, the elegant, white-haired lawyer, at Zandra’s, and she had been very taken with him. Although he had the manner and the slow drawl of a Southern gentleman, Zandra had said he made his money from his law practice, not inherited wealth. Matilda liked his sense of humour and the fact he didn’t share the normal male view that women were all silly, weak creatures incapable of running a business. Even the speed with which he had organized all this proved his belief in it.

  When Matilda explained to Cissie what the letter contained, she was excited at first, but this changed to dejection when Matilda explained she would have to go soon after Christmas.

  ‘I truly don’t mind you going,’ she insisted. ‘I’m as hot as mustard for it. I guess I’m just scared that once you start mixing with those nobs you won’t want me as a pal no longer.’

  That last remark tore at Matilda’s heart. In reality Cissie was a match for almost anyone, but because of her background and lack of education she always felt inferior. No amount of telling her that she was admired by just about everyone who met her would convince her otherwise.

  ‘You will always be my best and dearest friend,’ Matilda said quietly. ‘I shan’t change through mixing with a few nobs. Neither will I ever forget that without you and John caring for me and my children when I most needed help this opportunity would never have come my way.’

  Cissie brightened up a little then, and went on to say it was all the more reason to make this Christmas extra special as it would be the last in the cabin.

  ‘We will have a wonderful Christmas,’ Matilda said, hugging her friend ‘And I won’t go to San Francisco until after you are settled in the new house.’

  Christmas Day was magical. She and Cissie had decorated the cabin with holly and mistletoe, tied up with red ribbons, and hung gingerbread men and candy canes on more ribbon around the windows. The smell of the roast goose mingled deliciously with the cinnamon, oranges, lemons and cloves they’d put in the pot of mulled wine warming on the stove.

  The shrieks of delight as the older children opened their stockings was the happiest sound of all – they had expected nothing more than the usual meagre amount of candy and fruit they’d been used to. This year the stockings were stuffed with extras, sugared mice, toffees in little tins, Tabitha had pretty hair ribbons, a necklace, a diary, Peter had more lead soldiers, a top and whip.

  There were bigger presents for everyone too. Sidney had new pants and a tweed jacket, Tabitha the red dress she’d always wanted. There was a small cart for Peter, a real china doll for Susanna, and for Amelia a wooden horse she could push along. Matilda had bought Cissie a new bonnet trimmed with fur, and Cissie had bought her a pretty lace-trimmed night-gown. Treacle had a new blanket to
sleep on.

  But even while Matilda’s heart was almost bursting with happiness and excitement for the future, and delight in the new prosperity which had come to Cissie, deep down within her she felt twinges of sorrow because she knew today was the end of an era.

  The children and Cissie would have a far more comfortable, easier life in the town. They could attend school, go to church, and make friends with other families. Sidney had a real job, and their new shingled house was like a palace compared with the cabin, with a staircase up to the bedrooms, a water pump right outside the back door, and a cellar where food could be kept cool in the summer.

  But this cabin and the land outside with its dozens of young fruit trees and neat rows of carefully tended vegetables was the dream which had kept Cissie, John and Sidney going in their long trek from New Jersey, and gave them the strength and determination to see it fulfilled. For Matilda and Tabitha it had been a sanctuary, where the love and kindness shown to them had healed their heartbreak.

  Peter, Susanna and Amelia were too young to appreciate what these crude wooden walls represented to the older members of their families. While both Cissie and Matilda never wanted them to experience any of the hardships and deprivations they’d lived through, they hoped the spirit of this place would be retained in their minds through to adulthood.

  ‘Do you like your new house?’ Matilda whispered to Tabitha, sitting down beside her on the bed she was sharing with Susanna. The younger child was already fast asleep, as was Amelia in her little cot.

  The shutters were tightly closed against the stiff wind outside, and the candle cast a soft golden light round the room. Yesterday they had celebrated the New Year of 1850, and Matilda was leaving for San Francisco in the morning. This was her last chance to discover if Tabitha had any fears about her leaving.

  Two old friends of John’s had helped them with the move three days earlier, taking all the furniture on a big farm cart. They had kept a few chickens and put them in a pen out in the yard behind the new house, and Sidney had dug up an apple and a pear tree to grow here as a lasting reminder of their life at the cabin.

  A pot-bellied stove downstairs kept the whole house warm, the cook stove too was far bigger and better than the old one. Matilda and Cissie had made curtains for the parlour windows, and it was Cissie’s intention to spend a little of her money on a carpet and a couch too.

  ‘I love the house,’ Tabitha said, her dark eyes looking right into Matilda’s blue ones. ‘It’s so snug and it will be very pretty when everything’s done. Cissie said today that we’ll make a real garden with grass and flowers, because I told her about Mama liking to have tea in the garden in summer.’

  It pleased Matilda to find Tabitha remembered so much about her mother, especially the quintessential Englishness of her. Cissie’s influence was very much American, and although Matilda tried to keep up many English customs, and indeed to make all the children speak correct English, sometimes she felt the girl’s heritage was in danger of being lost for ever.

  ‘Is there anything you don’t like then?’ Matilda asked, smoothing the child’s hair back from her forehead.

  ‘Only that you won’t be here,’ Tabitha said with a little sigh. ‘But perhaps I won’t mind so much once I’m at school.’

  A lump came up in Matilda’s throat. ‘You do understand why I’m going?’

  Tabitha nodded. ‘To make lots of money for us.’

  ‘It’s not only money,’ Matilda said gently, knowing she owed this child absolute truth. ‘I want to do this thing too because it’s a chance for me to prove myself. For some people, just earning enough to feed and clothe themselves and their children isn’t enough. It’s called ambition. Your father’s ambition was to stamp out poverty, and free slaves. Uncle John wanted to see this town be a fine place with paved streets, a hospital, and even parks for people to walk in. Your ambition is to be a doctor, and I hope you never lose that.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Tabitha said. ‘I want to be one even more than ever.’

  ‘I don’t think my ambition is quite so honourable as that, or your Papa’s and Uncle John’s,’ Matilda smiled. ‘But it will give some people work, it will make the people who come in there happy, and I hope it will make enough money for you and Amelia to have the kind of life your Mama and Papa would have wanted for you.’

  ‘I think you are very brave,’ Tabitha said, smiling weakly. ‘Aunt Cissie said men rule this world and you will show other women that they can run businesses too.’

  Matilda smiled at that. Over the last few weeks she and Cissie had spent long hours together not just on simple arithmetic but reading and writing too. Cissie could write a whole shopping list now, and add up a list of figures. Many times Matilda had caught her looking at the reading books Matilda had bought last summer to teach Peter. She seemed determined to master it, perhaps she even hoped she could run a business one day too.

  ‘Whatever I’m doing down there in California, I will always be thinking about you and Amelia and missing you,’ she said, her voice cracking because it hurt so much to know this was the last night she’d tuck them into bed and kiss them goodnight. ‘I shall write to you every week and you must write back telling me everything. I’ll come home as often as I can. But it’s going to be hard for a while because there will be so much to do.’

  Tabitha nodded. ‘I know, Aunt Cissie explained to me that a big restaurant would take a long time to sort out.’

  Matilda was just about to say there was no restaurant when she stopped herself. At no time had she actually told Tabitha, or Sidney for that matter, just what the place would be, only that it was a business venture.

  She kissed the child goodnight and went downstairs. Cissie was sitting at the kitchen table copying out a list of words Matilda had given her to learn. Shutting the door behind her, Matilda sat down beside her friend.

  ‘Why did you tell Tabby it was a restaurant?’ she asked in a quiet voice.

  ‘Did you tell her different?’ Cissie replied, giving Matilda a sharp look.

  Matilda shook her head.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I didn’t like to.’

  Cissie shrugged. ‘That’s ’xactly why I said it was a restaurant. It sure wouldn’t be too smart to let her go off around the town telling folks her mother owned some sort of hurdy-gurdy place.’

  Matilda thought for a moment before replying. Hurdy-gurdy places were only one or two steps up from brothels. The girls employed there danced with men for a few cents a dance. But quite often the girls did sell their bodies too.

  ‘But you know it’s not going to be like that,’ she said eventually.

  Cissie grinned impishly. ‘Sure I do, but God-fearing folk round here have only got to get a sniff of liquor and hear talk of dancing girls and they’ll stick their noses in the air. I reckon it’s best Tabby believes it’s a restaurant, we don’t want no one being mean to her, do we?’

  Sudden fear clutched at Matilda’s insides. ‘San Francisco is so different to here, Cissie. It’s so wild and free from hypocrisy that it makes you forget how narrow-minded the rest of the world is. When I dreamed this up I didn’t think anyone would think it was shameful.’

  Cissie smiled at her worried expression and patted her hand. ‘Neither did I, but then we come from places where folk liked a bit of liquor and dancin’. We ain’t got that kind of stuff in our heads. If I get to be a hundred I’ll still be wanting folks to have a bit of fun. But I was in the store before Christmas and I heard a couple of ladies gossiping about that French woman that runs the saloon. I kinda knew they’d say the same kind of things about you.’

  ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t be doing it,’ Matilda said, for the first time thrown into doubt. ‘I don’t suppose Giles would like it.’

  ‘Giles is dead, God rest him’ Cissie said flatly. ‘I know he were a good man, but he didn’t get to leave nuthin’ for you, or his girls. If’n you ain’t had so much wits and courage, you mighta ended up in bad trouble, Tabby in s
ome orphanage.’

  ‘I know that, but – ’

  Cissie cut her short. ‘Those wits of yourn is what’s left me so comfortable, too. So what I’m sayin’ is go on off and do it. San Francisco sure is a far way from here, and if we makes out it’s a bit more proper than it really is, who’s to know?’

  Matilda had to smile. As John had always remarked, Cissie knew how many beans made five!

  Matilda looked round the table at her four co-shareholders and felt a surge of gleeful excitement. She thought they made a formidable team. Charles Dubrette with his elegant Southern charm and his extensive knowledge of the law, portly Alderman Henry Slocum who had a finger right on the pulse of this town, and knew how to get things done. The Contessa, privy to just about every businessman’s secrets in town, and Simeon Greenstater who had made a personal fortune building houses in Philadelphia.

  Matilda had already studied the architect’s plans Henry had drawn up, and she was astounded how he’d taken her rough, tentative sketches and with his own knowledge of structural work come up with a plan for a building which was practical, attractive, and could be built quickly and cheaply, while pleasing everyone involved.

  It was to be a long, low, two-storey brick-built place, with a wide veranda right along the front. The entire ground floor, but for several small rooms at the back, was to be the saloon, with an open staircase going up to a gallery, beyond which was Matilda’s private apartment.

  Simeon had suggested using the iron-frame style of building favoured in New York. It was quickly assembled, strong and fire-resistant. Simeon wasn’t an easy man to like. He was brash, tough, and shouted people down when he didn’t agree with him. His loud checked suit, florid colouring, the stink of the oily pomade on his hair and his habit of talking without taking his large cigar out of his mouth were all irritating, yet his knowledge of building was vast. Henry said that when he gave a date for a building to be finished, it could be relied on. He wasn’t given to skimping on sub-standard materials, and the men he employed respected him.