Never Look Back (31 page)

Matilda hadn’t seen Lily so pleased about anything in a long time. The long, bitterly cold winter had worn her down, she’d
lost her appetite, she looked pale and drawn, and she had been complaining repeatedly of headaches.

‘The Uptons have three children, so Tabitha will have some company too,’ she said, her voice suddenly as bright as her eyes. ‘I shall have to hurry and get that dress I’ve been making finished, Matty, we’re going on Friday morning.’

It was only then that Matilda realized what this would mean to her. She could see Flynn every afternoon, maybe he’d even get some evenings off too. It was the opportunity she’d been waiting for.

Memories of preparing to come to America came back thick and fast that week as Matilda helped Lily pack. Just like then, she wanted to take far too much, and got herself overwrought worrying about incidentals. Would Tabitha need galoshes, and what ought she to take as a present for her hosts? Would it be warm enough for lighter clothes, would she need her parasol?

They were going on a steam-packet up the coast, but it was interesting to note that Lily didn’t appear to be concerned she might suffer from seasickness again, only that her clothes might be too drab for fashionable Boston.

Finally Friday morning arrived, and as Matilda helped them into the cab, she found it hard to restrain herself from showing her joy at their departure.

Going back into the house, she picked up the long list of reminders Lily had left on the kitchen table and laughed aloud. As if she’d forget to lock the door when she went out, or wouldn’t remember to turn off the lamps before going to bed!

‘They’ve gone away?’ Flynn gasped when Matilda told him her news a few hours later when she met him in the usual place. ‘For how long?’

‘Ten days in all,’ she said, bubbling with excitement. ‘The steam-packet gets back at South Pier around six in the evening of the twenty-ninth of April. Oh Flynn, we can have so much time together.’

‘You mean they didn’t leave you anything to do?’ he asked. He always implied the Milsons were slave-drivers.

‘No, not really,’ she said. ‘Of course I’d better do a bit of a spring-clean, otherwise they’ll be asking what I did with myself. But Sir said I was to have a holiday too.’

The sun was so warm they sat on Castle Green and talked about all the things they could do. ‘I expect I can get a night off tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you dancing. Then on Sunday I’ll go to early Mass and then we can go to Greenwich Village.’

‘We could take a picnic,’ she said. ‘I’ll bake a pie or something tonight.’

‘There’s so much I want to show you,’ he said, his dark blue eyes glinting with excitement. ‘We could go over to Staten Island, it’s real pretty there, and if the weather stays fine we could take a ferry out to Coney Island where the quality folk go for their holidays.’

That afternoon was the best time they’d ever had together, the only people about were couples much like them, and nursemaids taking their charges out for a walk in the sun. On a seat with a dense hollybush behind them, they could hold hands, steal kisses when no one was looking, and talk without the fear of anyone overhearing them.

‘Do you think they’ve asked anyone to keep an eye on you?’ Flynn said a bit later.

She knew exactly what he meant, a spy to see if anyone came in or out of the house. ‘I don’t think Sir would do that,’ she said after a little thought. ‘He isn’t a sneak by nature.’

‘Does that mean I could come in?’

Matilda had anticipated that question, thought about her answer long and hard in the preceding days. She longed to be alone with him, she wanted him in the house with her, but she was scared too that things might get out of hand and they’d end up making love. ‘I’m not sure, Flynn,’ she said.

He laughed, put his arms round her and kissed her all over her face. ‘You think I’ll have my wicked way with you?’ he said, his eyes dancing. ‘To be sure, you ought to know me better than that, Matty. Haven’t I always been such a gentleman?’

Matty laughingly agreed he had. ‘But then we’ve never had the chance to be alone before.’

‘I could have found somewhere if that’s what I wanted from you,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘I want to marry you, Matty. And until that ring is safely on your finger and the priest tells me we are man and wife, then I’ll hold back my desire.’

‘Oh Flynn,’ she sighed, holding him tight. ‘You make it all sound so wonderful.’

Flynn was in fact a little frightened of such an opportunity to be alone with Matilda, even though he’d thought of little else since he met her. He’d seduced and left several girls in the past, never concerning himself with what happened to them afterwards. But Matty was special, she was the girl he intended to marry and he didn’t want anything spoiling the plans he had made for their future.

Night after night he met men and women who’d ruined their chances in life. When they got drunk out came the hard luck stories, babies that came too quickly, no decent place to live, and wages spoken for before they were even earned.

Flynn had no intention of letting that happen to him. When he first met Matty he hadn’t got more than a couple of dollars to his name. He was intending to sign up with the crew of a steamer going south, and take his chances when he got there. The tale he’d told her on their first meeting about getting fine clothes first was just a fantasy, a romantic idea, but once he’d told it to her, it took root.

There was something about Matilda that made him believe in himself as he’d never truly done before. She was so quick and smart, hard-working and patient, yet so loving that it made him see what an asset she’d be to him. She was ladylike, she’d learnt the ways of the upper classes, yet she wouldn’t run at the first sign of trouble, or baulk at staying somewhere shabby. With her brains and his charm, they could do anything, go anywhere. She was the perfect girl for him and he loved her far, far more than any other he’d met.

He could have taken her up to his room above the saloon on any afternoon they’d met, but for the first time in his life he managed to control his desire. Matty’s mind and spirit were far more valuable to him than sexual satisfaction, which he could find anywhere. So he was content to sit in a steamy tea room holding her hand, looking into her beautiful eyes, and talking to her. He also knew that if she saw the way he lived she’d back away.

Five other men slept in there at night, it stank of their sweat and feet, and sometimes they vomited on the floor when they were drunk. But they each gave him a dollar a week to sleep there. He needed that money to secure a future in Charleston.

So he had to be extra cautious now. He had enough money
saved to leave, and though he wanted to make love to her more than life itself, when he sent for her to join him he didn’t want her turning up with a child already in her belly. That would dash everything.

He wanted her there fresh and eager, complete with her savings, looking like a lady. That way their future would be assured.

‘It will be wonderful. You just wait,’ he said, getting up off the bench and pulling her to her feet too. He looked down into her sparkling eyes and knew this was a heaven-sent chance to sweep the last of her doubts away. ‘But if I want tomorrow night off, I’ll have to work all day. So I’ll come and pick you up about seven to go dancing.’

‘What should I wear?’ she asked, remembering how out of place she’d looked at the church dance.

‘You’ll outshine any other girl whatever you wear,’ he said kissing her again. ‘But you looked a treat in that pink dress you had on the night we first met.’

Harry Hall’s dance hall on Broadway was packed to capacity, so hot and steamy, condensation was running down the walls in rivulets. Matilda had never seen anything like it, not even when she’d peeped through the door of the penny gaffs back home. There were two or three hundred people at least, most of them dancing, a wide smile on every face. Anything went here, for the musicians in the four-piece band seemed to sense the mood and play accordingly. There had been sedate waltzes earlier in the evening but now they’d moved through polkas, on to wild Irish jigs.

Every nationality was represented, Italians, Germans, Poles and Russians, but Jews and Irish made up the majority and both were equally light on their feet and competing to out-dance each other. Most of the men had shed their jackets now because of the heat, the stiff collars they’d arrived with were now limp, patches of sweat showed on the backs of waistcoats, and carefully slicked-down hair was sticking up in all directions.

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.’