Never Look Back (39 page)

Yet of all the good things which happened in the last few months, the one that meant the most to Matilda happened just before they left New York. The Milsons had called her into the parlour one evening, sat her down, and said she was no longer to think of herself as their servant, but a family friend and in future she was to call them Giles and Lily.

‘We insist,’ Lily said, smiling at Matilda’s embarrassed protest. ‘You are coming with us as an equal in a big adventure and it would be ridiculous for you to continue to call us Sir and Madam. In future you will have an allowance, we won’t call it wages any longer, and if at any time you wish to leave us, then you are free to do so.’

‘Of course we hope that won’t happen for some time,’ Giles joined in. ‘And when it does, we fervently hope it will be because you are to be married.’

At the time Matilda had the idea this kindness was due to her getting the sad news from Dolly that her father had died back in the previous November. All this time she’d clung on to the idea she would one day be able to see him again to tell him all about America and how grateful she was to him for letting her go. There was so much left unsaid, how she valued him making her go to school, things she’d wanted to ask about her mother, that even so far away he was always in her mind, and that she loved him.

Yet later, once they were on their journey, Matilda came to see Giles and Lily’s intention to raise her status from servant to friend was so that she could move in the same social circle as themselves, which would enable her to make a far better marriage.

Matilda didn’t think she would ever love again, Flynn was still too deeply engraved on her heart and mind. But it was very soothing to know Lily and Giles cared so deeply for her future.

The sound of chairs being pulled out jolted Matilda back to the present.

‘What’s in the pie, Mama?’ Tabitha asked as they sat down.

‘I think it’s rabbit,’ Lily said as she cut the flaky golden crust. ‘But whatever it is, Mrs Homberger is an excellent cook, I haven’t
seen pastry like this since we left England.’ She handed out slices of pie, and urged them to help themselves to the vegetables.‘Oh, it’s so nice here,’ she suddenly burst out. ‘I just know we are going to have the happiest future.’

Giles reached for his wife’s hand and squeezed it with affection. He was unable to voice how relieved he was that Independence, and the house provided for them by the church, pleased her.

As Independence was the last town in organized territory, and the jumping-off place for the wagon trains going across the great plains to Oregon and the West, Giles had anticipated a wild frontier town with all that entailed.

He had been surprised and delighted, therefore, to find Independence was a remarkably sedate little town, with a solid and permanent community of tradesmen and merchants who supplied the travellers with wagons, oxen to pull them, provisions, equipment and tools for the long, hazardous journey. These people, and the owners of outlying farms, clearly took a great pride in their town. The church, school, small hospital, court room and the minister’s house had all been built by many of the menfolk.

One of the good people who had welcomed them today, a burly blacksmith by the name of Solomon, who looked tough enough to rip a man’s head from his shoulders, had taken Giles to one side and pointed out that the town could be a wild place come early spring when the wagon trains were preparing to roll, with more than its fair share of drinking, gambling, fornication and fighting. He pointed out that while the travellers themselves were peaceful, industrious, God-fearing families, just like most of the settlers in the area, the scouts, soldiers, professional gamblers, whores and other itinerants could create trouble and disturbance.

Giles had asked if there was any trouble with the Indians. The news that so many of them were being moved out of their ancestral lands in the East to make room for white settlers was a cause of deep concern to him. But back in New York it was hard to separate fact from fiction about this, as land-hungry men in authority would say anything, use any propaganda to justify their actions. He had always suspected that the tales of settlers being murdered in their beds were wildly exaggerated, yet desperate
people could do desperate things and he was anxious to learn the truth.

‘The redskins ain’t ones for towns,’ Solomon said. ‘I heard tell they meet every wagon train that passes through their land, after food and horses, but the way I sees it, that’s fair enough, it is their land. You’ll hear a lotta scary talk about ‘em, but don’t you mind it none. If we leave ‘em alone, they’ll leave us alone, that’s my thinking.’

Giles would also have liked to ask Solomon about this town’s views on slavery. Missouri
was
a slave-owning state, yet as Giles had noted, there were no vast plantations here, and he assumed the many Negroes he’d seen were mostly house servants or farm hands. He had heard from the Abolitionist movement back in New York that native-born Missourians, said to be a fiery bunch, were firmly pro-slavery, but the new settlers, particularly the devoutly religious Germans, were vigorously opposed to it.

But perhaps it was wisest to wait and sound people out first. To poke a stick into a hornets’ nest wasn’t a sensible thing to do, and besides, there was so much else here that delighted him.

After visiting the pretty little white clapboard church, complete with a bell in its steeple, in the centre of Independence Square, the Milsons were then escorted to their new home, and the moment Giles saw it he said a silent prayer of thanks. It was not some makeshift shack-like one like those on the edge of town, or a cabin made from logs, but a two-storey frame-built house right in the centre of the town. It was painted white, and the small front garden was surrounded by a picket fence. There was a wide porch complete with a swinging chair to sit out in on warm evenings, and inside the comfort and space that he’d never dared to hope for: a fair-sized parlour, with doors that opened on to a dining-room, a big kitchen with a stove every bit as good as the one they’d had back in New York, and a pump just outside the back door. Upstairs there were three good-sized bedrooms, and around half an acre of land at the back.

Mrs Homberger, whose husband ran the mail office, had personally overseen the preparation of the house for them. The floor had been scrubbed and polished, sparkling white curtains hung at the windows, the beds were all made in readiness, even the kitchen cupboards had been lined with fresh paper and stocked with basic provisions.

It was a little Spartan compared with the rather over-furnished house in State Street, the furniture well worn, but after the blistering heat outside it was cool, airy and sweet-smelling. Then when Mrs Homberger disappeared, only to return half an hour later with this meal for them, they had all been speechless with surprise. Lily was so touched she burst into tears, forgot her normal coolness with strangers and hugged the woman.

‘Will I go to school tomorrow?’ Tabitha asked eagerly, her mouth full of pie.

Her mama rebuked her for her bad manners and said she thought getting the house straight was of greater importance than school for the time being.

‘We’ll have to see about trading the horse and cart for a gig,’ Giles said, smiling beatifically. ‘We ought to get some chickens and a pig too. We’re country folk now, and we’ve got to learn country ways.’

Lily looked at her husband in horror. ‘Pigs smell, Giles,’ she said. ‘And chickens make such a fearful mess.’

‘But they make good eating,’ Matilda said, guessing Lily had imagined she was going to lay out the land at the back with flowers and lawn. ‘And we’ll have to learn to grow vegetables too.’

Giles smiled at his wife’s stunned expression. Like Matilda he knew she had visions of an English garden. ‘You can have flowers in the front,’ he said. ‘I’ll even order some rose bushes for you, but we’ll have to make the land at the back work for us.’

Matilda cynically expected that once they settled down in their new home the old order of mistress and servant would return. She also anticipated that Lily’s old ways, along with her fears and phobias, might very well come back if something upset her.

But happily she was wrong on both counts. Whatever miracle had changed Lily into a happy, carefree woman, she remained so. Right from the first day when they got up at dawn, Lily was adamant that all work should be equally divided, and they learned from one another. Matilda had to show Lily how to scrub a floor without turning it into a lake, clean and light the stove and how to work the water pump. But Lily knew a surprising amount about growing vegetables, because as a girl staying with
poorer relatives in Bath, she’d helped them. What she didn’t know she soon found out by asking local people.

It was terribly hot right through to September, and the school was only open in the mornings as the children’s help was needed on the farms. Tabitha was delighted at this arrangement and though only five she was all too eager to pull weeds, and try her hand at digging. Her face and arms turned as brown as a berry from such long periods outside, and she often said she never wanted to go back to a city to live.

Yet however much fun planning and starting a vegetable garden had seemed, Lily and Matilda soon discovered that clearing land, digging, planting and hoeing was back-breaking work. In the evenings they staggered in with aching backs and painful blisters on their hands. But as the first neat rows of seedlings began to grow, the feeling of satisfaction, and the knowledge that come winter they would have their own source of food, more than made up for the effort.

Matilda had imagined too that Lily would get right back into the corsets and hooped skirts she’d abandoned on the way here, but she continued happily to wear the same old simple calico dress and sun-bonnet from Monday to Saturday. She not only learned to tolerate the smell of the two small pigs they bought, but grew fond of them, naming them Cain and Abel. Her dislike of chickens vanished the first time she ate a newly laid egg. But there was still a shadow of the genteel Lily. She almost fainted with shock when a neighbour told her to collect horse droppings from the livery stable to work into the soil. She said that however good it was for the garden she drew the line at being seen walking through the town with a pail of manure. She squeaked with alarm every time a spider or other creepy-crawly came into the house.

It was a completely different way of life to the one in New York. There was no ice man calling each day here, no great variety of food in the store, so they had to make do with what was available. There was no theatre or concerts, or invitations to tea or elegant suppers. But neighbours did call in the evening when the day’s work was done, often bringing a batch of cakes, vegetables or fruit, and they sat on the porch, drank lemonade, and shared their experiences and knowledge.

These people were so very different from the brittle society
folk and solid merchants the Milsons had rubbed shoulders with in New York. They were plain people, many of German extraction, to whom wealth meant merely a second or third room added to the primitive cabins they’d built themselves, or a real cook stove like the Milsons had.

Most of these people had arrived here after a series of moves, always looking for cheaper and more fertile land, or a start in a new business. Some started out in the North, gradually working their way down, others had come up from the Southern states, or the East coast.

All their lives had been very hard. Most had lost several children in infancy, many were on a second or third marriage because their previous husbands or wives had died. Whether born in America or immigrants, most married into their own nationality. Matilda heard many stories about how the bride had been found for the groom back in Berlin or Hamburg by his parents, the courtship was by letter, and often the first time they met was just shortly before the marriage.

Romantic love as Matilda knew it didn’t seem to come into it, marriage was a contract, and if it wasn’t joyful, the couple made the best of it. Perhaps the sheer hard work they had to endure and their faith held them together, for church on Sundays was something few of them missed.

Dressed in their best clothes, these devout people flocked into Independence with their many children by foot, horse or cart, often setting off at dawn to do so. They thanked God for their blessings and prayed that they could endure future disasters, but it was also a time for mixing, to gossip and exchange news. The ones who lived a great way off often brought picnics which they shared with others, for making friends was all important to people who lived in isolation. Good neighbours could be counted on at harvest time, to help with building work, and to find good marriage partners for their older sons and daughters.

Matilda and Lily soon discovered for themselves the advantages of encouraging their female neighbours to call. They learned how to make pasta from Angelina from Naples, sauerkraut and spicy sausages from Heidi from Berlin, how to salt pork for the winter from Mrs Homberger, and to make their own soap from lye and animal fats, filtering it through ashes. Tabitha
learned to count in German and Italian, and to play dozens of new games with other children.

Lily was glad to teach English to any of the foreign women who asked her for help, and her ladylike manner and sophistication were much admired by women who had never lived in a city.

Giles seemed to grow in every direction during those long summer days. His sermons in church were secondary to his care for his new parishioners. He visited them all in his new gig, often driving fifty miles to outlying farms, he was there to bless a new cabin as the roof was raised, often driving in nails with the other men, he buried the dead and consoled the bereaved, officiated at marriages and baptisms.

There were people with long-established, extensive farms, who perhaps could loosely be called gentry, for their houses were large colonial-style ones, with lush green lawns and paddocks for their horses. Although Giles welcomed them at his church, he kept his distance socially, for these were the slave owners.