Never Look Back (80 page)

I want, too, to apologize for not telling you about my marriage right at the outset. In my joy at finding you again after so long, and indeed in realizing what a grave mistake I had made in not coming to find you back in Oregon, I wasn’t thinking clearly.

All I can ask is that I can still count on you as a friend.

Yours forever, James.

Matilda read the letter again and again. She could hear the words he hadn’t written down, feel all the emotions he’d felt as he penned it. He might have made a good marriage with someone who was a far more suitable partner than she could ever be, yet it was her he really loved.

But knowing that wasn’t any comfort. She loved him too, going away had made it even more obvious to her, for she’d thought and dreamed about him all the time. She had only to close her eyes and remember his kiss, and she felt her stomach tighten with the need for him. He had every quality she wanted
in a man, strength, intelligence, daring and tenderness. She loved the way he looked, moved, spoke, she couldn’t think of one thing she didn’t like about him.

But while talking it over with Cissie, she had seen for herself that even if James had been free, love alone wouldn’t have been enough for lifelong happiness. A woman who owned a saloon wasn’t a suitable wife for an officer, it would have blocked any promotion and ostracized him from society. The chances were he’d be posted permanently to somewhere remote like Fort Laramie. Would she have been prepared to give up all she had and go and live somewhere like that with him?

Matilda sighed deeply, looking around her bedroom. It was as beautiful as the parlour, imported paper with delicate pink scrolling on the walls, heavy velvet drapes at the window and a view of the bay that lifted her spirits every morning when she looked out. The ornate bedstead had come from one of Zandra’s boudoirs, with a new thick feather mattress and a white lace and satin counterpane. She had real closets for her many clothes, her water jug was filled with hot water every morning by Dolores, and if she was too tired at night to hang up her gowns, Dolores did that too.

A Chinese man came to collect the laundry and brought it back in a day or two, washed, starched and ironed. Even her hair was arranged by Dolores every evening, she didn’t cook a meal, sew on a button or clean her own boots.

It would be bliss to make love with James here in her clean, sweet-smelling bed, but how would she feel if she had to wash his shirts herself in the river, contend with sharing a makeshift shack with snakes, insects and rodents? Would being with the man she loved make that bearable?

Yet there was no point in dwelling on what-ifs. James was married, and even if he didn’t love his wife as much as her, she couldn’t have him. What she ought to be doing was thanking God for all she had, instead of dwelling on what was missing.

It was some time before Matilda returned to the parlour. She didn’t say a word but slumped despondently down on the settee. Zandra looked up at her red-rimmed eyes and knew she’d been crying her heart out.

‘Do you want to tell me about his letter?’ she asked.

‘There’s nothing to say,’ Matilda sighed, and a tear trickled down her cheek. ‘He’s married, and that’s all there is to it. I’ve got to try to forget him.’

It was just a few months later on New Year’s Day of 1853 that Zandra died. She had been feeling poorly since well before Christmas, and she stayed in bed most of the time. On Christmas Day she and Matilda exchanged presents, and she managed to come downstairs for the turkey dinner with all the staff, but immediately after she went back to bed again.

Matilda looked in on her just after they’d let off some Chinese crackers to welcome the New Year in. Zandra was sleeping peacefully, her two hands folded on the crisp white sheets, and when Matilda kissed her cheek and wished her a happy New Year she didn’t even stir. The next morning Matilda went in soon after eight, only to find her dear friend had passed away in the night.

Matilda sat and cried with her for some time, unable to believe those eyes would never open again, and that wrinkled face couldn’t break into even one more youthful smile. She felt as if she’d lost her mother, only it was worse than when she lost her real one, for she hadn’t known her the way she’d known Zandra.

To many she was just an old madam, a grand one because of her title, but still tarnished by her profession. Yet to Matilda she had been an education and inspiration. She knew seventy-two was a ripe old age, that Zandra had been lucky she’d kept all her faculties along with her keen sense of humour and died without pain or distress. But that didn’t soothe Matilda’s grief, or stop her thinking what a void would be left in her life.

She would never again be able to curl up on Zandra’s bed and share the gossip of the town, or read Tabby and Cissie’s letters to her. Zandra would never meet her children as they’d hoped. No more heart-to-heart talks about men and love, no one to share her joys and triumphs with. No one to reassure her that in time she would forget James.

It was Sidney she turned to for consolation. From the moment he arrived in September, he and Zandra had become firm friends. It was Zandra who helped him adjust to life in a busy city, who told him of the pitfalls for an unwary young man, where to buy the right clothes so he looked gentlemanly, yet tough enough to
be taken seriously. She told him about women too, to stay away from gambling, and to be wary of drink. He idolized her, nicknamed her Grandma, kept her plied with brandy and often brought her home chocolates. He was perhaps the only other person apart from Matilda and Dolores who had got through that sophisticated façade and found the real woman beneath.

Matilda laid Zandra out with Dolores, who was equally inconsolable, dressing her in a scarlet silk night-gown and negligee which Matilda found carefully packed away in tissue paper as if it had some sentimental value. She chose the three barmen Zandra had liked best as pall bearers, along with Sidney, and they carried her coffin on their shoulders down California Street Hill to St Francis for the funeral.

The small church was as packed that afternoon as London Lil’s on Saturday nights. Many of the men had come straight down from the mountains to pay their last respects, still daubed with mud they’d had no time to clean off. There were sailors from the ships, soldiers, draymen, stevedores and carpenters, along with a great many merchants and town dignitaries. It was odd to see Zandra’s old ‘boarders’ and many street girls she’d befriended dressed soberly and without their face paint. When Matilda said a few words about what the Contessa had meant to her personally, a great many of the assembled congregation had swimming eyes. As her coffin was carried out for the burial, the organist played a spirited Russian folksong, and after the burial everyone went back to London Lil’s, where the drinks were on the house.

That evening was the first that Matilda had ever been drunk. She never had more than three drinks in one night, it was a rule she’d made for herself when they first opened, and she’d stuck to it. But that night she put all her rules aside.

Henry Slocum stood beside Sidney and watched as she danced with one man after the other. He sensed that the young lad was distressed by Matilda’s unusual behaviour. ‘This is exactly how Zandra would have wanted her send-off to be,’ he said, trying to soothe him. ‘She wasn’t one for mournful farewells.’

Sidney’s new position as Matilda’s general assistant, and Zandra’s influence, had given the young man a polished appearance. With his red hair, pale lashes and freckles he could not be described as handsome, but he was tall, and muscular from the
heavy work at the mill, and his tawny eyes and ready smiles were very attractive. Zandra had overseen his hair being cut well, picked him out a dark green jacket and a vest beneath embroidered with gold thread, as well as teaching him to tie a neck-tie with style. He looked and sounded like a young gentleman and he had such inner confidence that most people who met him assumed he was.

‘I think I ought to take Matty up to bed, sir.’ Sidney frowned. ‘Zandra might appreciate a jolly send-off, but I ain’t so sure Matty will be best pleased if she’s the talk of the town tomorrow.’

‘Leave her be, son,’ Henry said, laying one hand on the lad’s arm. ‘She’s with friends tonight and she needs to let her hair down. I never knew her give a jot for what folks said about her.’

Sidney had downed more drinks himself than he should have done, and Henry’s last remark incensed him because he knew it wasn’t true. ‘That’s just where you are wrong,’ he burst out. ‘She cares a great deal, but then no one in this town knows her like I do.’

Henry raised an eyebrow. He had no idea where Sidney fitted into Matilda’s past, last September she had just introduced him as her new assistant. ‘Really! I would have thought you much too young to think you know her better than an old pal like me.’

The older man’s slightly mocking reply incensed Sidney even more. ‘You’ve known her a couple of years, that’s all. I was eight when she rescued me and a parcel of other kids from the worst slum in New York,’ he blurted out. ‘She was the first person I ever trusted and I’d surely lay down my life for her.’

Henry had taken quite a few drinks himself, he too had lost a very dear friend today. But at this surprising outburst, he suddenly sobered up. ‘She rescued you? Well, son, that is an intriguing statement. I admire Matty more than any other woman I’ve ever met, and I’d love to hear more about her.’

Sidney was glad to have the man’s ear. Ever since he came to work at London Lil’s he had been irritated that people saw Matilda as tough and chilly, he’d even heard it said by some that the only thing she loved was money. ‘Well, just don’t ever let on I told you,’ he said. ‘She’d have me hung, drawn and quartered.’

Launching into a graphic description of how and where he met Matilda, he explained how she and the Reverend Milson planned and executed the rescue and started the Waifs’ and
Strays’ Home in New Jersey. ‘But for her we’d all be dead by now,’ he ended up. ‘But keep it to yourself. She don’t like to talk about the Reverend any more, it’s all too sad that first his wife died and then he got shot later. You all think she’s as tough as mule hide, but she ain’t. She’s one loving lady’

Henry moved on later to talk to someone else, but Sidney had opened up an unexpected and new, very appealing view of Matilda. As a worldly and astute man he guessed that the Reverend Milson had to be the father of Matilda’s child, but as she hadn’t taken his name he couldn’t have got around to marrying her before he got shot. But rather than being shocked, he found it touched him deeply.

Around an hour later Sidney saw Matilda fall flat on her back while attempting to do the cancan, revealing her legs in the most improper manner. He pushed his way through the other dancers and pulled her up from the floor. ‘Come on, Matty, it’s time to go to bed,’ he said.

‘Don’t be a spoilsport, Sid,’ she said, but her words were hopelessly slurred.

Sidney took no notice and put his shoulder to her middle, hoisted her up on to his shoulder and carried her upstairs. He laid her on her bed and unbuttoned her boots. He was just about to put the counterpane over her and creep out when she suddenly lurched towards the drawer beside her bed.

‘What is it you want?’ he asked.

‘Look in there,’ she said, pointing to the drawer. ‘I’ve still got them, and your note.’

Puzzled, Sidney moved forward and opened the drawer. ‘In the wooden box,’ she said. ‘Open it!’

He did as he was told, and saw the lace handkerchief he’d given her in Independence. He unrolled it and the six cents were still inside, and his childish, badly spelt note.

‘You kept them!’ he exclaimed, a lump coming up into his throat.

‘’Course I did,’ she said, slumping back on to her pillows. ‘They mean the world to me. I kept them in my pocket even going down the Columbia river in the canoe. When it’s my turn to die I want them in the coffin with me.’

Sidney was overcome with emotion. He had spoken of his first meeting with Matilda tonight because it was the most important
milestone in his life. Yet he hadn’t known it meant a great deal to her too. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. ‘You ain’t gonna die for a long time yet,’ he whispered. ‘And I love you.’

‘You go and find someone your own age to love,’ she said with a giggle, but she caught hold of his hand and kissed it. ‘And don’t remind me how drunk I was in the morning.’

One morning in March Matilda found the daffodil bulbs she planted in tubs during the fall had finally opened in the sunshine on the veranda. Flowers were rare in this town, the pace was too fast, people too intransigent to think of planting a garden. Just the sight of them brought tears to her eyes, and a nostalgic whiff of England, but at the same time their bright colouring seemed to suggest it was time she put aside her sorrow at Zandra’s death and looked to the future.

Just a couple of weeks earlier she’d heard from Charles Dub-rette that Zandra had left the bulk of her estate to her. Not only her share of London Lil’s, but some $12,000 and her considerable collection of jewellery. It seemed Zandra must have anticipated her end was near, for in the previous September she had sent a letter to Charles asking that when her time came he was to tell Matilda that she thought of her as a daughter, that she loved her dearly and wished to thank her for enriching her last few years.

Matilda had always been well aware that it was Zandra’s encouragement, knowledge and contacts which had set her on the road to success; without this astute woman behind her she would never have dared to aim so high. Yet now, through Zandra’s legacy, her life had taken a further upturn, and the possibilities open to her were almost limitless.

But rather than thinking of investments or new business projects, she often found herself day-dreaming about returning to England. The ten years she’d been away had almost certainly eradicated most of the pointers to her real background. With money behind her and a carefully planned story, she was fairly certain she could blend in with the middle classes. Tabitha’s thirteenth birthday had been just before Christmas, the perfect age for her to attend one of those elegant schools for young ladies. Amelia would benefit as well from a private governess. Maybe too she could stop hankering after James in a country where there were no reminders of him.