Never Look Back

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘Why is Mama lying down again?’ Tabitha asked, frowning as she looked up at Matilda.

  She spoke just like an adult now, yet a year ago she couldn’t manage more than a few words.

  ‘Because she’s tired,’ Matilda said with a smile. ‘Getting ready to move across the ocean is very tiring work, my little lady.’

  ‘But you and Aggie do all the work,’ Tabitha said pointedly. ‘Mama doesn’t do anything much, and she’s always crying.’

  That was a very astute comment for someone so young but Matilda knew she must be careful how she replied to it, as Tabitha was prone to repeating things.

  ‘Well, Aggie and I are servants,’ she said in an even tone. ‘That means we are paid to do work for your mama, but even if she isn’t cleaning or cooking she still has a great many other things to do. And if she cries sometimes it’s just because she’s sad to be leaving England.’

  ‘But why? We’ll all be there with her,’ Tabitha said. ‘’Cept Aggie. Why can’t she come too?’

  ‘Because Aggie has a family of her own, and besides, she has to look after the new parson and his wife when we’ve gone,’ Matilda said. To her mind the sooner Lily got away from Aggie and her alarmist views that America was a dangerous place full of savages and convicts, the happier her mistress would be. ‘I expect we’ll have a new housekeeper when we get to New York. It will be better to have an American woman anyway because she’ll be able to tell us things about the place so we can find our way around.’

  Tabitha said nothing more until they reached the top of Primrose Hill. They stopped as always to look at the view. For weeks now the city had been shrouded in fog, and on walks up here they’d been unable to see beyond a few hundred yards. But today’s good weather meant they could see almost to infinity.

  Matilda silently drank it all in, the green of Regent’s Park at the bottom of the hill, the elegant church spires dotted all over the city, the silver glint of the Thames, and the huddled masses of houses, shops and businesses in between. She had walked most of the area within her view selling her flowers, envied those who lived in the grand houses, and pitied those poor souls who lived on the streets without any shelter. It was only now that she was leaving London, perhaps never to return, that she realized how deeply it was engraved on her heart and how much the people she was leaving behind meant to her.

  Somewhere on the river her father in his gold-trimmed cap and pilot’s coat was bent over his oars, straining every muscle to get his passengers quickly to their destination. As she looked south-west she imagined Willow Cottage with the tables set out in the gardens and Dolly in her clean white apron and cap waiting on her customers. Straight ahead was where George was, and she hoped he would stay with the Gores to manhood and maybe even take up the carter’s trade one day for himself. Luke was somewhere in the east, but she refused even to contemplate what he was doing.

  Way out of sight further eastwards was the Thames estuary and the sea beyond. She wondered where John and James’s ships were and tried to recall what her two older brothers looked like. She remembered they were fair-haired and blue-eyed like her, but they were men now, not the skinny boys she’d clung to when they left for a life at sea some ten years earlier. She hoped they would return to London one day and seek out their father. Perhaps fate would even take them to America and she could meet up with them again.

  ‘I love you all,’ she whispered to herself, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I might be going thousands of miles away, perhaps never see any of you again, but you’ll be in my heart for ever.’

  ‘Why are you crying?’

  Tabitha’s high-pitched voice brought her back to the present. She looked down to see the small girl was staring up at her with a concerned expression on her little face.

  ‘I’m not crying, my eyes are watering,’ Matilda replied, wiping her face on her sleeve, and she smiled and picked the child up. ‘I was just thinking how pretty London looks from here and looking towards where each of my family is.’

  She ran through them all for Tabitha’s benefit. ‘Where’s New York?’ the child asked, squirming in Matilda’s arms.

  ‘You can’t see it from here, it’s miles away, right over a big ocean.’

  ‘Will we come back here one day when I’m big?’

  ‘I hope so, Tabby,’ Matilda said, nuzzling her cheek against the little girl’s. ‘But you being big is as far off as America.’

  Tabitha let out a wail as the Druid began slowly to move away from its moorings on Bristol’s quayside. It was being pulled by watermen in rowing boats. They would guide the 360-ton, three-masted barque out of the floating harbour before horses towed it the rest of the way down the river Avon, through the gorge and out to the Bristol Channel where it could unfurl its sails. Giles had explained to her that big ships found it hard to navigate in and out of the port, owing to the high rise and fall of tides, and this was the main reason why the steamship the S. S. Great Western, which had been built here a few years earlier, now plied its trade across the Atlantic from either Portishead or Liverpool.

  ‘Whatever’s wrong?’ Matilda asked in alarm, sweeping Tabitha up into her arms. She glanced nervously towards the child’s parents who were standing a few feet from her, engrossed in waving and shouting last-minute messages to the members of their family on the quay. Lily had become quite cheerful in the last few days and Matilda didn’t want her to be upset before they even left the port.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Tabitha sobbed into her shoulder, almost strangling her with her arms. ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘We are going home,’ Matilda said, lifting the child back a little so she could see her face. ‘To a new home, in another country. But this ship is going to be our home too for a while. I’m with you, so is your mama and papa. It’s going to be like a holiday’

  The Milson party and a couple called Smethwick were the only saloon passengers, as the Druid was a merchant ship taking bricks, copper sheets and ironmongery to New York. There was a group of ten or twelve people, plus their children, in what Giles called ‘steerage’, which Matilda understood to mean they had cabins down in the ship’s hold. They too were up on the deck waving goodbye to their relations – they looked like very poor people and she supposed that this was why Lily had warned her Tabitha wasn’t to mix with their children.

  ‘I don’t like the way it moves.’ Tabitha pouted and looked above her head at the tall masts, furled sails and rigging. ‘I don’t like all that stuff either.’

  As Matilda’s childhood had been dominated by the Thames, and she had been out on many different craft in all weathers, she saw nothing to be frightened of. Sailors to her were all men like her father, tough, strong and utterly reliable.

  ‘The movement is lovely,’ she said. ‘Like being gently rocked. Those things up there are just the sails, later on the sailors will pull them up on to the masts and the wind will catch them to drive us along. There’s nothing to be scared of. Captain Oates and his crew will look after us. Now, let’s stand at the rail and wave goodbye. Your grandfather, grandmother and lots of your aunts, uncles and cousins are watching, you don’t want them to think you are a baby, do you?’

  Tabitha hated being thought of as a baby more than anything and her tears stopped instantaneously.

  ‘Why aren’t Grandmother and Grandfather Woodberry there too?’ she asked.

  Matilda wasn’t sure how to answer that question. Lily’s parents had been very cool to their daughter and son-in-law for the whole of their visit. She had the distinct impression the Woodberrys didn’t approve of them for some reason. They had taken no interest in Tabitha, and when Lily had suggested Matilda should share her bedroom, as it was a floor above their own, her callous grandparents had expressed scorn that a three-year-old might be frightened and utter horror at such familiarity with a servant, banishing Matilda down to the basement to share a tiny windowless damp room with their scullery maid.

  Only one of Lily’s brothers, Abel, had come with his wife a
nd two children to see her off, despite most of the rest of the family living only a walk from the quay. If it hadn’t been for Lily’s Uncle Thomas, his wife and five children, plus most of Giles’s family coming over from Bath for the day, it would have been a very sorry departure.

  ‘The Woodberrys are old,’ Matilda said cautiously, though she was still smarting at the way they had treated her. ‘I expect they find saying goodbye in a public place upsets them.’

  This seemed to satisfy Tabitha and she leaned forward in Matilda’s arms to wave frantically to her aunts, uncles and cousins from Bath who had made a great fuss of her.

  Matilda was very relieved that she’d managed to avert a tantrum, for she wanted to stay on deck and savour the last sight of Bristol. The city had enchanted her, and even if the Woodberrys had treated her like a diseased stray dog, and upbraided their daughter for allowing a mere nursemaid to think she was of some importance, she’d had plenty of time during the week to explore this busy and exciting port.

  Having never been further out of London than the villages of Hampstead in one direction and Barnes in the other, on the way here in the stage-coach she had been astounded by the distance between London and Bristol and the many, many miles of fields, rolling hills and woodland with hardly a house in sight.

  Giles had been amused by her ignorance and he’d pointed out she hadn’t seen anything yet for the trip across the ocean took an average of thirty-four days. Once they arrived in Bristol Matilda was even more surprised to find the people spoke quite differently to Londoners, and that the port she knew to be one of the greatest in England should be such a pretty place.

  It was so much more vibrant, so close-packed and colourful in comparison to the Port of London. Now they were some thirty or forty yards from the quay, looking back it resembled a narrow street filled with ships. A virtual forest of masts, many with their sails opened to dry in the warm sunshine. Dodging around the big ships were dozens and dozens of smaller craft.

  The houses on the quayside were very different from the dilapidated shacks she was used to in London’s port. These were fine merchants’ houses, many of which she was told had been built two centuries ago. Carriages, broughams and all manner of carts trundled along in front of them. Men pulled things which looked like sledges too, for it was easier to move heavy goods such as casks of wine and sherry on metal runners over the cobbles than to use wheels. Added to all this bustle and the ensuing noise, there were so many people – sailors, dockers, tradespeople, gentlemen in stove-pipe hats overseeing loading, and scores of ragged children running around among them all.

  As the ship slid through the water, gradually gathering speed, the faces of the waving crowd became indistinct, but to compensate Matilda was presented with a more panoramic view of the city. High up above the smells, noise and confusion of the docks were the grand houses of Clifton. These were where the people lived who’d brought prosperity to Bristol with wine, tobacco, slavery and shipping. Now, in the bright sunshine, the magnificent curved terraces could be seen as their designers had intended, proud and so very elegant. Only in Greenwich had she seen anything to compare with it, for that was beautiful too. The rest of London was so flat that from the river you could only see the ugliness and poverty of the people who scraped a living along its banks.

  If Matilda hadn’t taken the opportunity to explore Bristol she might have been fooled into thinking the entire city was as pleasant as Charlotte Street where the Woodberrys lived. That too was perched up on a hill with a fine view of the docks and the green fields beyond the river Avon, yet far enough away for the stink and noise of the docks not to trouble them.

  Yet just five minutes’ walk from their splendid four-storey house, through a narrow lane, had led her into a maze of steep, fetid alleys, as bad as anything she’d seen around Rosemary Lane. Almost naked children with running sores stood in dark doorways, their bleak eyes reflecting the misery of their lives. She had seen old soldiers, crippled and maimed from injuries in the French war, gin-soaked ragged women lying in doorways, babies in their arms, oblivious to their surroundings. It had appalled and repelled her, and she had to remind herself that just a year ago such things were everyday sights for her.

  It was a sobering thought that just by chance, by being there when Tabitha ran out in front of that carriage, her life had been changed miraculously. She had forgotten what hunger felt like, what it was to live amongst filth, and for gentlefolk to avert their eyes from her as she tried to sell them her posies.

  Yet if in Primrose Hill she had been tempted to think she was almost a lady now, because she’d learnt manners and how to speak better, and the Milsons treated her almost like an equal, the affluent Woodberrys had brought her back to reality with a jolt. She was a servant, a very lowly one at that, her well-being and security were entirely dependent on her employers, and if one day she failed to please them, or they no longer needed her, she might very well find herself thrown back into the slums again.

  Holding the wriggling, excited child more securely in her arms, she looked up defiantly at those splendid houses on the hill and made a silent vow to herself. She wasn’t going back to any slums. She wasn’t going to stay a servant all her life either, only as long as it suited her. They said that America was a land of opportunity, so she must always keep an eye out for hers. Like her father had said that day when he kissed her goodbye at the parsonage, ‘Never look back.’ From now on she was going to look forwards and upwards.

  Chapter Four

  Giles Milson supported Lily in his arms as the Druid sailed into New York Bay. ‘Doesn’t that spectacular view make you feel better?’ he asked.

  They had been at sea for forty-one days, and it was now mid-June and a hot, sunny afternoon, but Lily was so weak from seasickness that all she could do was ask how long it would be before they docked.

  ‘I don’t know exactly, we have to be tugged in, but I’m sure that in an hour or two you’ll be safe in your new home, and this long voyage will be something to look back on in wonder.’

  Matilda, who was standing a few feet away, holding Tabitha in her arms, heard what he said and smiled to herself. She thought that the only ‘wonder’ Lily would ever feel about her forty days at sea was surprise that she had lived to see its end.

  Lily had started to complain of seasickness almost the minute the ship got under sail in the Bristol Channel, and this had continued throughout the journey. Time and again her husband, the Captain and Matilda had tried to urge her up on deck for fresh air, because it would have helped her recover, but she had refused even to attempt it, stubbornly staying in the stuffy stateroom, even on the many calm, balmy days when the ship hardly moved. Even now, when she should be happy to see the New York sky-line, she was crying against her husband’s chest.

  Matilda wanted to whoop and shout with excitement, for the scene in front of her was awe-inspiring. The bay was vast, yet it was crowded with boats – huge steamers, sailing ships of every kind and size, tugs, fishing boats and ferries. Looking beyond those under sail, there were hundreds more docked at wharves on both sides of the island of Manhattan. Sea birds screeched a welcome overhead and the bright, hot June sunshine picked out the vivid colours of ships’ flags, giving the scene a carnival appearance.

  ‘Where’s our house?’ Tabitha asked. Like Matilda she hadn’t been troubled by sickness, and her face was tanned a deep brown from hours up on deck throughout the voyage.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Matilda replied. ‘Shall we ask your papa?’

  She moved closer to her employers, but before allowing the child to repeat her question to her father, Matilda asked how her mistress was feeling.

  ‘A little better now,’ Lily sniffed, her eyes dull and pink-rimmed. ‘But I shan’t be myself until my feet are on firm ground again. I don’t think I’ll ever want to look at a ship again. I can’t even hold my child in my arms!’

  ‘You don’t need to, Mama,’ Tabitha said, squirming in Matilda’s to be put down. ‘I’m a big
girl now. Captain Oates said I could be his first mate.’

  Both the child’s father and Matilda laughed. Tabitha had won the hearts of the entire crew, from the Captain right down to the ordinary seamen. For her the voyage had been pure enchantment – sleeping in a bunk, eating meals as the ship tossed and rolled, climbing the steep companionways, and seeing whales and porpoise from the deck. Even during bad storms, when the ship had pitched alarmingly, she had been unperturbed, but then her childish innocence of how cruel the sea could be and her blind faith in the sailors had protected her.

  Matilda might have found the voyage as exciting as Tabitha if she hadn’t been forced to spend so many hours cloistered in the state-room with her mistress, holding bowls as she retched, sponging her down and cleaning up after her. Her sympathy was stretched to breaking-point because she felt the woman was doing nothing to help herself and indeed wallowing in self-pity. At times the only way she could stop herself from saying what she thought was out of gratitude that she shared a cabin with Tabitha and wasn’t down with the steerage passengers.

  She had been appalled to find that these passengers were all crowded into a section of the ship which couldn’t even be honoured with the title of ‘cabin’. It was in fact just a dark, dank hold, roughly furnished with narrow wooden bunks, men, women and children all in together regardless of the fact that they were three or four separate families. With scarcely any ventilation, one meal a day – a pot of foul-smelling, greasy stew – and only being allowed up on deck at certain times of the day, it wasn’t surprising they were all very sick.

  Matilda didn’t think she could ever forget the horror she had encountered when she went in there with Giles when one of the women, fearing for her child’s life, had asked for a priest. The stench hit her first, worse than anything she’d ever encountered in Finders Court, and she’d had to cover her mouth and nose to prevent herself gagging. In the dim light of one lantern she saw the floor was awash with vomit and excrement. Hollow eyes turned to her, the passengers being unable to lift their heads from their saturated straw mattresses, and their pitiful groaning was heart-rending.