Never Look Back

by Lesley Pearse

  Matilda and Giles laughed loudly at that. Mrs Homberger was noted for being the kind of woman who organized everything and everyone. But even she wouldn’t have had the cheek to suggest who her minister married.

  ‘No, we made up our minds all on our own,’ Giles said.

  ‘Mama will be pleased, I can’t wait to tell her,’ Tabitha said. ‘Last time I talked to her I had a feeling she was worried one of those “Magdalenes” that come in the spring might make you marry her. Mama was always real scared of them.’

  Matilda spluttered with laughter. ‘Magdalene’ was Giles’s pet name for a whore. Lily had always been horrified that he often defended them and Tabitha had clearly overheard a conversation about them at some time and got a slightly distorted view of their activities.

  Tabitha let go of Matilda and looked at her curiously. ‘Why are you laughing?’ she asked.

  ‘Just because I’m happy,’ Matilda said, grabbing hold of the child and hugging her. ‘Shall we go and tell Mama the news together tomorrow and put a very special posy on her grave?’

  Tabitha stayed up till late that night with them as they discussed the wedding plans. ‘Tomorrow I’ll find someone to come in and paint the place,’ Giles said, looking around at the grubby walls. ‘You two can go and buy some yard goods to make new curtains, and you’d better see about dresses for the wedding too. But make sure you get someone else to make them up, you haven’t got time for sewing now.’

  ‘May I have a red dress?’ Tabitha asked.

  Matilda looked at Giles, uncertain if Tabitha could abandon her mourning clothes under such circumstances.

  ‘Well, black isn’t really appropriate for a wedding, but then neither is red,’ he said tactfully. ‘I think blue might be just right, with some white lace.’

  They made a list of things which were needed, and Giles said they could go and buy them immediately. ‘I’ll have to go and see if the minister in St Joseph can come to marry us,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave on Monday, that way I’ll be back by Saturday, in time to tell everyone in church the following Sunday.’

  It was raining hard on Monday morning as Tabitha and Matilda saw Giles off on the river boat to St Joseph. Even though they had been down to the river countless times since the flood, and all signs of it had long since vanished, Matilda still found it impossible to forget that day’s terrible destruction.

  Most of the surviving members of the families who used to live there had moved away, some back East, others to stake claims further West, only a few had stayed in the town which had robbed them of their loved ones. Those who had remained were mainly ones who had been shown kindness in the town, some of the men had real jobs at last, a couple of the widows had remarried, and several orphans had been adopted by farming families.

  But despite everything Giles had tried to do, new families had moved on to the riverside land, and Matilda wondered how they would manage in those hastily built shacks, often with only canvas as roofs, when the winter set in.

  Yet the stoic spirit of Americans, whether born here or immigrants, never ceased to amaze her. Fire, flood, failed crops, child deaths, nothing seemed to deter them from their ambitions for long. In the two years they’d been in Independence she had met people who had lost everything over and over again, but still they picked themselves up, moved on and tried again.

  ‘I wonder how Cissie is?’ Matilda thought aloud as she and Tabitha rode home in the gig. ‘She must be in Oregon by now and had her baby.’

  ‘Maybe we could go and see her one day,’ Tabitha said. ‘Wouldn’t that be fun, you and me and Papa in a wagon!’

  ‘It might be,’ Matilda said. Right now she felt even a 2,000-mile journey would sound fun if Giles was beside her. ‘But it’s an awfully long way, and your papa can’t go off and leave his church. So I think we’ll just have to rely on letters between us.’

  Ironically a letter came the very next day. It was written by John, dated 1 October, and the address given was the Willamette Valley in Oregon. This was unusually fast for mail, and Matty guessed John must have handed it to an army dispatch rider who was making the trip back to Missouri before the winter set in.

  Dear Matty. We got here at last, but it was a trying journey and no mistake, specially over the mountains. But we done better than most folks, we didn’t have to leave nothing behind, we didn’t get sick much and we got here all in one piece. Peter has a little sister now, we called her Susanna and she’s a fine healthy baby with her mother’s dark hair and loud voice! Peter is real good at minding her and he ain’t one bit jealous. We got a parcel of fine land with a stream running through it and I’ve been felling logs to build our cabin. It ain’t so fancy, but it’s better than the wagon to live in. Our neighbours are very friendly and kind, some of them came over to help me put the roof on, and the women fussed around Cissie and the new baby. As I thought, there is enough trees here for me to supply timber to the whole of America if I’ve a mind to. First after the cabin’s all done I’m going to set up a saw mill, then come next spring we’ll enlarge the cabin and plant fruit trees too. Cissie asks that I tell you it’s right pretty countryside and you mustn’t forget she’ll always have room here for you. Sidney asks to say that he’s a crack shot now, and we’ll never starve ‘cos there ain’t a rabbit or deer so quick as him. He’s got real good at whittling too on the journey, made Peter some little animals that look real. Best thing we did bringing Sidney along, he’s a fine lad, works like a man and tough as old boots.

  Give our regards and best wishes to Mr and Mrs Milson, we guess you’ve all got your hands full with the new baby. Write soon, we ain’t got nobody but you to get a letter from. So send us news of what’s happening to you all and in the rest of the country. Only way we get news here is if someone comes by that’s been some place. Pond regards, John Duncan.

  Cissie had written a line on the bottom. Her round childish writing and the lack of spelling mistakes suggested John had written it out and she’d painstakingly copied it.

  Susanna is the sweetest fattest baby and very good. I birthed her in the wagon up in the mountains, but was up next day walking. I think of you all the time, I wish you was here. Love Cissie.

  That evening Matilda sat down and wrote a long letter back, even though she knew it would probably be spring before it left the mail office. It was a hard letter to write, for to speak of Lily’s death, and then of her new-found happiness with Giles seemed wrong somehow. But in the end she settled for writing it just how it was, for she remembered Cissie was the one person who couldn’t be shocked and she would want happiness for those she loved.

  She described the blue dress she was having made for her wedding, a fancy one with ruffles around the neck and hem, and a dear little hat with a veil. ‘It’s taking nine yards of cloth,’ she added, still somewhat shocked by such extravagance. ‘And Giles said I’ll be needing two other dresses and a coat too if I’m not to shame him when we go to St Louis for our wedding trip.’

  She sat for a while sucking the end of her pen, wanting to tell Cissie so much more, but hardly daring. ‘I love him so completely,’ she finally wrote. ‘I’m sure you know what I mean.’

  Finishing the letter up with messages to Peter and Sidney and then all the news she could think of for John, she added a postscript. ‘I’ll write again just as soon as I’m Mrs Giles Milson, the minister’s wife.’

  By Saturday Matilda had run out of things to do. The parlour and kitchen had been given a new coat of paint, new curtains hung at the windows, and she’d sanded and polished the floors till they looked like new. Tabitha was back in her own bedroom, closets were tidied, all shelves were lined with fresh paper, and she’d cut enough wood to last half the winter. If it hadn’t been raining hard she would have been down at the river waiting for the boat, but the riverside in the rain wasn’t a place she liked to go to, and besides, she told herself, Giles hadn’t said for sure that he’d be back on Saturday, only that he hoped to be.

  There were no boats on S
undays, and it seemed to be twice as long as a usual Sunday. Dr Treagar, who had often stood in as a lay preacher before Giles came to the town, took the morning service, and he and his wife came over to the house in the afternoon for tea.

  ‘I wanted to tell everyone this morning why Giles went to St Joseph,’ he said with a wide grin. ‘You see, he told me you were to be married before he went. But I guessed he would want to tell everyone himself, so I buttoned my lip.’

  Mrs Treagar and Matilda had become good friends since the flood. Her quiet, refined ways reminded Matilda comfortingly of Lily. As her husband spoke her round, rather plain face lit up. ‘I’m so happy for you both, and Tabby,’ she said with real warmth. ‘We were so afraid Giles would leave Independence after Lily died, but you kept him going and put the soul back into him. We hope you will be blessed with many children and stay here for ever.’

  The two women discussed plans for the wedding and Mrs Treagar thought they should use the school-house for a party afterwards. ‘I know everyone will want to come,’ she said, her brown eyes sparkling with anticipation. ‘It’s time we had dancing and music again in the town, since the flood it’s been so solemn and sad.’

  By Monday evening when Giles still hadn’t returned, Matilda began to worry. Although she told herself he had probably stayed over to buy new things for their home or because he’d run into old friends, she couldn’t rid herself of the feeling something bad had happened. Yet for Tabitha’s sake she kept up a cheerful front, going along to the school on Tuesday morning to help the younger children with reading and English, but her heart wasn’t entirely in it.

  On Wednesday afternoon, Matilda was out in the garden when Sheriff Neilson came riding down the street. As he stopped outside, dismounted and tethered his horse to the picket fence, her heart thudded, afraid he had come to give her bad news. ‘Is it the minister?’ she called out as she ran towards him. ‘Is he hurt?’

  Sheriff Neilson was a big man of German descent. Long hours out in all winds and weathers had made his face as brown as an Indian’s, and his legs were bowed from riding. He whipped off his hat as he saw her, but his expression was so grim she knew in that instant that Giles was not just hurt, but dead.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Miss Jennings,’ he said, twisting his hat in his hands and looking at the ground. ‘There ain’t no way to tell you this but straight out. The minister was shot up in St Joseph. Seems like he tried to stop a brawl. They just brought his body home for burial.’

  She felt her legs go weak beneath her, and the next thing she knew she was back in the house lying on the couch and the Sheriff was dabbing at her face with a wet cloth.

  ‘I’m truly sorry, Miss Jennings,’ he said, his brown, weather-beaten face looming over her. ‘I knows you’ve been through so much with him and his family, and a better man never walked. I can’t tell you how bad I feel about him leaving Miss Tabitha an orphan and all.’

  He left then and went to get Mrs Treagar from across the street. Matilda lay on the couch unable to believe what she’d just heard. It felt like the worst kind of bad dream, and she tried to pinch herself to end it. But as she lay there, looking at the tassels on the tablecloth, the pan holder embroidered by herself with red poppies and the pitcher of milk covered by a beaded piece of muslin, she knew no dream could be so vivid.

  ‘You promised you would never leave me,’ she said aloud. ‘How could you get yourself shot?’

  Mrs Treagar came rushing in, followed by the Sheriff. She enfolded Matilda in her arms and rocked her to her bosom, tears falling on to Matilda’s head.

  ‘Oh Matty, it’s so terrible,’ she croaked. ‘Giles was such a good man, with so much before him. How can we tell little Tabitha?’

  Death was something Matilda had always accepted. Right from when she was a small child the sight of the undertaker in Finders Court was as common as seeing the knife grinder or the night-soil cart. She’d lost her own mother, a baby sister and Peggie, most families had lost even more of their members. While in Primrose Hill, and back in New York, death continued to strike remorselessly – hardly a week passed without Giles or Lily mentioning someone well known to them dying.

  Here in Missouri it was even more commonplace. With so many people so far from medical help, perhaps too poor or ignorant to seek it, even a relatively minor accident or disease could prove fatal. Many women didn’t even write to their relatives about a new baby until it was several months old, because they’d lost others in the first weeks and didn’t wish to tempt providence.

  When Lucas died, Matilda had grieved silently, then put it aside, for that was the way. It wasn’t easy to accept Lily’s death, because of her close involvement and because of how it affected Giles and Tabitha, yet she had come to terms with it eventually. She had grieved too for all those people who died in the flood, yet once the dead were buried, the remaining relatives comforted and found homes, it too was put aside.

  But Giles’s death was impossible to accept. Not because she loved him and had intended to spend the rest of her life at his side. Not because he had a daughter who needed him, however much both those reasons hurt her personally. But because he had lived his life for the good of others. Why should a man chosen by God to do his work be shot down by a bullet when his very nature had been a peaceable one, decrying guns and every other weapon of destruction?

  As she sobbed into Mrs Treagar’s breast, her anger was as great as her sorrow. She cursed the man to hell and back who had taken his life, and she knew if he had been here in Independence she would have picked up the axe and gone to slaughter him too.

  It was Mrs Treagar who broke the news to Tabitha when she came in from school, for Matilda couldn’t do it. Yet the moment she heard the child’s scream of anguish, she rallied herself to run to her and hold her and wept with her, holding nothing back.

  ‘It’s not fair!’ Tabitha shouted through her tears. ‘Mama’s gone and baby Harry, now Papa too, and he said you were going to be my new mama!’

  ‘I’ll still be your mama,’ Matilda said. ‘I promise you I’ll love you for ever and care for you.’ She wanted to say she would never leave her, but she couldn’t say that. Giles had said it, and less than two weeks later he was gone.

  The pain did not lessen. By day it throbbed remorselessly, at night it became agony. Matilda got through the funeral, saw Giles tucked in beside Lily, comforted Tabitha and received the many people who came to offer their condolences, but inside her was a raw place which showed no sign of healing. Just the mention of his name, touching his clothes, his Bible and his daughter was enough to break open the wound again.

  It didn’t help knowing the man who had shot him would hang. She was a widow in her heart, but in the eyes of most people and the church Giles set such store by, she was just a family friend, and therefore they didn’t imagine her grief was any greater than their own. Dr and Mrs Treagar were the only people who knew of the intended marriage and they hadn’t spoken of it to anyone, believing it to be none of their business.

  Christmas passed by barely noticed by either Matilda or Tabitha. They turned down the offer of dinner with the Treagars because Matilda knew they were both incapable of even trying to rise out of their grief for the occasion. They didn’t even go to church, for to see a visiting minister up in Giles’s place in the pulpit would have been too painful, so instead they went for a long walk well away from the town and only returned home when they were too tired to walk another step.

  Matilda had never felt so isolated. She could walk down the crowded main street, but it felt as if she was entirely alone, and invisible too. She couldn’t sleep at night, she didn’t want to eat, look after the house or animals. She did of course, but it was just mechanical, her duties so ingrained in her that she hardly knew she was doing them.

  Half-way through January of 1948 when she got a letter from the Dean in St Louis informing her the minister’s house must be vacated by the end of the month, fear jolted her enough to realize that the desperate grief she f
elt wasn’t her worst problem.

  Suddenly reality hit her smack in the face. She had no money, except the twenty dollars which had been in Giles’s pocket at the time of his death, and another eighty dollars she’d found in a cash-box in his desk. Giles had never discussed his financial situation with her – if he had any savings, or an allowance from his family back in England, he’d never told her, and as she wasn’t his widow she wasn’t entitled to anything anyway. She had seen no will, and though Tabitha would inherit anything he owned, that wouldn’t come to her until she was of age. Yet how was she going to continue to look after Tabitha without any money or a home?

  In the absence of anyone else to confide in she went to see Dr Treagar. He listened to what she had to say and read the letter from the Dean. His anxious expression didn’t give her any comfort.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said, scratching his head. ‘How very heartless of the church. I can understand of course that they need the house for a new minister, but knowing Tabitha has lost her last remaining parent I would have expected them to be more sympathetic. I shall write to the Dean myself, Miss Jennings, and explain your situation. They must have some sort of fund for circumstances like this.’

  ‘I don’t want charity,’ Matilda insisted, trying to pull together some dignity. ‘Only a little patience until I can find a job. Could I be a school teacher?’

  There had been a time when she imagined school teaching was way beyond her ability, but since moving to Missouri she’d found a great many teachers knew far less than she did. In some small towns the older girls taught the younger ones.

  ‘If we needed a school teacher here in Independence I’d certainly recommend you for the job,’ he said. ‘But we have a teacher, Matty.’

  ‘Well, in another town then. What about Westport, or Kansas City?’ she asked, though she had never been to either place.

  The doctor sat back in his chair and studied Matilda for a moment. Both he and his wife were very fond of her, and in his view she would make an admirable teacher. But sadly there was a great deal of prejudice against young single women working for a living and she’d come up against it wherever she went. With an eight-year-old child in tow she was adding to her problems.