Never Look Back

by Lesley Pearse

  They moved together like one person, her legs clenched around his waist, bodies wet with perspiration, making sucking noises as they touched. She wanted him deeper and deeper inside her, she clawed at his back and buttocks, and then at last it happened again, that glorious eruption inside her, and she could only cling to him, murmuring his name over and over again.

  An hour or two later, James sat back on his haunches and smiled down at Matilda naked on the pile of cushions.

  ‘Why are you smiling?’ she asked. ‘Do I look funny?’

  ‘You look wanton,’ he said. ‘But not funny, unless I count your reluctance to move to a comfortable bed as amusing.’

  ‘Well, Dolores might have come out of her room to see if we wanted anything,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t think even fire would drag Dolores out of her room tonight,’ he said. ‘She knew you had designs on me.’

  ‘She knew no such thing,’ Matilda retorted, pulling out a cushion and throwing it at him.

  ‘Good servants are mind-readers,’ he said. ‘She probably knew too that you needed some good loving.’ He had never known a woman as abandoned in love-making as Matilda had been, and yet he knew it hadn’t come from experience. She was also the most beautiful woman he’d ever made love to, his heart ached just to look at her.

  He felt he could drown in the depths of those blue eyes, her lips were so soft and full, her skin like cream satin. The scent of her hair made him think of that sweet-smelling sage out on the prairies, and her body was perfection. Breasts still as firm and uptilted as they’d been that day he glimpsed her naked in the river, her tiny waist emphasizing the curves of her hips, and such a pert, rounded bottom. Most women of twenty-six had begun to lose teeth, yet hers were still as white and even as a child’s.

  ‘It was good loving,’ she said with a smile, and just the way she looked at him made him tremble and want her again.

  He lay down beside her and pulled her into his arms, burying his nostrils in her hair and breathing in that cool, clean scent. There was so much he wanted to say to her. That Evelyn didn’t like love-making, she just endured it. That she was so empty-headed that an hour or two alone with her seemed endless. All she thought about was her appearance, always preening in front of a looking-glass, and she was insufferably rude to servants too. But he could say none of these things, even if it would make Matty understand why he had been unfaithful to his wife.

  He’d already committed the greatest act of disloyalty, it wasn’t right to talk about Evelyn’s failings too. She couldn’t really help being the way she was, she was just a typical product of her class and upbringing.

  ‘I could leave the army, run off with you and your children to England,’ he whispered, as the idea came to him. ‘We could make out that we married on the wagon train, that Amelia is my daughter. I could find some work there, and we could have other children.’

  She half smiled. ‘You couldn’t leave the army,’ she said, tweaking his nose. ‘It’s what you love. You would hate England, it’s cold and rainy, and just as full of bigots as America. In time you’d come to hate me for taking you there.’

  ‘But what else is there?’ he said.

  ‘What we’ve got right here.’

  Right now it seemed enough for him. He could stand being out soldiering for months on end, as long as he always had her to come back to. But he guessed that once Evelyn joined him, every evening in her company would seem like eternity.

  ‘But I have no right to expect you to just wait until I can come to you. It could be months, maybe even years sometimes.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, James. I’ll wait,’ she said, her eyes wide and honest. ‘I’d rather have just a few hours of your time now and then than have you for ever, knowing I spoiled your life and career. You could get to be a general one day, you might be able to help put this country to rights. I’ll be happy to watch you do that.’

  James leaned up on one elbow and looked down at her. ‘But you are worth so much more than that.’

  ‘While I’m waiting for you I won’t be idle,’ she said. ‘I do have a life of my own, and a business to run.’

  He admired her more than ever at those brave words. She was a truly independent woman and she wasn’t going to wilt in a corner while he was away.

  ‘That’s more like it,’ he teased. ‘For a moment I believed you had only the highest of ideals. The truth is, you want me out of the way, there is an element of self-interest!’

  ‘Of course,’ she said with a sly grin. ‘Now we’ve straightened that out, perhaps we can talk about something else.’

  ‘I have to go now,’ James whispered just as dawn broke. ‘I don’t want to go, Matty, but I must.’

  They crept into her bed once Matilda was convinced Dolores was fast asleep, but they hadn’t slept for more than a brief few minutes the whole night. They’d made love, talked, and made love again and again. Matilda was exhausted, but still she reached out for her wrap.

  ‘Don’t get up,’ he said. ‘I’ll let myself out.’

  ‘I have to,’ she replied. ‘I need to bolt the saloon door again after you.’ She pulled the drapes back a little and peered out. ‘At least it’s stopped raining. I’ll go and get your clothes.’

  His uniform was hanging up, dry and brushed free of mud. His boots stood beside the table, polished by Dolores as if he was due on the parade ground. The sight of them made Matilda want to cry, for she wished it was she who had done these things for him. But she opened the larder door and took out the remains of a meat pie, and wrapped it in paper. She hadn’t made that either, but at least it was she instead of Dolores who was offering it.

  James dressed very quickly, too quickly she thought, and she guessed this was something she’d just have to get used to. She hoped she could control her tears until after he’d gone.

  ‘Can’t you stay just for a cup of coffee?’ she said, as he fastened on his belt and adjusted his holster. He shook his head, but smiled as she held out the parcel with the pie.

  ‘Now, don’t you stand waving at the door,’ he warned her as they went out into the passageway. ‘You’ll give the game away dressed like that!’

  Matilda looked down at herself. In her hurry to get up she hadn’t thought how delicate the wrap was, and she might as well have been naked. It seemed odd that last night she hadn’t minded James looking at her body, but now in the morning light she was embarrassed. She took her coat from the closet and put that on over it. James laughed softly.

  ‘The memory of your beautiful body will stay with me for ever, however many clothes you wear in the future,’ he said, and coming closer he took her in his arms.

  ‘I love you, Matty,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll be back to see you again as soon as possible.’

  For a moment he held her silently, and Matilda sensed he was giving in to a moment of despair, just the way she was. It was always going to be like this, for them there would never be ordinary, husband-and-wifely moments of tedium. It was always going to be nerve-racking urgency. That might seem thrilling now, but for how long? How long could two people stand living on a knife edge?

  Their last tender kiss was almost too painful, she could sense he was as reluctant to leave as she was to see him go. ‘I love you too,’ she said, clinging to him and breathing in the faint horsy smell of his uniform.

  She let him out the back way, pointing out where his horse was stabled, staying for a while watching as he saddled him up. Then she bolted the door and ran upstairs to watch him ride away.

  His horse was frisky, prancing up on his hind legs for a moment before making the steep descent down the hill. Matilda thought she had never seen anyone look so gallant or handsome as he turned to wave one last time. His hat was tilted to one side, his boots and spurs glinted in the early morning light, and the tears she’d tried to suppress came trickling out.

  Tired as she was, she couldn’t fall asleep. Her bed smelled of him, and she buried her nose in it and cried again. She had thought G
iles’s love-making was wonderful, but James’s had taken her to even higher levels. Now she understood what Cissie had meant about missing it, even now when her body was weary and even a little sore, she still wanted more.

  She woke later to the sound of Dolores coming in with two pails of hot water for her bath and was surprised to find it was nearly ten. Dolores only said good morning, filled the bath behind her dressing screen, then left.

  Matilda got out of bed, and was just stripping off her nightgown when Dolores came back in with a tin jug in her hand, its contents smelled of herbs. ‘You’ll need this, ma’am,’ she said.

  Matilda took it from her hands, imagining perhaps it was for her hair. But floating in the fluid inside was an india-rubber ball-shaped thing with a nozzle. ‘What is it?’ she asked, looking at the maid in puzzlement.

  ‘A douche,’ Dolores said, her face devoid of any emotion. ‘You don’t want no babies, do you?’

  Matilda blushed scarlet.

  ‘Don’t you go looking like that,’ Dolores said, her face suddenly softer. ‘Miss Zandra always told me I’d got to look out for you after she was gone. I knows you loves that man, but he ain’t yours, so you do what I tells you, and wash inside and out. Then you’ll be safe.’

  ‘Safe!’ Matilda whispered later as she dressed. She supposed being able to protect yourself from pregnancy should make a woman feel safe, but she thought some magic potion against falling in love would be safer still.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  ‘I sure wish I was coming with you,’ James said, wistfully looking up at Matilda. Dolores was at her feet pinning up the hem of a new gown she’d made for her mistress to wear home to Oregon.

  He wasn’t wearing his uniform, just a checked shirt and a pair of old pants. His hair needed a cut, it was touching his shoulders, but when he was with Matilda he liked to forget about the army.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Matilda said, but her tone was tender because she wished it were possible too. ‘How would you stand being with two prattling women and a parcel of kids?’

  It was July of 1855, yet though it was over two years since they first became lovers, in reality their love affair amounted to just a few days and nights together, with still no hope for any future. Back in May of 1853, just a few months after they had become lovers, Evelyn arrived in Benicia to set up home in the officers’ quarters.

  All through the summer James stayed out at the fort. He didn’t write or send any messages, but miserable and forlorn as Matilda felt, she believed he was doing the right thing in staying away from her and trying to make a success of his marriage. But news of him did filter down to her through soldiers coming into London Lil’s. They made crude jokes about ‘The Southern Belle’, who changed her clothes four or five times a day, whipped a maid for not being able to dress her hair as she liked it, and had fallen out with all the other officers’ wives. It was only right at the end of the year James came to see her, and only then because he and his troops were ordered into the city to keep order at a controversial public hanging.

  When James called at London Lil’s she was deeply shocked by his changed appearance. His eyes were dull, deep frown lines had furrowed into his forehead, even his customary sarcasm and wit seemed to have left him. After a couple of drinks he eventually admitted his marriage was floundering.

  He said Evelyn was incensed by the lack of comfort in the officers’ quarters, the other officers’ wives being so unfriendly, and she bitterly resented being forced to live amongst uncouth enlisted men, miles away from any form of civilized entertainment. He said she kept threatening to go home to Virginia unless he got what she called a ‘decent posting’.

  James insisted that the other wives had been very kind to her at first, they’d arranged little parties, offered to help her make her quarters more homely, but Evelyn was so rude to all of them that they eventually gave up and ignored her.

  Matilda found herself in an impossible situation. While she loved James, and indeed couldn’t help but secretly hope his marriage would fail so completely that Evelyn would take herself off permanently, she also felt sorry for Evelyn. It had to be very hard for any wife so far away from her family and friends, especially when she was left alone at the fort for weeks on end while James was off in Sacramento or Stockton. She felt guilty too when James admitted he was impatient and harsh with Evelyn because of wishing he could be with her.

  At that time, the only honourable thing to do was to tell James it was over between them for good. She said she had found she couldn’t spend her life wishing for something which could never be, and that he must forget her, and try harder to be a kind and considerate husband. It was so painful watching him ride away. Her heart felt as if it had been torn out, but she thought she’d said and done the right thing for all three of them.

  But when spring came, Evelyn made good her threat and left for the East on a stage-coach. Her last words to James were that unless he got a posting in Boston or Washington, she would stay at her family home in Virginia permanently. When James wrote to Matilda to tell her this, any sympathy or concern she’d had for the woman left her. It was quite clear Evelyn didn’t love James, she probably never had, all she cared about was herself and having the kind of busy social life she believed an officer’s wife was entitled to.

  So Matilda welcomed him back into her life wholeheartedly, and since then they had grabbed every moment they could together. At times it was like riding on an emotional see-saw. While together it was wonderful, so much passion, happiness, love and laughter, yet as soon as he’d gone back to Benicia Matilda was often plunged into despair, tormenting herself with thoughts of Evelyn finding a way to bring her husband to heel, of them making love together when the time came to go home on leave. What might happen if they had a child together?

  Jealousy struck her so often, for while she knew she held James’s heart, his wife had his name and the dignity of marriage. They could never be seen in public together, dining in restaurants, as partners at a ball or dinner party. While no one would care if an army officer visited a brothel almost every night, a love affair with someone as well known as herself would mean certain disgrace. Their social life was limited to supper upstairs at London Lil’s with only family and a few trusted friends.

  Tomorrow James was going to Kansas City. Trouble kept erupting there between Abolitionists and pro-slavers and his role was to quieten things down. Matilda was going home to Oregon. Tonight might be the last time together for months or even years before they could see one another again. But neither of them was voicing that fear, they spoke of trivial things, because that way they could keep the lid on their emotions.

  Dolores got up from the floor and stood back to check the hem of the dress. ‘It’s straight now, ma’am,’ she said. ‘Take it off and I’ll get it sewn up right away.’

  Matilda left the parlour to slip out of the dress, and hastily put on her old one before returning. It seemed a foolish thing to do when James saw her without clothes more often than he did with them, but in front of Dolores she always kept up a ladylike demeanour.

  ‘This will be the last visit home with Tabby there,’ she said as she came back into the room, determined to keep the conversation light. ‘I can’t imagine how I’m going to cope when she goes to Boston. It’s so very far away and I don’t suppose I’ll get to see her much.’

  Tabitha was fifteen and a half now. For the last two years she had continued to board and have private tuition with the Reverend and Mrs Glover, but in September the Glovers were going to a new ministry in Connecticut. The Reverend had suggested it would be an ideal opportunity for Tabitha to start at the Boston Academy for Young Ladies too, as she could travel across country with them to Boston, and she would be close enough to visit them during holidays.

  While Matilda was fearful of Tabitha going so far away, and boarding at a school in a strange city where she knew no one, she knew the Reverend was right in saying she needed such an opportunity to round out her education to pre
pare her for university. Along with all the academic subjects she was so good at, she would also learn to play the piano, to dance and paint. It was a chance to make friends with similarly-minded young ladies from good homes, and the tutors would guide her towards a career in medicine.

  ‘It’s so long since I’ve seen Tabby I can’t possibly imagine her all grown up,’ James said with a smile. ‘I still see her in my mind’s eye with pigtails and a doll in her arms. But if this is the last time you’ll see her for a while, it’s probably a very good time to bring Amelia back with you. Have you made up your mind about that yet?’

  Bringing Amelia down here to live had been on Matilda’s mind for the last couple of years, in fact ever since Tabby went to board with the Glovers. Cissie had protested then, saying she was still such a baby, but things had changed since. In a recent letter Cissie had said she intended to marry Arnold later in the year. Matilda was sure they’d want children of their own, and it would be a better start to married life with only Peter and Susanna to care for.

  ‘Yes, I’m going to,’ she said, sitting down beside him. ‘It’s time she was with me, isn’t it?’

  James turned to her and put his arms around her, resting his cheek on her hair. ‘Yes, it is. If she’s anything like you in nature she’ll weather the little barbs that might be thrown at her. And better for her to come here while she’s still little than wait until later. I think it might be better though if you find somewhere else to live with her. Living over a noisy saloon isn’t the best place on earth to bring up a child.’

  Matilda reached up and stroked his cheek. She loved him for a great many reasons, his strength, courage and strong will, his intelligence, sense of humour and his passion, but it was his innate kindliness which she loved most of all. She saw brutes every night in her bar, they treated their wives with disdain, their mistresses with callousness, but James had never been like that. He had tried his best with Evelyn, and would continue to support her whatever she threw at him. She heard stories about him from some of his men too, and it was clear by the way they spoke of him that he was respected and admired, but never feared.