Never Look Back

by Lesley Pearse

  Matilda turned to her friend, wanting to say she was being maudlin, and she would hear no more of it, but Cissie’s expression prevented it. It was the same one she’d had that day in the cellar as she bravely fed baby Pearl at the expense of her own child. Noble, honest, and expecting nothing for herself.

  Amelia died some ten minutes later. Her breathing got weaker and weaker and finally dwindled to a halt. Matilda stroked her little blue face, ran her fingers through her tousled curls, and wanted to scream out her pain, but she couldn’t. Susanna was sinking fast too, it wasn’t right to let her know her little playmate had slipped away.

  So she silently shut Amelia’s eyes, got up and moved to Susanna’s bed. It was her turn to be comforted.

  Susanna hung on for another three hours. Matilda moved her bed closer to her mother’s so she could hold her hand and just sat there, talking to them both as if this was any night when she tucked the children into bed.

  She spoke of the cabin, of the animals and the fruit trees, of bathing in the stream and walks in the woods. She told them that Tabitha would become a doctor, and that Peter would be a fine officer in the cavalry, and that all the happiest moments in her own life had been spent with them.

  Cissie reared up as Susanna stopped breathing, and Matilda caught hold of her, afraid she was going to try to get out of bed. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, hugging her friend tightly.

  They held each other for a few moments, wordlessly drawing comfort from their mutual loss. They had become friends through Matilda rescuing Cissie and Peter, but it was the two smallest children that had made them like sisters – both born in wagons, so close in age, permanent reminders of the two good men they’d loved and lost. And as the girls had played together, shared everything, both women had found solace in believing that they’d inherited all the talents of their two fathers and had golden futures ahead of them.

  ‘You shouldn’t be hugging me,’ Cissie said, slumping back down on the bed again. ‘If you catch up with me in heaven, I’ll have you for being so reckless.’

  There was a ghost of her old impudent smile, but her face too was turning blue, and her eyes were sinking. ‘Can I ask you to take care of Peter?’ she whispered.

  ‘You don’t have to ask. Of course I will,’ Matilda replied, struggling to hold her tears back. ‘I’ll make sure he becomes everything you wanted in your son.’

  ‘Tell him all about me when he’s a man,’ she croaked. ‘Tell him how much I loved him.’

  ‘What will I do without you, Cissie?’ Matilda asked.

  Cissie just looked at her and a tear trickled out from one eye.

  ‘Go and find other girls like me to save,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll be watching to see you do.’

  Matilda lit a lamp as it grew dark and watched as Cissie’s face turned from blue to purple, and her hands became dark and sodden-looking like a washerwoman’s. She opened her eyes only once more and looked at Matilda. ‘Saddest thing is, I never found out what it would be like with Arnold,’ she croaked. ‘Tell him I love him, and I wished I’d let him do it just once.’

  Her breathing gave up after that, as if she’d used her last air for that one last ribald remark. Matilda closed her eyes, kissed her forehead, then covered her face with the sheet.

  ‘I love you, Cissie Duncan,’ she whispered. ‘Go straight to John with a child in each hand. Don’t you worry none about Peter, he’ll be my boy now.’

  She kissed the girls and covered them too. She lit a candle by each of their beds, then, taking the lamp, she pulled aside the vinegar-soaked curtain and went downstairs.

  It was just on eleven at night, and Peter was curled up with Treacle on his blanket on the kitchen floor, fast asleep. Treacle looked up at her with mournful eyes, and his tail thumped on the floor in greeting.

  ‘Stay with him for now,’ she whispered to the dog. ‘I’ll see to you both in a minute.’

  Taking the last pan of hot water from the stove, she took it outside, stripped off her clothes and scrubbed herself from head to foot with lye soap, until her skin was a deep red, before returning to the kitchen. Tomorrow after the bodies had been taken away she would have to boil her clothes. The bedding and the mattresses would all have to be burnt, the rooms scrubbed out. Yet she still had no way of knowing whether she and Peter might yet get the disease. Wrapping herself in a tablecloth, she went back upstairs to find a clean night-gown, and only then when she was certain she’d taken every conceivable precaution did she go back downstairs to wake Peter.

  She sat looking at him sleeping for some time. There were tracks of tear stains on his honey-coloured cheeks, a sprinkling of freckles on his nose, and it brought home to her what he’d been through these last two days, imprisoned down here in solitude, apart from Treacle, listening to sounds of retching and groaning, and seeing countless piles of soiled napkins and sheets boiled up on the stove. He’d been a man, keeping the stove going, hanging out the washing, and looking after himself without complaint, but he was only twelve, still a child, and now she had to wake him and tell him his mother and sisters were dead.

  Twice she’d had to give similar terrible news to Tabitha, but that wouldn’t make it any easier to find the right words for Peter. It seemed such a short while ago that John had been killed and she’d comforted him. She remembered how he used to wait in the lane still vainly hoping it was all a mistake and John would come riding home.

  How could she possibly speak calmly when she was in so much pain at her own child’s death? How could she tell him that they would find happiness again soon, when her heart felt it had been wrenched out of her and she wished for her own death?

  Just the way he was lying curled up round Treacle suggested that he knew there was going to be no miraculous recovery. It was tempting to let him sleep a little longer, but she was dropping with exhaustion herself after two days and nights without rest, and she couldn’t take the risk that he might wake again in the night to come up and investigate why it was so quiet.

  ‘Peter,’ she called softly. ‘Peter, wake up!’

  He sat up and rubbed his eyes. ‘Are they better?’ he said in little more than a whisper.

  Matilda shook her head. ‘No, Peter, they died a little while ago, I’m afraid. I’m so sorry.’

  She had vowed to herself she wouldn’t touch him just in case it was possible to pass the disease on that way. But she couldn’t help herself when his face crumpled, she had to go to him and hold him.

  ‘Your mama said I was to tell you she loved you, and that you must be my boy now,’ she said, holding him tightly against her chest and trying very hard not to cry herself. ‘She was so very brave, Peter, just like she always was, and Susanna and Amelia slipped away without knowing anything.’

  Cissie had always been so proud that Peter never cried even as a small boy. She claimed that even when she smacked him he laughed. But he cried now, long and hard, burying his face in Matilda’s breast, sobbing out that he hoped he’d catch the disease too because he didn’t want to live without his mother and sisters.

  ‘I know how you feel,’ she whispered back. ‘I loved them too, just as much as I loved Amelia. But wishing for death too is an insult to their memory, Peter.’

  She made them both some hot milk and put a measure of brandy in each. ‘We both think we’ve lost everyone we love tonight. But we mustn’t forget we’ve still got one another. There’s Tabitha and Sidney too. I’m going to take you back to San Francisco to see Sidney in a little while. We will build a new life for ourselves there together.’

  ‘Why, Aunt Matty?’ he asked, his face devoid of colour, brown eyes utterly bleak. ‘Why did Mama and the girls have to die? It’s not fair.’

  She couldn’t tell him that life wasn’t fair, that all over America, and the whole world too, people died suddenly with no sense to it. All she could do was murmur the kind of things Giles would have said, that God wanted Cissie and the girls to live with Him and the angels because they were extra special. She dou
bted he believed it, any more than she did, but the words did have a comforting ring.

  Taking his hand, she led him up to his bed later, and lay down beside him, cradling him in her arms. The brandy worked quickly on him and after a while his sobbing turned to snores, but no such oblivion came to Matilda.

  She knew everyone had to face such tragedy. Even as a small girl she could recall the neighbours talking about the children they’d buried, the fires which had taken other family members, and diseases which could run through a tenement like the rats. But what she couldn’t understand was why fate singled her out for such cruelty, so often.

  Arnold died just a few hours after Cissie and the funeral service held the following day was for all of them. Cissie and the children were buried alongside John, and Arnold close by.

  It was so painful to see Tabitha for the first time since the deaths, standing between the Reverend and Mrs Glover in a severe black dress and bonnet. Few other people had come out of fear of the disease, and Matilda had been told by the doctor she must not embrace Tabitha until all danger had passed.

  Tabitha’s eyes mirrored everything Matilda felt. Deep dark pools of sorrow and disbelief. They stood some ten feet from one another, both silently yearning to reach out for the other, knowing that the words they would exchange later could never soothe as a cuddle could.

  Matilda held Peter’s hand tightly as the coffins were lowered into the graves, and thought of Cissie’s courage in that cellar when he was born, and made a silent pledge to her friends that she would always love and protect him.

  After the grave had been covered over, Matilda beckoned for Tabitha to come and speak to her, and they moved over to the side of the churchyard, still keeping a few feet of distance between them.

  ‘What will happen now, Matty?’ Tabitha asked, tears running down her cheeks.

  ‘I’m going to take Peter back with me, but I want you to stay with the Reverend,’ Matilda said firmly, even though her whole being wanted to take her last remaining child away too. ‘You must do everything we planned, Cissie would be so angry if you didn’t become a doctor because of this.’

  ‘But you are the only one I have left now,’ Tabitha wept. ‘I want to be with you.’

  ‘I want you with me too,’ Matilda said, distressed by the child’s grief. ‘But when your mother and father entrusted me with you, I made a promise that I would always do the right thing for you. I know taking you back to San Francisco isn’t that.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Tabitha asked, her dark eyes full of doubt.

  Matilda nodded. She had thought this through very carefully. While Tabitha might enjoy San Francisco for a holiday, at a time when she wasn’t grieving, to take her there now would be the worst possible thing, for she would hate it. The noise, the dirt and rowdiness would all appal her, she would have no friends, be a virtual prisoner in the apartment, and she would soon bitterly regret that she’d turned down the chance to go to Boston.

  ‘The Reverend and Mrs Glover love you,’ she said soothingly. ‘All your friends are here, it’s a peaceful, lovely place and a life you know and trust. If in a few weeks you still feel you desperately want to be with me, then maybe we can change our minds. But try it first.’

  ‘You aren’t going straight away, are you?’ Tabitha said with a look of alarm.

  Matilda shook her head. ‘Do you think I’d go before I could hug you again? Of course not, Tabby! I’m going to stay until I’ve sorted out Cissie’s house and everything. I need time to visit Amelia’s grave too, reconcile myself and say my goodbyes to her.’

  A look of deep concern crossed the girl’s face and she instinctively took a step nearer Matilda.

  ‘I was forgetting,’ she said, then stopped mid-sentence and blushed.

  Matilda understood what had gone through her mind. ‘I have always loved you, Tabby, as if you were born to me. To me you are my daughter, and nothing will ever change that. But Amelia was so very special too, she was your father’s and my child, the very reason we had to flee all these thousands of miles to find safety here in Oregon. Your sister too, the baby that bound us two even closer together. And now she’s been taken from us, that’s another very good reason why you must never lose sight of your ambitions.’

  ‘Poor Matty,’ Tabitha whispered. ‘I was feeling so sorry for myself I didn’t think about your pain.’

  Matilda felt a surge of love for this child-woman who had her father’s ability to slip into another’s shoes. ‘No one will ever replace Amelia,’ she said in a low voice, trying very hard not to cry again. ‘But I have you, Peter and Sidney. And when I look at you, Tabby, I see Giles and Lily too. That is so very comforting.’

  ‘I love you, Matty,’ Tabitha said, and as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks she looked just the way she had at six or seven.

  ‘I love you too, my darling,’ Matilda replied, her arms aching to hold the child. ‘Now, go on back with the Glovers, and I’ll see you in a day or two once we know this terrible disease has run its course.’

  A few days later as Matilda was burning the mattresses in the garden, Dr Shrieber came by to tell her he had paid a visit out to the farm where Arnold and Cissie had visited, only to find the whole family dead. As Peter and Matilda were still healthy, despite close contact with those struck down, he didn’t think it could be a contagious disease like smallpox. He had a theory it might come from drinking water that had been contaminated with sewage, and he intended to study other cases to see if he could prove this was the cause of the disease.

  Matilda thought he was a good man and wished him success in his studies, but her heart was too full of pain to discuss theories about the cause of her child’s death. She had left Amelia here thinking it was a safe place, but in the end it proved just as dangerous as anywhere else.

  All she wanted now was to take Peter and Treacle, and leave Oregon City for ever.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  ‘You can’t go on grievin’ this way, ma’am,’ Dolores said, as yet again for the fifth morning running she found her mistress had ignored both her breakfast and bath and was still lying in bed at noon. ‘Now, git yourself out of that bed!’

  Matilda opened one bloodshot eye. Her breath was sour from the brandy she’d drunk the night before, and it made her feel nauseous. ‘Go away and leave me alone,’ she snapped. ‘It’s no business of yours what I do!’

  ‘Well, is that so?’ Dolores put her hands on her hips and glowered at Matilda. ‘It sure seems like my business when my mistress is behaving like a fool. I knows you are hurtin’, heaven knows it’s a terrible, wicked thing that happened. But you ain’t the first person to bury folks you loved, and you go on like this, it will be me burying you.’

  ‘How dare you speak to me like that,’ Matilda exclaimed.

  ‘’Cos I’m an uppity nigger, or so I’ve been told a thousand times,’ Dolores said, her jet-black eyes rolling with impatience. ‘Miss Zandra, she told me to look out fer you, and that’s just what I’m gonna do, even if I have to take a belt to your back to make you see sense.’

  Matilda had coped well enough with the voyage back to San Francisco. She had managed to break the terrible news to Sidney and to find a good school for Peter. But then, when that was done, she woke one morning to see how utterly empty her life was now, and she couldn’t bear it.

  Since Amelia’s birth everything she’d done had been with her and Tabitha’s future in mind, now suddenly she had no purpose. She had looked upon Cissie and Susanna as her family, and Oregon as home, but there was nothing left there now. Tabitha was with the Glovers, and James was gone too.

  Looking back, all she could see was a row of tombstones, every one of them engraved with the name of someone she had loved dearly. Having fine clothes, money in the bank, and a successful business meant nothing to her without a goal to work towards. She was twenty-nine, too old and cynical to believe there might be something good around the next corner, yet too young to accept her life was now on the downward slide.
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  This feeling of melancholia grew worse each day. She didn’t want to eat, to talk to anyone, or do anything. Both Peter and Sidney looked at her in bewilderment, and it made her feel so guilty to see them leaning on one another to gain the comfort she should have been giving them.

  She began taking little nips of brandy during the day to make herself feel better, and that seemed to work at first, but before long she was drinking whole glasses, staying up in the apartment alone for longer and longer periods, and ignoring what was going on downstairs. Finally she had withdrawn from everything, the business, staff, Sidney and Peter. She didn’t even bother to get dressed, but began drinking the minute she woke, and continued till she eventually found a state of oblivion.

  ‘If you’re so dammed clever, you tell me how to get over this,’ Matilda spat at Dolores.

  ‘You think of someone worse off than yourself,’ Dolores shot back. ‘Miss Zandra left you her money because she thought you’d do something good with it. If she knew you was drinking it away she’d come back and haunt you. And there’s the Captain too. What will he think of you if he comes back and finds you like this?’

  Even though Matilda’s mind was confused, in so much as she had no idea what day it was, or how long she’d been holed up in the apartment, her maid’s scornful words cut a clear path through the fog. ‘He’s never coming back,’ she said plaintively. ‘He’s gone, just like everyone else.’

  Dolores winced at this uncharacteristic display of self-pity. She thought her mistress looked and smelled worse than a street girl, and decided she needed to take a stronger line. Grabbing hold of Matilda’s shoulders, she shook her like a mop. ‘That man will be back,’ she shouted at her. ‘I never knew a man love a woman so much. And you’ve got Sidney, Peter and Miss Tabitha to think about.’

  Matilda pushed her away and cringed back across the bed, frightened by this assault. ‘They aren’t my children,’ she retorted.