Never Look Back

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘Maybe’s they wasn’t born to you,’ Dolores replied. ‘But you’s the nearest thing they got to a mammy now, and they is hurtin’ because you ain’t behavin’ like one. There’s girls down in the saloon that would lay down their life for you because you gave them a chance to get off the streets. You is somebody, Miss Matilda, folks round here respect you, and I ain’t gonna let you lose that respect neither. So you’ll get in that bath right now. Or else!’

  Matilda could only stare at Dolores, profoundly stunned that this woman who rarely spoke, and never offered an opinion about anything, should launch into her with such ferocity. She needed a drink, but she had a feeling that if she attempted to get one Dolores would make good her threat and beat her. Unable to see any alternative, she got out of bed, but the minute her feet were on the ground Dolores snatched at the hem of her night-gown and pulled it off over her head, leaving her naked.

  ‘Get in!’ she said in a voice that couldn’t be ignored, pointing to the filled bath in the corner. ‘And I’m gonna wash your hair too, it surely looks an’ stinks like a rat’s nest.’

  An hour later Matilda was bathed and her hair washed. Now as her hair dried by the open window, Dolores had forced her hands into a bowl filled with some kind of warm oil. Indignant as she was that she should be treated like a feeble-minded child, it was also soothing to be cared for. The sunshine coming through the window, the lavender fragrance on her clean skin, was making her feel a little less dejected.

  The cleaning up in Oregon, and the endless washing in strong lye had made Matilda’s hands look the way they’d been when she first came to San Francisco, but she’d had no heart to do anything about them, or even cover them with her usual gloves.

  ‘It sure is shockin’ to see a lady’s hand this way,’ Dolores tutted. ‘I never did see worse, not even on a field hand.’

  ‘I’m not a lady, Dolores,’ she said weakly. ‘I never was, and I never will be.’

  ‘Is that so! Well, you is my mistress, so that makes you one,’ Dolores retorted sharply. ‘I can make these better, I can do your hair real pretty, and I guess I can make you eat again and hide the liquor. But I can’t make you smile none, only you’s can do that. You better start thinking of something to make those pretty lips curl up again, and the light come back in your eyes,’

  It was the woman’s tone which amused Matilda. Half-angry, half-loving. The way she’d so often been with Tabitha in the past.

  ‘That’s better,’ Dolores said in appreciation as her mistress smiled. ‘You sure are one handsome woman when you smile.’

  ‘Do you really believe the Captain will come back?’ Matilda asked a little later, as Dolores wound her hair up in curls. She guessed the woman knew a great deal about men from her time with Zandra, and anyway there was no one else she could confide in about James.

  ‘I knows he will,’ Dolores said stoutly. ‘He ain’t the kind of man to give up. Reckon if he knew about your sadness, he’d have got here already, if’n he had to walk clean across the country with Indian arrows in his back. You two were meant for one another, that’s for certain.’

  ‘But he’s married, Dolores!’

  ‘So?’ Dolores paused in her hairdressing and put her hands on her hips, glowering into the mirror at her mistress. ‘The way I sees it, you got his heart. That surely counts for more than a ring on your finger.’

  ‘Have you ever loved a man?’ Matilda asked, all at once curious about this plain, tall woman who had devoted almost all of her life to Zandra.

  Dolores shook her head. ‘I was used by some, back afore I found my way to Miss Zandra. What I saw there of men fair put me off for good. But that don’t stop me knowing what it’s like for you and the Captain, just as I knows how you feels about losing your little girl. Reckon one kind of love is much like another when all’s done. I loved Miss Zandra, I thought my heart would wither when she died. But now I got you to love and take care of, and I sure ain’t gonna let you fall apart.’

  A lump came up in Matilda’s throat and her eyes prickled. In a few rough words this usually inarticulate woman had managed to convey a very simple but profound message. All Matilda had to do to recover was to transfer the love she felt for Cissie, Amelia and Susanna to someone or something else.

  ‘I very much appreciate that,’ she said softly, catching hold of the black woman’s hand. ‘You’ve made me feel much better. Thank you.’

  During the afternoon Matilda went downstairs. She was wearing a black mourning gown, but Dolores had insisted on softening the severity of it today by attaching a cream lace collar to it. She felt a little shaky, but she’d decided that a walk would do her far more good than allowing herself to brood up in the apartment.

  Sidney was alone in the saloon, checking the stock. His smile was tentative, and it reminded her she’d treated him very callously in the past few weeks.

  ‘Come here a minute, Sidney,’ she said.

  He wiped his hands on a cloth and hurried over to her. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just a hug,’ she said, opening her arms and drawing him into them. ‘And to say I’m sorry I’ve been so wicked.’

  He hugged her back and she could feel him quivering with emotion. ‘You don’t have to say sorry to me,’ he whispered. ‘And you ain’t wicked, Matty, only grievin’, it takes us all different ways.’

  ‘I do have to say I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I was so wrapped up in my troubles I forgot how bad it is for you too. You spent much more time with Cissie than I did, and the girls. I’m ashamed I didn’t think about that and look after you better.’

  ‘I’m a man now. I can get by without being looked after,’ he said, but he sighed as if this wasn’t strictly true. ‘What scared me most was thinking I’d lost you too.’

  ‘You’ll always have me,’ she said, lifting his chin up and kissing his cheek. ‘I reckon I went a bit crazy for a time, but I think I’m on the mend now. I’m going out to get something for our supper, we’ve got to hold on to what’s left of our family.’

  He smiled shyly, tawny eyes glinting with tears, and he stroked her cheek lovingly. ‘You look real pretty again, Matty. I like to see you that way.’

  ‘I think I like it better too,’ she said with a smile. ‘If Peter comes back from school before I do, give him a hug from me, and tell him I won’t be long.’

  She bought steak for supper, fresh vegetables and fruit, then wandered along Market Street, just looking around her. It was a very long time since she’d been down here, Dolores normally shopped for food, and when Matilda went out she usually stuck to the smarter streets.

  Before she went back to Oregon there had been a great deal of talk about what the financial panic had done to the city, but perhaps she had been too preoccupied to notice just how bad it was. But she was seeing it now, and it shocked her.

  There were so many shops boarded up, once prosperous businesses lying empty, and many, many more people begging in the streets. Her heart contracted with pity at the dozens of hollow-eyed, ragged children, but when she saw a woman with a baby in her arms stoop to snatch up a turnip dropped in the gutter, and hide it under her shawl, she felt ashamed that she’d failed to notice before how bad things had become.

  Right from the start of the Gold Rush, this city had always been one where people conducted their social lives on the streets. Working men gathered on corners to discuss boxing or fire engines, young Christians on the steps of the churches. Courting couples favoured Stockton Street, while the middle classes chose Montgomery Street. The plaza was a meeting place for everyone, while small boys flew kites and played baseball, businessmen held impromptu meetings, and the elderly sat and watched.

  Maybe this very public way of living had sprung purely from the lack of space in living accommodation, and the need for most of the population to eat in restaurants, but it had remained that way, even when housing was improved.

  Everything about the city enhanced the feeling of intimacy. By day the narrow streets were cluttered with good
s, buggies, carts and teamsters ploughed their way through, forcing people physically close to each other. At night the gaming halls, theatres, saloons and other places of entertainment filled the streets with music, light and mirth. Even though the Chinese, Italians and many other different nationalities all had their own areas of the town, these were all closely connected and used as thoroughfares by everyone. Matilda had often thought it was like a living theatre, with a dozen different plays going on at any one time. Any excuse brought on a parade, music from a dozen different sources assaulted the ears. It wasn’t the least bit unusual to hear an Italian tenor singing opera, a group of Spanish gypsies dancing the flamenco, or Negro minstrels singing all in one street. But today, though she could still hear spirited music, laughter from cafés, saloons and restaurants, and there was just as much traffic and people thronging the streets, she could feel despondency in the air.

  She saw men wandering aimlessly, perhaps hoping to stumble across some work. Women looked anxious, pausing before displays of foodstuffs as if mentally juggling a very tight budget. The shop keeper’s cries sounded desperate rather than jovial, even the many stray dogs rooting in gutters looked thinner than she ever remembered.

  But what concerned her most was the sheer numbers of girls and very young women meandering around, when once they would have been working in private houses as servants, or in the shops. She felt they had probably come to San Francisco in the last two or three years when it was booming, but now had lost their positions. It seemed such a short while ago that Alicia Slocum complained there were no servants to be had anywhere. Even last year there had still been signs in many shop windows offering employment inside, but those signs were gone now, and she knew only too well what line of work these girls might turn to in desperation if nothing else turned up.

  Thinking on this, she walked towards Sydney Town, the notorious slum area around the base of Telegraph Hill. Although only about eight blocks in all, it was packed with brothels, gaming houses, saloons and low dance halls. It had always been home to the very lowest and most desperate characters and a hotbed of crime and murder, but in the past year, politicians, would-be social reformers and newspaper men had taken to calling it the Barbary Coast and claimed it stood with Seven Dials in London and Five Points in New York for its filth and depravity.

  Matilda had always laughed at the idea of San Francisco’s red light district being compared to the two monstrous places she had explored personally, and considered that the people who made such claims were over-reacting. To her Sydney Town had a gaiety and even sophistication which the other two lacked. Yet today, perhaps because she was more receptive, she saw these people were right, it was every bit as bad.

  She could smell the stink of filth and poverty, sense the disease and corruption lurking in the dark alleys, just as she had in London and New York. Even now in broad daylight, prostitutes were out doing business in their hundreds, blatantly displaying their breasts in low-cut satin gowns, some even sat in shop windows wearing only underwear. As she passed alleyways she had to avert her eyes to avoid seeing hurried coupling between whores and sailors. There were many wretched men and women with the tell-tale glazed eyes of opium users, and countless drunks who lay where they had fallen, insensible to their surroundings.

  All at once she understood why the upper-middle classes of the city were constantly demanding that this area should be razed to the ground. Yet sadly that would never happen, not while liquor licences continued to be a major source of income to the city, and indeed businessmen received exorbitant rents for their properties here.

  Having seen enough to sicken her, she turned homeward, trying to turn her mind to more pleasant things, yet a small voice inside her head kept reminding her that while she lived and ran a business in this town, she couldn’t close her eyes and ears to what was going on in certain parts of it.

  A few nights later, at the end of September, Matilda sat up on the balcony overlooking the saloon. She was feeling very much better now. She’d stopped drinking, and she had begun to pick up the reins of the business again, filling her days with work so she had no time to lapse into self-pity. Every evening she shared a supper with Peter and Sidney, and they were all beginning to be able to speak of Cissie and the little girls again, which she saw as a good sign they were on the road to recovery.

  Tonight she had expected a quiet evening because it was raining hard, yet it was surprisingly busy. Aside from regular customers, the merchants and tradespeople who lived close by, there were a great many sailors. One group was from a Russian ship that had sailed in this afternoon, the other was from South America, and this crew was a mixture of Americans, Germans and Irish. Sailors had a habit of making London Lil’s their first call in the evenings, then once they’d had a few drinks and watched the show, they moved on downtown for the rest of the night for more heavy drinking and to find women.

  When two unaccompanied girls came in a little later, Matilda smiled as every male head swivelled round to look at them. The female population might have increased in the past few years, but there still weren’t nearly enough young, pretty and single women to go round. One of these girls was a Mexican, the other a Negro. It struck her that they seemed very nervous, she thought perhaps they’d never dared go into a saloon before.

  Sidney came haring up the stairs to her. ‘Shall I warn them off?’ he asked, inclining his head towards the girls.

  ‘What on earth for?’ she exclaimed. The girls wore plain, well-worn calico dresses and heavy boots, they didn’t look one bit like street girls. ‘I expect they are maids and they’ve got the night off together and want a bit of fun for a change.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Matty,’ he said, frowning. ‘I saw the Mexican one down on Kearny Street the other night.’

  ‘Maybe you did, but that doesn’t mean she’s a whore,’ Matilda retorted. ‘Besides, I’ve never banned street girls from having a drink in here, only for soliciting. It’s so wet outside, and they are entitled to a bit of friendly company like anyone else. Give them a free drink, I’ll watch them, and if they get up to anything, I’ll mark their cards for them.’

  She saw Sidney get the girls drinks, then they disappeared into the crowd. The show started a few minutes later, and Matilda forgot about them because she was too busy scrutinizing the dancing girls. She thought their costumes looked decidedly shabby, and their routine lacked sparkle. They had been appearing here twice a week for over two years, and their complacency showed. She would have to have a word with them about it later.

  But the jugglers who followed them were excellent, slick and polished. She thought she would compliment them later, and offer them a regular spot.

  The dancers came on again to end the show, and Matilda got up, ready to go down and speak to them before they left. As she started down the stairs, a sudden movement near the doors caught her eye. Pausing to look over the banister, she saw the Negro girl had collapsed on to the floor, and her Mexican friend was rushing out of the door.

  She ran the rest of the way. ‘Let me get through,’ she said, pushing the men who were crowded round the girl out of the way.

  ‘The darky’s just had one too many,’ someone called out. ‘Chuck her outside, the rain will soon sober her up.’

  Matilda bristled at that remark, even after twelve years in America the callous attitude to Negroes still riled her. She knelt down beside the girl and put her hand on her forehead, which was very hot.

  ‘Bring me some smelling-salts,’ she called out to Sidney, who had elbowed his way through the crowd. ‘And some water.’

  The smelling-salts brought the girl round, she recoiled from the smell and opened her eyes. Her straw bonnet had slipped off to reveal close-cropped curly hair, like a boy’s. She was very young too, perhaps only fourteen, and terribly thin. Her coal-black eyes looked too big for her face, and very frightened.

  ‘It’s okay, I guess you just fainted,’ Matilda said, bending down close so the girl could hear her over the noise o
f the music. ‘Try sitting up and taking a drink.’

  She slid one arm under the girl’s back and helped her to sit up. Her dress felt clammy, but whether that was from the rain outside, or from a fever, she couldn’t tell. ‘Can you tell me your name?’ she asked.

  ‘Fern,’ the girl said, but her face contorted suddenly with pain, and she involuntarily clutched at Matilda’s forearm.

  ‘Where does it hurt?’ Matilda asked.

  The girl put her hand on her stomach.

  With the horror of cholera still so fresh in her mind, Matilda might have backed away, but she was on her knees so that wasn’t possible. ‘I’ll take you somewhere quiet to lie down,’ she said.

  It was as she and Sidney helped her on to her feet that Matilda noticed an ominous bloodstain on the back of the girl’s skirt. Thinking it might just be a very bad monthly, and not wishing to embarrass the girl, she said nothing, and putting her arm around her to give her some support she led her out the back to one of the spare rooms, laid her down on the bed and lit a lamp.

  As she put the glass back in place and the light grew brighter, she saw the girl was crying silently, and Matilda instinctively sensed that the tears came from something more than pain or embarrassment.

  Her broad flat nose and thick lips prevented her from being described as pretty, but her angular cheek-bones, huge eyes, and the sheen on her dark skin was very striking.

  ‘You are bleeding, my dear,’ Matilda said, sitting down beside her. ‘Is it your monthly?’

  The girl turned her head away from Matilda and covered her face with her hands, drawing up her knees towards her chest. Although Matilda recognized this as a childlike defensive stance, it also revealed the bloodstain again, and it had spread to a patch some four or five inches across. She looked at it for a moment and decided it was far too much for a mere monthly.

  ‘I am trying to help you,’ she said more firmly. ‘But I can’t do that if you won’t talk to me. Are you losing a baby?’