Never Look Back

by Lesley Pearse

  Dolores slipped down from the apartment to watch the dancing girls come on for their final routine. She was minding Elizabeth Rose and James, so Mary could be with Sidney. As the girls whooped around the stage one last time before running off to the changing-room, she squeezed Matilda’s arm. ‘Reckon Mizz Zandra’s come back to be with us tonight, along with the Captain. I sure can hear them laughing.’

  Matilda couldn’t speak. She could hear Zandra’s last words on that first night.

  ‘Know what that smell is? It’s the smell of success.’

  Late that evening, after everyone had gone, Matilda, Sidney, Peter and Mary had one last glass of champagne together before retiring. The floor was dirty, awash with spilt drinks and cigar butts. There were hundreds of empty bottles everywhere, and even more glasses.

  ‘To absent friends,’ Peter said, raising his glass.

  Sidney looked at him sharply, perhaps thinking this was no time to be casting gloom on a wonderful evening, for the only living person missing was Tabitha.

  ‘Yes, to absent friends,’ Matilda agreed. ‘And may we hold them in our hearts, remember them with love, but look to the future always, and treasure what we have now,’

  ‘So what’s the next project?’ Sidney asked Matilda after the solemn toast had been made.

  ‘Plural,’ she said, and grinned. ‘I’ve got several up my sleeve.’

  Peter groaned. ‘What now?’

  ‘A hostel for single working girls,’ she said. ‘A fund for widows of ex-servicemen. A united effort to get “the Coast” cleared up. Is that enough to be getting on with?’

  Sidney chuckled. ‘I guess I’ll have to make sure this place makes a heap of money then,’ he said.

  ‘And I’ve got to learn to manage it,’ Peter laughed.

  Matilda grinned. ‘That’s my boys!’ she said. Then, putting her hand gently on Mary’s swelling belly and leaning down, she whispered. ‘And make sure you are strong and smart, we’ll need reinforcements before too long.’

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  New York 1873

  Tabitha was stiff with tension, sitting on the edge of the couch, waiting for the guests to arrive to celebrate her engagement to Dr Sebastian Everett. It was February, and silent out on Fifth Avenue because thick snow was muting the sounds of horses’ hooves and carriage wheels. She wished Matilda had accepted the Everetts’ invitation to stay here in their house, instead of insisting on staying at a hotel, perhaps then she wouldn’t be so nervous.

  Matilda was probably right in saying that she needed time alone with her future in-laws to get to know them, and that she would only be a distraction. Yet even after four days, Tabitha still didn’t feel comfortable with them. Mrs Everett had been welcoming in the sense that she lavished attention on her, but at the same time it felt very much like critical scrutiny. Tonight it would be Matilda’s turn, for Tabitha was only too aware that Mrs Everett was intensely curious about her step-mother. She had asked a great many questions about her, and though she hadn’t actually voiced any disapproval that her business was a saloon, or that her charitable work was with fallen women, Tabitha sensed it.

  Tabitha was anxious too about her appearance. Sebastian said she looked beautiful, but then he said that even when she was wearing the most drab outfit, and he was certainly no judge of whether her dark red velvet evening gown was just a little too bold for a woman of thirty-three, or if her ringlets would droop before the evening was over.

  She glanced anxiously across the drawing-room towards Anne Everett who was giving some last-minute instructions to her butler. She was in her mid-sixties, with white hair, but a slender body, pert turned-up nose, fashionable clothes and good skin made her look much younger. Tonight she was wearing a royal blue velvet evening gown and a stunning diamond necklace, a tiny lace cap held in place with still more diamond-headed pins. But just as her age was disguised, so were her true feelings. She chattered brightly about inconsequential matters, asked many pointed questions, yet revealed little about herself.

  Tabitha thought Anne was like most of her class and imagined that any woman who was still unmarried by twenty had to have some hidden defect. No doubt the fact that Tabitha was thirty-three, plain, didn’t come from an illustrious family and had the gall to enter the male-dominated world of medicine all heightened her suspicions. Only yesterday Tabitha had voiced these thoughts to Sebastian, but he just laughed and said his family wasn’t illustrious either, just rich, and if anything his mother was in awe of Tabitha’s intelligence.

  Albert Everett was equally difficult to reach. He was sitting by the fire, staring into the flames, nursing a large whiskey. He must have been very like Sebastian at the same age, he too was tall and slender, with the same big nose and ears, and dark blue eyes, but he had stooped shoulders, and very little hair left.

  He had said very little to Tabitha since she’d arrived, but then she didn’t think he’d really taken in that she was to marry his son in the near future. Anne had said that he’d withdrawn from his business interests, become muddled and lost his appetite when their youngest son, Aaron, a West Point graduate, died of an infected wound in the last year of the war. Tabitha could sympathize wholeheartedly with that, for the war was responsible for so much misery.

  She remembered the joy she felt when General Lee surrendered in April of ‘65. But just a few days later that joy was shattered by the shocking news that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated while at The Ford theatre, just a stone’s throw from the hospital.

  That seemed the point when the true evil and futility of war finally struck home for everyone in America, whichever side they were on. Six million men dead, and countless more so badly injured that they would never be able to work again. The whole of the South lay in ruins, farms and plantations plundered, houses sacked and burned by the victorious army.

  The slaves were free at last, but for many of them it was the beginning of an almost worse era, for those who remained in the South were then a target for more persecution at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. Those who had gone north or west fared no better. They were still discriminated against, for now white men feared they would take their jobs. If they made it to the cities the only shelter they could get was in the grimmest slums, and any work offered was of the most menial kind and poorly paid. Those who stayed in rural areas found themselves on infertile land and their homes were little more than makeshift tents or shacks.

  Tabitha knew a great deal about discrimination herself. She had returned to medical school in Ohio after the war, burning with the desire to qualify as a doctor and to use her skill to help the suffering she saw all around her. She passed her final exams with flying colours, but she soon found that qualifying as a doctor didn’t necessarily mean she could practise medicine. She applied to just about every hospital in North America, but was turned down purely because she was a woman.

  It was Matilda who finally persuaded her to join her in San Francisco. With her support and influence, Tabitha was finally able to start a small practice there.

  However disappointing it was to find that most of her patients came to her only in emergencies when no male doctor was available, being close to Matilda, Peter, Sidney and his family more than made up for it. Yet with patience and perseverance her practice had grown enough to enable her to support herself. She liked California’s mild climate, and came to love the lively, fast-growing city which for all its faults at least suffered less from hypocrisy than any other place she’d been in America. She might have stayed there for ever, but for meeting Sebastian.

  They met three years ago while she was at a conference in Denver where Sebastian was giving a lecture on infectious diseases. She was enraptured initially by his controversial view that women should be welcomed wholeheartedly into the medical profession, and by his beautiful, deep, melodious voice. He wasn’t a handsome man, tall, thin and rather ungainly, with a mop of untidy grey-streaked black hair and an equally untidy beard. But after his lecture he stopped her, and as
ked her to tell him her experiences as a lady doctor, and within minutes they were talking as if they’d known each other all their lives.

  That talk led to dinner at her hotel. As they laughed, argued and chatted, she found she no longer noticed his sticking-out ears, or his over-large nose, but saw instead his lovely dark blue eyes, long slender fingers, and a smile that made her feel like a young girl again.

  The next morning some flowers were delivered to her hotel from him. The card with them was simply inscribed ‘I’ve spent my whole life waiting for you to come along. Sebastian.’

  He had a practice in New York, she was 3,000 miles away in San Francisco, and common sense told her that an eminent physician of over forty could well be married, and a plain, dedicated spinster would not make a suitable mistress.

  But he wrote to her as he travelled back to New York, and said he’d hardly had a wink of sleep through thinking about her. He said he was coming to San Francisco as soon as he could, to woo her. Matilda said that married men did not use words like ‘woo’, and that life was too short to be coy and girlish, so if Tabitha felt the same way as he clearly did, she must write back and tell him so.

  Now, three years later, she was here in his parents’ New York mansion, awaiting guests for their engagement dinner party. The ring on her finger was a single small diamond, but now, in the splendour of this drawing-room, she could understand why Sebastian had been amused by her restrained choice. Above her a crystal chandelier twinkled, paintings by renowned artists hung on the walls, there were dainty little side tables holding exquisite silver and porcelain ornaments, priceless oriental rugs covered the floor. Just the velvet drapes at the vast windows would buy a small row house, and everyone of the fourteen rooms she’d seen in this mansion were just as beautiful.

  Sebastian had never told her his father was a multi-millionaire. She knew of course that to live on Fifth Avenue, New York’s smartest address, he had to be rich, but Sebastian hadn’t given her the impression he had been born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. His clothes were plain, he was seriously committed to his work, and he was very at ease with ordinary people. So she had been taken aback by the size and splendour of his parents’ home when she arrived here, and wished he’d given her some prior warning as to how this wealth had been acquired.

  She knew now that Mr Everett’s business was railroads, although Brett, his elder son, had taken over running the company since the war, and completed the much-needed and long-awaited track right through to the west coast. The initial capital which started this company had come from Mrs Everett’s grandfather who had once owned huge cotton plantations in the South. Tabitha knew that most of the richest and most powerful families in America had made their fortunes by exploitation of the poor in one way or another. But as railroads were essential for the greater good of the country, she was inclined to overlook the morality of the vast personal profits made by the Everetts. However, she wasn’t sure Matilda would take such a liberal view.

  Since the war, Matilda had become something of a firebrand on social injustice. If tonight’s conversations should drift into dangerous waters, she was likely to air her hard-held views on railroad coolie labour, the plight of the Negroes and Indians, and once she got going, she wasn’t a lady to mince her words.

  ‘Stop worrying,’ Sebastian whispered in her ear as the butler announced that the first guests, Mr and Mrs MacVeeney, had arrived. ‘I know what you are thinking, but you know as well as I do that Matty can be the soul of diplomacy when she chooses to be!’

  Tabitha smiled, she was always surprised by Sebastian’s ability to tune into her thoughts. He looked almost handsome tonight, for his hair and beard had at last been given a dramatic pruning, and he wore his dinner jacket with style. But then she wasn’t marrying him for his looks, position or his ancestors, what she loved about him above all else was his belief that he was set on this world to help the sick, and whether they were rich or poor, he gave them the same attention.

  He had as little time for mealy-mouthed philanthropists as he did for self-seeking capitalists. He saw his wealthy patients in their homes or at his smart surgery in Washington Square, and if they believed he rarely set foot out of the two-mile radius surrounding it, he didn’t choose to enlighten them otherwise. In fact he also gave his medical services free at a clinic in the Lower East Side, and acted as a surgeon at two charity hospitals.

  On each of his three visits to San Francisco, he had grown to love and admire Matty as Tabitha did. He knew too that her early influence on Tabitha would mean she would want to treat the very poor when she moved to New York, and although perhaps he hoped this would be in the same inconspicuous way he did it, he had never said as much. This diplomatic stance was both sensible and endearing to Tabitha – like Matilda she had never had time for folk who wore their good works like a badge.

  Tabitha jumped to her feet to meet the MacVeeneys. Mrs Emily MacVeeney was Anne’s younger sister and Tabitha thought they were remarkably alike. But Emily’s smile appeared very much more sincere, and she kissed Tabitha’s cheek with warmth when they were introduced.

  ‘I am so very pleased to meet you at last,’ she said, her brown eyes sweeping over Tabitha as if she liked what she saw. ‘My nephew has told me so much about you, my dear, and we’re so very happy that you are soon to become one of our family.’

  Mr George MacVeeney was small and stout with a ruddy complexion and a bulbous nose. He pumped Tabitha’s hand vigorously and beamed at her as he made similar welcoming remarks.

  Emily admired Tabitha’s gown, and said that red had been her favourite colour as a young woman. ‘It’s a great disappointment to me that as one gets older one can no longer wear such vivid colours.’ She looked down at her own rose-pink gown which was sprinkled with tiny seed pearls and grimaced. ‘Pink is a poor substitute for red.’

  ‘You look lovely,’ Tabitha said truthfully. ‘Both you and your sister are so elegant, I hope I can count on some advice from you both when choosing clothes for my trousseau. I am overwhelmed by the amount of shops here in New York, I really don’t know where to start.’

  Matilda arrived on the dot of seven, simultaneously with Brett, Sebastian’s older brother, his wife Amy, Rupert, a cousin, and his wife Sophia. As Tabitha had met Brett, Rupert and their wives just the day before, she greeted them quickly and turned her entire attention on Matilda.

  She was stunned by how magnificent she looked, and touched that she had clearly spent the last four days preparing for tonight to create the best possible impression. Her black velvet evening gown was trimmed with fluffy feathers around the low neck, enhancing her delicate pinky-toned skin, and a beautiful sapphire necklace and ear bobs, left to her by Zandra, matched her eyes. As always she wore lace gloves; tonight’s ones reached to her elbows, with tiny jet buttons at the wrists. Her blonde hair had been carefully arranged up in loose curls by an artful hairdresser, and it shone like gold under the chandelier. She was forty-seven now, but her figure had remained taut and slender, and the few lines on her face had only added softness, not age.

  Every man in the room turned to look at her in admiration, and Tabitha felt her heart swell with tenderness and pride, for ten years ago when James was killed, she had been fearful that Matilda would never recover her spirits or her looks. She had worn black from that day since, and in that last year of the war, Tabitha had seen her grow thinner and thinner, until she was just skin and bone. She hardly slept, did as much work as three other nurses, and so often Tabitha woke in the night to see her sitting by the window crying silently.

  Yet grief-stricken as she was, when she returned to San Francisco, she put on a brave face. She opened London Lil’s again with a lavish celebration party and within weeks it was as famous and popular as it had been during the Gold Rush years, the shows she put on even more spectacular. Yet however much she might have appeared to be only interested in making her own personal fortune, those who knew her well saw that her real motivation was to us
e this wealth to improve the lot of the underclasses.

  When she saw how many girls had fallen into prostitution during the war, she bought the empty neighbouring house in Folsom Street, in order to offer sanctuary to more of them. She opened a working girls’ boarding-house for the same reason, and expanded the Jennings Bureau to find work for the many soldiers who came back to the city with disabilities.

  Tabitha was away in Ohio at that time, but Peter, who was then training as an accountant, wrote to her, often in anger because Matilda was still slighted by ‘polite society’ in the city and he claimed that the malicious rumours about her came from this quarter. One was that Matilda was supposed to be a procuress herself, that she lured fallen girls to her doors to polish them up, then sent them off to brothels in other cities. They said she had a string of lovers, and that she made huge profits from her so-called charitable works, and that much of the donations from the public went into her pocket along with the fortune she made from London Lil’s.

  As Peter did all Matilda’s book-keeping, he knew that the small profit Matilda made from the bureau and boarding-house, along with all donations, went straight to the girls it was intended for. A third of all profits from London Lil’s went to several charities, the one closest to Matilda’s heart was to aid war widows and their children.

  But then a great many of these socialites who reviled her had increased their wealth by speculation and carpet-bagging during the war. Their sons had wriggled out of the draft, some of them were the unscrupulous owners of properties on the Barbary Coast and shareholders in the Union Pacific Railroad.

  When they saw Matilda vigorously speaking out at rallies on behalf of the Chinese who were used in their thousands almost as slave labour on the building of the railroad, or read her impassioned articles in newspapers about the need for free medical help for the poor, for Negroes to have the same rights as white men, for the Indians to be treated with respect, and for the Barbary Coast to be policed and cleaned up, they quaked.