Never Look Back (17 page)

‘There’s bound to be women at the church who will put us straight,’ Giles said and patted his wife’s hand affectionately. ‘I asked the man in the shop what Americans ate for breakfast, and he mentioned buckwheat pancakes with maple syrup. That sounds rather good.’

Lily sniffed, her mouth pursed with disapproval, but Matilda noted she had eaten all of her scrambled egg and sausage, and she was reaching out eagerly for a peach. Matilda had never even known there was such a fruit until last summer when one of Giles’s brothers came up from Bath and brought some with him that he had managed to grow in a sheltered part of his garden. She had shared one with Tabitha and thought it was the most heavenly thing she’d ever tasted. But these American ones looked even better, they were as big as oranges and very soft.

Lily cut hers up delicately with a knife and removed the stone, then tasted a small portion cautiously. ‘Umm,’ she murmured, then smiled properly for the first time in weeks. ‘It’s wonderful.’

That peach was the first thing that pleased Lily in America, and just an hour after breakfast the ice man called. Both Giles and Lily had looked at each other in astonishment, and the man had to explain that they had a tin-lined box out in their scullery
which if they bought ice from him each day would keep their food fresh during the hot weather.

It was Giles who agreed to buy a lump and as he packed the butter, cheese and milk into it, his wife and Matilda stared in disbelief. But as the temperature rose that first day into the high eighties, and they found the butter was still firm and the milk fresh and cold, they all saw it as something miraculous.

By midday Lily was showing signs of returning to her old self, running her finger along shelves in the kitchen for dirt, putting out her lace chair-backs, and talking about getting hold of some jars to bottle peaches for the winter. Matilda took Tabitha upstairs for a nap at two in the afternoon, and she was still upstairs with her, lining the linen cupboard shelves with fresh paper out on the landing, when the front-door bell rang.

As Lily and Giles were in the parlour, arranging their pictures on the wall, and they’d already said they expected there might be some visitors, she didn’t rush down, but waited to be called if they required tea. She heard a booming male voice, and a much softer lady’s one, and assuming it must be the Reverend Darius Kirkbright and his wife come to welcome the Milsons, she carried on with her work.

As the door from the kitchen to the staircase was closed, when Lily moved in there with the other woman Matilda couldn’t hear what was being said, only the gentle murmur of their voices. It pleased her to think her mistress had some female company at last. Aside from herself, there had only been Mrs Smethwick on the ship, and she had been so snooty that even if Lily had been feeling up to talking to someone, she doubted they would have had anything in common.

The cupboard shelves finished and the clean linen stacked, Matilda made for the small attic room next to her own. The Milsons had decided earlier that this should be Tabitha’s, so Giles could have the second room on the first floor as his study. It was a bare little room with a polished wood floor, and the only furniture a narrow iron bed, a chest of drawers and wash-stand, but with some pretty curtains, a rag rug and counterpane from home and Tabitha’s dolls and other toys it could soon be made more homely.

Matilda had opened the windows wide earlier that morning and given the feather mattress a good shaking. The room smelled
nice and fresh now and a breeze coming in from the sea had kept it cool. She made up the bed, put Tabitha’s clothes in the drawers, then began unpacking a box of toys.

In all she must have been up there for some half-hour when the child woke in Matilda’s room and came out to find her, dressed only in her petticoat, her hair sticking to her head with perspiration.

‘What do you think of your room, Tabby?’ Matilda asked her.

Tabitha climbed up on to the bed and tried it out. ‘Nice,’ she said. ‘At night I can pretend I’m still on the ship and the wind’s coming in the porthole.’

Matilda laughed. She was a great believer in wide open windows when it was hot, but Lily always insisted on closing them at night because she had the idea night breezes were loaded with pestilence. ‘Mama won’t let them stay open, not at night, and if I see you leaning out I’ll get bars put on them. Now, shall we put your clothes back on and you can go and see Mama and Papa, they’ve got some visitors but I’m sure they’d like to meet you too.’

Tabitha pulled a face. ‘Can’t we go out for a walk?’

‘Later perhaps when it’s cooler,’ Matilda replied. The heat was draining – she understood now why all the other houses in the street had their shutters closed while the sun was at its hottest. She wished too she had something cooler to wear, she’d been glad of the thick navy-blue serge dress on the ship but it was much too hot now and she hadn’t dared say anything to Lily in case it set her off again.

‘Will it always be hot like this?’ Tabitha said, as Matilda washed her face and neck with cool water.

‘No, your papa said it’s very cold here in the winter,’ she replied as she slipped the child’s dress over her head and buttoned her up.

‘Is Mama ever going to be happy again?’

Matilda’s heart sank. Once early on during the voyage Tabitha had asked her the same thing and she thought she’d managed to convince the child her mother was only sick, not unhappy. Clearly Tabitha knew the difference.

‘Of course she is,’ she said stoutly ‘She was only poorly yesterday because she was very tired and because everything was strange. She’s fine now, talking to her visitors, but you can
see for yourself. I’ll just brush your hair then take you down there.’

Matilda hesitated outside the kitchen door. Back in Primrose Hill her position in the household had been clearly defined – apart from any cleaning duties or mealtimes, she stayed in the nursery or the kitchen unless summoned by either of the Milsons ringing the bell. But there was no bell here, Tabitha’s room was far too small to be called a nursery, and with her mistress being forced to use the kitchen, she didn’t know where she was expected to go when they had visitors.

Knocking tentatively, she put her head round the door and asked if she should bring Tabitha in. The two women were sitting at the table sharing a pot of tea. It was unbearably hot from the stove, even though the window and back door were wide open.

‘Of course, Matty,’ Lily said with unexpected warmth. ‘Do come in, both of you, and meet Mrs Kirkbright. This is my daughter Tabitha, and her nursemaid Matilda,’ she added for her visitor’s benefit.

Tabitha ran in, she was always glad to greet anyone new.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Kirkbright.’ Matilda bobbed a little curtsey and hoped that was appropriate. She guessed the wife of the Reverend Kirkbright, stout and matronly in a lilac dress and matching bonnet, was a great deal older than her mistress. Yet she looked very pleasant, she had large, soft brown eyes and her smile was welcoming. She hadn’t come empty-handed either – on the table was a whole pile of foodstuffs, including a currant cake, jars of preserves and a cooked chicken. ‘I thought you might like to see Tabby, but unless there is something you want me to do down here, I’ll go back upstairs and finish unpacking your clothes.’

‘Do stay, Matty,’ Lily said. ‘Mrs Kirkbright has been telling me about American food and the best places to buy it. I can’t take it all in, but maybe you can.’

It was a surprise not to be sent packing, and perhaps that was what made Matilda so impulsive. ‘Aren’t you both terribly hot?’ she asked. ‘Wouldn’t you like to sit outside in the yard? It’s cool and shady there, and I scrubbed off the bench there this morning.’

Mrs Kirkbright laughed. ‘No wonder you brought her with you,’ she said, looking at Lily. ‘I’ve never managed to find any
servant who acted on their own initiative. I
am
roasting in here, but I wouldn’t have dreamt of saying so.’

‘I didn’t think it quite seemly to invite you out there,’ Lily said to Mrs Kirkbright, giving Matilda a piercing look as if to remind her how close it was to the privy. ‘Of course at home my husband would have taken Reverend Kirkbright into his study for their private talk, leaving us with the parlour, or even the dining-room. But if you’d be more comfortable out there, perhaps we should move.’

To her consternation Matilda realized she had acutely embarrassed her mistress. She hoped she wouldn’t get into trouble for it later. Yet the yard was very cool and oddly attractive for a place which had clearly been ignored by previous occupants of the house. Overshadowed by neighbouring taller houses and with a central sad-looking tree, it was entirely in deep shade. Matilda had not only scrubbed the wooden bench that morning, but swept the path too. The remaining area of hard-packed soil was covered in a densely packed low-growing weed which, though not a lawn, at least gave an impression of one. As the privy and shed were covered with creepers, the lush greenness was welcome after the heat of the kitchen.

‘Oh, this is better,’ Mrs Kirkbright said, smiling as she sank down on to the bench and fanned at her face. ‘What us poor women have to endure in the summer with our long dresses, petticoats and stays!’

Lily smiled, but Matilda knew she thought it improper of Mrs Kirkbright to mention underclothes.

Matilda brought out a kitchen chair for herself and placed it some feet away from the two older women, but she was pleasantly surprised to see how Mrs Kirkbright scooped Tabitha up on to her lap without a thought to crumpling her fine gown.

In fact as the woman chatted she seemed refreshingly lacking in snobbery, addressing both the child and Matilda as if they were part of her own family. She said that although she and her husband were English, and they missed some things about home, they had been here for twelve years and had no intention of ever going back. ‘It’s such a vibrant, exciting country,’ she said earnestly. ‘People are rewarded here for their effort and hard work, even a dirt-poor immigrant from Ireland or Germany can make something of himself if he’s a mind to. Many of our
wealthier parishioners bemoan the difficulty in getting good domestic staff, but in my view such a situation shows a clear desire for people to be their own masters, and that is an excellent thing.’

She moved on then to explain the differences between American and English food. ‘Very few people here have a big dinner at noon as they do in England,’ she said. ‘You’ll find it too hot in the summer to want to eat much anyway. Far better to eat a hearty breakfast of eggs, bacon and buckwheat pancakes, and then a good dinner in the cool of the evening. They eat more meat here, everything from corned beef to bullock’s hearts and calf’s head, and the seafood is very good and plentiful. One of the puddings I must give you the recipe for is pan dowdy – it’s apples, sugar and spices baked in a deep crust and absolutely delicious.’

As she spoke of vegetables like squash and baked beans, Matilda asked how she should cook these. ‘I’ll write it all down for you when I get home and drop it round,’ Mrs Kirkbright said. ‘Many things in the general store are similar to those we use back in England but they just call them different names. You’ll soon catch on.’

Turning to Lily, she said, ‘You’ll find other women much more sociable here, my dear. We do use calling cards, just like at home, but the social life is mostly much less formal. Very often us women drop in on one another once we’ve become good friends. I hope, Lily, that you will feel able to do this with me, for we have much in common.’

It was at this point that Matilda began to wonder why Mrs Kirkbright hadn’t mentioned moving to her new parish. She sounded very much as if she was here to stay. But if that was the case, where would it leave Giles? Knowing it wasn’t her place to ask such things, she kept quiet and just listened to the woman’s vivid descriptions of the shops. ‘You can buy almost any household goods in Pearl Street,’ she said. ‘That’s just a walk from here, but don’t be tempted to walk much further north than that, as there are some very unpleasant areas beyond. I expect my husband will be telling yours about that side of New York right now, I just hope it doesn’t frighten him.’

Florence Kirkbright was correct, her husband had launched into
an impassioned speech about the darker side of New York. But rather than being frightened, Giles found it soothed his earlier disappointments and brought back his conviction that God had led him here for something very special.

The Reverend Darius Kirkbright was straight-talking yet very courteous. His height – he was well over six feet tall – fresh complexion, full-moon face and snow-white hair swept back from a massive forehead all seemed to point to a man of strong character.

‘I am very sorry that the Bishop of London led you to believe you would be taking over from me as parson, or minister as we call the role here,’ he said after Giles had admitted he’d been angry the previous day. ‘Perhaps the misunderstanding arose because I asked for a specific kind of minister, and went to great pains to say that I didn’t want an unworldly novice. The kind of man I wanted wouldn’t be concerned with his status.’

Giles thought at first that this was a reprimand because he’d commented on how small the house was, and a reminder that no clergyman should be looking for material comforts like a fine parsonage. But as Darius went on to apologize for not meeting him personally from the ship, ruefully admitting he knew they must have felt abandoned and hurt, and explained that he had been called away because one of his oldest parishioners was dying, it became clear to Giles that this man had all the right priorities. He too would have put a dying man’s needs before those of a young, healthy family.

But perhaps the most heart-warming aspect of this big man was his directness. He didn’t linger on apologies or idle Smalltalk, but went straight on to tell Giles exactly what he thought about New York.

‘There is a shameful situation here in this city,’ he said, fixing Giles with eyes that demanded attention. ‘While there are many powerful rich men with high ideals and a strong moral sense, there are many more who care nothing about the common good, and profit for themselves is gained at the expense of the workers they exploit. These latter ones worm their way into positions of authority, they grease palms, they manipulate.