Never Look Back (63 page)

Matilda was stopped short. She had thought that Lily’s dress was perfection and that it would take her anywhere. She knew Lily had had it for several years, but that meant nothing to a girl who had once owned only one shabby dress. But worse than having her dress sneered at was the knowledge Alicia had seen through her pose as a ‘lady’. She was probably angry at her husband for inviting her to stay, irritated that Matilda set herself above other women by taking an interest in business, and jealous because she was both pretty and outspoken. Sniping at her dress was an attempt to shake her confidence.

‘Clothes don’t mean a thing to me,’ Matilda said airily. ‘I have always thought women who follow fashion are rather like sheep. I am far more concerned with important things, like my children’s future. This dress is a few years old, but it’s good enough for this town.’

She got a twinge of pleasure at seeing Alicia’s supercilious smile fade, but almost immediately she felt ashamed, after all she was only a guest, and an uninvited one at that.

‘I think I’d better go to bed now,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I can’t thank you enough for your hospitality. You really are so kind.’ She rushed off to her room then, and once there gave way to tears. It wasn’t clever to set Alicia against her, she was missing her children dreadfully, and if she didn’t get any orders for John, it would all be for nothing.

But she did get the orders. Nine days later, only one man out of over thirty she’d seen had turned her down. Henry had given her a huge order for the planking he needed for his wharf, and he said if the first shipment was good quality and came within four months, he’d give John a regular contract. This helped to keep up her spirits when she had to put on her velvet dress night after night, and saw Alicia’s sneers. It helped her to refrain from saying anything subversive to the Slocums’ dinner guests, no
matter how much they riled her. It soothed the ache of missing her children, and she found she could escape from the tedious evenings by letting her mind slip away to imagining Cissie’s and John’s pleasure when she came back with a full order book.

Yet being here alone, away from her friends and children, had taught her a great deal, and perhaps the most valuable lesson of all was that she must accept herself as she really was. She remembered how she’d once told Flynn she was neither fish nor fowl, and she saw it was even truer now than it had been then. She didn’t have the background, or the frivolous softness to pose as a real lady. She also knew she had lost the docility she once had, so she could never step back and become anyone’s servant again.

But she had proved she had a head for business by her full order book. She also knew now she had the nerve, brains and ambition to reach any goal she set herself.

Sadly, she knew that she had gone as far as it was possible to go on John’s account. He couldn’t physically cope with any more work than she’d already got him. While he was going to be delighted with her, once the timber was felled, sawn and shipped down here, the buyers would then deal directly with him for repeat orders and she’d be obsolete.

Matilda knew John would want to continue giving her commission on all accounts she’d opened. But after a taste of business, she wanted more than just living on her commission in a remote cabin. She wanted something that was all her own. A business which she could build, perhaps to pass on to her children and grandchildren.

Each day as she went around San Francisco she studied the town and its people carefully. The horror she’d felt on her first day here had left her once she discovered more about it. Two years ago the population of San Francisco was just some 800. It had little to recommend it, with its chilly mists and sparse vegetation, other than its safe harbour. But since gold was discovered in the surrounding hills, that population had soared to well over 25,000, with hundreds more arriving every day, by sea and across land from the East. She’d heard tell that in one week alone some 600 vessels lay out in the bay, and the captains were unable to sail away as their crews had deserted them.

The gold-seekers didn’t stay in San Francisco, they brought their equipment and provisions then hastily left for the mountains. But they came back to sell their gold, have some fun and spend their money. When the fall came and it was too wet and cold in the mountains, they returned again. The whole town’s prosperity was built on just this, which was why no one was anxious to calm the madness, or clean up the seedier side of it. Gold was the only export from the town. Everything the ever-increasing population needed, from food, drink and clothes to equipment and machinery was imported and sold on at a vast profit.

One day she watched a man standing on top of Telegraph Hill sending semaphore messages with flags. Henry had told her it was this man’s job to spot ships coming into the bay, then alert businessmen about what sort of ship it was and the cargo it was carrying, so that they could be first at the wharf to meet it and offer a price for the entire cargo. The auctioneer she’d seen on her first day was one of many, and even an absolute novice bystander could make a swift and handsome profit by bidding for a crate of cigars, silk handkerchiefs, shovels or pails, then hawking them off around the town.

Captain Russell had been so very astute when he said the smart people wouldn’t go mining. Each day as she walked around the town, Matilda saw the bankers from the casinos, the restaurant owners, the builders and even fishermen with great wads of money. And she wondered what she could supply to this town that someone else hadn’t already thought of.

Nothing came to her. Someone had thought of everything, there was even a man making and selling chocolate, women offering to wash shirts for five dollars each. The only thing she’d noticed was missing were flowers. But even if it were possible to ship flowers here before they wilted, who would buy them? Certainly not the miners.

On Matilda’s ninth day in town, it was after five when she got back to Montgomery Street, and when Alicia opened the door to her with red-rimmed eyes, instead of Maria, she guessed immediately that the maid had left.

Matilda wasn’t too surprised by this, she’d heard Alicia laying into Maria countless times, and often seen slap marks on the girl’s face. A young, pretty girl could go straight to any of
the casinos and get well-paid work immediately; if she wanted a husband she could take her pick from hundreds of eligible men.

‘I’m so glad you’ve come home. Maria has left me,’ Alicia blurted out, breaking into fresh tears. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. You can’t get a maid anywhere in this town.’

Matilda groaned inwardly. Alicia was stupid, vain, and far too self-righteous, and although she had tried very hard to find something she liked about her, she hadn’t yet discovered it. Yet remembering that but for Henry’s kindness in taking her in she might have been forced to sleep in a canvas cubicle, she knew she must comfort and console his wife.

‘How awful for you,’ she said, putting her arm round the woman and taking her into the parlour and sitting her down. She poured her some brandy, and sat down by her to listen.

As Alicia sobbed out how well they had treated the girl, giving her food to take home for her family, old clothes and even an entire day off now and again, and she couldn’t understand why she’d gone, Matilda had to bite her tongue not to say perhaps the girl didn’t feel appreciated.

Instead she offered the idea that maybe someone had made the girl a better offer. At that Alicia suddenly sat up straight and blew her nose.

‘I know all the quality people in this town,’ she said archly. ‘Not one of them would stoop to poaching one’s maid. It just isn’t done.’

‘Well then, perhaps she’s gone to work at something else,’ Matilda replied. She wished now she’d thanked Maria personally for bringing up her bath water. Two flights of stairs was a long distance to carry several pails of water. She of all people knew how heavy they were.

‘What could she do? She doesn’t even speak good English,’ Alicia snapped, full of indignation. ‘There’s something very peculiar about this,’ she went on. ‘When I said she was being foolish running out on me, she muttered something to the effect that she could get paid ten times for doing the same as she did here. Do you know, Mrs Jennings, that I paid her four dollars a week? No one would pay more than that for a maid.’

Four dollars a week was very good wages for a maid. Matilda
had only got two dollars a month. But then everything was overpriced in this town.

‘She even said something nasty about Mr Slocum,’ Alicia went on. ‘She said he was mean and implied he didn’t give her something he’d promised. I tried to find out what it was, but she pretended not to understand. What do you make of that!’

Matilda hesitated, that sounded very much like complaints other flower-girls had aired about the men in their life. ‘I expect he promised to get her an extra day off or something,’ she said quickly. ‘Then he forgot about it.’

Could Henry have been having his way with Maria, she wondered. Men had been known to promise the moon for just that. She knew countless girls who’d never got what they were promised.

It was feasible. Maria had slept down in a little room at the back of the kitchen. Henry always seemed to stay up long after Alicia retired to bed. One night when Matilda couldn’t sleep she’d heard Henry’s footsteps coming up the stairs just as the clock down in the parlour struck two. Had he been in Maria’s room?

Then there was the remark about getting paid ten times more for doing what she did here. She couldn’t get forty dollars a week as a maid anywhere, but she could as a prostitute. If Maria had been submitting to her master’s lust on top of all her real work, she probably did think she might as well join the women who got paid well for it.

Matilda was horrified to think a man in Henry’s position would do such a thing, but even more worried about Maria. Unable to say anything to Alicia, she offered to make some tea.

As she entered the kitchen she groaned. It was in the most appalling mess, with the previous evening’s plates, pots and pans still unwashed on the table, along with the breakfast things.

Exactly how this house was run hadn’t ever concerned her, she always went out straight after breakfast, and stayed out as long as she could. But she did know another woman came in daily to prepare and cook the evening meal, as Alicia had boasted she was lucky to get her, for she was the best cook in San Francisco. Clearly Maria had decided to stop work after last night’s dinner, and only served breakfast this morning
just to avoid a scene with her master before he left for his office.

Matilda’s first thoughts were that she should get out of this house as soon as possible. But if she did that Henry might cancel his order for timber. He could even persuade others to do so too. There was no point in her being righteous about him and Maria, she could be wrong. Besides, Henry had shown her great kindness, and if she was to start a business in this town, she would need his support.

She made the tea and took it back to Alicia, who was now lying down on the couch.

‘Maria didn’t wash up before she left,’ Matilda reported, though she was sure Alicia already knew that. ‘I’ll do it now. You stay where you are and rest.’

Predictable Alicia gave her a watery smile. ‘Oh Mrs Jennings, I can’t let you do that.’

‘I’ve had a little experience of washing up,’ Matilda said light-heartedly ‘You don’t want to lose your cook, do you? She’ll be off too if she comes in to see that lot.’

It took her over an hour to put the kitchen straight. By the time she got back to the parlour, Alicia had composed herself with the aid of another brandy.

‘It’s fortunate we have no guests tonight,’ she said, yawning and lying back on the cushions. ‘Mr Slocum has a business meeting so he won’t be in either. So it will be just us for dinner. I shan’t dress, I’m feeling too weary, so don’t feel you have to either, my dear. Cook will be in any minute so I’ll just pop down to speak to her. Maybe she’ll know someone who can take Maria’s place.’

That evening seemed interminable. Alicia had no conversational skills, she would ask a question, but then as Matilda answered it, she would look away, or say something else, entirely unrelated. By the end of the evening Matilda was even beginning to feel sympathetic towards Henry. While she disapproved of him seducing the maid, she could understand perfectly why he might take a mistress, and indeed why he’d invited her to stay, knowing very little about her. His wife was just so empty-headed and utterly dull, almost anyone would make a welcome diversion.

‘You’ve been very kind having me as your guest,’ Matilda said, just before she made her excuses to go to bed. ‘But I think
I must see if I can get a boat home tomorrow. I have a full order book now, and I’m missing my children terribly’

She saw pleasure creep into the woman’s bulbous eyes, but predictably she pretended to be distraught.

‘Oh no, you can’t go just yet,’ she said, holding out her hands to take Matilda’s. ‘It has been so nice to have another woman to talk to, and you have been so kind to me today.’

‘A little washing up was nothing,’ Matilda replied. ‘Especially after you’d looked after me so well. But I hope we will see one another again soon. I expect I shall be back. Hopefully someone will have built a real hotel by then and I won’t have to impose on kind people like yourselves.’

Next morning Matilda came downstairs to find Henry standing over the kitchen stove with a look of bewilderment on his face.

‘I put some water on for coffee some time ago,’ he said. ‘But it won’t boil.’

Matilda wanted to laugh, but she didn’t dare. ‘It has to be raked out and lit each day,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll do it.’

It took her only a few moments to see to it, Henry stood there looking at her in wonderment as she lit twists of paper and then fed in small pieces of wood.

‘You are a marvel,’ he said once she had a good blaze going. ‘Where on earth did you learn to do that?’

‘As a child in London,’ she said with a smile. ‘We had no maid in our family. It proved a very useful talent on the wagon train, you have to learn to make a fire even when it’s raining.’