Never Look Back (7 page)

Yet something had changed in her since Tabitha was born. While ecstatically happy with her long-awaited child, she seemed so troubled and fearful too. She could change like the weather, one day kind and thoughtful to everyone, the next a shrew. One minute she was complimenting Aggie on her cooking, the next everything was wrong. But the worst was her ridiculous fears about disease – she seemed to think the little one was so fragile that even a common housefly might kill her!

When Aggie thought what her children had to contend with in their early days, hunger, cold, rats climbing over them while
they slept, left alone for hours while she tried to find work to keep them from the poor-house! Yet they’d grown up healthy, all off her hands now, one in the navy, one in Australia, and the two girls married off with homes of their own. In her view Tabitha was overprotected, fussed over from morning till night, and that was far more unhealthy than a bit of dirt.

‘Reverend and Mrs Milson want to see you when you’ve finished,’ Aggie said as she passed the girl a slice of gooseberry pie. She wanted to say she was sorry for being so frosty at first, she of all people had no right to be like that with someone poor. But Aggie wasn’t one for retracting anything. Besides, she was never going to see the girl again and she had her position to think of. ‘So mind your manners, and don’t go calling her “missus”, it’s madam and sir!’

Matilda wasn’t sure of the exact meaning of ‘manners’. Was it just saying please and thank you? Or was there more to it? As she made her way up the narrow hallway to the parlour at the front of the house where Aggie said she was to knock, then wait to be called in, she wondered if she was supposed to curtsey, or was that only to proper gentry?

She thought this house was splendid. There was a lovely lavender smell and everything was shiny, from the banisters to the floor beneath her feet. She didn’t much care for the pictures, though, they were all dark and gloomy, especially a long narrow one of a lot of men sitting along a table, all looking at a man in the middle with sort of sunrays round his head. If she ever got rich enough to live in a house like this, she’d have bright paintings of happy scenes.

‘Come in!’ Giles Milson called out in answer to her tentative knock.

The first thing that struck Matilda about the sitting-room was how hot it was, the fire blazing as though it was mid-winter. The walls too were a deep dark red which made it seem even hotter, and there was so much furniture she could barely see more than a foot or two of floor.

The parson was sitting in a high-backed chair on one side of the fire, his wife on the other in a lower one. Matilda supposed Tabitha had been taken upstairs for a rest.

The couple both stared at her for a moment before speaking, then Lily excused herself. ‘I beg your pardon, Matilda, it’s just
that you look so different with your hair loose. What a pretty colour it is!’

Matilda could only blush and drop her eyes to the floor. All she wanted now was to retrieve her basket and get home. She hoped they weren’t going to lecture her about going to church before they let her go.

Giles was so taken aback by the girl’s new appearance he found himself tongue-tied. The face of the girl he’d brought round with smelling-salts hadn’t really registered in his mind, only that he was indebted to her. Even during the cab ride home all he’d really observed about her was her speedwell-blue eyes, and her dirt-engrained hands. Yet this girl in front of him had more in common with one of his parishioners’ daughters than a waif from the slums. Her skin was pink and white, her pretty yellow hair shone like ripe corn, and she wore his wife’s old dress with more style than Lily ever gave it.

‘How is your back, Matilda?’ he managed to get out.

‘Just dandy, sir,’ she replied, she hadn’t the heart to continue the pretence of being badly hurt. ‘These clothes you give me is lovely and the dinner was nice too.’

Giles was struck by her appreciative candour and the way she looked him right in the eye as she replied. An idea which had seeded in his mind over dinner suddenly seemed much less preposterous.

‘Do sit down,’ he said, beckoning to a chair between his wife and himself. ‘Mrs Milson and myself would like to know a little more about you. Perhaps you could start by telling us where you live, and about your family?’

Matilda groaned inwardly, convinced that this was his way of leading up to the expected lecture on God. But as she was wearing clothes they’d given her and she had a full belly, that seemed a small price to pay for telling them anything they wanted to know.

She launched into a brief family history, including the death of Peggie which she admitted was through her drunkenness, hastily pointing out her father wasn’t a drinking man and how he wished he could afford to find herself and her brothers a better home.

Lily asked how long she had been selling flowers, and seemed shocked to hear she’d started it at ten.

‘Ten ain’t so young,’ Matilda said earnestly. ‘I see’s girls every day as young as five or six. But I went to school, see. Father wanted me to read and write so I’d ’ave a better chance like.’

There was a little gasp at this and Lily’s eyes opened wide in surprise. ‘You can read and write?’ she said.

‘And do sums,’ Matilda said with some pride. ‘But I like reading best, when I can get ’old of a book.’

She wondered what she had said wrong when the couple exchanged glances.

‘I loves flowers too,’ she added defensively. ‘It’s bloomin’ ’ard getting up at four to get to the market in the middle of winter, but I tells meself at least it’s clean work, not like working down at the tips, sifting rubbish all day.’

Madam raised her eyebrows. ‘Sifting rubbish?’ she repeated. ‘Why would anyone do that?’

Matilda wanted to smile. She had forgotten that people like these knew nothing of the darker side of London. ‘They sift through it for stuff to sell,’ she explained. ‘Bones, metal, sometimes they even get lucky and find valuables someone has thrown out by mistake. Then the dust left behind goes to make bricks.’

‘How intriguing,’ Lily replied, but she held a handkerchief to her nose almost as if to ward off the imagined smell in such a place. ‘I had no idea.’

Giles cleared his throat. ‘What sort of work would you really like, Matilda? I mean if you could choose?’ he asked, giving her a penetrating look.

Matilda had often heard stories about young girls being lured away from their homes and families with a promise of a better job, never to be seen again. It was said these girls were sold abroad as white slaves. It crossed her mind she should be very careful in case that’s what these two had in mind. It was a bit strange they’d brought her to their house and wanted to know so much.

‘To be the Queen would be dandy,’ she joked to hide her sudden nervousness.

Giles smiled. He found this girl puzzling, by rights she ought to be either cowed or wily enough to be demanding something of them. Yet apart from a slight wariness in her eyes as she answered their questions, she seemed innocently comfortable.

‘I’d be ’appy to work in a shop or be a maid,’ Matilda added
quickly. ‘But I don’t s’pose anyone would take me on. I don’t look or sound right, do I?’

There was no reply to this. Giles just looked at his wife and raised his eyebrows. She thought that was confirmation they agreed with her.

In point of fact, before Matilda had been summoned, the Milsons had been discussing how they should reward this girl. Lily had felt a shilling, a few groceries and the clothes they’d already given her were sufficient. Giles had pointed out that would be no lasting good, and suggested asking one of their wealthier parishioners to take her on as a scullery maid, or perhaps get her a position in the big laundry in Camden Town. But now, faced with her clean and neat appearance, the intelligence in her face, the lack of evasion to their questions, and discovering she could read and write, it seemed to Giles that she was heaven-sent as a nursemaid for Tabitha.

Giles knew only too well that he was being impulsive, and that he should consult his wife before speaking out. Yet if he did he knew she’d throw up a hundred different objections. Even if he could persuade her to consider it seriously, during the waiting period Matilda would be back selling flowers and probably lost to them for good.

Throwing caution to the wind, Giles decided to act on his own initiative. Lily would doubtless punish him for it with one of her long, cold sulks afterwards, but he told himself that the end justified the means, Lily needed help with Tabitha, and quickly.

‘How would you like to work here, Matilda, as a nursemaid for Tabitha?’ he blurted out. ‘Mrs Milson has been under a great strain with her duties as parson’s wife and mother. I believe you would be ideal for us.’

‘Would I like to work here?’ Matilda forgot herself and bounded out of her chair. ‘I’d like it more than anything in the whole world.’

Giles heard Lily’s sharp intake of breath, felt her anger at his not consulting her first, but faced with the girl’s exuberance, he knew he’d made a rational decision.

‘Have you ever been to church, or read the Scriptures?’ Lily said in a starchy tone. She liked the look of the girl herself, and was so grateful to her for saving Tabitha she felt she must be rewarded, but she was deeply shocked by her husband’s
impetuosity. Yet a wife couldn’t speak out in public against her husband. She would have to wait until they were alone to upbraid him for it.

‘Never ’ad no time or the clothes for church,’ Matilda beamed. ‘Not since me mother died, anyways. But I learned to read from Miss Agnew’s Bible. I liked the story of David and Goliath.’

Lily pursed her lips in disapproval. She didn’t like the Bible thought of in the same light as a ‘penny dreadful’. ‘Of course if you do come here as nursemaid we shall have to instruct you on the Scriptures,’ she said tartly.

The sharpness of the woman’s tone cooled Matilda’s excitement. All at once she saw that the offer had come only from the parson, not his wife, and although she wanted to work here so badly she would sell her soul for it, she knew that without Lily’s approval of her she’d be out on her ear at the first mistake she made.

‘I’ll ’ave to talk about it to my father first,’ she said after a moment’s reflection. ‘I mean, if I ain’t there, who’ll mind the boys?’

Giles guessed the real cause of her prevarication and such sensitivity endeared her to him even more.

‘Of course you must speak to your father,’ he said, casting a warning glance at his wife. ‘Just as my wife and I must be in complete agreement. Suppose you come to see us again on Sunday afternoon at three? Perhaps your father could accompany you too. Then if everything is agreeable on all sides, you could start then.’

Matilda knew she had only a second or two to charm Lily into agreement. She turned towards the woman and gave her most winning smile. ‘I know I don’t look or sound like a nursemaid. But you’d never ’ave to be afeared wif me lookin’ after your baby. I’s got eyes in the back of me ’ead where little ’uns is concerned. And I could learn your ways, madam, real quick.’

‘Yes, I’ve no doubt you could, Matilda.’ Lily gave a tight little smile in return ‘We’ll see you on Sunday.’

Chapter Two

Lucas listened to Matilda’s description of the dramatic events of her day with a fixed half-smile. The story’s amusement value came only from her keen observations in both the draper’s shop and the parsonage. He was only too aware his daughter might have been maimed for life by the horses, but smiling was one way of hiding his real feelings.

‘But ’ow can I go and work for ’em, Father?’ she sighed as she got to the end of the tale. She leaned her elbows on the table, wearily supporting her head with her hands and looked at him beseechingly. ‘What about the boys?’

Lucas took a deep breath before replying. It was bitterly ironic that Matilda should suddenly get some good fortune on a day when he had been dwelling on how he’d failed all his children. It wasn’t so much that he was unable to provide any more than basic necessities, there were families far worse off than they were. It was more shame at what he’d become in the past few years.

Once he’d been as kindly and generous-spirited as she was, he had cared about people, friends, passengers and neighbours. But somewhere along the line he’d grown bitter and heartless – was it any wonder his two younger sons were fast turning into a couple of little villains? He couldn’t remember when he’d last taken them out on the river, or even checked how they were doing at school. He wasn’t much of a father.

Because of this he’d come home early today. His intention was to take all three of them out, buy Matilda a new bonnet, shirts and breeches for the boys and later in the evening take them in his boat along to Vauxhall Gardens for a treat.

But Matilda was all rigged out like a lady’s maid, with an offer of a job. The boys were out and hadn’t been seen all day.

‘Don’t you fret about the boys,’ he said carefully. He guessed they were up to some mischief and would delay coming back
until he’d gone out again this evening. ‘They’s my worry, not yourn. If this parson and his wife are decent sorts, you must go to them.’

‘But I’ll miss you, Father,’ she said, and her eyes filled with tears.

Lucas’s heart melted. Matilda was the only good thing in his life, a living memory of her mother and the happiness he’d shared with her. Without Matilda to come home to every day he felt he had no purpose in life, no reason to keep striving. Yet he knew it was selfish to hold her here, he must think only of her future and happiness.

‘I’ll miss you an’ all,’ he said, but managed to smile as he said it. ‘But I’d sooner miss you than have you tramping the streets every day with flowers.’

Matilda threw herself into his arms and sobbed.

Lucas wished he was able to put his feelings into words. He loved all his children. As babies he’d fed and bathed them, walked the floor with them at nights when they were sick. Even though John and James were gone now and in all likelihood he’d never see them again, they were still in his heart. Yet what he felt for Matilda was different. He didn’t understand why he felt so afraid for her, but not the boys. Just the thought of her being handled roughly by some oaf made him feel sick to the stomach. London was so full of danger – the gin palaces, the penny gaffs, procuresses looking for sweet-faced girls to debauch, young gentlemen prowling the streets searching for innocents to seduce. But how could he warn her of these dangers without tainting her mind?