Never Look Back

  Matilda smiled. Clearly Tabitha had no recollection of any of the events of the last few days. ‘Because you’ve been ill, and I stayed in here to watch over you.’

  ‘Where are Mama and Papa?’

  ‘In bed still. But I shall wake them up and tell them you are better very soon. Can I leave you for a minute to go downstairs and find you something to eat?’

  Tabitha nodded and reached out for her rag-doll further down the bed. She cuddled her into her arms and smiled at her. ‘Have you been ill too, Jenny?’

  The clock in the parlour was just striking seven when Matilda heard Giles coming up the stairs to see his daughter. She smiled to herself, imagining his surprise and delight to see Tabitha sitting up in bed eating bread and milk. The door opened a crack, and Giles peeped round. As she had anticipated, he gasped.

  ‘Good morning, Papa,’ Tabitha said. ‘See, I’m better.’

  ‘Oh Tabby,’ he exclaimed, his face breaking into the widest smile. ‘Now that’s what I call a good start to the day.’

  He was still in his flannel night-shirt, his dark curls tousled and a thick growth of stubble on his chin, and as he looked towards Matilda he clearly suddenly became aware of this, and half hid himself behind the door.

  ‘Neither of us care what you look like,’ Matilda laughed. ‘I’m sure I don’t look too grand either.’

  Later on, as Matilda caught up with all the jobs left undone in the last few days, she thought how sad it was that Lily wasn’t able to express her joy with the same exuberance she and Giles could. She had burst into tears when told the good news, and although she’d got up to go and see her daughter for a short while, she had gone straight back to bed afterwards and had remained there, sobbing into her pillows.

  When Dr Kupicha called he’d said she was suffering from shock, and bed was the best place for her. Matilda couldn’t help but wonder how she’d cope with tragedy, if good news affected her so badly.

  But her own joy sustained her even though she was exhausted and there was still so much work to be done. Her master’s gratitude for all she had done more than made up for Lily’s stilted apology and the retraction of her dismissal.

  ‘Matty, wake up.’

  Matilda woke with a start to find Giles shaking her arm. It was a little over a week since Tabitha’s recovery. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, imagining she’d overslept. ‘Is it very late?’

  But she could see it was pitch-dark aside from the lighted candle Giles was holding and he was in his night-clothes. Suddenly realizing he wouldn’t come up to her room except in an emergency, she sat up. ‘Is Tabby ill again?’

  ‘No, it’s Mrs Milson,’ he said, his voice shaking. ‘I fear she’s losing the baby, Matty. I must go and get the doctor immediately.’

  Matilda gasped with horror, flung back the covers, and stopping only to grab her shawl, she followed him down the stairs.

  Giles had lit two candles in their room, yet even in the dim light Matilda saw the anguish in her mistress’s eyes.

  Her husband bent over her. ‘Matty’s here with you now. I’ll run all the way there if I don’t see a cab. Just hold on.’

  Grabbing up his clothes, he disappeared down the stairs. Matilda moved over to her mistress and took her hand. ‘Are you losing blood?’ she asked gently.

  She nodded. ‘I woke up with a pain, so I got up and it was all on my night-gown. I’m going to lose the baby, aren’t I?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Matilda said. ‘Some women lose blood all the time they are carrying.’ This wasn’t true, but she hoped Lily would believe it enough to stay calm until the doctor came. ‘Let me get you into a clean night-gown.’

  As Matilda pulled back the covers she had to stifle a gasp. Lily’s night-gown and the sheet beneath her were soaked in blood. Quickly covering her up so she wouldn’t see, and moving the candle further from the bed, Matilda found the cloths Lily kept for her monthlies, a clean gown and a sheet, and went back to wash and change her, talking all the while to distract her.

  Fortunately Lily was so embarrassed at Matilda washing her in such an intimate place that she kept her face averted and didn’t see the bloody night-gown or sheet, but just as Matilda finished she screamed out in pain. Matilda had never felt so helpless as her mistress writhed in agony, veins popped out all over her face and neck, and she arched her back away from the mattress, the screaming gradually changing to a low bellow. Matilda could do nothing more than hold her hands and urge her to stay calm and try not to cry aloud as Tabitha might wake and come down.

  The spasm passed and Lily sank back, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘Giles wanted another child so badly,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘I’ll be letting him down again.’

  All the irritation Matilda had ever felt for this woman, the hurt that she had blamed her for the measles, the anger she’d felt when she was intending to leave, even her callousness towards the children at the Home, left her with that plaintive statement. It seemed incredible that Lily would see losing a child as letting her husband down again. But for her to say such a thing now, at a time when most women would only be thinking of their own loss, there had to be a root cause, perhaps some incident in the past which deeply troubled her. Maybe it was that too which triggered off the deranged behaviour when Tabby became sick.

  Matilda knew Giles really loved his wife, she saw that daily. But perhaps Lily couldn’t see it herself. Matilda remembered how cold her parents had been with her before leaving England, the fact that they didn’t even come to see the ship sail away. Neglect of children came in many forms, and perhaps lack of interest was the cruellest, for it robbed the child of confidence.

  In a sudden flash of insight Matilda saw that all Lily’s fears could have sprung from just this. She didn’t believe in herself enough to deal with anything unknown, whether that was disease, poverty, or a new country. She even imagined she was unworthy of her husband.

  ‘You haven’t let him down,’ Matilda said firmly. ‘Sir knows as well as I do that things like this are acts of God. He loves you, madam. I never saw a man love his wife so much.’

  Lily lost the baby just minutes before Giles and the doctor came in. She asked for the chamber-pot, one last huge pain engulfed her, and as Matilda held her securely in her arms, the four-month foetus slithered out.

  Matilda covered the pot quickly and slid it under the bed. It was anger rather than distress that she felt. Here was a couple who believed so strongly in God and his goodness but he had chosen to rob them of a child which would be loved and well cared for. Yet nightly he allowed babies to be born to those without even a roof over their heads, when to them a miscarriage would be a blessing.

  A couple of hours later, as Giles and Matilda sat either side of Mrs Milson’s bed, they heard Tabitha’s feet padding across the landing overhead. ‘You go and see to Tabby,’ Giles said. ‘I know I can count on you not to alarm her. I’ll stay and care for my wife.’

  It was only then that Matilda cried. She had held back her tears when Giles wept with his wife, seen Dr Kupicha out after taking instructions on how she must be cared for in the next few days, and as she washed and changed her mistress. Lily had fallen asleep, her small face so like Tabitha’s, peaceful again now the pain was gone. Yet she knew the physical pain of losing a baby would be nothing to the sadness and heartache which would come once the sleeping draught the doctor had given her wore off.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ Giles said, and got up from his seat to comfort her. ‘You have always been the strong one, don’t fail me now.’

  ‘I won’t fail you,’ she said, wiping her eyes on her apron. ‘It’s your dammed God who has failed you this time. I wonder how you can serve Him when he rewards you like this.’

  ‘This is how He tests us,’ he said, lifting her chin up so he could look right into her eyes. ‘But I’ll tell you a secret, sometimes I wish I was a non-believer just like you, Matty. It must be a great deal easier to deal with anger when you believe that you alone control your own destiny, than fo
r someone like me who has to bend to God’s will.’

  She saw the pain in his eyes, and wished there was something she could say to ease it. But there was nothing, only time was going to do that.

  Nearly three weeks later Matilda was dusting the parlour when a long-awaited letter from Flynn arrived. Giles and Tabitha were upstairs with Lily, but Matilda didn’t give a thought to them and ran straight out to the back yard to read it.

  The address at the top was High Oaks, near Charleston.

  ‘My darling one,’ he wrote. ‘I have a job now as an overseer on a cotton plantation, and a little house for us, so please come on the very next boat and don’t delay. The plantation is owned by Mr James Donnelly, another Irishman from Connemara, it’s about thirty miles from Charleston, and the most beautiful place you ever saw. Mrs Donnelly has an aunt in the town, and you can stay with her until we can be married which I hope will be just as soon as possible after your arrival. The house is the gate house for the plantation, it’s small and bare, but I know you will soon make it a real home for us.

  ‘You might think it strange knowing my opinion of slavery that I took a job on a plantation, but since being here in the South, some of my views that came from ignorance have altered. Mr Donnelly has some thirty slaves, but I assure you he treats them well. But you will see all this for yourself very soon. Write to me as soon as you’ve booked your passage. I shall be waiting at the dock for the boat to come in, and counting every hour until I can hold you in my arms. I have so much to tell you and show you. Our life together is going to be wonderful, you’ll see, your loving Flynn.’

  She had to read it twice before she could really take it in. Her first reaction was wild excitement, but it was quickly doused by the knowledge she couldn’t possibly make arrangements to leave immediately. Putting the letter in her apron pocket, she went back indoors, but as she continued with the dusting her mind was in a turmoil.

  Lily was in a very bad way. Physically she had recovered from the miscarriage, but her mental state was causing great concern to her husband, Matilda and the doctor. She no longer cried, just stayed in her bedroom staring at the ceiling, showing no interest in anything, not her daughter, husband, or even food. If Matilda didn’t haul her out of her bed at regular intervals to use the chamber-pot, and to wash her, she suspected the woman would just continue to lie there in her own mess. Dr Kupicha had no real answers, he said there was no medicine which would help, only time and patience.

  Patience was something Matilda was running low on. Sad as it was to miscarry, as many as four out of ten babies died within a year of their birth, and amongst the poor the ratio was even higher. She personally knew women who had lost as many as three or four babies, but they mourned, then accepted the tragedy with stoicism, accepting that it was the way things were. Lily hadn’t gone the full term with her child, she had been irrational even before this happened, and it seemed to Matilda that there was something more to this than plain grief, perhaps even insanity.

  Giles was beside himself with anxiety. Tabitha continually asked why her mama didn’t like her any more, and they both looked to Matilda for comfort.

  So how could she go to Giles and tell him she was leaving? He could get someone in to do the washing, cleaning and cooking, but would they mother Tabitha, support Giles and understand why Lily couldn’t pull herself out of the dark pit she’d slipped into?

  She wanted so much to go to Flynn, to shed this heavy burden of responsibility. She wanted passion and love, adventure and fun, to be Mrs O’Reilly and have a little home of her own. She felt bitter that fate appeared to be conspiring against her to prevent it.

  Late that afternoon, Giles was up in his study preparing a sermon for Sunday morning, and Matilda and Tabitha were in the kitchen playing their word game, when a thunderstorm began. There was no real warning, other than it had grown hotter and stickier all day – one moment the sun was shining, the next the sky suddenly turned black and down came the rain.

  Matilda ran outside to the yard to bring in the washing from the line, and by the time she’d collected the last sheet she was soaked. The lightning came before they’d even closed the door, and it lit up the kitchen brighter than a dozen lamps. Tabitha screamed in terror.

  ‘It can’t hurt us,’ Matilda said, pulling her into her arms. ‘We’re quite safe in here.’ Then the thunder cracked, so loud it sounded like it was on top of the roof, and the rain lashed down in torrents, shaking the windows.

  All at once Matilda remembered that Lily’s window was open, and scooping Tabitha up in her arms she ran up the stairs. ‘Go in with Papa for a moment,’ she said, once up on the landing, and patted the little girl’s bottom in the direction of his study. ‘I’ll just go and check on Mama’s window.’

  The light in the bedroom was a curious grey-green, with the rain lashing the open window and the curtains billowing in the wind. Lily was just lying there in bed staring into space – even when another flash of lightning came she didn’t so much as blink. Matilda shut the window and mopped up the rain on the floor with a cloth, then she turned back to Lily.

  ‘Don’t you hear that?’ she asked.

  ‘Hear what?’ Lily asked in the same curiously flat voice she’d used ever since the miscarriage.

  ‘The rain, the thunder and lightning,’ Matilda said. ‘Why don’t you get out of bed and come and look, the street’s like a river already.’

  Lily didn’t move or reply, and something snapped inside Matilda. This woman had everything she wanted herself, a loving husband, a lovely child and a secure home. Less than a month ago Matilda had been blamed for bringing disease into the house, not a meal brought to her, or even a kind word, and Lily had even threatened to kill her if Tabitha died. Now she was wallowing in self-pity, frightening her husband and child and expecting Matilda to wait on her hand and foot. And because of this, Matilda was unable to go immediately to the man she loved.

  ‘Stay in that bed if that’s what you want to do,’ she snarled at her. ‘Lie there feeling sorry for yourself for as long as you like. But I’ll tell you now, Lily Milson, that if that’s what you choose to do, before long you’ll be carted off to the mad-house.’

  The woman looked at her, her eyes widening in shock to hear Matilda speak so harshly to her. It was the first time she’d reacted to anything anyone had said to her.

  ‘Do you know what the mad-house is like?’ Matilda went on, her anger and frustration welling up and spilling over. ‘They chain you up, no one washes you or combs your hair, you’ll get lice and rats will come in at night and scamper over you. And all you’ll hear is the other mad people wailing. Do you like the sound of that?’

  There was no reply from Lily, her grey eyes staring in bewilderment. Matilda leaned her forehead against the window and began to cry, for even though she’d spoken out in anger without thinking, she suddenly saw that in her pent-up rage she’d actually predicted what would happen. However much Giles Milson loved his wife, and however hard he tried to conceal that she was going mad, before long someone in his church would get to hear of it, and he’d be forced to put her away. Rich people could find comfortable places with kind doctors, but he was just a poor minister.

  She had felt every kind of emotion towards her mistress in the two years she’d worked for her. Admiration, scorn, amusement, envy, irritation, fondness, pity, but she saw now that she’d learnt to love her too, or why would she care what happened to her? She wished she could be detached, she was after all just her servant. But somewhere along the line the woman had got under her skin, and into her heart.

  ‘Don’t cry, Matty!’

  Matilda spun round at the plaintive plea, and saw Lily was crying herself and holding out her arms to her, just the way Tabitha did. She ran to her, sweeping the small woman up into her arms as if she were a child.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Matty,’ Lily sobbed against her shoulder. ‘I know I’m behaving so badly. But I can’t help it.’

  Matilda’s anger vanished as sudden
ly as it had erupted. ‘I know,’ she said, rocking her mistress backwards and forwards in her arms. ‘I wish I could take away the pain inside you and make you see how much you have to live for.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Lily whispered hoarsely.

  ‘Well, you have the finest husband in the world, he’s a good, kind man who wants to put the whole world to rights, and he could if you stood beside him. You have the most adorable child, she’s clever, loving and such a credit to you. Both of them love you so much. You have friends who admire your gentleness, and you have me who loves you too, and I’d do anything to make you better.’

  ‘You love me?’ she whispered. ‘After all the unkind things I’ve said and done?’

  ‘Yes, I love you,’ Matilda whispered back. ‘It’s because of that I said such dreadful things about the mad-house.’

  ‘I love you too,’ Lily croaked. ‘You’ve been my rock, my sister and my friend. You will always have a special place in my heart.’

  Matilda had never, ever expected to hear such words from her mistress, and tears poured down her face because she sensed the sincerity in them. As she continued to hold and comfort the woman, she knew that she had truly crossed the line from servant to friend, and that she would never step back over it again. But by crossing that line she also knew she couldn’t go and join Flynn just yet.

  Chapter Ten

  It was New Year of 1845, four months after Lily miscarried her baby, that Matilda finally received a reply from Flynn to her letter explaining why she couldn’t come to him immediately.

  There had been several letters during the intervening months, happy, loving missives penned whenever he felt the need to pour out his feelings about her, his new position and his life in Charleston. Matilda had sent just as many back, never imagining he would see her delay as anything other than a minor setback. She told him how Lily was progressing, her hopes that by the spring she would be fully recovered, and she assured him she still loved him just as deeply. Yet as she read this angry, bitter letter, she knew all the others would probably be torn up unread, for he seemed to see her decision as an act of betrayal.