Never Look Back (71 page)

‘We could have special nights for different countries,’ Matilda said excitedly. ‘Mexican, French and German. The waiters and
waitresses could dress up for it.’ She paused and pulled a face. ‘But it’s going to cost a fortune.’

‘Yes,’ Zandra said thoughtfully. ‘But from my experience the bigger and more splendid the project, the easier it is to borrow the money or get backers. This is an exciting project, Matty, like you said, it’s what the town needs.’

‘When you say “backers”, does that mean it wouldn’t be my business?’ Matilda asked, suddenly nervous that she’d said so much. ‘I mean, this is my idea. I don’t want anyone stealing it.’

Zandra looked at her for a moment, a wry smile pulling at her mouth. ‘You are just like me at the same age. Impetuous, suspicious, and wanting to keep control.’

‘I didn’t mean to sound suspicious of you, Zandra,’ Matilda said quickly. ‘But you see, I don’t know how to go about any of this. I’d be afraid of speaking to the wrong person and getting led up a blind alley and robbed.’

‘It just so happens that my lawyer, Charles Dubrette, will be arriving in the next day or two,’ Zandra said thoughtfully. ‘I think you should have a word with him about it. As for backers, they just put money into a business and they take back their money with a share of the profits as they come in. They are often invited to be backers because they have some useful skill or knowledge, but they don’t usually take an active part in the running of it. For instance, you could invite me to become one. Or Henry Slocum, he’s an architect, remember.’

‘I shouldn’t think he’d want to be one,’ Matilda giggled.

‘I think you are wrong there, I believe he’d be really enthusiastic and useful. Just as I would.’

‘Would you really?’ Matilda asked.

‘Do you mean would I be enthusiastic or useful?’

‘You’ve been useful already,’ Matilda replied. ‘I meant enthusiastic.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said with twinkling eyes. ‘It’s the sort of scheme I wished I’d dreamed up myself. Now, have you given any thought to what you’d call it?’

Matilda blushed and giggled. ‘Yes, but I don’t know if it’s right.’

‘Try me.’

‘Well, I thought of Matilda’s Fun Palace at first, but it doesn’t trip off the tongue does it?’

Zandra tried saying it. ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘ “Matilda’s” is too long a name.’

‘So how about London Lil’s?’

Zandra clapped her hands again. ‘Perfect,’ she said. ‘Cosmopolitan, snappy, just vulgar enough for this town. It kind of sums up your idea. But why Lil?’

‘I was just looking for a name that began with “L” and of course Lily came up because that was Tabitha’s mother’s name.’

‘A good omen to name it after someone you were fond of,’ Zandra said. ‘Right, so we’ve made a start, you have a concept and a name. Next comes costings, before you can even approach backers.’

‘I wouldn’t know how to start that,’ Matilda said.

‘Nor I,’ Zandra said ruefully ‘But Charles will! I can make inquiries for you about vacant lots. If, as you suggested, you choose somewhere up on the hills it will be far cheaper than down here. I reckon you could buy one for around six hundred dollars right now. But the way things are going here in town I reckon by next year that would be doubled.’

‘All I’ve got is nine hundred dollars,’ Matilda sighed, thinking of her commission on the timber. ‘And I won’t get that until I get back home. The other three hundred won’t go very far, will it? Especially if I’ve got to find a home for me and the children too.’

‘Ah, the children,’ Zandra said thoughtfully. ‘Now that, my dear, is going to be your biggest dilemma.’

‘What do you mean?’ Matilda frowned.

‘This town is no place for children right now,’ Zandra said, shaking her head. ‘It’s a filthy place, disease is rife, and it’s full of violence. My advice to you is to leave them where they are, for they will be safe with Cissie.’

‘But I can’t just leave them!’ Matilda’s voice rose to a squeak of indignation. ‘Amelia is just a baby. She had her first birthday just before I left. I’d hardly ever be able to see her if she is six hundred miles away. And Tabitha would think I was deserting her.’

Zandra sighed. ‘My dear, you have to think that one through yourself. You have a brilliant idea which I believe could make you a fortune, more than enough to pay for that education you want for your daughters. In a couple of years you might very well have enough to build a house somewhere nearer here,
hire a good nursemaid, in fact a whole household of servants.’

‘A couple of years!’ Matilda exclaimed. ‘I missed Amelia starting to crawl while I was away, and two more teeth. I’d miss her entire babyhood if I was away from her that long.’

‘I know, but opportunity rarely knocks more than once,’ Zandra said sagely. ‘This place is a boom town now, everything is wide open for those with guts and imagination. But it won’t stay that way, pretty soon the cheap land will all be snapped up, just as the gold will be. If you are going to take a gamble with London Lil’s you have to do it now while the odds are all in your favour. What you must consider is if the sacrifice of leaving your children now is better for them in the long term, by being able to provide for their future.’

Matilda’s eyes filled up with tears. She tried to bite them back, but she couldn’t. She’d woken up this morning full of joy and excitement, imagining not only her glorious fun palace but having an apartment upstairs for her and the children, Cissie and Sidney too if they wanted to come.

In her excitement she’d chosen to blank out what the town was like. Zandra was right, it was no place for children. However lovely the apartment was, every night the noise from below would prevent them sleeping. There was no school for Tabitha to go to, no fields or woods to play in. Every day they would see the base side of human nature, drinking, gambling, opium dens, fighting and indeed murder.

She could protect them from all that evil back in Oregon. But as Zandra had pointed out, she would never be able to give them a good education, and she would have to spend the rest of her life tilling land. Before long Tabitha and Amelia’s hands would grow as rough and horny as hers, they’d almost certainly marry farmers and even her grandchildren would have the same hard life.

Zandra saw the tears trickle down Matilda’s cheeks and her heart went out to her, for she knew exactly what was going through the girl’s mind.

‘I know just how you feel, Matty,’ she said. ‘It’s a terrible choice to have to make. All I can suggest is that you try to think on which is the greater good.’

*

Matilda left about an hour later feeling wretched. Zandra had been so very kind, for a woman who had no children of her own she seemed to have a remarkable grasp of what it was like for a mother to be separated from her children. Men were lucky, she thought, they could go out into the world, do what they wanted to, and still retain their children’s love.

That was what frightened her the most. Deep down she knew she could leave them, just so long as Cissie was prepared to care for them. She’d proved that by coming here twice. It was just that terrible fear they would ultimately reject her. Could they possibly understand that she was going away for their benefit?

She thought Tabitha would. If Cissie did move into the town Tabitha would be able to go to school there, she’d make friends of her own age, and she would almost certainly be far happier there than she would here. But it was different for Amelia. She was just one, too young truly to know which of the two women who’d brought her up so far was her mother. In two years’ time, without Matilda’s presence, Cissie would be the one most important to her. Could she bear that?

Thinking deeply, she wandered up the hill to where Zandra had said a piece of land was coming up for sale. It belonged to a Mexican who had big gambling debts to pay, and Zandra had said no one had shown any interest in it yet because it was some way out of town.

Matilda found it easily, lying beyond the last huddle of tents. A simple fence made from a single strand of wire tacked to a few posts marked it, a few goats were tethered on the sparse grass.

Slipping under the wire, she walked to the centre of the lot, then turned to look back at the bay below. Yesterday’s rain had cleared overnight and the chilly mist she’d woken to this morning had lifted. It was an awe-inspiring view – turquoise-blue sea, green hills on the far side of the bay, hundreds of ships lying at anchor, sails flapping in the breeze to dry. Seagulls and pelicans were flying overhead, swooping now and then to catch a fish. Yet from where she stood she could barely hear any noise from the town, the air was fresh and sweet-smelling, but in just a few minutes’ walk down the hill you could be back amongst the filth, stink and racket.

It felt so right, as though it belonged to her already. She thought
people were being very short-sighted not grabbing the high ground now as it was obvious to her that before long there would be no room for building down below. If she were rich, this was where she’d build a house, and she could bet it wouldn’t be long before others came round to her way of thinking.

‘Take the chance and buy it,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Even if you can’t bear to leave the children you can sell it in a year at a good profit.’

Chapter Eighteen

‘You want paying?’ Cissie exclaimed, her eyes cold as a January morning. She gathered up the pile of banker’s drafts on the table protectively, almost as if she expected Matilda to steal them. ‘I thought you collected this for me?’

Matilda was taken aback by this sudden hostility. Just a few minutes before Cissie had been whooping with joy that she’d brought back still more orders for timber from San Francisco.

‘Of course I collected it to help you,’ she said, thinking Cissie was confused. ‘I don’t mean I want anything from the new orders, that was just to help you sell the mill. But I do want the commission that John promised me on the first lot.’

It was November, the passage home had been very rough, and she and Sidney had got soaked to the skin by heavy rain on the cart ride home from Portland. But as she came through the door of the cabin, Cissie had given her an emotional welcome, peeled off her wet clothes for her, and wrapped her in a warm blanket. They couldn’t talk seriously about the trip over supper because the children were so excited, and it was only once they’d finally gone to bed that Matilda had been able to get out all the banker’s drafts, show Cissie the orders, and catch up on all the news.

There were two men both keen to buy the sawmill, but Mr Weinburg had advised Cissie to wait until Matilda returned before fixing a price. Just a few days ago a family from Connecticut had arrived in Oregon and they were anxious to buy the land and cabin.

It was all smiles and excitement until Matilda told Cissie about the lot of land she wanted to buy and suggested that when they went to the bank in the morning, Cissie could get Mr Weinburg to give her a draft for 600 dollars to send down to Charles Dubrette to buy it on her behalf.

‘I don’t know how you can ask for it now John is dead,’ Cissie
went on, her face white and spiteful. ‘It’s taking food out of my children’s mouths.’

‘Cissie!’ Matilda exclaimed. ‘How can you say such a thing? It’s you who is trying to do that to
my
children! I earned that money, without my efforts you’d have nothing worth selling at the sawmill. I can’t believe you can be so mean-spirited, John would turn in his grave.’

‘That’s right, bring him up to hurt me again,’ Cissie retorted angrily. ‘We took you in, fed you and looked after you, and we never asked for a cent. Now you want paying!’

Matilda was both exasperated and deeply hurt by this. ‘I worked like a demon around this place,’ she said. ‘You claimed I more than earned my keep. Besides, even before we went to the bank to get help, I explained the final figure you would get once the expenses, shipping costs and my commission were deducted. You stand to make so much from selling the mill and this place that you can live in comfort for the rest of your life without doing a hand’s turn. So how can you begrudge me what I was promised? What am I supposed to live on?’

‘I’ll keep you,’ Cissie said.

At this Matilda felt like screaming. She wondered if Cissie had gone crazy again. Yet Sidney had reported she had been especially cheerful and energetic while Matilda was away. He said on several occasions she’d got all dressed up in her new dress and, taking the children with her, had driven the horse and cart into town. This was something she had never done before, not even when John was alive.

‘Cissie! Only a minute ago you reminded me how long I’ve been here without paying a cent. Now you say you want to keep me! Am I supposed to be your slave?’

Cissie’s head suddenly slumped down, and she burst into tears.

Matilda ignored her, too angry even to consider soothing her. When Sidney came out from behind the curtained-off room he shared with Peter, rubbing his eyes wearily, she looked to him for an explanation, guessing their raised voices had woken him.

‘She’s scared, Matty,’ he said, putting a protective hand on Cissie’s bent shoulder. ‘She don’t understand just how much money there is, she ain’t never handled more than ten dollars in
her life. John used to sort everything out for her, and then you took over after he died. I don’t understand it either, I just trusts you, but Cissie’s too scared you might go away and leave her all on her own to think straight.’

Matilda was chastened by this explanation. She had assumed Cissie understood money even if she couldn’t read or write very well. She got up and went round the table and put a hand on Cissie’s heaving shoulders. ‘Is Sidney right?’ she asked.

A faint nod confirmed it and Matilda’s anger left her. ‘But why didn’t you tell me this before? If you had, I would have explained everything to you really carefully.’

Cissie turned in her seat and without lifting her head reached out blindly for her friend. ‘Because I’m dumb,’ she sobbed. ‘John knew how I was and he took care of everything, then after he died I couldn’t tell you so I just left you to do it. But once you’d gone away and first there was men wanting to buy the mill, and then that family came to ask about buying the cabin, it all got too much for me. When you said about buying that land, I kind of panicked and said the first thing that came into my head that might stop you from going.’