Never Look Back Read online

  ‘I agree,’ Giles said, nodding his head. He was totally opposed to the Government’s scheme to resettle Indians in other areas the white people had no interest in, and he felt that in time the Indians would retaliate viciously against it. One such move back in 1835 had been christened ‘The Trail of Tears’. Fifteen thousand peaceful Cherokees were penned up in stockades in Georgia all summer. Cholera, measles and whooping cough decimated their numbers, then in a 1,000-mile trail to the great plains, which the Government had insisted they settle on, some 4,000 more died. Now it looked as if the white man would claim that land too. Giles wondered how anyone had the audacity to think they could just keep shifting people for their own ends.

  ‘Many of the missionaries create trouble too,’ he went on. ‘They go out there and try to change these people, make them grow crops, embrace Christianity and become like us. Why should they? It’s their country after all and the way they lived was fine and beautiful until the white man poked his nose in.’

  John laughed. ‘You aren’t going to try and convert some of them then?’

  ‘Not me.’ Giles smiled. ‘Aside from the fact I think they are fine people just as they are, and entitled to their own beliefs and way of life, I have more than enough to do with just the people in Independence and the surrounding area. I have never heard of Indians abandoning their children or of forcing people to work in inhuman conditions, the way white folk do. It seems to me we could learn a great deal from them.’

  At this Cissie turned to Lily. ‘He’s a good ‘un, ain’t he?’ she said. ‘I never learned about God and all that till I got to the Home, but I reckon if there is one, He’s a lot like him.’

  ‘That’s a very lovely thing to say, Cissie,’ Lily replied, glowing at the obvious sincerity in the girl’s words. ‘But you are a good woman too, look at you now, so pretty, so brave and strong, starting out on a big adventure with your new husband, son and young Sidney. You make myself, my husband and Matilda all feel so proud of you.’

  In the days that followed, knowing the wagon train would be leaving shortly, Matilda spent as much time as she could with Cissie and Sidney. It gave her so much pleasure to see how much self-assurance they both had, and she came to see that the hardships they’d endured as children gave them an edge over others. They were resourceful, intuitive and imaginative, both sharp-witted and very tough. Matilda heard Cissie one day demanding that they should be up front in the wagon train, and her insistence, perhaps helped by her looks, wore down the wagon master until he agreed.

  ‘But why do you want to be up front so badly?’ Matilda asked. She imagined that was the most dangerous place to be.

  Cissie looked at her as if she was simple. ‘Well, the trail will be smoother, our oxen will get to the good grazing and water first, and we won’t get the dust in our eyes when it’s dry.’

  Matilda hadn’t considered that and complimented her on her common sense. ‘I should think I have got some,’ Cissie said indignantly. ‘I had to learn that as a little ‘un, didn’t I? I ain’t got no book learning, but I listens to folk, and I takes it in. I heard a couple of old-timers in the town talking about the positions in the train, and I cottoned on real fast. John wouldn’t insist, he’s too polite for his own good sometimes. But I ain’t. I looks after me own afore others.’

  She told Matilda both she and Sidney had got John to teach them to shoot too. ‘I ain’t going to be like some of them.’ She thumbed towards a group of women sitting on the grass sewing. ‘They’d be done for if they lost their man, I’m gonna make sure I can do everything, drive the oxen, shoot buffalo and skin ‘em too. I never was one for polite lady-like stuff.’

  On the morning of the train leaving, Matilda stole quietly out of the house with Tabitha to say one last farewell. John was already up on the front of the wagon, hands on the reins, waiting for the signal to pull out, Sidney and Peter beside him. Cissie was arranging their bed in the back, but as she saw Matilda running through the wagons, she jumped down and ran to her.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come,’ she said, hugging her fiercely. ‘You’ll only make me cry.’

  ‘I couldn’t let you go without one last hug,’ Matilda said. ‘Besides, someone’s got to do the waving and cheering.’

  ‘I’ll get John to write to you as soon as we are settled,’ Cissie said, her eyes damp with tears she was trying to hold back. ‘If ever you get fed up here, you come to us. You promise?’

  Matilda didn’t think that was likely. But she promised anyway.

  ‘Look after Mrs Milson,’ Cissie said, then, making sure Tabitha wasn’t in earshot, she pulled her friend closer and whispered, ‘I reckon she’s going to have a tough time when the baby comes. She’s too big for such a little woman. So you make sure you get the doctor real quick, and not one of those old biddy midwives that think they know everything.’

  Matilda gulped. She knew Cissie wouldn’t say something so alarming unless she believed it. ‘Of course I will,’ she said.

  Cissie just held her tightly, but a shrill whistle made her jump away. ‘That’s the signal to go,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I just gotta say one thing afore we go. I still owes you, Matilda Jennings. I ain’t forgotten. You ever find yourself in trouble, or just needing a friend, you come to me. I’ll do anything for you. You gave me a life.’

  She bent to kiss Tabitha, then turned and ran back to the wagon, jumping up beside her husband as nimbly as a cat.

  Matilda and Tabitha ran along beside the wagon as it pulled out of the field, the others following it one by one.

  ‘Go home,’ Cissie yelled. ‘You make me cry and I’ll do for you!’

  John blew a kiss and smiled. Little Peter waved excitedly, then Sidney jumped down and ran to Matilda.

  ‘This is for you,’ he said, holding out a tiny package wrapped in a piece of brown paper. ‘Don’t open it till we’ve gone. Sorry about the spelling, but I ain’t much good at letters.’

  ‘I’ll treasure it whatever it is,’ Matilda said, hugging him tightly for a moment. ‘Be good, Sidney, look after Cissie and Peter, and try to write to me now and then. Maybe we’ll meet again one day.’

  He kissed her cheek and ran off back to the wagon without another word.

  Watching the train go was even more moving this time than the previous year, for then her feelings of admiration and fear had been general, directed at people with whom she’d had only a passing acquaintance. But this one was carrying dear friends, and her insides churned with fear for them.

  ‘Shall we run alongside them for a bit?’ Tabitha asked.

  Matilda looked down at the little girl and wished she had her innocence about what this journey would entail. ‘No, we’ll go home and see Mama, Cissie won’t like us following them.’

  ‘What did Sidney give you?’ Tabitha asked, looking curiously at the small package in Matilda’s hand.

  ‘I don’t know. But I’ll wait and open it when we’re home,’ she said.

  Matilda cried when she opened the package. It was six cents, each coin polished and wrapped in a lace-trimmed handkerchief. The note enclosed was brief, but somehow said everything.

  ‘Here is the six cents back you giv me that day. I never knewed you was goin to get me out of that place, otherwise I wood not have took it. Yours always Sidney.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Lily’s labour pains began on 26 April about an hour after Giles had left for the day to visit some outlying farms. She was out the back collecting up the eggs when she felt the first one and sat down on an upturned barrel in surprise.

  Matilda was feeding the chickens with Tabitha, but when she saw Lily’s expression and the way she was holding her belly, she guessed immediately what it was and rushed over to her.

  ‘Don’t fuss,’ Lily said. ‘It will be hours and hours yet. Don’t say anything in front of Tabby either, or she’ll start up all her questions and she won’t want to go to school.’

  By ten, three hours later, with Tabitha safely in school, the pains were
every two minutes and strong, but Lily seemed very composed, wandering around the house, just stopping to hold on to a chair or the edge of the table when another one began. Matilda wanted to get the doctor, but Lily didn’t agree.

  ‘He’ll be out now visiting his sick patients, I’m not ill, and what could he do if he did come? He’d just look at me and say call him again when it gets closer!’

  Tabitha came home later, and Lily did her best to disguise that she was now in real pain. Soon afterwards, however, she was forced to go and lie down in the bedroom.

  Matilda helped her undress and put on an old night-gown. She also took the precaution of slipping an india-rubber mat under the bottom sheet.

  ‘I wish Giles would come home,’ Lily said wistfully as Matilda tried to make her more comfortable by rubbing her back. ‘At least he could distract Tabby from coming in here and asking questions.’

  Matilda went back into the kitchen and spoke to Tabitha. She explained that her mama would be better left in peace, and that perhaps she should go and play with her friend on Main Street. Then, hearing Lily call out in pain, she decided immediately that action was required and took Tabitha with her to call on Dr Treagar.

  ‘I don’t know when he’ll be back,’ Mrs Treagar said, looking most disturbed. She was a genteel sort of woman, more like Lily in character than any other woman in town. ‘He had a long list of patients to see. I’ll get him to call on Mrs Milson the instant he gets in. But in the meantime get Mrs Van Buren, she’s an excellent midwife.’

  Matilda’s heart sank at that suggestion. Lily didn’t like the Dutch woman, she considered her coarse, loud and too self-opinionated. ‘Is there anyone else?’ she asked timidly.

  ‘Mrs Van Buren is far more competent than any of the other so-called midwives,’ Mrs Treagar said with some indignation. ‘And I know she’s home because I saw her passing just an hour ago.’

  Matilda took Tabitha over to her friend Ruth’s house and explained the situation, and Ruth’s mother gladly agreed to have her stay the night. ‘Mrs Van Buren delivered all my children,’ she said when Matilda asked for her opinion on calling her. ‘She can be a bit fierce, but she knows what she’s doing. Mrs Milson will be safe in her hands.’

  By eight that evening Matilda was beside herself with anxiety. Giles still hadn’t returned, the doctor hadn’t turned up either, and Mrs Van Buren had banished her from the bedroom because she said birthing wasn’t a sight for unmarried women.

  All she could do was sit in the kitchen, her stomach contracting each time Lily called out in pain. She knew it must be bad, for Lily would never make a scene in front of a stranger unless she was in too much agony to forget who she was.

  Mrs Van Buren wasn’t very sympathetic either, time and again Matilda heard her snap at Lily with the reminder that she must control herself.

  ‘Matty!’ The sudden agonized yell from the bedroom made Matilda jump to her feet and run in.

  ‘I told you to stay out there,’ the midwife said, trying to prevent her coming in.

  ‘My friend called me in,’ Matilda said firmly, pushing past the woman. ‘If she wants me here, here I’ll stay.’

  She didn’t like the midwife any more than Lily did. Apart from her abrasive personality she had a square, forbidding face, and almost no lips. Her eyes were dark and very cold, reminding Matilda of dead fish.

  ‘Well, get right up the top end of the bed then,’ the woman almost spat at her. ‘And don’t get in my way.’

  During the next hour Matilda prayed silently that Giles and the doctor would come. Giles was often later than this when he went on visits, as evenings were the best time to see some of his parishioners. When he’d left this morning everything was so normal there would have been nothing to make him think of cutting his visits short.

  Every vein on Lily’s face and neck stood out, sweat poured from her, and the pain was now almost continual. Matilda couldn’t imagine how anyone could take so much agony and still be breathing.

  ‘You are ready to push now,’ Mrs Van Buren said after examining Lily. She came up to the head of the bed and tied a short length of rope around one of the brass rails, putting the end into Lily’s hands. ‘Pull on that,’ she said. ‘It helps. It won’t be long now, less than an hour I’d say. Now, I’ll just put some clean brown paper and towels under you to catch the mess.’

  Matilda’s knowledge of the events of childbirth were by no means complete, but she did know that once the pushing started it was close to the end. Overheard conversations in Finders Court had revealed some women only pushed three or four times before the baby popped out, so she felt more hopeful.

  Lily did cooperate with all the instructions given to her, she stopped yelling out and pushed with all her might and main, but after half an hour of it, Mrs Van Buren began to look worried.

  ‘Run over to the doctor’s and see if he’s home yet,’ she ordered Matilda. ‘Say I sent you because I need him.’

  Matilda thought by this that the woman didn’t know what to do, and considering her earlier confidence, this was frightening. She sped off, only to be told by Mrs Treagar that the doctor still wasn’t back.

  As Matilda was returning home, Giles was driving his gig back up the street. She ran to him and blurted out what was happening, asking if he’d seen the doctor during the day or if there was another one they could call.

  Giles blanched. ‘There isn’t another doctor in a hundred miles, and no, I haven’t seen him. But perhaps Mrs Treagar could give me a list of his patients and I can go and find him.’

  But Mrs Treagar had no such list, she said her husband hadn’t even mentioned anyone by name that he was calling on. ‘He should be back soon as it’s getting dark,’ she said, picking up their extreme anxiety. ‘I’ll send him over at once.’

  They rushed back to the house and into the bedroom. Mrs Van Buren was kneeling up on the bed, with Lily’s two feet pressed against her shoulders. She protested at Giles coming in for it was unheard of for husbands to be present at a birth, but Giles ignored her and took up a position on one side of the bed with Matilda at the other.

  The midwife urged Lily to push harder. ‘Keep on pushing with each pain,’ she bellowed at her.

  Matilda and Giles urged her too, but after several more agonized efforts Lily let go of the rope in her hands and clutched at her husband’s arm. ‘It’s not that I’m not trying as she seems to think,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘I just can’t make the baby come. Ask her if he’s moved down at all.’

  Giles looked to the midwife. ‘Has it?’

  Mrs Van Buren shook her head.

  Almost all men considered childbirth and the rearing of children as an entirely feminine domain, but not Giles. As a clergyman ministering to both sexes he made it his business to find out about such subjects. He knew that the pushing stage of labour had to be completed within two hours, or the baby would die. Lily might be weak in some areas, but she wanted this baby desperately, and he knew if she said she couldn’t push it out, then she couldn’t.

  ‘What can we do?’ he asked, trying hard not to panic.

  ‘The doctor would cut her stomach, but I can’t do that, I don’t know how.’ Mrs Van Buren’s voice rose, showing she too was frightened. ‘But I could try using the instruments.’

  Giles blanched. He knew she meant forceps, and he knew too that these often caused brain damage to the infant. But he moved closer to the woman, bending to whisper, ‘Is the baby still alive?’

  She put a metal trumpet to Lily’s belly and listened. ‘Yes. I can hear his heart,’ she said, but just the way she said it suggested it was fading.

  ‘Then get him out however you can,’ Giles said in a low, urgent tone. ‘What do you need? I’ll get it.’

  If it hadn’t been for the need to hold and comfort Lily, Matilda might have run from the room. She saw the ugly tong-like tool the midwife got from her bag, and the sharp knife needed to cut Lily’s flesh, and her stomach heaved. It was Giles who insisted on washing them
in hot water, and he who tried to help as the midwife began to use them, Matilda held on to Lily’s two hands and urged her to hang on.

  Dr Treagar arrived just as Mrs Van Buren had clamped the forceps around the baby’s head. From the message he’d got from his wife he must have anticipated what might be needed, because he let himself in, shouted out that he was here and that he was just washing his hands.

  The doctor was a small man of nearly sixty, noted for his jovial nature and being a great raconteur, but as he came into the bedroom with his sleeves rolled up above his elbows and an apron over his clothes, he wasted no time on pleasantries and ordered both Giles and Matilda out, telling them to boil more water and get more clean linen. The last thing Matilda saw as she left the room was his grim expression as he took the tongs from the midwife’s hands.

  Lily cried out only once more, then it went strangely quiet. Giles was praying aloud as he filled kettles and pans, his hands were shaking and his face as white as the clean linen Matilda got from the closet.

  The bedroom door opened later and Mrs Van Buren came out. Her apron was soaked in blood and she almost stumbled as she made her way to the stove to get water. Giles lifted the pan for her. ‘What news?’ he asked.

  She avoided his eyes. ‘We got the baby out,’ she whispered. ‘Doctor is just attending to your wife.’

  Giles rushed into the bedroom and Matilda tried to follow, but her path was blocked by the midwife. Yet in the second before the door was shut in her face she saw enough to know just how bad things were. The baby had been placed unwrapped on the wash-stand, blue and lifeless. The whole bed was awash with blood, Lily unconscious.

  No night had ever seemed so long and desolate. Mrs Van Buren slunk out an hour or so later, silently handing Matilda an armful of bloody linen to put to soak, clearly too distraught even to attempt any kind of explanation. Giles stayed in the bedroom with the doctor.