Read Online Never Look Back by Lesley Pearse - Free Book Online

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