As Tench strode away, he could hear the women whispering among themselves and he choked back tears of sadness and frustration.
He knew Mary so well. She would not burden anyone with her grief, least of all him. He had seen the desolation on the faces of James, Sam, Nat and Bill, and he knew it wasn’t only for the little girl they’d all come to love and look upon as their own, but for her mother as well. Mary had saved their lives, been a friend, sister and mother to each of them, and they all knew this latest tragedy had broken the last of her spirit.
Back in Sydney a year earlier, their escape had been a huge shock to Tench. He had believed he knew Mary and Will well enough to guess if they were hatching something like this up, yet he hadn’t had the faintest suspicion.
He didn’t have much faith that they would make it to the Dutch East Indies, for by all accounts it was a long and dangerous voyage. Yet he understood why they felt they had to attempt it, and greatly admired their courage.
He had missed Mary so much. Hardly a day passed without him thinking about her. He offered up prayers for her safety, and a small part of him believed she must have survived, because he was sure he’d feel it if she were dead.
Even as he packed up his belongings to leave Sydney Cove, Mary was still on his mind. He could see her small, eager face in his mind’s eye, the way her eyes used to light up when he called at her hut. He could still see her slender but shapely legs as she tucked her dress up to wade into the sea and help with the seine net, and her dark curly hair tumbling about her face as she washed clothes. Yet it wasn’t the physical things about her he missed the most, it was her inquiring mind, her dry sense of humour and her stoicism.
Even if he had known she’d survived, he would never have considered he might run into her again. When Captain Parker told him in Cape Town that they would be taking deserters from Port Jackson back to England for trial, then named them, Tench was utterly astounded, almost disbelieving.
It seemed to him then that his fate and Mary’s were linked. That God in his infinite wisdom had always intended them for each other. This belief grew even stronger when he talked to the surviving men and learned of the voyage, and how Will and Emmanuel had died in Batavia. He was of course distressed to think that Mary had lost her husband and her little son, but according to the other men Will had betrayed them all, and he hadn’t got to know Emmanuel as well as he had Charlotte.
Then Mary came aboard, so weak that she collapsed, and sweet little Charlotte, the child so many of his men believed was his, was mortally ill. Under the circumstances it wasn’t appropriate to tell Mary what was in his heart. All he could do was make sure she and Charlotte got whatever they needed to recover, and that he was around when she needed a friend.
Yet it had become even less appropriate to tell her how he felt since Charlotte’s death. She had survived the hulks, the long voyage to New South Wales, and four years of near-starvation in the penal colony. She’d had the audacity to plan a fantastic escape plot, and by sheer force of will got to the planned destination. Then she was betrayed by her own husband and found herself once again a prisoner, facing execution back in England.
Tench knew in his heart that it wasn’t any of these things, terrible as they were, which had broken her. He had no doubt that if her children had survived she would have plotted yet another daring escape, and carried it out. But those children were her Achilles’ heel. Once Emmanuel became sick she had to nurse him. Likewise with Charlotte. Now they were both gone, freedom was worthless. Mary would go to the gallows without fear. Death was the only escape she wanted now.
‘You can’t give up on her,’ he muttered to himself. ‘You’ve got to find a way to put some fight back in her.’
Several days later Tench came upon James Martin and Sam Broome on deck. They were sitting leaning back against a locker, to all intents and purposes just enjoying the sun and fresh air. They were both painfully thin, the horrors they’d endured still showing in their eyes, and they looked much older than they had back in New South Wales. But though they seemed relaxed, Tench picked up some animosity between them. Guessing it had something to do with Mary, he stopped to talk to them.
After some general conversation about there being little room on the deck because of the boxes of plants and shrubs from New South Wales, and whether or not the two kangaroos would survive in a colder climate, Tench mentioned Mary.
‘Have you seen her on deck today?’ he asked.
‘She was up here for a while,’ Sam said. ‘She don’t seem to want to be with us now.’
There was a note of real despondency rather than complaint in his voice, and Tench guessed he was in love with her. He knew it had been Mary who nursed Sam back to health when he came in on the Second Fleet, and probably any man would love a woman for that. Tench liked Sam, he was calm, good-hearted and a talented carpenter, and Tench couldn’t help thinking that perhaps he would have made a better husband for Mary than Will, if he’d been on the First Fleet.
‘She doesn’t want to be with anyone,’ Tench said soothingly. ‘That’s the way grief takes some people.’
‘Or they only want to be with people who’ll be useful to them,’ James said with a slight smirk, looking pointedly at Tench.
‘She isn’t like that,’ Sam said, his face flushing with anger.
All at once Tench saw the problem between James and Sam. James was assuming Mary was as calculating as himself.
Tench hadn’t ever really liked the wily Irishman that much. He was amusing and intelligent, but as cunning as a fox. ‘Sam’s right, Mary isn’t like that,’ he said firmly. ‘You should know better, James.’
‘I’m not blaming her for it,’ James shrugged, his ugly face taking on a slightly remorseful expression. ‘If there was anyone around who I thought could save me from the long drop, I’d lick their arse if that’s what it took.’
Later, alone in his cabin, Tench found himself thinking about what James had said. The man was wrong about Mary of course, she wasn’t talking to anyone, not for sympathy or any other reason. She was a prisoner inside herself right now.
But James had made a good point too. Mary could do with someone influential on her side. Tench was prepared to go to any lengths himself for her, but he was just a Marine, recently promoted to Captain, and he hadn’t got an ounce of influence back in England.
He went through a mental list of everyone he knew, but none of them were in any better position to help her than himself.
Turning to his journal as he always did when he was troubled, he flicked back over the pages, reading parts of it at random. The penal colony in New South Wales was history in the making, and he had wanted to produce a work which in years to come would be a valuable source of information about the colony’s first years. It wasn’t ever intended to be a personal account of his own part in it, but a broader view.
Overall he considered he had done that rather well. Maybe when he retired from the Marines he’d take to writing articles for newspapers on the subject. And then suddenly, a thought came into his mind like a thunderbolt. That was it! A way to get influential help for Mary. He’d write a full account about her to the newspapers in England!
Despite his usual calm and controlled manner, he felt very excited. He couldn’t write under his own name of course, there was bound to be some kind of law against a serving officer divulging information. But no one would guess it was him if he wrote the Bryants’ escape story in a florid and sensational manner. Newspapers the length and breadth of England would devour such a story. Men would love the daring of it, women would weep for Mary losing her husband and children. Surely no one with a heart would want to see her hanged after going through so much pain already?
Tench’s smile spread from one ear to the other. It could work. He had to make it work.
Mary sat in a sheltered nook at the stern of the ship, looking out at the fast-approaching coast of England with a mixture of pleasure and trepidation. It was a beautiful June day, warm, sunn
y and with just enough wind to send the ship scudding along at a good speed. Perfect sailing weather, and she could recall so many other days just like it, out in a boat with her father.
She had thought about her parents and Dolly so much over the years. Had they found out what happened to her? If they hadn’t, maybe they thought she had forsaken them for high life in London. Or even supposed she had died! Whatever they knew, or believed, it was going to distress them terribly if they discovered that she was awaiting trial in London’s Newgate prison.
She hadn’t understood at nineteen what it was to be a mother. Mothers were people who nagged, wanted you to be ladylike, to cook and sew as well as they did, and to marry a respectable man so they could be smug and pat themselves on the back for bringing their daughters up well. They didn’t want their daughters to have fun or adventure, because they didn’t have any themselves.
Mary knew better now. All any woman wanted for her child was for it to be safe and happy. All that nagging was only an attempt to prevent harm. A way of showing love.
She wished there was a way of letting her mother know she understood that now. She also wished she could reassure her that death by hanging didn’t frighten her. It was what she wanted, to rid herself of the terrible burden of guilt for her children’s deaths.
Everyone on this ship had been so kind to her, but it would have been better if someone had called her a murderess, for that was what she knew she was. At the time she planned the escape she thought it was preferable to risk her children drowning at sea, a clean and quick death, than to watch them die slowly of hunger or disease in the colony. She still stood by that. Yet despite all her efforts they had in the end suffered a far worse fate than could ever have befallen them back in New South Wales. And she was to blame for putting them in that position.
A shadow falling on her made her look up. It was Tench.
‘So thoughtful,’ he said with a smile. ‘Will you share them with me?’
Mary couldn’t tell him she was thinking about her children, so she played safe. ‘I was thinking about my mother.’
‘Would you like me to write to her for you?’ he asked, squatting down in front of her.
Mary shook her head. ‘She can’t read, she’d have to take it to someone else.’
‘Maybe I could call on her at some time then,’ he suggested.
‘I can’t put that burden on you,’ she said, imagining how her mother would view a gentleman like Tench. She would be embarrassed to have him call at her humble home, so she’d be curt with him, as if she didn’t care about Mary. Then she’d weep for days after he’d gone.
‘I just hope I get tried and hanged quickly and no one will know about it. That’s the kindest thing for everyone concerned.’
‘Not for me it isn’t,’ he said, looking horrified. ‘I believe there will be public sympathy for you and I hope you’ll be set free.’
Mary gave a tight little laugh. ‘That’s foolish. You know perfectly well I’ll be hanged or sent back. I just hope it’s hanging.’
Tench didn’t make any reply for a few moments. He had been on an emotional see-saw with Mary for so long, sometimes he didn’t know for certain how he really felt. She looked pretty today in her green and white dress, her hair neatly tied back with a white ribbon, her cheeks pink from the sun and wind. She had regained a little weight since Charlotte’s death, and she looked a world away from the waif in rags he’d known back in Sydney Cove.
But her grey eyes looked dead now, no sparkle, no fire. Even her voice was muted. He couldn’t bear it.
‘It’s difficult to find anything further to discuss after hanging has been brought up,’ he said, afraid he might make a fool of himself and cry.
‘Maybe it’s because there isn’t anything more to say,’ she replied. ‘We’ve had an odd sort of friendship, haven’t we? It was always an uneven one, you with the world in front of you, me with nothing.’
‘I never saw it like that,’ he said sadly and with just a touch of indignation.
‘Neither did I, once.’ She sighed. ‘But then I’m better at seeing things as they really are now.’
Tench felt helpless. He remembered her audacity back on the Dunkirk. He’d been fully aware she was always looking for an opportunity, whether that was escape, work on deck, extra food or clothing. It was that ingenuity and daring that initially attracted him to her. He couldn’t believe she’d lost it all. But maybe if he told her how he really felt about her, some of it might return.
‘I don’t think you are that good at seeing everything,’ he began cautiously. ‘My feelings for you in particular.’
She looked at him inquiringly and it gave him heart.
‘I love you, Mary, I always have,’ he blurted out. ‘I wish I had told you so long ago, and never let you marry Will.’
Mary just stared at him. Not disbelieving, nor scornful. She simply looked at him as if she was seeing right down into his soul.
‘It’s true,’ Tench insisted. ‘I want to find a way to get you released so you can share your life with me.’
She remained silent for another couple of moments, and Tench held his breath, waiting for her reply.
‘I’m not for you, Watkin,’ she said at last, her voice soft but firm, and her use of his Christian name sounded odd. ‘You want me to have hope.’
‘Of course I want you to have hope. For a future together, marriage, and a real home,’ he said passionately.
She smiled wearily. His dark eyes had all the fire in them she once dreamed of, but it was too late now. ‘I have hope for you,’ she said. ‘I hope you’ll have a long and distinguished career, and a wife suitable for your station who loves you with all her heart.’
‘But don’t you see that it was Fate who brought us together again?’ he said fiercely, catching hold of her hand and pressing it. ‘We’re meant to be together, I know it.’
‘I think Fate brought us together only to give me a little comfort in seeing a dear face once again,’ she said, putting her hand on his cheek. ‘You have been the very best of friends.’
‘But is that all?’ he asked, his face full of hurt and disappointment.
Mary thought for a moment. She wasn’t sure whether telling him the truth would hurt him more, or comfort him. Yet her mother would have said the truth is always best.
‘It was you I wanted, right back on the Dunkirk,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Charlotte should have been your child. I carried that loving with me right through the voyage to New South Wales, even through my marriage. If you had said you wanted me as your lag wife, I believe I would have left Will for you.’
‘Well then,’ he said triumphantly. ‘There’s nothing to stand in our way now.’
Mary shook her head slowly. ‘There is, Watkin. I’m not the same person any more,’ she said almost wistfully. ‘I have a thousand ugly pictures in my head. I’m all used up.’
‘I don’t understand.’ He shook his head, dark eyes boring into her. ‘If you were set free all that would go.’
‘Some of it maybe,’ she said, tears forming in her eyes because she wished what she was telling him wasn’t the truth. ‘But you love the old Mary, and that isn’t what you’d get.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he implored her, clutching her hand and lifting it to his lips.
‘The Mary you loved was a scheming little minx,’ she said with a half smile. ‘She cared only for survival, she made things happen. But too much happened in the end. Things you can’t even imagine. The old Mary died back in Batavia. All you see now is an empty shell.’
Tench looked into her eyes, saw the bleakness there and instinctively knew she truly believed what she said. ‘Let me kiss you,’ he whispered, not caring if anyone was watching them because he was sure it would change her mind.
Mary nodded. It seemed fitting to her that she should end this with the one thing she had so often dreamed of.
He slid his arms around her and drew her to him, his heart aching with the need to bring
back the mischievous and audacious girl who had captured his heart and held it for so many years. Her lips were soft and yielding, but disappointingly her kiss was one of farewell. Tender, clinging, yet without passion, just a goodbye. He knew then there was nothing more he could do or say which would persuade her.
He cupped her face in his hands. ‘I’ll do my best for you,’ he said fiercely. ‘I’ll write and come to visit you.’
‘No, Watkin,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t want you to. You’ve been one of the best people in my life, I have a hundred bright memories of you in my head. If I’m to be hung they will sustain me. Let it be at that. Find someone from your own class who can bring you happiness.’
Of all the many traits of Mary’s personality Tench had come to know and admire over the past years, her resolution was the most powerful. He knew it was that which had kept her alive and helped her make the best of what was thrown at her.
He knew she was resolved now. Even if by some miracle he could sweep her away from Newgate and the gallows, she would not allow him to sully his family name or his career by marrying her. Tench knew he had never known anyone so heroic and unselfish.
He stood up and moved to the ship’s rail. He wanted to find a persuasive counter-argument, yet knew there wasn’t one. ‘We’re nearly at Portsmouth,’ he said eventually, looking towards the shore. ‘I have to leave the ship there while you go on to London.’
He couldn’t stand the thought of it. He knew that very soon she would be put back in chains, just the way she was when he first met her.
‘God go with you,’ she said from behind him, her voice shaking. ‘You are destined for greatness, Watkin. And I’ll always count myself fortunate to have had you as a friend.’
Chapter seventeen
Late in the afternoon on a fine, sunny day at the end of June, Mary shuffled dejectedly along behind the Newgate gaoler, her four friends behind her. They had been processed and now they were being led along a narrow, dark stone passageway into the prison itself, to be locked up until their trial.
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