Remember Me

by Lesley Pearse

  These thoughts didn’t only come when she was alone. She could be riding in a cab with Boswell and see a mother and child together, and she would feel a stab of pain. When she saw little girls of Charlotte’s age in rags, out on the streets, she felt a surge of anger at a society which cared so little for its youngest members.

  She also missed James, Sam, Nat and Bill desperately, not only for their company and the shared memories, but for the position she held in their group. She was the leader, the one whose intelligence, practicality and knowledge were valued. Outside Newgate she was an oddity, and people talked down to her as if she was dim-witted.

  As the days went by she gradually adjusted. She accepted she would have to learn how to fit in with normal people again, that she would have to learn to make small-talk, and to live within the boundaries expected of women.

  She found the courage to cross busy roads, weaving in and out of the carriages. She learned how to use a fork by practising at home and to put her hair up the way Mrs Wilkes taught her. She even mastered lacing up her stays by herself.

  Mrs Wilkes was such a kind, good woman, old enough at over forty to be motherly, but still young enough to understand just how inadequate and overawed Mary felt sometimes. She admitted she sometimes found Mr Boswell a little too bumptious for her taste, but she put that down to his breeding and fame as a writer. She would make a cup of tea, invite Mary to sit with her in the kitchen and get her to talk about anything that worried her.

  Mrs Wilkes explained anything Mary was embarrassed to ask Boswell about. She understood why Mary didn’t want to be put on show to his friends, and suggested ways in which Mary could make this clear to him. But above all she knew how strange it was for Mary to suddenly find herself out of her real station in life.

  ‘Don’t allow it to swamp you,’ she advised. ‘Learn as much as you can by watching and listening. Enjoy your fame without wondering how long it will last. After what you’ve been through, you deserve it. But above all, Mary, hold on to your courage, that’s what makes you so fascinating.’

  When Mrs Wilkes wasn’t offering tea and advice, she dosed Mary up with malt, made her drink lemon juice for a clearer complexion, and took her shopping for new clothes. Even though Boswell believed he alone was teaching Mary how to be what he called ‘a middling sort’, a big step up from the poor but respectable roots of her childhood, in truth it was Mrs Wilkes who taught her most.

  Yet along with the painful and bewildering moments there were many more joyful, happy ones. Mary had been to the Tower of London and seen the lions there, she’d visited St Paul’s and the Monument and seen the royal palaces, and had been by river to Greenwich. She loved the parks, the busy shops in the Strand, the markets, and just looking at all the fine houses. Mostly Boswell took her to see the sights, but she loved exploring on her own too. He might need a cab because he was getting older, but she liked to walk, to stop and gaze at people, street scenes and buildings.

  Now, a month after her release, she could probably fool some people into believing she’d always lived this way. She saw poor people every day, sweeping streets, selling flowers and begging on street corners, and she was very aware that this comfortable life she’d landed in more by luck than her own initiative wasn’t secure. She knew she had to find some way of making it so.

  She was far too astute to think that a few pretty clothes would land her in a good position. People wanted their housemaids young. They wanted real cooks, capable of coping with large dinner parties, not someone who had gained their experience throwing anything vaguely edible into one pot over an open fire. Housekeepers had to know everything, from how to care for linen and silver to keeping accounts. Mary knew none of that, and she had no references either. The more she looked around, the more she saw there were few work opportunities for any woman.

  Even Mrs Wilkes, whom Mary had thought of as gentry, had no choice but to run a boarding-house. She had been widowed ten years earlier, and when the little money she was left with ran out, she’d got a position as a companion housekeeper for an old gentleman at that same house in Little Titchfield Street. When he died, leaving his money to his nephew, Mrs Wilkes inherited the contents of the rented house. Taking in lodgers was the only way she could manage to stay in the home she’d come to love.

  Mrs Wilkes’s answer to Mary’s problems was marriage. She had hinted that Boswell might make the ideal husband. He was after all a widower, very fond of her, and a man of means.

  There had been brief moments when Mary toyed with the idea. She liked Boswell very much, he was kind, entertaining and generous. Sadly, however, she knew she could never go willingly to his bed. He was getting old and fat and his teeth were rotten. He was also a very clever man, with children he thought the world of, so he certainly wasn’t going to risk their disapproval for an ex-convict who hadn’t already proved her love and passion for him.

  ‘I think I would like to live by the sea again,’ Mary said as they walked over the little bridge across the lake. London was exciting, but she often found herself longing for the serenity of the moors, the fresh wind from the sea and a calmer life.

  ‘Then perhaps we should make contact with your family,’ Boswell said. ‘You will remember I met the Reverend John Baron of Lostwithiel while I was in Cornwall. A good man!’

  Mary nodded. Boswell had mentioned this man, but as she had only been to Lostwithiel twice in her life, she didn’t know him.

  ‘He would call on your mother and father if I asked him to,’ Boswell said. ‘Shall I write to him? He was very sympathetic to you.’

  ‘I’m afraid they would show him the door,’ Mary said dolefully. She remembered only too well her mother’s loudly held views on those who broke the law. Mary thought she must be thoroughly shamed by her daughter’s notoriety. She wasn’t going to like a man of the cloth pleading with her to forgive and forget. In fact it would probably set her even further against Mary.

  ‘It’s worth a try,’ Boswell said.

  ‘No,’ Mary said firmly. ‘It’s up to me to throw myself on their mercy, it’s cowardly to get someone else to act on my behalf. I’ll go when the men are pardoned.’

  Visiting the men in Newgate was one thing Boswell had refused to let her do. He said it was because of the danger of infectious diseases, but she guessed it had more to do with keeping her away from any harmful influences. As he had been so good to her, she felt she couldn’t disobey him, so she had to make do with passing messages through him.

  ‘That might not be for some time yet, Mary,’ Boswell warned her. ‘You know I am doing my best for them, but the law drags its feet, especially in summer.’

  ‘Then I’ll wait,’ she said.

  He smiled and squeezed her arm. ‘Good, there’s so much more of London still to show you. And don’t worry about money. You still have more than enough.’

  The remainder of June, July and the first two weeks of August were an exceptionally happy time for Mary. People’s curiosity in her had waned, and she found herself far more comfortable in her new life. She helped Mrs Wilkes as much as she could, going shopping with her and often doing the washing and preparing the supper.

  Yet every now and then a strange kind of melancholy came over her. She would think of Will, Tench and Jamie Cox, and all those she’d liked but left behind in Port Jackson. She would dwell on little moments she’d shared with them, and often found herself crying. It irritated her that people in England neither knew nor cared how grim or badly run the colony was. Yet conversely she often wanted to tell people that New South Wales was beautiful and intriguing. And she wondered why she could still think so after all that had happened.

  She would be caught short, too, by the extreme contrasts in her new life to the old one. One day Mrs Wilkes asked her to throw away some meat which was going bad. Mary had to fight with herself not to eat it, for the thought of wasting food after experiencing starvation was terrible. It seemed ridiculous to her, too, that as a lady she was expected to be weak, helpless
and squeamish, when she had collected and eaten grubs, hacked up turtle meat and been the driving force behind a 3,000-mile voyage in an open boat. A lady shouldn’t mention bodily functions either, and certainly not in mixed company. But she had coped quite well with having to perform hers in the company of eight men, and after living with them in such close proximity for so long, there were no mysteries about men left for her to discover.

  But as time passed Mary found herself looking back far less. While her children were always in her mind, she found other memories were fading, and she was living in the present again. The weather was good, and Boswell continued to call on her frequently, taking her out to the parks, on river trips, and to the countryside surrounding London.

  One day in August, he took her out in a cab to the village of Chelsea. He appeared to be very much amused by poems about them which were being widely circulated around the town. It seemed the writers believed they were lovers, and in one of the poems they met their deaths on the gallows together.

  ‘Perhaps I should marry you, my dear,’ Boswell said jokingly. ‘It would confound all those poetic simpletons.’

  ‘I think your daughters might find that a little distressing,’ Mary said with a smile. ‘I am not the stepmother of any girl’s dreams.’

  ‘Your heart is still with Captain Tench?’ Boswell said, raising one eyebrow quizzically.

  Mary had often mentioned Watkin Tench, but had never given Boswell any indication of how she had felt about the man. Even her four friends in Newgate knew nothing of that. So she was amazed to hear him say this. ‘I don’t have a heart,’ she said flippantly.

  ‘Untrue,’ he retorted, but he laughed all the same. ‘I found out he paid for your cell, Mary. You see, he stopped paying when you were pardoned, and the men had to make new arrangements.’

  Mary had met her equal in quick wits with Boswell. Like her, very little passed him by. ‘So! We were friends, he helped me, that doesn’t mean I was in love with him.’

  ‘I think it means he was in love with you,’ Boswell said sagely. ‘Marines aren’t known for their largesse as a rule. But he strikes me as a gutless wonder for not coming to London to claim you if he knows you are free. He’s on HMS Alexander now, part of the Channel Fleet.’

  Mary’s heart quickened at this news. She’d always imagined Tench had sailed off to some faraway place again.

  ‘Aha,’ Boswell chortled. ‘I see a faint blush. Now, would that be because he’s still close to England?’

  Mary decided there was no point in trying to pretend any longer.

  ‘I did have strong feelings for him, and he for me,’ she said with a shrug. ‘But it could never be. And he’s not a gutless wonder. I insisted that he wasn’t to try and contact me.’

  During her time in Newgate Mary had tried not to hope Tench might turn up to see her. And in the prison it was easy to see he belonged to a different world.

  However, now she was free, looking for all the world like a respectable widow, she couldn’t help but drift into little day-dreams of him coming up to London to claim her and whisking her off to a country cottage. At times she even believed she’d changed so much that she could become the perfect wife for an officer.

  ‘You are right. It couldn’t be,’ Boswell agreed, disappointing Mary somewhat. ‘I’ve had my share of falling for unsuitable ladies, and it brings nothing but grief on both sides.’ He took her hand and squeezed it in sympathy. ‘Grief is something we should all try to avoid. Whatever our age or circumstance.’

  Although on the face of it his remarks were only about her relationship with Watkin Tench, Mary had a feeling Boswell meant more. The earlier mention of marriage had been a joke, but she had a feeling he was also trying to sound her out to see if she expected him to propose to her. She thought it would be wise to make it clear that wasn’t her aim.

  ‘Well, tell me, O Wise One!’ she joked. ‘What sort of a man is likely to make me happy?’

  Boswell pondered on this gravely for a moment or two. ‘A sea-going one, I’d say,’ he said eventually. ‘A well-set-up mariner. Perhaps a widower, who would be less likely to feel aggrieved that you have a past. Not more than thirty-five. Young enough to want a family.’

  ‘You wouldn’t happen to know him already?’ she asked laughingly, for he spoke as if he knew the very man.

  ‘No, my dear, sadly I don’t,’ he chuckled. ‘I’m just a romantic old fool who would like to see a happy ending for you. But to my mind, one of the best things about life is that one never knows what is around the next corner.’

  Chapter twenty-two

  ‘That wretched man again!’ Mrs Wilkes exclaimed in exasperation at the hammering on her front door. ‘Only yesterday I tried to tell him he wasn’t doing your reputation any good by calling here at all hours. And here he is again, on a Sunday!’

  It was 18 August and very hot. Mrs Wilkes and Mary were sitting out in the cool of the backyard with some sewing. They had been talking about Mary’s friends still in Newgate. Mary had become a little tearful, afraid that their pardon would never come and that they would begin to believe she had stopped caring for them.

  Mrs Wilkes, like Boswell, thought visiting was a bad idea, given the high risk of infection, but she offered to write them a letter for Mary. At the moment they heard the rapping on the door, Mary was thinking of all the things she had to tell them.

  Mary smiled at her landlady’s outburst, for she knew perfectly well that Mrs Wilkes enjoyed having neighbours gossiping about Boswell calling so often. He was, after all, famous and a gentleman, and noon, whether it was Sunday or not, was a respectable time to call.

  ‘I’ll go,’ Mary said, getting up. ‘Shall I tell him to go away?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Mrs Wilkes said hurriedly. ‘You must take him into the parlour and I’ll bring you in some tea.’

  But Boswell was not alone this time. He had a burly, florid-faced man with him, who in a somewhat loud checked jacket, matching breeches and a very poorly fitting dull brown wig, looked like a tradesman.

  ‘Good day, Mary,’ Boswell said, lifting his hat. She thought he looked flustered. ‘This is Mr Castel, a glazier by trade, and a native of Fowey. He wishes to give you certain news of your family, and he insisted we came right away to see you.’

  Mary looked from one man’s face to the other, noting how hot and agitated they both looked. Boswell clearly wasn’t happy about this man’s insistence on coming to see her, and she guessed he suspected some kind of confidence trick. There had been several occasions previously when people had come to him claiming they knew Mary and asking for her address. So for Boswell to have brought this man to her door, there had to be some kind of credence to his story.

  Mary invited them into the parlour and once they were sitting down, she looked hard at the man. ‘So you are from Fowey, Mr Castel?’ she said. ‘I don’t know any family of that name.’

  ‘I left many years ago, when you would have been just a little girl,’ he said calmly. ‘But I know your sister Dolly very well.’

  Mary gasped, despite herself. ‘You know Dolly? How? Where is she?’

  ‘I have only known her since she came to London,’ he said, mopping perspiration from his face with a handkerchief. ‘She is in service for Mrs Morgan of Bedford Square. I met her there when I was replacing some glass, and we got to talking about Fowey.’

  ‘Dolly’s here in London!’ Mary could hardly believe what she was hearing, and even though Boswell was giving her a warning look as if he didn’t want her to get too excited, she couldn’t help but be.

  ‘It seems Mr Castel wants your permission to write to your family in Fowey and inform them about you,’ Boswell butted in, with a very cynical tone in his voice. ‘He claims he also knows a relative of yours there, Edward Puckey.’

  ‘Ned!’ Again Mary gasped. She and Dolly had been bridesmaids at her cousin Ned’s wedding.

  ‘You have a relative called Edward Puckey?’ Boswell asked.

  Mary nodd
ed. ‘My cousin,’ she said.

  Mr Castel looked at Mary and his frown indicated that he felt aggrieved. ‘It seems Mr Boswell doesn’t trust me. I knew Ned Puckey when I was a lad, though he’s a few years younger than me. It was through that connection that I got to know Dolly so well. All I want now is to see two sisters reunited and pass on news that could be advantageous to you.’

  Setting aside Mr Castel’s clothing and the ill-fitting wig, which did suggest questionable taste, Mary thought he had an honest face. He looked directly at her, he wasn’t licking his lips or fidgeting nervously. He had also retained his Cornish accent.

  ‘What news?’ she asked suspiciously, and glanced at Boswell. He was tense, sweating profusely, and his frown suggested he wished to silence this man.

  ‘That your family have come into a fortune.’

  Mary laughed out loud and rocked back in her chair. ‘I can’t believe that, even if I wish to believe you know Dolly,’ she said.

  ‘It’s true,’ he insisted. ‘Dolly told me. Your uncle, Peter Broad, died while you were in Botany Bay, and he left a fortune to your family.’

  Mary stopped laughing suddenly. Her uncle Peter, her father’s brother, was a master mariner, which meant he was hired to take control of a ship, unlike her father who was just an ordinary seaman. She had not known Uncle Peter very well as he was away at sea for very long periods. But whenever he came home she remembered that he always came visiting with presents of food, sweetmeats and other luxuries. It had been Uncle Peter who brought the pink silky material her mother had used to make the dresses she and Dolly wore the day they went swimming naked. It was always said around Fowey that he was rich too, in fact whenever her mother spoke of wanting something out of the ordinary, her father had always said jokingly, ‘You’d better bide a while, my dear, until Peter comes home.’