Remember Me (44 page)

Now, when she thought about it, Mary felt deeply ashamed. She wasn’t actually starving at the time, she didn’t need the bonnet. She could look back on good people she’d known in her childhood, like Martha Dingwell in the baker’s who gave the unsold bread at the end of the day to those unable to buy any, or Charlie Allsop, the gravedigger, who would do little unpaid jobs for the bereaved, his way of showing his sympathy. These two, and others like them, had little enough themselves, and there were those who had sneered at them. But Mary could see now that the Marthas and Charlies of this world enriched life. Criminals only made it frightening and ugly, contaminating everything with their selfish lust for money and goods they hadn’t worked for.

As she looked around the prison yard, all she could see was people who cared for nothing but themselves. They had no remorse about lying, cheating, stealing or killing. The fact that they had money to bribe their way out here to boast drunkenly about their crimes proved that.

These were, she thought, without doubt some of London’s worst villains and thugs, hard-bitten whores and the most cunning of thieves. Whether from wealthy backgrounds or the gutter, they all used that flash lingo, the underworld language she’d become so familiar with in the colony. She could also sense a dangerous undercurrent
flowing around in the yard – jealousy, sexual frustration, pent-up violence and unsettled old scores, simmering as people drank.

Mary was no prude. She knew drink was a powerful remedy for alleviating misery and fear. But however desperate she felt, she knew she would never sell herself for a glass or two of gin, and allow the sexual act to take place in full public view. That was what some women were doing, and with their own children looking on.

She had averted her eyes several times during the afternoon as men rutted like beasts with women so drunk they were almost unconscious, but it appeared some of them had a taste for children too. An elderly woman, who came and sat by Mary for a while, told her that some of the men bribed the gaolers to bring them a constant fresh supply of children from the common side. She had cackled with laughter, and Mary might not have believed it, but later she saw a burly man fondling a ragged little girl of no more than six.

Mary’s heart ached at the number of young girls in the yard. They reminded her of herself at the same age – the same fresh complexions, that same curious mix of innocence and courage. They were too busy flirting with the more gentlemanly prisoners to talk to her. Perhaps they thought the elegantly dressed fops would take them with them when they bribed their way out of Newgate.

Mary knew better. The girls would have lost their innocence after a week or two in here, and their courage would fail them on the transportation ships. A few years
out in Sydney and they’d look like her. A bag of bones, all hope and spirit gone.

They had all been in Newgate for over a week when Spinks came to the cell and told Mary a gentleman wanted to see her.

Mary had struck up a wary kind of friendship with Spinks. She couldn’t really like him, he was too wily, always on the lookout for a way to bleed money out of the prisoners. Yet when he’d found out about her children dying he’d shown real sympathy. He often came along when she was alone, sometimes bringing her a mug of tea or a piece of fruit, and for these there was no charge, he just wanted to chat for a while. Perhaps he was as lonely as she was.

Spinks found her alone more often than not, for after seeing a stabbing on her second visit to the yard, she had decided the gloomy cell was a better place to be. She was alone that day too, for the men were all down in the yard.

‘Who is this gentleman?’ she asked. Spinks called all men with money ‘gentlemen’.

‘By the name of Boswell,’ he replied with a smug grin. ‘’E said ’e’s a lawyer.’

‘You mean he’s from outside Newgate?’

‘Well, we don’t get many lawyers staying in ’ere,’ Spinks retorted, and laughed at his little joke. ‘Now, do yer want ter see ’im or not? Makes no difference to me.’

Mary sighed. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone, but someone from outside might distract her from her melancholy. ‘Bring him up,’ she said wearily.

‘That’s my girl,’ Spinks said affectionately. ‘Now, why don’t you comb that pretty ’air of yours while I’m gone? Look, I’ve brought you a ribbon fer it too.’

He pulled a red satin ribbon from his pocket, thrust it into her hand and was gone. A lump came up in Mary’s throat as she ran it between her fingers, remembering her father. He always brought her and Dolly ribbon when he came back from sea. She’d been such a tomboy then, and she never really appreciated it. But she did appreciate this one; she needed something bright and feminine to cheer her.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Bryant!’

Mary spun round at the sound of the melodious voice. She was so engrossed in tying the ribbon at the nape of her neck that she hadn’t heard the man coming along the landing.

Spinks was right for once, this one was a gentleman. Perhaps fifty or so, very stout with a red-tinged face, of middling height and wearing very fine clothes – a dark green three-cornered hat trimmed with gold braid, and a coat made of fine brocade. He was also out of breath and wheezing from the stairs.

‘I’m known as Mary Broad now,’ she said sharply, glancing down at his spotless white stockings and shoes with fancy buckles. ‘Why have you come to see me?’

‘I want to help you, my dear,’ he said, and held out his hand. ‘Boswell’s the name, James Boswell. I am a lawyer, though better known for my book on Dr Samuel Johnson, my dear departed friend.’

Mary recognized his accent as being Scottish, for there had been a couple of officers in Port Jackson who spoke just the same. But the part about his book on his dead friend meant nothing to her. She was more impressed by his gold watch-chain and extravagant silk waistcoat. She thought even the King couldn’t be dressed so well.

She shook his hand, and was astounded by any man having one so soft. It felt like a piece of warm dough. ‘I’m beyond help,’ she said. ‘But it’s kind of you to offer me some when I am unable to even offer you a chair.’

He smiled, and she noticed his eyes were large and almost luminous dark pools. As he wore a wig, she couldn’t see what colour his hair was, but she guessed by his bushy eyebrows it had once been as dark as hers.

‘I don’t believe you are beyond help,’ Boswell said stoutly. ‘I wish to defend you. So I would suggest you tell me your story. All I know is the extraordinary tale I read in the
Chronicle
.’

Chapter eighteen

James Boswell strode away from Newgate prison, his feathers ruffled because Mary hadn’t fallen at his feet and seen him as her saviour. It hadn’t for one moment occurred to him that she wouldn’t welcome his offer of help.

‘Damn her,’ he muttered. ‘A heroine she may be, but she’s clearly lacking a brain.’

A dear friend had once claimed years ago that ‘Bozzie’ was addicted to lost causes. He was referring to his passion for whores in that instance, but it was a well-known fact that Boswell was extraordinarily sympathetic to anyone he considered was being treated unjustly. He had often defended poor people without charge, and took on cases that no one else would.

In truth, nothing excited him more than a case everyone said he couldn’t win, or a woman who was hell-bent on self-destruction. And Mary Broad was both rolled into one.

What all his worthy friends who poked fun at him didn’t really appreciate was that he felt he had a great deal in common with his clients and his whores. He knew what it was to be forced into an unwanted career; he was
often misunderstood, he made errors of judgement, and he was reckless.

His father, Lord Auchinleck, a judge in the Supreme Courts in Scotland, had insisted his son become a lawyer, despite his desire to join the Guards. As soon as he’d finished school, Boswell ran away to London and became a Roman Catholic, which appalled his dour Presbyterian family. Indeed, he flirted briefly with the idea of becoming a monk too. But a Catholic couldn’t become an Army officer or a barrister, nor even inherit his father’s estate, so he soon abandoned Catholicism and reluctantly went along with his father’s wishes and entered the Inns of Court. But this wasn’t a real change of heart, it was more so he could stay in London and use his allowance to cut a dash in society.

Boswell himself would concede that he was a poor student. He spent more time in the theatre, at the races, and drinking and picking up women than he did at his studies. His father also expected him to make an advantageous marriage, but Boswell disappointed him there too by marrying his cousin Margaret, who had no money of her own. But he married for love, and that to him was far more important than money.

Then his friendship with Samuel Johnson was misunderstood. People claimed he was worming his way into the great man’s affections for self-advancement. They said Boswell was a snob, a social climber, a womanizer, a drunk and a hypochondriac.

It was true that he liked women and wine. He couldn’t resist a pretty chambermaid or whore, but surely that was
only the sign of a zest for life? What his critics failed to see and understand was that he spent the greater part of his life planning, compiling and collecting material for his work,
The Life of Samuel Johnson
. To do it justice he had to enter into the circles that Johnson moved in, to watch, listen, and see through Johnson’s eyes. He enjoyed it of course, and maybe he did make use of some of the contacts he made. But he never used Johnson’s friendship for self-advancement; he loved the man, and wanted the whole world to share his wisdom, intelligence and humour.

In his heart, Boswell knew he had produced a brilliant biography of his friend, and he was sure that in years to come his name would be up there with other great literary figures. Even if he wasn’t getting the kind of rapturous praise and adulation that he felt he was due, he had made a considerable amount of money from his book. He had an elegant home just off Oxford Street, and fine clothes. He ate and drank well, had a great many friends, and his beloved children were a great comfort to him. All in all, he supposed that should be enough for any man.

Yet he still had a yen to do something sensational before putting down his pen and hanging up his wig and gown. He was fifty-two, widowed, no longer in the best of health, and time was running out for him. He wanted to be remembered as ‘the Greatest Biographer of All Time’, but it would give him immense satisfaction to confound those who considered him a mediocre lawyer too. To win one big, dramatic case was all he wanted; to
be looked back on as a man who was the champion of the weak and oppressed.

Boswell smiled to himself, aware that he was being somewhat egotistical. It was absurd really that he felt so strongly about the case of Mary Broad, for until this very morning he had known nothing of her and her companions’ plight. To be strictly truthful, something his father had been a stickler for, he had never before even considered the welfare of the felons sentenced to transportation.

In his view transportation was both humane and practical, for it removed criminals to a place where they could do no more harm to society. A far better solution than hanging. When he was a young man he had watched the public execution of a highwayman and a young thief called Hannah Diego, and the horror of it had never left him.

Yet there he was that morning, drinking a leisurely cup of coffee at home and reading the newspaper, merely passing some time before visiting his publishers to see how his book was selling, when he happened to come across an account of the escape from Botany Bay.

It was the quote from Mary herself which captured his interest. ‘I’d sooner be hanged than sent back there.’

Clearly Botany Bay wasn’t quite the tropical paradise which the newspapers had led most people to believe. Boswell had to read on.

He was shaken that Mary, eight men and two small children had sailed some 3,000 miles in an open boat. Even more disturbing was that four of the men had died
after capture. But it was the loss of the two children which really plucked at his heart. As a man who adored his children, and felt blessed that they were all close to him, he couldn’t imagine anything more tragic than to lose even one of them. This poor woman had lost everything, her husband and her children, and now she was likely to lose her life too.

In his mind’s eye he again saw Hannah Diego struggling as she was dragged to the hangman’s noose. He could smell her fear, hear the ghoulish roars from the watching crowd, and remembered the nightmares he’d suffered for so long after that day.

He felt a surge of sickness and anger. He couldn’t stand by and let Mary Broad share that fate. It was barbaric. She had suffered enough.

Boswell was also curious about the character of the woman. She surely had immense courage and determination to lead those men to freedom, such strength to survive fever and starvation. He wanted to know more, to meet and talk to her. With that he suddenly put down the paper, called for his coat and hat, and set out for Newgate.

In his imagination, Boswell had pictured Mary Broad as a big woman, strong and lusty, just like his favourite whores. It was something of a surprise to find her small, thin and softly spoken. She looked old beyond her years too, weighed down with grief, her grey eyes already showing a resignation to death.

She told him her story very simply, as if she was weary of recounting it yet again. There was no attempt at trying
to gain his sympathy, no shocking details of hardship, deprivation or cruelty. The only time tears sprang to her eyes was when she spoke of Charlotte’s burial at sea. Even those she brushed away quickly, and went on to say that she was treated with kindness on the
Gorgon
.

Boswell found himself immensely touched, sensing all the horror Mary had left out. He had been in Newgate many times before, so he had come prepared for lies, exaggerations and distortions of the truth. Like most of his contemporaries, he believed in a criminal class, a stratum of people who were pre-ordained to undermine a decent society. They could be identified easily by their brutish manner, their idleness and their lack of principles. Down in the prison yard he’d seen so many of them, strutting around as if in a private and very select club.