Remember Me (49 page)

‘You’re older than me,’ she retorted, and jumped down from the crate to sit on it.

‘I have difficulty keeping track of years now,’ Bill said thoughtfully, scratching his bald head. ‘I’m not sure if I’m thirty-two or -three.’

‘I’m still the youngest at twenty-five,’ Nat chipped in.

Mary was loath to admit she was now twenty-eight. It seemed so very old. But then she felt old, and she’d been in Newgate for so long that almost everyone she’d met
when she first came here had been hanged, died of fever, or been taken away for transportation.

‘Someone’s coming,’ Sam said, looking up from his whittling.

He was right, they could all hear brisk footsteps coming along the passageway. It wasn’t Spinks, who had a kind of shuffle, and the other prisoners walked slowly. Mary had found that odd at first, until she discovered herself doing it. What was the point of rushing anywhere when you had a long, empty day to fill?

The footsteps stopped outside their cell, and the door was pushed open. It was one of the guards from the gate, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a pock-marked face. They had seen him on their arrival here, and when they had been taken to court.

‘Mary Broad!’ he said, looking to her. ‘You are wanted below.’

Mary exchanged a puzzled glance with the men. Normally when a visitor arrived for one of them, Spinks came to tell them.

‘Maybe it’s the King,’ James said, and laughed at his joke.

Mary picked up her shawl and followed the guard down the stairs, across the outside yard and into the small office she had come through on her arrival.

‘Mr Boswell!’ she exclaimed when she saw him waiting there. He looked even grander than usual in a dark red jacket trimmed with black braid, and he had a cockade of red feathers in his three-cornered hat. ‘I had expected something bad. Why didn’t the guard tell me it was you?’

‘Because this is an official visit,’ he said, glancing at the guard, then suddenly his face broke into a joyful smile and he pulled a sheet of paper from behind his back. ‘This, my dear, is your pardon!’

Mary was too stunned to respond. She blinked, caught hold of the edge of the desk for support and just stared back at Boswell.

‘Well, say something,’ he laughed. ‘Or won’t you believe it till I read it to you?’

He cleared his throat, made a sweeping bow as if about to deliver a proclamation to royalty, then held up the sheet of paper.

‘
Whereas Mary Bryant, alias Broad, now a prisoner in Newgate
,’ he read aloud, and paused to smile.

‘Go on,’ she whispered, afraid she might faint with shock.

‘
Stands charged with escaping from the persons having legal custody of her before the expiration of the term which she had been ordered to be transported, and whereas some favourable circumstances have been humbly presented unto us on her behalf, inducing us to grant our Grace and Mercy on her and to grant her our free pardon for her said crime.
’

Boswell went on reading and finished up by telling Mary that the letter was signed by Henry Dundas at His Majesty’s command. But she could barely take it in: the only two words which really meant anything to her were ‘free pardon’.

‘Oh, Bozzie,’ she gasped as he finished. ‘You did it! I’m free?’

‘Yes, you are, my dear,’ he beamed. ‘As from this very
moment. You can walk out through the gates right now with me. You have spent your last night in Newgate.’

She rushed to hug him, kissing both his cheeks.

‘You are a wonderful, wonderful man,’ she said joyfully. ‘How can I ever thank you enough?’

Boswell’s face was always so red it was hard to tell if he was blushing, but he caught hold of her two hands and squeezed them hard, and there was an emotional tear in his eye. Mary had never kissed or attempted to hug him before, and he had expected her to take the news with her customary coolness. To see her so moved by joy was enough thanks for him.

‘You can thank me by getting your things quickly and then we’ll go off to celebrate,’ he said.

Mary took two steps towards the door, then stopped sharply and turned to him again. Her smile had gone, replaced by a look of extreme anxiety.

‘What about the men?’ she said in little more than a whisper. ‘Are they pardoned too?’

This was the moment Boswell had been dreading.

‘Not yet,’ he said carefully, afraid she might not want to leave without them. ‘But they will get one in due course. I am promised that.’

She hesitated.

‘Mary, they will be freed,’ he insisted. ‘I am sure they will be glad for you. You can do more for them on the outside than by sticking here with them.’

She left then, but walked away slowly, her head bent as if in thought.

*

Mary blurted out her news from the cell door, and began to cry when she got to the part that the pardon was only for her, and they’d have to wait a little longer. She thought they would be angry, hurt and resentful, and covered her face in expectation of a volley of verbal abuse.

James was stunned, but as he saw her gesture he felt ashamed that she anticipated jealousy at her good fortune. She deserved her freedom more than any of them, for her losses had been so much greater.

‘That’s all right with us, ain’t it, boys?’ he said, giving them a warning glance not to say anything mean-spirited.

‘But I wanted us all to go together,’ Mary said, tears running down her cheeks. ‘How can I leave without you?’

As one, the four of them leaped to their feet, each man moved by her unswerving loyalty to them.

‘Don’t be a numbskull,’ James said. ‘We always expected you to go first, so bugger off and enjoy it.’

‘You deserve it more than any of us,’ Sam said, his warm smile softening his gaunt features. Nat patted her affectionately on the shoulder, while Bill gave a whoop of delight and punched the air.

Mary wiped away her tears, touched that they could be so joyful for her and hide their own disappointment. ‘We’ve been together for so long I don’t know if I can manage without you,’ she said.

‘Get away,’ Sam said, waving her to the door in an exaggerated gesture. ‘We’ll be glad to be rid of your nagging.’

‘We’ll turn the cell into a midden, we’ll drink all day, and we’ll invite whores up here,’ Bill growled, but his lips were trembling.

‘I’ll take your blanket,’ Nat chirped up. ‘It’s thicker than mine.’

Mary looked at their faces with tear-filled eyes. Four brave smiles, four warm hearts, each one so very dear to her for a thousand or more different reasons. They had seen one another at their best and their worst. They had fought, laughed and cried together. Now she had to leave, and learn to live without them.

‘Don’t get drunk or fight, and James, you finish your book,’ she said weakly, falling back on motherly advice because she knew that if she tried to tell them how much she loved them she would break down. ‘I’ll be back to see you, and we’ll all celebrate together when you get your pardon too.’

She slipped off her old dress and put on the blue one Boswell had given her, then, tipping the straw out of the linen sack which she’d brought from the
Gorgon
and had been using as a pillow, she put her few belongings into it.

James came up behind her and fastened the buttons at the back of her dress, then turned her round to tuck a stray curl behind her ear. ‘God bless you, Mary,’ he said, his voice cracking with emotion. He kissed her cheek, then held her close. ‘It’ll surely be a lucky man who gets you.’

Wordlessly, Mary broke away from James to kiss and hug the other three, lingering just a little longer with Sam.
‘Don’t go wrong again,’ she whispered to him. ‘And find a woman worthy of you.’

She paused at the door, taking one last look at them. She could remember how disreputable and ugly she’d thought James was when she saw him marching off to work with Will from the
Dunkirk
. He was the last link with that stinking hulk, yet through his ability to charm ladies, he looked more like a gentleman now than a convict.

Nat had seemed suspect when she first met him. She had noted the shine on his hair, the smooth flesh on his bones, and guessed how the pretty boy had survived the
Neptune
. It saddened her to think she had judged him for that. It was no different to what she did with Lieutenant Graham.

Sam hadn’t had the looks to trade his way to comfort on the
Scarborough
. He’d been close to death when she gave him water on the quay. He’d fought to live, just as he’d fought the elements with her to get them to safety.

As for Bill, she’d been impressed by his toughness when he walked away from his flogging, but she hadn’t actually liked him until after they’d escaped. But time had proved there was a kind and decent man under that rough exterior.

She couldn’t even claim that any of them had burst into her life like a fire cracker. They were just four seemingly unremarkable men who through desperation had become like her brothers. Every aspect of their characters was etched in her heart, she would hold each dear face in her mind forever.

‘I love you all,’ she said softly, her eyes filling with tears
again. ‘Please don’t any of you break the law again, I want you to be honest and happy.’

She fled then, tears streaming down her face.

‘I have found rooms for you in Little Titchfield Street,’ Boswell said as he settled her into a hansom cab. He had noted her tearstained face, and guessed she was upset at parting from her friends. But he felt the separation could only be a good thing. He wasn’t entirely convinced that the men would become honest and hardworking on their release, and he wanted no bad influences around Mary now she was free.

‘Now, I have money for you,’ he said, taking a notebook from his pocket to show her. ‘Over forty pounds, a princely sum. I shall pay for your lodgings from it, and you will need clothes too. But for now you must just enjoy your freedom.’

The sadness at leaving her friends behind was eased by the excitement of freedom and seeing London. Boswell pointed out that the view of it she’d seen before when brought from the docks to Newgate was a rather squalid part of the city, and she was now going to a respectable area.

Mary could only stare in silent wonderment. It was a bright, sunny spring day, and the streets were crowded, forcing the cab driver to slow the horses to a mere walk. The iron-rimmed wheels on heavily laden carts, cabs and carriages made a racket on the uneven road surface. Sedan chairmen nimbly bypassed the many piles of horse dung, and wove in and out of the heavier traffic.

Ladies out shopping were wearing gowns and pretty bonnets in every colour of the rainbow, men in frock coats and hats like Boswell’s hurried as if on urgent business. Street traders yelled out their wares in strident voices. There were thin little flower girls with baskets of primroses, small boys selling newspapers, and burly tradesmen unloading goods from carts or carrying everything from ladders to pieces of furniture.

But it was the buildings which took most of Mary’s attention. Whether private houses, banks or other places of business, they were all so grand. Marble steps, pillars, stone carving such as she’d only ever seen on churches before, so many different designs, pushed up together as if the builders had been short of space, yet each one striving to outshine everything around it. Some places looked very old, half-timbered buildings that leaned out precariously into the streets. Then there were elegant new ones, three or four storeys high, with splendid long arched windows.

There were many smart carriages too. Some had dashing scarlet wheels, on others the graceful horses wore feather plumes, some even had footmen resplendent in gold and red livery.

Boswell pointed out things he thought might interest her – men carrying sides of meat coming from Smithfield market, the Inns of Court where he had studied to be a lawyer, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and many fine houses belonging to people he knew. He told her about the Great Fire of London, and how the city was rebuilt afterwards.

‘Look!’ Mary interrupted him as he was talking about a coffee house where he used to meet Dr Johnson. She pointed at a woman pushing what could only be called a baby carriage, for a small child was sitting inside the splendid large-wheeled vehicle, waving its little hands in excitement. Mary had never seen anything like it before. ‘Are folk so rich here in London they wheel their children around?’

Boswell chuckled. He thought it was so like a woman to be more interested in a child in a wheeled conveyance than hearing about his great friend. He supposed, too, that when a person couldn’t read or write, they wouldn’t understand why anyone would bother to write a dictionary, or even need to use one.

‘I see nursemaids wheeling their charges around the London parks so often that I don’t find the carriages remarkable,’ he said. ‘But I suspect it’s not only the cost of them which deters most mothers, they are a little unwieldy.’

‘But it’s a good idea,’ Mary said. ‘Especially if you had two or three little ones.’

‘I daresay ordinary women with several children would like water coming into their houses in pipes, even more than baby carriages,’ he said. ‘That would save so much drudgery for them. Some of the rich people have rooms just for bathing in, and the dirty water is disposed of easily by opening a sluice.’

Mary looked at him in disbelief. ‘They do?’

‘Oh yes,’ Boswell said. ‘Whole terraces of houses have been built with water brought in by elm pipes, and drains
to take away the waste. Maybe one day when these conveniences spread throughout the city our streets will be pleasanter places to walk.’

Mary began to laugh, for just ahead of them she saw a maid tipping the contents of a pail out of a second-storey window.

‘I’ve been unlucky enough to be drenched that way dozens of times,’ Boswell said ruefully. ‘I think proper drains are something that the government ought to see as a priority.’

‘I didn’t think London would smell as bad as Plymouth,’ Mary said, wrinkling her nose. ‘But it does.’

‘What can we expect with all these horses?’ Boswell remarked, waving his hand to indicate at least thirty of them within their view. ‘On a wet day the cart and carriage wheels splash their muck up all over you. They have tried to stop cattle being driven through the city, but to no avail.’