Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [118]
She felt feminine now, somehow worldly-wise and special. These good people who smiled at her with such warmth didn’t know she had been in chains, or forced to barter her body just to stay alive. And she could forget that too, for she had saved her children from a life of hunger and degradation. Her plan to escape from New South Wales had worked, without loss of life. She had achieved what most people would consider impossible.
To Mary, Kupang was everything she’d ever dreamed of and more. The busy port had much in common with Plymouth, in as much as ships came in from every quarter of the globe. Because it was a major trading centre for the Dutch East India Company, it also had a rich and diverse brew of every nationality and religion. Up on the hills were grand houses where rich merchants’ wives sat gossiping in beautiful exotic gardens. There were elegant townhouses where Mary saw dusky maids with almond eyes and snowy-white aprons polishing the door knockers and sweeping the steps. And while it was true that there were far more of the crudest of shacks for the workers than grand places, and disreputable boarding-houses, brothels and bars frequented by the sailors, it all gave the place more colour and vibrancy.
She would remind herself when she saw the many beggars here that at least they weren’t cold and wet like their counterparts back in England. They could sit in the sunshine smiling at those who dropped alms into their bowls, they could sleep on the beach in comparative comfort, and fruit grew in abundance, free for the picking.
Mary had fallen in love with Kupang for giving her and her children back their health, for the kindness she’d received. She wanted nothing more than to stay here forever, to live the simple native life, fishing, collecting honey, swimming and bringing up happy, healthy children. She felt drunk on the aroma of sandalwood, which wafted through the village on the lightest of breezes. It clung to her clothes and skin, and she heard it was the island’s main export. She felt she and Will had a future here, and they could live happily forever.
‘Pssst!’
Mary was just putting Emmanuel down to sleep in the hut she and Will had been given to live in, and she jumped at the hiss from the doorway. She turned to see James Martin beckoning to her. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ she said, assuming his reluctance to come inside was from propriety. ‘Has Will sent you with a message?’
Will had been absent a great deal in the past three or four weeks. He usually claimed this was through work in the port, but she knew perfectly well he was in a bar somewhere getting drunk. She just hoped James hadn’t come to tell her that he’d signed on a ship and left her. That was what he’d threatened to do several times.
‘No. But come outside.’
Mary bent to kiss Emmanuel, and after tucking a blanket around him she joined James outside. Her smile froze when she saw James’s expression. He looked haunted.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘Everything,’ James snapped, and taking her arm pulled her away from the hut towards the jungle surrounding the village. ‘A group of English sailors came into port just now in open boats,’ he whispered. ‘They were shipwrecked back in those Straits we came through.’
‘So?’ she exclaimed.
James rubbed his hands over his face distractedly.
‘Don’t you see? As soon as they are taken to Wanjon, he’s going to assume they are the rest of the crew from our supposed wreck. Bloody Will, he could never tell a story without adding some embroidery.’
Mary winced. She had been cross with Will when she heard he hadn’t stuck to the exact story they’d planned while out at sea. He should have said that the whaler sank and they