Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [135]
It could have taken less than a second for Mary to gather together her few belongings. But she spun it out, examining each and every item, even though they had no value. A blue cotton dress, given to her in Kupang. The length of brightly coloured cotton from which she had intended to make another dress for Charlotte, but instead used to wrap Emmanuel in when he was in hospital. She held it to her face, hoping it still smelled of him, but that was gone now, just as he was, and the colours were faded from the many times she’d washed it. A string of blue wooden beads given to her by James Martin in Kupang. A lock of Emmanuel’s blond hair, tucked into a folded piece of brown paper. The blanket Watkin Tench had given her here in Cape Town, for Charlotte.
It had been white and fluffy then, now it was brown with age, so threadbare it resembled a cobweb, but just holding it brought back many memories of both her babies. There were a couple of pretty shells, picked up on the beach in Kupang, and finally the bag holding sweet tea leaves.
She didn’t really know why she’d held on to them all this time. They were the last of those she’d picked back in the colony. They were brown and crackly now, and she doubted they had any flavour left. But she couldn’t throw them away, they too held good memories. She could see herself sitting by the fire with Will outside their hut, sipping at the hot tea as they planned their future. That tea had kept hunger at bay, it had warmed them when they were cold, comforted them when everything looked black.
She would put on the blue dress, for even if it was ragged, it was clean. She’d worn it all the time at the hospital in Batavia. She wished she still had the pink dress and the smart boots, or even her shawl and sun bonnet, as they would have made her feel a whole lot better going aboard the new ship. But if she hadn’t sold them, they might not be alive now.
Charlotte had even fewer possessions, just a little shift and her colourful dress, now faded to just a blur of pastels, the stitching coming apart on the seams. She had stopped complaining about wearing the plain grey one back in the hospital. Now Mary came to think of it, she hadn’t complained about anything since then – not the lack of food and water, or even when she was taken sick.
Mary glanced down at her. She was lying on the bench where they slept, curled up like a small dog, using her two hands as a pillow. Her face was pale and drawn, she was pitifully thin, and her eyes looked haunted.
‘It will be better on the new ship,’ Mary said, smoothing back her dark curls from her face. ‘You’ll get well again.’
Charlotte merely sighed. It was the sound of disbelief, and it hurt Mary more than a sharp retort.
Jim Cartwright was right about which ship they were going home on, but wrong that they would go to it immediately. They sat at anchor for over two weeks. The crew went ashore, but Mary was kept aboard. She wasn’t put in chains again, but she was locked back in the hold with Charlotte, and even refused a couple of hours a day on deck for fresh air and exercise.
Daily, Charlotte became weaker, burning up with fever, and all Mary could do was bathe her, try to get her to drink, and curse a system which would allow an innocent child to suffer such cruelty.
Carrying Charlotte, who was barely conscious, Mary staggered up the gang-plank of the Gorgon, too weak even to respond to the sound of English voices.
Jim had told her the Gorgon had come from Port Jackson, and that the whole ship was filled with plants, shrubs, animal skins and even a couple of captured kangaroos. He’d been impatient to see these wonders for himself. But Mary was more intent on being reunited with her fellow deserters, as they were now labelled, than concerning herself with whether there would be anyone else on board that she knew.
She was dizzy with fever and the heat. Shouting, thumping,