Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [142]
Tench didn’t make any reply for a few moments. He had been on an emotional see-saw with Mary for so long, sometimes he didn’t know for certain how he really felt. She looked pretty today in her green and white dress, her hair neatly tied back with a white ribbon, her cheeks pink from the sun and wind. She had regained a little weight since Charlotte’s death, and she looked a world away from the waif in rags he’d known back in Sydney Cove.
But her grey eyes looked dead now, no sparkle, no fire. Even her voice was muted. He couldn’t bear it.
‘It’s difficult to find anything further to discuss after hanging has been brought up,’ he said, afraid he might make a fool of himself and cry.
‘Maybe it’s because there isn’t anything more to say,’ she replied. ‘We’ve had an odd sort of friendship, haven’t we? It was always an uneven one, you with the world in front of you, me with nothing.’
‘I never saw it like that,’ he said sadly and with just a touch of indignation.
‘Neither did I, once.’ She sighed. ‘But then I’m better at seeing things as they really are now.’
Tench felt helpless. He remembered her audacity back on the Dunkirk. He’d been fully aware she was always looking for an opportunity, whether that was escape, work on deck, extra food or clothing. It was that ingenuity and daring that initially attracted him to her. He couldn’t believe she’d lost it all. But maybe if he told her how he really felt about her, some of it might return.
‘I don’t think you are that good at seeing everything,’ he began cautiously. ‘My feelings for you in particular.’
She looked at him inquiringly and it gave him heart.
‘I love you, Mary, I always have,’ he blurted out. ‘I wish I had told you so long ago, and never let you marry Will.’
Mary just stared at him. Not disbelieving, nor scornful. She simply looked at him as if she was seeing right down into his soul.
‘It’s true,’ Tench insisted. ‘I want to find a way to get you released so you can share your life with me.’
She remained silent for another couple of moments, and Tench held his breath, waiting for her reply.
‘I’m not for you, Watkin,’ she said at last, her voice soft but firm, and her use of his Christian name sounded odd. ‘You want me to have hope.’
‘Of course I want you to have hope. For a future together, marriage, and a real home,’ he said passionately.
She smiled wearily. His dark eyes had all the fire in them she once dreamed of, but it was too late now. ‘I have hope for you,’ she said. ‘I hope you’ll have a long and distinguished career, and a wife suitable for your station who loves you with all her heart.’
‘But don’t you see that it was Fate who brought us together again?’ he said fiercely, catching hold of her hand and pressing it. ‘We’re meant to be together, I know it.’
‘I think Fate brought us together only to give me a little comfort in seeing a dear face once again,’ she said, putting her hand on his cheek. ‘You have been the very best of friends.’
‘But is that all?’ he asked, his face full of hurt and disappointment.
Mary thought for a moment. She wasn’t sure whether telling him the truth would hurt him more, or comfort him. Yet her mother would have said the truth is always best.
‘It was you I wanted, right back on the Dunkirk,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Charlotte should have been your child. I carried that loving with me right through the voyage to New South Wales, even through my marriage. If you had said you wanted me as your lag wife, I believe I would have left Will for you.’
‘Well then,’ he said triumphantly. ‘There’s nothing to stand in our way now.’
Mary shook her head slowly. ‘There is, Watkin. I’m not the same person any more,’ she said almost wistfully. ‘I have a thousand ugly pictures in my head. I’m all used up.’
‘I don’t understand.’ He shook his head, dark eyes boring into her. ‘If you were set free all that would go.’
‘Some of it maybe,’ she said, tears forming in her eyes because she wished what she was telling him wasn’t the truth. ‘But you love the old Mary, and that isn’t what you’d get.’
‘I don’t understand,