Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [164]
‘Don’t, Mary,’ James said, and quickly moved across the floor to comfort her. ‘I can’t bear to see you cry.’
‘Why?’ she asked bitterly, tears running down her cheeks. ‘Are you afraid if I crumple there’ll be no hope for any of you?’
She had replied without thinking, but all at once she saw it was true. She had had people leaning on her, sapping her strength, right from the days back in the Dunkirk. She remembered setting up camp in Port Jackson, with everyone asking her how to do this, how to do that. They wanted her to listen to their problems, enlisted her help in everything from nursing a sick child to pleading with the officers for a blanket or a cooking pot. It never let up, right through the escape and afterwards.
But who did she have to lean on when things were bad? Mary was forced to keep a grip on herself because she knew she couldn’t count on anyone.
‘We would flounder without you, that’s for sure,’ James said ruefully, as if he’d read her thoughts. ‘But you do know how much me and the others love you?’
‘I don’t know that I believe men can love,’ she sobbed. ‘When men can use the very same act when they say they love a woman, as they do to show her how much they despise or hate her, I can’t believe they have hearts.’
James put his arms tightly around her and rocked her against his chest. ‘That’s a very cynical thought, Mary. I’ve done a lot of things I’m ashamed of, but I’ve never taken a woman by force. And a man can love a woman with no thought of lying with her. Me, Nat, Bill and Sam, we all feel that way about you, you’re like a sister to us.’
‘But where are you every day if you care so much?’ she burst out. ‘I’m in here alone for hours on end. You leave me to see Mr Boswell, it’s me that bargains for the food from Spinks, gets our washing done. What do any of you do but drink?’
‘We leave you to see Boswell because we know it’s you he wants to see,’ James said indignantly. ‘You get better deals from Spinks too because he likes you. And if we leave you alone it’s because we thought that was what you wanted.’
‘Is that so?’ she retorted.
‘You certainly know it’s right about Boswell and Spinks,’ James replied defensively. ‘Was it something Boswell said that made you come to the tap-room for me?’
Mary thought for a moment. She had all but forgotten what had passed between her and Boswell. ‘I think I was just upset because he had no news of our pardon,’ she said, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. ‘I’m beginning to think there will never be one.’
‘Then maybe it’s time I wrote to the newspapers,’ James said. ‘A little reminder we are all still here, it might prompt some action.’
Mary was aware that the men weren’t as desperate as she was to be freed. They wanted it of course, but they had grown used to Newgate, and as long as money came to them for drink and food, they were content. But in Mary’s opinion James was living in a fool’s paradise. He’d had ambitions when they first got here, of writing a book and going home to Ireland to breed horses, but all he did now was drink the time away. He didn’t seem to realize that none of the women who found him so fascinating now would want to know him or help him once he was released. He had to start thinking about that day, now.
She sat up and caught hold of his face between her two hands. ‘Listen to me, James,’ she insisted. ‘You’ve got to stop going into the tap-room. The people you meet in there aren’t doing you any good. Please spend your time writing your book, reading, anything other than drinking, or when we do get out you’ll get yourself in trouble again and you’ll end up back here.’
‘Don’t preach, Mary,’ he said, shrugging her away. ‘I know all that.’
‘Do you?’ she asked. ‘Then you are a great deal cleverer than me. You see, I’ve thought about it constantly, and I still don’t know how I’m going to live. I ask myself, what can a woman do to make an honest living when she can’t read or write? I wonder what right-minded