Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [166]
Her courage, endurance and intelligence were all remarkable. There was something decidedly masculine about the way she showed so little emotion under stress, yet she was very feminine in other ways. She was passionate in her anxiety about babies born in prisons, and the lack of care for the mothers. She would admire Boswell’s fancy waistcoats, tears had welled up in her eyes when he brought her a posy of snowdrops, and she showed real concern when he arrived out of breath. He had noted her tenderness towards her friends, and the way she kept herself and their cell clean and tidy. In Newgate, that was almost unheard of.
It was well below freezing outside, but Boswell’s drawing room was warm from the blazing fire, and very comfortable. Shutters and heavy brocade curtains kept out the draughts, his armchair supported him perfectly. He had only to ring the bell and his housekeeper would bring him anything he wanted – a plate of ham or cheese, a bottle of port, or even a blanket to put round his knees. She would warm his bed with a hot brick before he got into it and his night-shirt would be hung by the fire to warm too. In the morning he was woken with a tray of tea, the fire would already be lit, and hot water ready for his morning wash.
Tonight in Newgate it would be bitingly cold, and he could hardly bear to think of Mary trying to sleep huddled on straw. Yet she never complained about the conditions, in fact she showed gratitude that she had been spared the common side of the prison. It was only when she recalled her native Cornwall that he saw a hunger in her eyes for fresh air, the majesty of the pounding sea and the wildness of the moors.
His own trip to Cornwall had made sense of some of Mary’s traits. While he had in the main found it a wet and cheerless place, with worse poverty in some areas than London, when the sun came out and he had seen the spectacular scenery, he had felt humbled.
The way the tiny fishing villages had insinuated themselves into the shelter of the cliffs spoke reams about its natives’ tenacity. They fished, went down mines and farmed. However poor they were, the Cornish didn’t kow-tow to the wealthy landowners. James had a sense all the time he was there that the common folk had the heart and the courage to rise up and take back what was rightfully theirs, if they so chose. Mary was Cornish through and through, sturdy and wild as a moorland pony, as tenacious as the limpets in rock pools, and often as deep as its pit shafts.
But last week he’d thought she was sinking, that she was unable to take much more of everything she’d endured so stoically. He was afraid that her low state would make her vulnerable to infection, and she’d have no strength left to fight it.
Perhaps he had initially looked for glory by defending her, but he certainly cared nothing for that now. He wanted so much to lead her from that dreadful place, to watch her blossom with good food, pretty clothes and freedom.
A friend had teased him recently by asking if there weren’t enough whores in London to satisfy him, without rescuing a convict. Once he would have laughed off such a remark, and in the past his ultimate aim would have been to bed the woman once she was free. But Mary had touched something deep inside him that had nothing to do with lust. It stung that his friends didn’t see this.
Mary, he believed, was his chance to redeem himself for past carelessness with women. He had truly loved his wife Margaret, but he had neglected her and been unfaithful many times. All those scores of whores, serving maids and often innocent young women he’d bedded! He wasn’t guilty of callousness, for many of them had engaged his heart. But he had been like a butterfly, sipping nectar here and there, moving on as soon as the sweetness faded.
He wasn’t going to lose interest in Mary, though – for once in his life he intended to see this through, whatever the cost to him. His aim went beyond getting her and her friends pardoned, he was going to help Mary on to a secure and