Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [169]
‘You can thank me by getting your things quickly and then we’ll go off to celebrate,’ he said.
Mary took two steps towards the door, then stopped sharply and turned to him again. Her smile had gone, replaced by a look of extreme anxiety.
‘What about the men?’ she said in little more than a whisper. ‘Are they pardoned too?’
This was the moment Boswell had been dreading.
‘Not yet,’ he said carefully, afraid she might not want to leave without them. ‘But they will get one in due course. I am promised that.’
She hesitated.
‘Mary, they will be freed,’ he insisted. ‘I am sure they will be glad for you. You can do more for them on the outside than by sticking here with them.’
She left then, but walked away slowly, her head bent as if in thought.
*
Mary blurted out her news from the cell door, and began to cry when she got to the part that the pardon was only for her, and they’d have to wait a little longer. She thought they would be angry, hurt and resentful, and covered her face in expectation of a volley of verbal abuse.
James was stunned, but as he saw her gesture he felt ashamed that she anticipated jealousy at her good fortune. She deserved her freedom more than any of them, for her losses had been so much greater.
‘That’s all right with us, ain’t it, boys?’ he said, giving them a warning glance not to say anything mean-spirited.
‘But I wanted us all to go together,’ Mary said, tears running down her cheeks. ‘How can I leave without you?’
As one, the four of them leaped to their feet, each man moved by her unswerving loyalty to them.
‘Don’t be a numbskull,’ James said. ‘We always expected you to go first, so bugger off and enjoy it.’
‘You deserve it more than any of us,’ Sam said, his warm smile softening his gaunt features. Nat patted her affectionately on the shoulder, while Bill gave a whoop of delight and punched the air.
Mary wiped away her tears, touched that they could be so joyful for her and hide their own disappointment. ‘We’ve been together for so long I don’t know if I can manage without you,’ she said.
‘Get away,’ Sam said, waving her to the door in an exaggerated gesture. ‘We’ll be glad to be rid of your nagging.’
‘We’ll turn the cell into a midden, we’ll drink all day, and we’ll invite whores up here,’ Bill growled, but his lips were trembling.
‘I’ll take your blanket,’ Nat chirped up. ‘It’s thicker than mine.’
Mary looked at their faces with tear-filled eyes. Four brave smiles, four warm hearts, each one so very dear to her for a thousand or more different reasons. They had seen one another at their best and their worst. They had fought, laughed and cried together. Now she had to leave, and learn to live without them.
‘Don’t get drunk or fight, and James, you finish your book,’ she said weakly, falling back on motherly advice because she knew that if she tried to tell them how much she loved them she would break down. ‘I’ll be back to see you, and we’ll all celebrate together when you get your pardon too.’
She slipped off her old dress and put on the blue one Boswell had given her, then, tipping the straw out of the linen sack which she’d brought from the Gorgon and had been using as a pillow, she put her few belongings into it.
James came up behind her and fastened the buttons at the back of her dress, then turned her round to tuck a stray curl behind her ear. ‘God bless you, Mary,’ he said, his voice cracking with emotion. He kissed her cheek, then held her close. ‘It’ll surely be a lucky man who gets you.’
Wordlessly, Mary broke away from James to kiss and hug the other three, lingering just a little longer with Sam. ‘Don’t go wrong again,’ she whispered to him. ‘And find a woman worthy of you.’
She paused at the door, taking one last look at them. She could remember