Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [179]
Mary invited them into the parlour and once they were sitting down, she looked hard at the man. ‘So you are from Fowey, Mr Castel?’ she said. ‘I don’t know any family of that name.’
‘I left many years ago, when you would have been just a little girl,’ he said calmly. ‘But I know your sister Dolly very well.’
Mary gasped, despite herself. ‘You know Dolly? How? Where is she?’
‘I have only known her since she came to London,’ he said, mopping perspiration from his face with a handkerchief. ‘She is in service for Mrs Morgan of Bedford Square. I met her there when I was replacing some glass, and we got to talking about Fowey.’
‘Dolly’s here in London!’ Mary could hardly believe what she was hearing, and even though Boswell was giving her a warning look as if he didn’t want her to get too excited, she couldn’t help but be.
‘It seems Mr Castel wants your permission to write to your family in Fowey and inform them about you,’ Boswell butted in, with a very cynical tone in his voice. ‘He claims he also knows a relative of yours there, Edward Puckey.’
‘Ned!’ Again Mary gasped. She and Dolly had been bridesmaids at her cousin Ned’s wedding.
‘You have a relative called Edward Puckey?’ Boswell asked.
Mary nodded. ‘My cousin,’ she said.
Mr Castel looked at Mary and his frown indicated that he felt aggrieved. ‘It seems Mr Boswell doesn’t trust me. I knew Ned Puckey when I was a lad, though he’s a few years younger than me. It was through that connection that I got to know Dolly so well. All I want now is to see two sisters reunited and pass on news that could be advantageous to you.’
Setting aside Mr Castel’s clothing and the ill-fitting wig, which did suggest questionable taste, Mary thought he had an honest face. He looked directly at her, he wasn’t licking his lips or fidgeting nervously. He had also retained his Cornish accent.
‘What news?’ she asked suspiciously, and glanced at Boswell. He was tense, sweating profusely, and his frown suggested he wished to silence this man.
‘That your family have come into a fortune.’
Mary laughed out loud and rocked back in her chair. ‘I can’t believe that, even if I wish to believe you know Dolly,’ she said.
‘It’s true,’ he insisted. ‘Dolly told me. Your uncle, Peter Broad, died while you were in Botany Bay, and he left a fortune to your family.’
Mary stopped laughing suddenly. Her uncle Peter, her father’s brother, was a master mariner, which meant he was hired to take control of a ship, unlike her father who was just an ordinary seaman. She had not known Uncle Peter very well as he was away at sea for very long periods. But whenever he came home she remembered that he always came visiting with presents of food, sweetmeats and other luxuries. It had been Uncle Peter who brought the pink silky material her mother had used to make the dresses she and Dolly wore the day they went swimming naked. It was always said around Fowey that he was rich too, in fact whenever her mother spoke of wanting something out of the ordinary, her father had always said jokingly, ‘You’d better bide a while, my dear, until Peter comes home.’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Mary exclaimed. ‘This has come as a shock, Mr Castel.’
‘I’m sure it has,’ he said. ‘But believe me, there is no mischief in my desire to impart this news to you, only to try and bring a family together. You see, Dolly and I are friends. We met some four years ago and she told me she had a sister who had gone off to work in Plymouth and hadn’t been seen since. She said her parents still fretted about you, not knowing whether you were alive or dead.’
‘They didn’t know what happened to me?’ Mary wasn’t sure whether this pleased or saddened her.
Mr Castel shook his head. ‘According to what Dolly told me, your father went looking for you in Plymouth, but without success. Dolly had the idea you’d come to London, and that was mainly why she took a position here, hoping she’d run into you one day. But as the years