Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [183]
That chance had come now.
‘But are you brave enough to go home?’ she murmured to herself. It was one thing to tell it all to Dolly, she was still young, without any hard-held prejudices. Her father would probably be as understanding too, for he had sailed to many different countries, met men from all walks of life.
But her mother was a different story. Her world was a tiny one, bound by the church and her neighbours. Would she be able to open her mind wide enough to accept that Mary had received far more punishment for her original crime than it warranted? Could she forgive and remain resolute in the face of village gossip?
Mary doubted it. Grace Broad had never been a forgiving or tolerant person. As a child Mary had been considered odd because she liked to hang around the fishermen, went swimming, climbed trees and wandered away from home. Her father had laughed and said she ought to have been a boy, but her mother’s face had always been dark with disapproval.
Yet Mary could understand why that was now. Becoming a mother herself had made sense of many things which once seemed so odd. A mother’s role was to nurture and protect, showing praise and disapproval were merely ways of guiding a child to keep them safe. She had no doubt now that her mother had been frightened by her daughter’s wilfulness. Maybe she always feared it would get Mary into serious trouble. And she was right of course.
Mary also doubted that the gossips in Fowey would see heroism in the daring escape, as people in London did. They would brood on the aspects of prison hulks, chains and the shadow of the gallows, whisper that she’d spent much of her time with a gang of men, and that would be interpreted as her being a wanton woman.
A tear trickled down Mary’s cheek. She knew she’d been foolhardy and selfish as a young girl, but all that was gone now, and she so wanted to be taken back into her family. She had never been able to speak to anyone about the agony of losing her two children, but perhaps if her mother enfolded her in her arms, she’d be able to tell her. She wanted to tell the whole family the place they had in her heart throughout her imprisonment. Perhaps as an adult she could make amends for all the sadness and worry she’d brought them.
Mary also felt that she needed the familiar peace and loveliness of her own village to cleanse her soul of the ugliness trapped within it. She may have had forgiveness from the King and the government, but that meant little without the forgiveness of her own people.
During the next few days Mary’s thoughts became even more confused. The day spent alone with Dolly was one of the best in her whole life, as they talked through everything that had happened to them both in the last nine years.
Dolly had always been held up to Mary as a paragon of feminine virtue. Her skill with the needle, the care she took in cleaning and laundry, her ability to cook tasty meals from almost nothing, and of course her lack of insolence and her sweet nature had all served to make her seem dull company in the youthful Mary’s eyes. Yet nine years on, Mary found her older sister had a far more lively mind than she had supposed.
Dolly had used her position as lady’s maid to become acquainted with all aspects of the gentry’s way of life. There was little she didn’t know, from how to dress a fashionable woman’s hair to the running of a large household. But she had picked up a great deal more than domestic skills from her master and mistress. She knew their secrets, their views on everything from religion to politics. Through them she had become educated, and she was no longer an innocent country girl. She might still be timid, in as much as she wouldn’t speak out of turn or go out alone at night, but she had had two lovers.
She confided in Mary that one was a younger brother of her master, and it had made her realize that an intelligent woman could control her own destiny. She said she had no intention of marrying a humble footman or even a tradesman