Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [38]
By the time they got to the beach they were very hot, and Dolly was disappointed that there was no one there to see her in her new finery.
‘It was silly to come here,’ she said peevishly. ‘Now we’ve got to walk all the way back in the heat.’
‘Let’s cool down in the sea then,’ Mary suggested.
Dolly was worried about their dresses of course, but after some persuasion Mary convinced her that they could go beyond the beach and through the woods, then come out again at the water’s edge, take their dresses off and paddle.
One thing led to another. Once they were in a place where they couldn’t be seen, Dolly saw no point in getting her petticoat or shift wet either, for she was sure Mary would splash her. Maybe for that one time she wanted to be as daring as her younger sister, and when Mary took off every stitch of clothing and went in for a dip, Dolly followed her willingly.
It was the most fun they’d ever had together. Mary held Dolly under her stomach and tried to teach her to swim. She couldn’t get the hang of it, so Mary pulled her along in the water by her hands. They were so engrossed in playing that they forgot to keep an eye out for anyone watching.
Later, dressed again, they giggled all the way home, and Dolly told Mary funny stories about some of the other maids where she worked.
Their mother was standing outside the house when they got home, and even from a distance they knew she was very angry. Her mouth was set in a straight line and she had her arms folded across her chest.
‘You little hussies,’ she shrieked at them as she came closer. ‘Get inside at once and explain yourselves.’
It seemed a fisherman in his boat had seen them bathing, and passed on the information to someone else, who hastily reported back to their mother.
‘The shame of it,’ she kept saying over and over again as she clouted them up the stairs and ordered them to remove their clothes.
She beat them with a stick across their bottoms and backs, drawing blood on Dolly. Then she banished Mary to bed without any supper, and Dolly back to her employers.
Mary had thought then that her mother was a cruel kill-joy. She couldn’t see what harm there had been in swimming naked. And she continued to blame her mother when Dolly never seemed to want to go anywhere with her again.
Mary sighed as she remembered that day. She had been so innocent then, barely aware of her own budding breasts, let alone of how desirable Dolly was. She certainly didn’t have any idea that her mother was afraid of what might have happened if her daughters had been spotted by a couple of sailors.
But she knew now, and understood what animals men could be. It seemed to her that almost everything her mother had tried to warn her about had happened. Even the absence of the menses.
Mother had always been vague about what happened between men and women, but she had warned them about what she called ‘funny business’, and said when the menses didn’t arrive it meant a girl was having a baby.
Mary tried to convince herself this couldn’t be so, that perhaps it was only the result of the anxiety of waiting for the ship to sail. But by March she was forced to face the possibility that she was expecting Graham’s child, and she consulted Sarah.
‘I reckon you are,’ she said, looking at Mary thoughtfully. ‘You poor cow, I’d throw myself overboard in the chains if I thought I was. I’ve heard tell you can get a reprieve from hanging because of your belly, but I never heard of anyone getting off transportation because of it.’
Mary’s heart sank even further then, for she had expected Sarah to pooh-pooh her fears. ‘Well, if I am to have it, I’d rather have it here than on the Dunkirk,’ she said defiantly. She had witnessed Lucy Perkins giving birth there and the horror of it hadn’t left her. Lucy was not released from her chains, and after some twenty hours of labour her baby was stillborn. Lucy died a few days later. No doctor was called, the only help she’d had was from the