Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [61]
Yet as Will basked in the warm glow of admiration and gratitude, Mary had lost the strong position she’d once held with the other women from the Charlotte. With Mary Haydon and Catherine Fryer dripping poison in the ears of the trouble-making women from other ships, it wasn’t long before most of the women were suspicious of her. Even Bessie and Sarah, whom she thought she could count on forever, had turned against her. They called her a ‘dark one’, as if she was guilty of some treachery, when the plain fact was that they were jealous of her.
Mary understood why. They were mostly sleeping six to a hut, while she was tucked up in a strong, weatherproof one, well away from the noise and trouble in the main camp. She ate better in those early days because Will was allowed some of each catch for himself. Nor did she have to work as a servant for one of the officers as the other women did. Added to this, the women saw Mary as a ‘nark’, because officers talked to her.
Tench often came to see how she and Will were getting on, and he liked to help with the fishing at night. It was reported that even Captain Phillip had remarked that the Bryants were the model family, industrious, sober and clean.
In the early days in the colony, Mary had made a good friend of Jane Randall, who sailed on the Lady Penryn. She too had a baby en route, though it was born while they were berthed in Cape Town. Initially it was because Charlotte and Henrietta were so close in age that Mary and Jane became friends; they had the same anxieties for their babies, and they minded each other’s to help out. Jane was sweet-natured and fun to be with, and like-minded too about making the best of it here.
Then Captain Phillip decided to start a new settlement on Norfolk Island, 1,000 miles away. It appeared to have a better climate, and the ground was more fertile, so some of the convicts, Jane among them, were sent there to alleviate the food shortages. Mary still missed her badly. Jane had never been jealous of her, she was always glad fortune seemed to shine on her friend.
Mary took the view that many of her former friends could be just as fortunate as her if they only used their brains. In the early days, Mary had tried to make them at least see the logic of appearing to be industrious. It was so easy to do, the officers only poked their noses in if there was any trouble, and to her mind the majority of the Marines were half-wits. Likewise, keeping yourself clean and tidy, and not running around hunting for men and drink, got you privileges and respect.
But sadly, one by one her old friends had fallen into apathy and allowed themselves to be influenced by a few forceful characters who thought they were proving their toughness by fighting and stealing. Nothing was safe from these women, and they recruited new members into their band by offering the drink they acquired through theft or prostitution.
Mary understood why Sarah had gone that way. She’d been raped on that first night, and found herself pregnant afterwards. Her baby was stillborn, and that brought back all the pain of the two children left behind in England. Drink was the only thing which made her life a little more bearable.
But most of the women hadn’t got such a good excuse. They had become filthy slatterns who neglected their children, preyed on those weaker than themselves, and went with any man for a shot of rum.
Mary was like a pricking conscience. They sneered at her because she bathed in the sea every day, cleaned her hut and kept Charlotte constantly beside her. But Mary knew that most of their spite and scorn was purely because she had the man