Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [73]
As he drew nearer the hut, he was very surprised to see a fire and Mary bending over it.
‘Why the fire? Is Charlotte sick?’ he asked as he got nearer.
‘No, she’s asleep,’ Mary said. ‘I thought you’d be cold and hungry so I made some breakfast for you.’
Will’s spirits lifted. He had expected Mary to be sullen because he’d gone off fishing without seeing her first. If she had found out he’d bought some rum instead of something they could all eat, she’d have been even madder.
‘Breakfast?’ he said incredulously.
Mary touched his wet shirt. ‘Take that off and hang it up to dry,’ she said, her face soft with concern. ‘Wrap the blanket round you to warm you up. I could only fry a bit of bread for you, it was all I could get.’
Five minutes later, sitting on a stool in the doorway of the hut, with a cup of sweet tea in one hand and a big piece of fried bread in the other, Will felt much better. The first rays of light were coming into the sky and the bay looked beautiful with a cloud of mist just above the water. It was his favourite time of day, the birds just waking to sing, the ugliness of the camp not yet visible. It might be winter here, but it was as warm as a spring morning back home. In fact, looking across at the Sirius wreathed in mist, with the grey-green of the other side of the bay behind her, he could almost fool himself he was in Falmouth harbour looking out to St Mawes.
He missed Cornwall so much – the little winding cobbled streets, the houses huddled together, that blinding clear light in summer, the big fires in the tavern on a winter’s night. When he thought of the risks the Cornish took with smuggling, it made him smile. Straining at the oars against waves as tall as houses, watching for the warning lanterns on the cliffs that said the excise men were coming – it was a game with high stakes, and only those with speed, nerve and strength dared play. But the winners tossed back glasses of French brandy, fishermen, miners and farm labourers equals with the country squire if they had played their part well.
The lasses there were pretty as well – rosy cheeks, big breasts and sweet shy smiles. The first time he saw Mary, through the grille on the Dunkirk, she was like that too. Now she was rake-thin, with hollowed cheeks, and she rarely smiled.
But she’d got up to make a fire and fry him some bread. She kept herself clean, and she didn’t go after other men.
‘Penny for them?’ Mary startled him by coming up behind him and putting her arms around his neck.
‘They aren’t worth a penny!’ he chuckled. ‘I’ll tell you them for free. I was thinking about Cornwall, the smuggling and the taverns.’
‘Want to know what I’m thinking?’ she asked, kissing his neck.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘That we get into bed,’ she said. ‘And I warm you proper like.’
Will smiled, and it went right down inside him. Even before the flogging there hadn’t been much love-making, hunger and exhaustion saw to that. But since then it had gone completely; his lacerated back, working on the brick kiln, and further cuts in rations had knocked all the passion out of him.
‘Now that’s a real good idea, my lover,’ he said, turning to grab her for a kiss. ‘It’s been far too long.’
Mary smiled to herself later that day as she washed clothes down at the water’s edge. She’d almost forgotten how special Will could make her feel. It was worth getting up so early, she’d even managed to forget how hungry she was.
In early September Mary knew she was definitely pregnant again. She was thrilled, not just because she’d reached her objective and found a way to prevent Will from leaving her here alone, but because he was genuinely delighted at becoming a father. Yet as always in the colony, any happy moment seemed to be erased by something bad. This time it was a soldier raping a girl of eight. To Mary it brought Charlotte’s vulnerability sharply into focus. Up until then she’d hardly considered what the future for her child would be – keeping her alive was enough to concern herself with. But when the soldier wasn’t even hanged, but sent off