Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [96]
‘It’s my hope that in years to come all our people will embrace the natives wholeheartedly,’ Tench said.
Mary normally agreed with his views, but today, somewhat jaded by her own fears and despair, she couldn’t help thinking he was being naive and even ridiculous.
‘They won’t,’ she said. ‘My guess is that there will come a time when the government will want to wipe out all the natives because they don’t fit in with their plans for this place.’
Tench looked appalled. ‘Oh, Mary, no!’
‘That’s what they do to anyone who has different values to themselves,’ she said defiantly. ‘The rich and powerful got that way by trampling on the less able. Even when us convicts have served our time, do you really think our past will be forgotten? My guess is there’ll always be a two-tiered society here. Convicts, natives and ex-convicts at the bottom, people like your sort at the top.’
‘I don’t know what you mean by “your sort”,’ he said indignantly. ‘All men are born equal. It is individual choice whether they rise or fall.’
‘It’s a damn sight easier to rise if you are educated, with a rich family to steer you,’ she snapped. ‘But that’s not my point. Us convicts are no better than slaves to your sort. The more they send here, the more attractive this country will become to the moneyed classes back in England. I expect in time they’ll come here to grab land, and who will work it?’ She paused, waiting for him to give her a straight answer. But he said nothing, only looked hurt.
‘Us convicts,’ she said triumphantly. ‘That’s who! Don’t deny it won’t happen, sir, you know it will. Some people might feel badly about capturing a black man and forcing him to work for nothing. But no one at all cares if a bunch of convicted criminals are worked to death.’
Tench was staggered. In all the time he’d known Mary she’d never before shown such bitterness. ‘I thought you were quite happy here with Will and your children,’ he said weakly. Yet even as he said this he realized he was making the assumption that most of the officers made: that convicts had no finer feelings.
‘Happy!’ she laughed mirthlessly. ‘How can I be happy when Charlotte cries with hunger? When I am afraid for her and Emmanuel’s future? They have done nothing wrong, yet they are sentenced to life imprisonment too.’
‘I’m so sorry, Mary.’ Tench’s voice shook, and his eyes swam. ‘I wish—’
‘Wishes don’t come true,’ she said, cutting him short. ‘Prayers aren’t answered, not for women like me. I have to make my own luck.’
Tench stood for a while as Mary went on down to the shore to wash the clothes. He felt impotent, for he knew deep in his heart that every word she’d said was true. When the Scarborough, Surprise and Neptune got back to England, who would care about the number of felons who died on the way out to New South Wales? Or all those who had died here from the First Fleet? None, he suspected. Yet there would be thousands waiting eagerly to hear the reports on what this place was like, with a view to grabbing land here. Maybe most would be put off by the hardships involved, but opportunists would think of the free labour and be prepared to take a gamble. Just as they’d done in America.
Tench watched as Mary sat Emmanuel down on the ground beside Charlotte, then knelt by the water to begin the washing. He was reminded of the first time he spoke to her on the Dunkirk, when she was incensed by the filthy conditions in the hold.
She was truly remarkable. She had struggled bravely to make the best of her lot in life ever since that day. Plenty of other young and sparky women like her had just given up. Her friend Sarah was a drunken slattern now, as indeed were most of the surviving women from the Charlotte. Seven had died, and God only knew whether some of those might have lived if there’d been a ray of hope that conditions would improve here.
He felt deeply for all of them, but suddenly to hear and see Mary’s bitterness, when she had once been so optimistic, was unbearable.
Why couldn’t he find the courage to tell her how he felt about her?