Remember Me (14 page)

When Tench came back on board, a little fragile from all the drinking and carousing he’d done with the other men ashore, he too had a present for her. A blanket for the baby.

‘Will bought me cotton to make some clothes,’ she added after she’d thanked him, biting back tears of gratitude. ‘I’m lucky to have two such good friends.’

‘Will’s the man you should marry,’ Tench said abruptly, taking her completely by surprise.

‘Marry me!’ she exclaimed, as if such a thing had never crossed her mind. ‘Why would he want me when there’s prettier women without a child on the way?’

‘Because you’re clever, good company and steadfast,’
he said, his brown eyes twinkling. ‘Those are the attributes I’d look for in a wife.’

‘What about love?’ she asked, wishing she knew how to flirt the way she’d seen other women do to lure the man they wanted.

‘I believe love comes when two people are completely in tune with one another,’ he said earnestly. ‘I think many people mistake lust for love. The two are very different.’

‘But don’t they go together?’ she asked.

‘Sometimes, if you are very fortunate,’ he smiled. ‘Sadly most of us get one or the other, not both. Or worse still, feel all that for someone who just isn’t suitable.’

Mary had a feeling he was trying to tell her that was how he felt about her.

‘But surely if you feel that way they can become suitable?’ she said wildly.

‘Maybe.’ He shrugged his shoulders and looked across the harbour to Rio. ‘If you could take that person to some new place where your backgrounds didn’t matter.’

Their conversation was halted abruptly by Captain Gilbert coming aboard. Tench had to go and greet him, and Mary slipped back to the stern of the ship to gaze at Rio across the bay and wonder if Tench had wished he could take her there.

But if he had, why was he encouraging her to think of Will? Surely that wasn’t what men did? But Mary had long ago realized that Tench wasn’t like other men.

They sailed out of Rio harbour on 4 September, and three days later, in the evening, Mary went into labour.

It wasn’t so bad at first. She lay quietly next to Bessie and even managed to doze. But by the early hours of the morning she was in real pain, and she had to get up and hold on to one of the ship’s beams to alleviate it. Surgeon White was called at mid-morning, but he pronounced everything to be normal and said first babies always took a long time. His only preparations were to order two women, who just happened to be Mary Haydon and Catherine Fryer, to collect some straw for Mary to lie on.

The ship was rolling in a heavy swell, and Mary and Catherine were entirely unsympathetic towards Mary. To make matters worse, the hatches were closed because of high winds, so the hold was dark and stuffy.

‘You ’ad the pleasure,’ Mary Haydon said spitefully. ‘Now you got to suffer the pain.’

Mary had always been aware that these two women had continued to hold her responsible for their plight, however much they had insisted in the past that it was done and forgotten. Every time Mary had received gratitude or praise from the other women, she had sensed their jealousy. She guessed they saw her labour as a chance to get even, hoping she’d make an exhibition of herself and lose some of the admiration the others had for her.

But Mary wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of that. When the next pain came she gritted her teeth and bore it silently.

On and on it went, each pain a little stronger until she was forced to lie down and cling to the knotted rope one of the older women had thoughtfully tied around a beam
for her to pull on. Sarah sat beside her, bathing her head, and making her take sips of the brackish water.

‘It won’t be long now,’ she whispered encouragingly. ‘And if you want to scream, you do it, don’t pay no mind to those two witches.’

Mary thought she might die of the agony, and wondered in a brief moment between pains how women could bring themselves to have more than one child. But then, just as she felt unable to bear any more, there was a new sensation, one of wanting to bear down.

She had heard other women, including her mother, speak of this part, and knew it meant the baby was fighting its way out. Suddenly she felt a wave of tenderness for the child within her, and a determination to expel him or her as quickly as possible.

‘It’s coming now,’ she whispered to Sarah, and as the next pain came she clenched her teeth together, brought her legs up, pulled on the rope and bore down hard.

She was vaguely aware that the other women were having their evening meal beyond the blanket Sarah had thoughtfully hung up to give her some privacy – she could smell the stew and hear them chewing. The rolling and the bucking of the ship seemed to echo what was going on with her body, and she was glad of the darkness hiding what she knew must be a very ungainly sight.

She heard Sarah order someone to go and get the surgeon, but it was some time before he came, and he left almost immediately after giving Sarah some curt instructions and a lantern to see by.

‘Don’t leave me,’ Mary screamed as he walked away.

‘The women will deal with it,’ he said sharply. ‘I can’t stand upright in here.’

‘Bastard,’ Sarah spat at his retreating back. But she leaned over to wipe Mary’s face tenderly. ‘You still got me,’ she said soothingly. ‘I know what to do, love, you’ll be all right.’

The pain was red-hot, and it seemed to Mary she could almost see it glowing through her skin as Sarah washed her bottom and thighs with cool water. As she gave one long huge push she felt the baby coming, and heard Sarah’s cry that she could see its head.

Mary had the sensation that a big slippery fish was being drawn out of her. The pain had ceased, and she could hear voices from behind the blanket curtain.

‘You’ve got a little girl,’ Sarah crowed delightedly. ‘A fine big one too.’

The light from the lantern was dim, but Mary could see Sarah holding up what looked like a skinned rabbit. Then all at once its cry burst out, an angry, defiant yell as if dismayed to find itself in a dark ship’s hold.

‘She’ll make it,’ Sarah said with relief in her voice, and put the baby in Mary’s arms. ‘Now, what are you going to call her?’

Mary couldn’t reply for a moment. She could only stare down in awe at her baby. She had a shock of black hair, she looked purple in the dim light, and her little fists were pummelling the air. It seemed unbelievable that this angry little scrap was something which had grown within her.

‘I’ll call her Charlotte,’ she said eventually. ‘After the
ship.’ Then, as she got a flash of Graham’s face looking tenderly at her the night their baby was probably conceived, she added, ‘Charlotte Spence.’

‘Spence?’ Sarah asked. ‘What sort of name is that?’

Mary didn’t trust herself to answer that one. ‘Could I have a drink now? I’m parched.’

It was very late at night when Charles White got back to his cabin, having returned to the hold to find that Mary’s baby had arrived safely. He poured himself a glass of whisky, then sat down to write up his diary.

‘8 September,’ he began. ‘Mary Broad. Delivered of a fine girl.’

He sat for a moment, unable to think of anything else that had happened during the day. Mary, lying cradling her baby in that filthy, stinking hold, filled his mind to the exclusion of all else. He had been called to many births over the years, from women of quality in fine houses to peasant women in hovels, and he’d helped them all and been touched by the wonder of new life. He felt some shame that he’d left Mary to fend for herself, for she was clearly a good woman, a cut above her companions with her intelligence and her calm, reserved manner.

Perhaps it was because he knew it was unlikely the infant would survive more than a few weeks. Infant mortality was high enough on dry land, but on a ship with rats, lice, foul water and every kind of disease lurking, waiting to find some weakened recipient, a newborn baby stood little chance. There had been surprisingly few
deaths so far, most of those attributed to sickness brought with the convicts from the prison hulks. But there was still a long way to go before they reached Botany Bay.

And when they arrived, things would get far tougher. There were houses to be built, land to be tilled and planted. The natives might be hostile, the weather inclement. It was hardly an ideal environment in which to rear young children.

But he thought Mary would make an excellent mother, she had so many remarkable qualities. He wondered again who the baby’s father was, and considered Tench, for he had been on the
Dunkirk
with Mary. He had obviously been waiting for news of her, and his eyes had lit up when White told him about the new arrival. He’d been eager to hear the sex and name of the baby and whether Mary was well.

Yet for all that, he couldn’t see Tench as the kind to take a convict woman. He was an upright, honest young man, with a great deal of natural dignity, more interested in putting the world to rights than philandering. But he did have some feelings for Mary Broad, that much was evident. Understandable really, when even a crusty old surgeon like himself found her intriguing.

Charles sighed deeply. There were so many unknown factors in this grand idea of emptying out the prison ships and sending all the undesirables to the other side of the world. No one really knew about the country’s climate and its native people, or whether the land could be cultivated. It was a huge gamble, not just with the prisoners’ lives, for precious few people back in England
cared a jot about them, but with those who were sent to keep them in line.

Captain Arthur Phillip, the commanding officer of the whole fleet, had himself expressed concern that there weren’t sufficient provisions, tools and clothing in the supply ships, and that the quality of them all was poor. Nor were there many skilled craftsmen among the prisoners.

Charles stared gloomily at his unwritten diary. If all the prisoners had been like Mary Broad and Will Bryant, intelligent, resourceful people, then the project might have a chance of success. Sadly, a huge proportion of them were complete scoundrels, the slime at the bottom of England’s barrel. In truth, the idea was doomed before it had even started.

As the ship sailed towards the port of Cape Town five weeks later, Mary stood at the rails with Charlotte in her arms and marvelled at the beauty of the scene before her.

The sun was setting, the sky pink and mauve, and all eleven ships were close to one another now, their sails billowing in the wind. The sea was turquoise, and a school of dolphins were leaping and diving around them, as if putting on a special show. They had been seeing dolphins and whales too for some days now, a sight Mary never tired of.

‘And you aren’t even watching,’ she said tenderly to Charlotte, who was fast asleep, wrapped in the blanket Tench had given her.

The horrors of her daughter’s birth were quite forgotten
now. Mary had ample milk and Charlotte was thriving. But then Mary devoted her entire attention to her child.

She never would have believed that she could feel so much for her baby. She rarely put her down, for she didn’t trust the other women not to stick their dirty fingers in her mouth, or drop her if they picked her up. One of the sailors had made a little crib for her to sleep in, but though Mary would put her in it up on deck during the day, with a cloth hung over it to keep the sun off, at night she was too worried about the rats, and kept Charlotte firmly in her own arms.

Captain Gilbert had said she could be baptized when they got to Cape Town, as the clergyman for the fleet would be coming on board there. That had touched Mary: she had expected that a prisoner’s child would be treated with disdain, as if it wasn’t quite human.

‘We’ll be able to see Table Mountain by tomorrow morning, I expect,’ Tench said suddenly by her elbow. Mary hadn’t seen or heard him coming towards her. ‘It looks just like a table too,’ he went on. ‘Flat on the top, and when there’s mist hanging around it makes a tablecloth, at least so I’m told. I haven’t been to Cape Town before.’

‘You’ll be able to explore it,’ Mary said wistfully. ‘See all those wild animals and things.’

She knew Tench liked exploring and writing in his diary about where he had been and what he’d seen. She had never met a man with so much enthusiasm for new places and strange things.

‘You won’t always be a prisoner, Mary,’ he said, his
voice soft with sympathy. ‘Once the settlement in Botany Bay is thriving, and your sentence is up, there will be opportunities for a woman like you to make good.’

‘You’ll have gone home by then,’ she said, trying to keep her tone light.

‘I expect so,’ he said. ‘But you’ll be part of a new community, and I’ve no doubt you will be married too. Perhaps little Charlotte will have a brother or sister.’ He bent his head closer to the baby in Mary’s arms and kissed her forehead. ‘Go for Will Bryant, Mary, he’s the best man for you.’

Tench had said nothing more about Will since long before Charlotte was born, but the fact that he’d obviously kept it in his mind proved to Mary he was completely serious about it.

‘How would I go about it, just supposing I thought that was a good plan?’ she asked.

Tench thought for a moment. ‘I’d lay my cards on the table. Point out the advantages for him having a wife. Especially one like you.’

Mary half smiled. ‘Back home I would’ve been thought of as the worst possible choice for a man. I’m not good at cooking and sewing or womanly things.’

‘There won’t be much call for domestic talents in Botany Bay,’ Tench said with a wry smile. ‘It will be the toughest, the most adaptable that do well there. You’ve got backbone, Mary, and plenty of determination. Will knows that, he admires you. I don’t think he’ll take much persuading.’

‘How would you feel if a woman asked you to marry
her?’ she asked him, smiling as she asked, as if it was only banter.

‘Now, that would depend who asked me,’ he laughed. ‘If she was rich and beautiful I’d be flattered.’

‘So a poor, plain convict girl would have no chance?’ she said, trying to sound as if she was joking, but she could hear a plaintive note in her own voice.