Remember Me (52 page)

‘I’ll go,’ Mary said, getting up. ‘Shall I tell him to go away?’

‘No, of course not,’ Mrs Wilkes said hurriedly. ‘You must take him into the parlour and I’ll bring you in some tea.’

But Boswell was not alone this time. He had a burly, florid-faced man with him, who in a somewhat loud checked jacket, matching breeches and a very poorly fitting dull brown wig, looked like a tradesman.

‘Good day, Mary,’ Boswell said, lifting his hat. She thought he looked flustered. ‘This is Mr Castel, a glazier by trade, and a native of Fowey. He wishes to give you certain news of your family, and he insisted we came right away to see you.’

Mary looked from one man’s face to the other, noting how hot and agitated they both looked. Boswell clearly wasn’t happy about this man’s insistence on coming to see her, and she guessed he suspected some kind of confidence trick. There had been several occasions previously when people had come to him claiming they knew Mary and asking for her address. So for Boswell to have brought this man to her door, there had to be some kind of credence to his story.

Mary invited them into the parlour and once they were sitting down, she looked hard at the man. ‘So you are from Fowey, Mr Castel?’ she said. ‘I don’t know any family of that name.’

‘I left many years ago, when you would have been just a little girl,’ he said calmly. ‘But I know your sister Dolly very well.’

Mary gasped, despite herself. ‘You know Dolly? How? Where is she?’

‘I have only known her since she came to London,’ he said, mopping perspiration from his face with a handkerchief. ‘She is in service for Mrs Morgan of Bedford Square. I met her there when I was replacing some glass, and we got to talking about Fowey.’

‘Dolly’s here in London!’ Mary could hardly believe what she was hearing, and even though Boswell was giving her a warning look as if he didn’t want her to get too excited, she couldn’t help but be.

‘It seems Mr Castel wants your permission to write to your family in Fowey and inform them about you,’ Boswell butted in, with a very cynical tone in his voice. ‘He claims he also knows a relative of yours there, Edward Puckey.’

‘Ned!’ Again Mary gasped. She and Dolly had been bridesmaids at her cousin Ned’s wedding.

‘You have a relative called Edward Puckey?’ Boswell asked.

Mary nodded. ‘My cousin,’ she said.

Mr Castel looked at Mary and his frown indicated that he felt aggrieved. ‘It seems Mr Boswell doesn’t trust me. I knew Ned Puckey when I was a lad, though he’s a few years younger than me. It was through that connection that I got to know Dolly so well. All I want now is to see two sisters reunited and pass on news that could be advantageous to you.’

Setting aside Mr Castel’s clothing and the ill-fitting wig, which did suggest questionable taste, Mary thought he had an honest face. He looked directly at her, he wasn’t licking his lips or fidgeting nervously. He had also retained his Cornish accent.

‘What news?’ she asked suspiciously, and glanced at Boswell. He was tense, sweating profusely, and his frown suggested he wished to silence this man.

‘That your family have come into a fortune.’

Mary laughed out loud and rocked back in her chair. ‘I can’t believe that, even if I wish to believe you know Dolly,’ she said.

‘It’s true,’ he insisted. ‘Dolly told me. Your uncle, Peter Broad, died while you were in Botany Bay, and he left a fortune to your family.’

Mary stopped laughing suddenly. Her uncle Peter, her father’s brother, was a master mariner, which meant he was hired to take control of a ship, unlike her father who was just an ordinary seaman. She had not known Uncle Peter very well as he was away at sea for very long periods. But whenever he came home she remembered that he always came visiting with presents of food, sweetmeats and other luxuries. It had been Uncle Peter who brought the pink silky material her mother had used to make the dresses she and Dolly wore the day they went swimming naked. It was always said around Fowey that he was rich too, in fact whenever her mother spoke of wanting something out of the ordinary, her father had always said jokingly, ‘You’d better bide a while, my dear, until Peter comes home.’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Mary exclaimed. ‘This has come as a shock, Mr Castel.’

‘I’m sure it has,’ he said. ‘But believe me, there is no mischief in my desire to impart this news to you, only to try and bring a family together. You see, Dolly and I are
friends. We met some four years ago and she told me she had a sister who had gone off to work in Plymouth and hadn’t been seen since. She said her parents still fretted about you, not knowing whether you were alive or dead.’

‘They didn’t know what happened to me?’ Mary wasn’t sure whether this pleased or saddened her.

Mr Castel shook his head. ‘According to what Dolly told me, your father went looking for you in Plymouth, but without success. Dolly had the idea you’d come to London, and that was mainly why she took a position here, hoping she’d run into you one day. But as the years passed that hope faded. I saw how important you were to her, that first day I met her. The moment she heard my voice and knew I was from Cornwall, she went out of her way to talk to me.’

Mary nodded. That sounded logical to her. For if she met someone with a Cornish accent she knew she’d immediately want to talk to them. ‘Did you know then where I was?’

Castel shook his head. ‘Indeed not. With a girl like Dolly you wouldn’t ever think she could have a sister that might have been transported.’

‘Why?’ Mary asked.

‘Well, she’s so…’ He stopped, clearly unable to find the right words.

‘Honest?’ Mary decided to help him out. ‘You didn’t think she could have a sister who was a thief?’

Castel looked embarrassed. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Dolly’s timid and industrious. I imagined her sister was just like her.’

Mary was sure now that this man knew Dolly. ‘Timid and industrious’ was a good description of her. Mary had often described her to people as a mouse!

‘So why has it taken you so long to come forward?’ Mary asked. It was some fourteen months since the news of her arrival in Newgate had been in the newspapers. The pardon, when there had been more news, was over three months ago.

‘You can call me slow if you like,’ he said, and looked sheepish. ‘Because I read all about “the girl from Botany Bay” in the newspapers, even noticed your name was the same as Dolly’s sister. But I didn’t think for one minute it could be the right Mary Broad.’

‘You didn’t?’ Mary said in some surprise.

He fingered his stiff collar nervously. ‘It was too extraordinary. No one knowing Dolly would think her sister could be that daring. Besides, Mary Broad is a common enough name and the paper I read didn’t say you were from Cornwall.’

‘So what finally made you think I might be her sister?’ Mary asked curiously.

‘A poem,’ he said. He looked at Boswell as if hoping for some support, but Boswell didn’t offer any.

‘A poem?’ Mary said. She guessed he meant one of those that Boswell had mentioned, though he’d never read one of them to her.

‘They’ve been sticking them up all over the place since your pardon,’ he said awkwardly. ‘But I never really read one properly till they put one up by my shop. I can’t explain why exactly, but I got this feeling about it which
wouldn’t go away. I didn’t want to show it to Dolly, in case she got upset that her sister might have been transported. Or that the poem suggested you were more than friends with Mr Boswell. So I went round to his house this morning to ask his opinion.’

Mary looked at Boswell questioningly.

‘The first thing he asked me was if you were from Fowey,’ Boswell said with a despairing kind of shrug. ‘I agreed you were, and then he told me of Dolly. I wanted to come alone to see you, but Mr Castel is a persistent man, my dear. Now, my suggestion is that I check out his story, and return to you when I have proof.’

Later that same day, Mary was helping Mrs Wilkes wash the supper things when someone knocked on the front door again. ‘I’ll wager that’s Boswell again,’ she said with a worried look. ‘Maybe he’s found out more about Castel.’

Mary had been anxious all day. She wanted to believe Mr Castel, but as Boswell had seemed so suspicious about his claims, she had tried very hard not to build up her hopes.

She hurried down the hall, removing her apron as she went, but as she opened the door, her knees went weak.

There was Mr Castel again, and by his side was Dolly.

There was no mistaking her sister, she looked just the same as she had nine years ago, when she stood waving goodbye to Mary as she took the boat to Plymouth. She had kept the image of that small upturned nose, and those blue eyes locked inside her all these years. All Mary could do was gasp and cover her face with her hands.

‘Mary!’ Dolly said softly. ‘It really is you! I was so afraid Mr Castel was mistaken.’

All at once Mary was enveloped in her older sister’s arms, and they stood on the doorstep rocking each other, both sobbing out all the years of separation.

‘Now, will you please come inside?’ Mrs Wilkes said firmly from behind them. ‘This is all very heart-warming, but I don’t wish it to be the talk of the street.’

Once in the parlour, the two women could only hug each other and cry for some minutes. Then they began to laugh hysterically through their tears. Everything was jumbled, half questions only half answered, a nonsensical struggle to bridge the gap of nine years.

Mr Castel had explained to Dolly some of what had happened to Mary, but his version, which had come from newspapers, wasn’t accurate. Although Mary tried to give her sister the truth of it, Dolly was clearly too shocked and bewildered to take it all in.

‘I look so much older than you now,’ Mary said at one point, gazing at her sister with pride.

They had always been alike in as much as they both had dark curly hair like their mother’s and the same sturdy build, and were a little taller than most other girls in the village. But Dolly’s eyes were blue, not grey like Mary’s, and then of course there was Dolly’s more pronounced upturned nose.

The differences were in their characters. Dolly had always been the meek, practical, obedient one. For as far back as Mary could remember, she had always looked neat and tidy, her hair braided tightly back off her face,
her pinafore spotless. She skirted round mud, avoided brambles, and would sit quietly on the doorstep watching as Mary played rough games with boys and tore and muddied her clothes.

Dolly was still dressed in a sober and neat manner, as befitted her position as a lady’s maid. Her blue pin-tucked dress had a high neck with tiny pearl buttons and she wore well-polished black button boots and a small straw hat with just a plain blue ribbon round it. Mary knew her to be thirty, but she looked closer to twenty, her complexion clear and unlined.

‘I haven’t had the hard times like you,’ Dolly said, her eyes awash with tears. ‘You are so thin, Mary, I remembered your face being plump and bonny.’

With Mr Castel and Mrs Wilkes looking on, it was impossible for the sisters to talk frankly. Dolly started to ask about the two children, but stopped half-way through. Likewise, Mary wanted to ask so much about her mother and father, and whether Dolly had a sweetheart, but she couldn’t in front of Mrs Wilkes and Castel.

Then, in the midst of it, Boswell came back.

Mrs Wilkes opened the door to him, and Mary heard her telling him that Dolly was already here. ‘Oh, it’s wonderful,’ she gushed. ‘They’ve been crying and laughing fit to bust.’

Boswell looked petulant when he came into the room. He had asked Castel this morning to let him arrange the meeting between Mary and Dolly. An hour ago he had gone to Bedford Square to see Dolly, only to find that Castel had already been there, and had brought the young
woman here. But faced with Mary’s joy, he recovered his natural good humour and apologized to Castel for doubting him. He then turned his considerable charm on Dolly, flattering her with compliments and saying that if he had appeared obstructive it was only because he had to protect Mary.

Mrs Wilkes opened a bottle of port wine to celebrate, and suggested that maybe it would be wise for the two men to leave Mary and Dolly to talk.

‘But I promised Mrs Morgan I would escort Dolly home,’ Castel said quickly, and from the adoring way he looked at her, it was obvious to everyone that he was sweet on her.

‘I can’t stay much longer anyway, I’m afraid,’ Dolly said, turning to Mary. ‘Mrs Morgan expects me home by half past nine. But I can spend my day off on Wednesday with you.’

‘Well, perhaps, Dolly, before you have to go, you’d like to tell Mary about the inheritance from your uncle?’ Boswell suggested. ‘It’s impertinent of me to ask, but I think it’s something Mary would like cleared up.’

‘It’s quite true,’ Dolly said, clutching at Mary’s hand as if afraid that if she let go her younger sister would disappear again. ‘Uncle Peter did leave all his money to Father. A considerable sum too. Father got Ned to write to me, explaining it all and urging me to come home as there was no longer a need for me to work.’

‘So why didn’t you go, Dolly?’ Boswell asked. He couldn’t quite bring himself to ask crassly how much money there was, especially in front of Castel.

She blushed. ‘I like London,’ she said, ‘and my position. I’m very happy with the Morgans. I didn’t want to be an old maid in Fowey.’

‘I doubt if you would remain unmarried for long,’ Boswell said gallantly.

‘Mary would understand,’ Dolly said, looking to her sister for support.

‘Do you, Mary?’ Boswell asked.

‘I do,’ she said, giving her sister a wry smile. ‘All the years I’ve been away I’ve always imagined you married with a parcel of children. That was what you wanted as a young girl. But whatever the reason you left, you’ve made a good life for yourself. To go back would be like burying yourself alive.’

‘That’s just how it would be,’ Dolly agreed earnestly. ‘I couldn’t change my station in life just because Father had money. We might live in a bigger house, have better clothes and food. But who would I have as friends? My old ones are poor. They would avoid me. The rich people would turn their noses up at me.’