Remember Me

by Lesley Pearse

  Remember Me

  By the Same Author

  Georgia

  Tara

  Charity

  Ellie

  Camellia

  Rosie

  Charlie

  Never Look Back

  Trust Me

  Father Unknown

  Till We Meet Again

  Remember Me

  LESLEY PEARSE

  MICHAEL JOSEPH

  an imprint of

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  MICHAEL JOSEPH

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  First published 2003

  1

  Copyright © Lesley Pearse, 2003

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright

  reserved above, no part of this publication may be

  reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,

  or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,

  photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior

  written permission of both the copyright owner and

  the above publisher of this book

  EISBN: 978–0–141–90785–7

  To John Roberts, my very own Boswell.

  Mere words cannot fully convey my gratitude to you.

  Acknowledgements

  To Pam Quick in Sydney, New South Wales, not only for all the information, books and pictures you passed on to me about the First Fleet, but for being there for me too. Without your keen interest, generosity with your time, unflagging help and support I could never have finished this book. When I come back to Sydney I owe you a slap-up dinner at least. Bless you.

  I read dozens of books in my research for Remember Me, but these are the most outstanding ones.

  To Brave Every Danger by Judith Cook. Truth is often stranger and more heroic than fiction, and Judith Cook’s meticulously researched book on Mary Bryant of Fowey is truly inspiring and a must for anyone with a passion for history.

  Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes. A fascinating, fabulous book on Australia’s early years.

  The First Twelve Years by Peter Taylor. Amazingly informative without being dry or dull. Good pictures too.

  Orphans of History by Robert Holden. An often tear-jerking story of the forgotten children of the First Fleet.

  The Floating Brothel by Sîan Rees. The story of the transported women who sailed on the Juliana. Shockingly informative.

  Boswell’s Presumptuous Task by Adam Sisman. A wonderful work on James Boswell.

  Dr Johnson’s London by Liza Picard. Wonderfully readable, an incredibly vivid image of London in the eighteenth century.

  English Society in the Eighteenth Century by Roy Porter.

  Chapter one

  1786

  Mary gripped the rail of the dock tightly as the judge came back into the courtroom. The windows were small and dirty, letting in only a meagre light, but there was no mistaking the black cap over his yellowish wig, or the expectant hush from the gallery.

  ‘Mary Broad. You will be taken from this place, back to whence you came, and there you will be hanged by the neck until dead,’ he intoned, not even looking directly at her. ‘May God have mercy on your soul.’

  Mary’s stomach lurched and her legs buckled under her. She knew only too well that hanging was the usual punishment for highway robbery, but a small part of her had clung to the belief that the judge would be merciful because she was such a young woman. She should have known better.

  It was 20 March 1786, and Mary Broad was just a few weeks short of twenty. She was an average girl in every way, neither particularly tall nor short, not outstandingly pretty but not plain either. The only thing which set her apart from the other people on trial that day in the Lenten Assizes was her country girl appearance. She had a clear complexion, which even after weeks of incarceration in Exeter Castle still had a faint glow. Her dark curly hair was tied neatly back with a ribbon and her grey worsted dress, though soiled from the gaol, was a plain, serviceable one.

  A babble of noise broke out all around her, for the courtroom in Exeter was packed to capacity. Some of those present were friends and relatives of other prisoners to be tried that day, but the majority were mere spectators.

  Yet the noise was not one of sympathy, nor outrage at such a severe sentence. Mary hadn’t one friend in the whole room. A sea of grimy faces turned towards her, eyes alight with malicious glee, the slight movement wafting up the smell of their unwashed bodies to her nostrils. They wanted a reaction from her, be it tears, anger or a plea for mercy.

  She wanted to cry out, to plead for her life, but the defiant streak in her which had led her to rob someone in the first place urged her to hold fast to her dignity if nothing else.

  A guard’s hand clamped down on her shoulder. It was too late now for anything but prayers.

  Mary was barely aware of the ride on the cart back to Exeter Castle, the gaol she’d been held in since she was brought up from Plymouth following her arrest. She hardly noticed the rasp of the iron shackles on her ankles which connected to another heavy band around her waist, her seven fellow prisoners in the cart, or the jeering from the crowds in the streets. All she could think of was that the next time she saw the sky above her would be the day when she was taken to the gallows.

  She lifted her face up to the weak afternoon sun. This morning, as she was brought out to go to the Assizes, the spring sunshine had almost blinded her after the darkness of the cells. She had looked about her eagerly, seen new leaves unfurling on the trees, heard pigeons cooing in a mating display, and foolishly taken all that as a good omen.

  How wrong she was. She would never see her beloved Cornwall again. Never see her parents or sister Dolly either. All she could hope for was that they would never find out what she’d done. It was better that they should think she’d abandoned them for a new life in Plymouth, or even London, than endure the disgrace of hearing her life had been ended by a hangman’s noose.

  The sound of sobbing made Mary look at the woman sitting on her left. Her age was impossible to ascertain for her face was ravaged by pock-marks and she clutched a tattered brown cloak around her head to try to conceal it.

  ‘Crying won’t do no good,’ Mary said, assuming the woman was to hang too. ‘At least we know now what’s coming to us.’

  ‘I didn’t steal anything,’ the woman gasped out. ‘I swear I didn’t. It was someone else and they got away and left me to be blamed.’

  Mary had heard that same story over and over again from other prisoners since her arrest in January. She had believed most of them at first, but she was harder now.

  ‘Did you tell them that today?’ she asked.

  The woman nodded, her tears flowing even faster. ‘But they said they had a witness to it.’

  Mary had no heart to ask for the full story. She wanted to fill her lungs with clean air, fill her mind with the sights and soun
ds of the bustling town of Exeter, so that when she got back to the filthy, dark cell she would have some memories to draw on. Hearing this woman’s tale of woe would only bring her down even further. Yet her natural sympathy wouldn’t let her ignore the poor creature.

  ‘Are you to be hanged too?’ she asked.

  The woman’s head jerked round to look at Mary, surprise registering on her ravaged face. ‘No. It was only a mutton pie they said I took.’

  ‘Then you’re luckier than me,’ Mary sighed.

  Once back in the Castle, thrust into a cell with around twenty other prisoners of both sexes, Mary silently found herself a space against the wall, sat down, adjusted the chains from her shackles so she could pull up her knees, wrapped her cloak around her tightly and leaned back to take stock of her situation.

  It was a different cell to the one she’d been taken from this morning, better in as much as fresh air was coming in through a very high grille on the wall, the straw on the floor looked marginally cleaner, and the buckets weren’t yet overflowing. But it still stank, with an all-pervading stench of dirt, body fluids, vomit, mould and human suffering which she inhaled with every breath.

  There was an ominous hush. No one was talking loudly, swearing or screaming abuse at their gaolers, as they had in the previous cell. In fact they were all sitting much as she was, submerged in thought or despair. Mary guessed that meant they were all sentenced to death, and as stunned by it as she was.

  She couldn’t see Catherine Fryer or Mary Haydon, the girls she’d been caught with, although they’d all been taken together to the Assizes that morning. She had no idea whether they were still back there waiting to be tried, or if they’d escaped with a lighter punishment than her.

  Whatever the reason, she was glad they weren’t there. She didn’t want to remember that but for them she would never have considered robbing anyone.

  It was too gloomy to see her other cellmates clearly, the only light coming from a lantern in the corridor the other side of the grilled door. But at a cursory glance, aside from the fact that there were men there too (her previous cell had been all women), they didn’t appear very different from those she’d been imprisoned with for the last couple of months.

  The age range was wide, from a girl of about sixteen, who was sobbing on an older woman’s shoulder, to a man of perhaps fifty or even older. Three of the women might have been whores, judging by their colourful and even quite elegant gowns, but the remainder were very ragged, women with hard faces, bad teeth and stringy hair, and gaunt-faced men staring silently into space.

  There were two women from her previous cell. Bridie, in a red gown with a tattered lace collar, had confided in Mary that she’d robbed a sailor while he slept. Peg was much older, one of the very ragged women, but she had steadfastly refused to say anything about her crime.

  Mary guessed from the experiences in that cell that however subdued they all were now, within a few hours the naturally dominant types, like Bridie, would rally themselves to take charge. Much of this was bravado – it was necessary to appear strong if you were to survive prison. Fighting, shouting and demanding food or water from the gaolers was one way of sending out a message to your cellmates that you weren’t to be pushed around.

  Mary wondered if there would be any point in anyone asserting themselves now. She certainly didn’t feel inclined to do so herself; all she wanted was to know how many days she had left to live.

  Seeing Mary, Bridie hitched up her chains and hobbled across the cell towards her. ‘Hanging?’ she asked.

  Mary nodded. ‘You too?’

  Bridie squatted down on the straw, her woebegone expression confirming it. ‘That bastard of a judge,’ she spat. ‘’E don’t know what it’s like for us. What good will hanging me do? Who’ll look after the old folks now?’

  Bridie had told Mary soon after she was brought to Exeter that she’d taken up whoring to keep her old parents from the parish. But there was something about her colourful clothes and even more colourful nature that suggested she hadn’t had much of a moral struggle. Yet ever since Mary’s first night in prison, Bridie had been kind and protective towards her, and Mary felt she was at heart a good woman.

  ‘I thought you’d get off though, what with yer innocent face an’ all,’ Bridie said, reaching out her dirty hand to caress Mary’s cheek lightly. ‘What happened?’

  ‘The lady we robbed was in court,’ Mary said sadly. ‘She pointed me out.’

  Bridie sighed in sympathy. ‘Well, let’s hope they get it over quick. There ain’t nothin’ worse than waiting to get a body down.’

  Much later that night, Mary lay on the filthy straw-strewn floor among her fellow prisoners, who all appeared to be sleeping soundly, and found her thoughts slip back to her home and family at Fowey in Cornwall. She knew now that she had been born more fortunate than many of the women she’d met since leaving there.

  Her father, William Broad, was a mariner, and although there had been hard times when he had no work, somehow he’d always managed to make sure his family never went hungry or lacked a fire. Mary could remember being cuddled up in bed with her sister Dolly, hearing the sea crashing against the harbour walls, yet feeling safe and secure, for however long her father was away at sea, he always left enough money to tide them over until he returned again.

  Just thinking of Fowey with its tiny cottages and cobbled streets made a lump come up in her throat. The bustling harbour and town were never dull, for she knew everyone, and the Broads were a well-respected family. Grace, Mary’s mother, set great store by respectability; she kept the tiny cottage spotlessly clean, and tried to instil in her daughters her high standards in cooking, housekeeping and sewing. Dolly, Mary’s older sister, was the dutiful, obedient one, happy to follow her mother’s example, and her dreams were only of finding a husband and having children and a home of her own.

  Mary did not share Dolly’s dreams. It was often said by friends and neighbours that she should have been a boy. She was clumsy with a needle and household tasks bored her. She was happiest when her father took her out sailing and fishing, for she felt at one with the sea and could handle a boat almost as well as he. She preferred male company too, for men and boys talked of exciting things, of lands overseas, of war, smuggling, and their work in the tin mines. She had no time for giggling, simpering girls who cared for nothing but gossip and the price of hair ribbon.

  It was a thirst for adventure which made her want to leave Fowey, and she fully believed she could make her mark upon the world if she was just somewhere else. At the time Mary left, Dolly had said somewhat unkindly that it was just because she’d never had a sweetheart, and she was afraid no one would ever want her.

  That wasn’t true. Mary had no real desire for marriage. In fact she felt pity rather than envy for the girls she’d grown up with who were already saddled with two or three children. She knew that their lives grew tougher with each new mouth to feed, that they lived in fear of losing their husbands through drowning at sea or in an accident in the mines. But then life was hard for everyone in Cornwall, unless you were gentry. Work was either fishing, mining or going into service.

  Dolly was in service with the Treffrys of Fowey as an under-housemaid, but Mary had stubbornly refused to follow her example. She didn’t want to spend her days emptying slop pails and laying fires, at the beck and call of a hard-faced housekeeper. She’d seen no future in that. But the alternative was gutting and salting fish, and although she’d done that since childhood, and enjoyed the freedom to chatter as she worked, and the camaraderie of her workmates, no one ever got rich gutting fish. You smelt disgusting, and it was freezing in the winter. Mary would look at the bowed backs and gnarled fingers of the women who’d spent their whole life doing it, and knew it meant early death.

  She had heard about Plymouth from the sailors. They said there were fine shops and big houses there, and opportunities for anyone with determination. She thought she might get work in one of the shops, for even i
f she couldn’t read and write, she could add up quicker than her father.

  Her parents had mixed feelings about her leaving. On the one hand they wanted to keep her at home in Fowey, but times were hard and they were struggling to support her. Perhaps, too, they hoped that a couple of years away from them in a respectable trade would settle her down, that she’d find a sweetheart and eventually marry.

  Mary couldn’t wait to get away, yet now as she lay on the hard cold floor of the prison cell and recalled the day when she left her home, she was filled with remorse.

  It was very early in the morning, a beautiful July day without a cloud in the azure sky, and the sun was already warm. Her father had sailed off for France just a few days earlier, and Mary had insisted that only Dolly should come down to the harbour to see her off. She didn’t want any further lectures from her mother about behaving like a lady on the boat, or being wary of strangers.

  Her mother had never been given to displays of emotion, so it was a little unnerving as Mary went to kiss her cheek at the door to find herself suddenly being hugged tightly.

  ‘Be a good girl,’ her mother said, her voice cracking. ‘Say your prayers and don’t get into any mischief.’

  Mary remembered how she hurried away with Dolly, giggling with excitement. It was only as she got to the end of the narrow street and glanced back that she saw her mother was still standing in the doorway, watching them. She looked so old, small and oddly vulnerable, for she hadn’t yet braided her hair up for the day. It was as grey as her dress, making her almost disappear into the stone of the cottage. Even without being able to see her face clearly, Mary knew she was crying. Yet Grace still managed to wave a cheerful goodbye.

  ‘I don’t know why you think Plymouth will be better than here,’ Dolly said waspishly as they got down to the harbour and saw the boat waiting. ‘I bet you could go right round the world and never find anywhere so pretty.’