by Rosa Jordan
“Which two would those have been?” Boswell asked alertly. At last he was beginning to get the kinds of stories he sought from Mary, related to her travels, and he was mightily intrigued.
“Ellison claimed to have participated, but he was only a boy, not above sixteen when the mutiny occurred. Burkitt said he knew of it in advance, so I suppose he was in on it, too. But neither chose to go with Christian, wanting only to escape the brutality of Captain Bligh.”
Pacing like a tiger, Mary went on, “Burkitt had in O’Tahiti a native wife he’d given the name of Mary, and they had a daughter the age of mine, whom they called Charlotte, too. Of all the Bounty prisoners, none was kinder to my little girl. Why, he gave her food from his own portion!”
She stopped before him and stared angrily into his face. “You cannot know, Sir, until you have been as hungry as we were, how starvation is one torture, but to take a bit of food your whole body is craving and put it in the mouth of another and watch them swallow it down brings on a suffering just as intense. This poor pock-marked Burkitt did for my child when Captain Edwards was starving us all to death!”
“There was another youth, Peter Heywood,” Boswell began tentatively. “And a man by name of Morrison, both recommended to His Majesty’s mercy. I expect they will be pardoned. Also a cook’s assistant—”
“Willy Muspratt,” Mary supplied. “Flogged by Bligh more than once, they said, and yet all agreed he had had no part in the mutiny. Did they hang him, too?”
“Muspratt was sentenced to die,” Boswell told her. “But he wasn’t hung with the others this morning. Perhaps there has been some reconsideration, and he will be pardoned as well.”
“Pardoned!” Mary spat the word bitterly. “How is it that some are pardoned for crimes they never committed, while others are never called to account for the crimes they did? Mark my word, Mr. Boswell, Captain Edwards, murderer of children and the parents of children, will walk the good earth into old age.”
Boswell stayed a while longer, but Mary lapsed into a moody silence, and he could get no more out of her. At last he took his leave, tipping the turnkey on his way out, and leaving extra money with the warden to ensure that Mary had decent food and other necessities.
Mary suffered a period of depression after that visit, but by the time Boswell came again she had come out of it and, if not cheerful, was at least receptive to his company. Little by little she came to trust the roly-poly man for, despite the lecherousness she sensed in him, he never presumed to touch her. Physically unattractive though he was in most respects, his eyes were genuinely kind, and he had a serious interest both in her adventures and in her unconventional ideas.
Only once did she seriously offend him, and that was on a visit when he undertook to read to her one of his lengthy poems, entitled, No Abolition of Slavery or the Universal Empire of Love. As he perched his bulky body on the stone bench and read aloud, she sat on the floor at his feet as, long ago, she had sat at the feet of her father as he spun tales.
Boswell read with such cheerfulness and droll expressions that she enjoyed his recitation even though she barely understood what the poem was about, only dimly perceiving that it had something to do with goings-on in the House of Commons. Not till many pages along did she grasp that it was a rant against those who would abolish slavery.
At that she rose and walked to the end of the room and stood under the barred window with her back to him, as she was wont to do when she did not wish to be engaged. Her silence and the set of her shoulders caused Boswell to stop reading.
“Are you not understanding, Mary dear? Would you have me break the rhyme and provide explanations for the difficult parts?” he inquired solicitously.
“I doubt you can explain to me what you do not understand yourself,” she snapped.
“I beg your pardon?” he asked, scarcely believing she could have said such a thing. “What in this verse, which I myself have written, do you imagine I do not understand?”
“I wager you have never known a black man, or have any idea how they’re treated.”
“What? You consider me insensitive on the subject? Did you miss the line where I remarked that the conditions in which slaves are transported should be improved?”
Mary turned around and glared at him. “Ah yes, so, as you would have it, they can sing, sing, sing while they toil as time flies by on downy wing. Filled with joy they are because in sickness they are never neglected, and their wives and children always protected!” she recited in a tone of dripping sarcasm, somewhat scrambling the words but with meaning intact. “Ah, Sir, I have met some fools in my time, indeed I have. Given your kindness to me and my companions, it pains me to discover that you are one of them.”
Boswell rose, red-faced and sputtering. “You speak as if you know something of slaves yourself, which hardly seems credible!”
“Indeed not!” Mary gave him a look of contempt “What could I know of a black man with whom I spent many months, who made for me this very comb—.” Here she reached into her pocket and flashed the carved comb in Boswell’s face. “And whose hands I last saw holding the compass I used for our escape from Botany Bay—a compass which enabled him to make his escape, along with a most beautiful woman who threw in her lot with him.”
This outburst, one of the longest Boswell had heard from Mary, left him both infuriated and intrigued, for up to now he had heard nothing about a black man who sailed with them, or how he had evaded capture.
As he gathered up the pages of his doggerel and called to the turnkey to come let him out, Mary saw she had hurt his feelings, and later she was sorely ashamed. Once again she had let her temper flare, and probably had damaged a relationship which had resulted in benefits not only to herself but to James, Luke, Scrapper and Pip, who had more need of kindness than she. What she needed was—well, truth be told, she had no idea. What does a person who has already lost everything and has no future to look forward to, really need?
Certainly she did not need memory, for that only intensified her sense of loss. Nor did she crave kindness, for it was a reminder of decent people among whom she was not considered fit to mingle. Not that all people who were kind could be thought decent, nor did everyone who imagined themselves decent practice kindness. These thoughts she brushed away, for they were among the many things she did not need.
Ah, James, she thought, as for this mind of mine which will not be done with thinking, whose way of proceeding you most admired, that is the thing I now need least of all.
Mary might have imagined that she no longer needed her mind, but once the grief which had muddied it began to abate, she did use it. First and foremost, she undertook to be civil to Boswell when he next appeared, as she could not avoid the fact that his interest in their story had generated some benefits for Pip, Scrapper, Luke, and James. Boswell had hinted that he wanted to help her, too, but she sensed his lecherous intent and remained prickly in his presence. Why indulge him when, unlike Captain Smit, Boswell had nothing she wanted? All she had ever cared about was now gone or, like freedom itself, was beyond her reach. And, she supposed, beyond the reach of Mr. Boswell.
It was a good long while before Boswell came again. When at last he did, she made a point of behaving toward him in a courteous manner. Instead of turning away or ignoring him until he spoke, she put out her hands in greeting. “Mr. Boswell, how nice to see you,” she said, and discovered that she actually meant it.
He beamed his delight at the warm reception and replied, gallantly, “You look very handsome, Mary. If your presence were not required here, I would take you to meet my friends.”
She snatched her hands back from him as if he meant to drag her out to meet strangers that very moment. “I should not like that, Mr. Boswell!”
He laughed. “And why not, may I ask?”
“Ah, you would not understand, Sir.”
“
Do give me the opportunity,” he implored, lowering his bulk onto the bench and patting a place beside him. “Come, my dear. Explain yourself.”
She hesitated, then sat, not quite where he indicated, but close enough to not cause offence to him or unease to herself. As for explaining, she hardly knew where to begin. Could she describe how the mere mention of “meeting friends” caused her heart to contract with aching for friends she would never see again? Or that knowing such a simple thing was forever impossible was like knowing one’s life was ended already? Although those things were in Mary’s heart, she did not have the means to put them into words. Instead, she spoke of her behaviour, feeling that this, at least, Boswell would understand.
“When I left England,” she began tentatively. “its customs were strong in me. But now I often fail to think of pleasing others. Yet for your kindness these past months, it would sadden me to conduct myself in such a way as to cause you shame. As I most likely would if I were brought into the presence of your fine friends.”
“Dear Mary!” he exclaimed. “Have I not proven myself to you by now?”
“Proven yourself?” Mary frowned, not understanding what proof he might suppose was needed for anything. “In what way?”
“Have I not demonstrated that in my presence you may conduct yourself exactly as you please?”
“Ah, I see. ‘Tis true, you have never censured me for my behaviour.” She added, more to herself than to him, “With so little time, and all of it to be spent within these walls, it can’t really matter now, can it?”
Boswell smiled broadly, “Perhaps you are wrong in your suppositions as to what the future holds. The Home Secretary was a school chum of mine. I have communicated with him on countless occasions regarding your case. Believe me, dear girl, when I say there is hope!”
If he had anticipated that Mary would throw herself on him in a spasm of gratitude, it was only because he did not understand the workings of her mind and so was unaware of her ability to look into the future and see how one thing would likely lead to another. She rose from the bench and moodily began to pace the cell from door to window and back again.
“Tell me, Sir, what hope is there for an Englishwoman who does not bow to her betters? One who shows anger when felt and will not pretend to beliefs she does not hold?”
“But my dear!” Boswell exclaimed excitedly. “Those are the very habits of one who harbours an independence of both mind and spirit.”
Mary considered this notion, which had never occurred to her before, then dismissed it. “In a man, perhaps. But in a woman, those are deemed the habits of one not fit to be a wife or mistress or servant. Perhaps not even a decent trollop.”
Boswell burst into such a fit of laughter that his whole robust body jiggled. Then he sobered and said, “I daresay you speak the truth. Remarkable that you should discern it.”
Mary shrugged. “If the whole world can discern it, how is it so remarkable that I can?”
Then she turned the subject away from herself, for she had long since discovered that thoughts of her personal situation were among the most depressing. “What of you, Mr. Boswell? Is there any power that will pardon you, that you might live long and happily?”
At that he sagged a little, and replied, “Long, I fear not. But if I live to see you free, Mary, that will give me more happiness than I have known since . . . .” He paused, and smiled slyly, “Since my wilder moments as a young man.”
Mary sat down next to him then, and, for the first time, voluntarily put her hand in his. For a long while neither spoke, but sat in companionable silence. In Mary’s mind, which was never as quiet as her person, the only question was which of them would be first into the grave. She felt sorrier for Boswell than for herself, because she had nothing more to lose.
On each of Boswell’s subsequent visits, Mary endeavoured to give him what he seemed to want most from her: tales of her travels in far places. She even told him about the deaths of her children, and was gratified when he wept as if their loss had been his own.
“You must miss them terribly,” Boswell said sympathetically.
“No.”
He looked as shocked as if she had said she had strangled them. “No?”
“By day I can barely remember their faces. It’s as if they were tots I only heard tell of and never really knew.” She paused and added, “Nights I often dream of them, and they are as real as in the flesh. I do not miss them then, for it seems that they are with me.”
Boswell continued to bring books, pamphlets, and poems to read to her. Mary enjoyed these more than conversations about herself. Perhaps because of her reaction to the pro-slavery poem, he did not again read anything he had written. He brought some things by Dr. Johnson, who he said had been his boon companion until that great man’s death eight years before.
“Once,” Boswell grinned, “Dr. Johnson criticised me for eating oats for breakfast. He said that in England a man would not think of eating oats; that they are fed only to horses. I replied that this must be why in England you have better horses, and in Scotland you have better men.”
They laughed together. Then Boswell grew teary as he recalled the death of his best friend. This time Mary wept with him for his loss, as he had wept for hers.
Having no calendar or means for determining the date, Mary did not know when she woke up on the morning of May 1, 1793, that it was her twenty-seventh birthday. Nor did she know, when Boswell came to visit, so ill that he required the assistance of his manservant to walk the distance down the corridor to her cell, that he carried news which would turn the life that she no longer deemed worth living upside down. Which is to say, it was about to be put right side up again.
When the turnkey opened the door and she saw the pained paleness of Boswell’s normally ruddy face, she rushed forward to help him to a seat on the stone bench. But he waved her off, and said, “Dear Mary, this is the last time I shall visit you.”
“Please tell me that is not so!” she cried, for she had grown truly fond of the jolly man whose illness made him seem so much older than his fifty-three years.
“Perhaps our next visit will be in my quarters.” He attempted a smile which came out more as a grimace. “These days, my doctors get very cross with me when I go out, and my body protests even louder.”
Anxious on account of his condition and thinking his invitation for her to visit him a humourless joke, Mary urged, “Do come and sit, Sir, for I can see it pains you to stand.”
“Nay,” said Boswell. “My carriage waits without. I came only to give you the news, which will be given to the warden by the Sheriff of Middlesex on the morrow.”
“What news might that be?” Mary asked anxiously, for all she could think was that any news pertaining to her situation could not be good.
“As I told you before, I have been lobbying for your release for many months. And not only I, but a great many other people. At last a pardon has been granted. Within a day or two, you shall be free to go.”
“I . . . alone?” Mary was so stunned she could scarcely breathe. “My . . . friends?”
“We are still working on that,” Boswell replied. “I can only assure you that they have not been forgotten.”
She fell against Boswell’s ample chest and began to weep, for it was all too much to take in. “But I have nothing to give you in return,” she blubbered.
“I have done much good in my life,” Boswell said immodestly, “and have got much good in return. But sometimes it benefits a man to do good for the sake of goodness alone.”
*
How much Boswell had done for Mary she did not know till the following day. This was when she was released, having served the seven years to which she had originally been sentenced, plus six additional weeks.
Mary did not walk out of the prison alone, for Mr. Boswell had sent his solicitor to
explain to her that she was to receive an annuity of ten pounds for the rest of her life.
“He also instructed me to give you this purse, which contains a sum of money for your immediate expenses. Can you think of anything you need right away?”
Mary stood on the paving outside Newgate Prison and looked up at the grey sky. Were she in Cornwall the sky would be blue, and the sun would be spreading its warmth across the land. But here in London the sky was overcast, and a cold spring wind bit through the ragged gown that she had worn night and day during the eleven months of her imprisonment at Newgate.
“Yes,” Mary said. “A cloak.”
Epilogue
*
Mary stayed in London for a month, feeling that she owed it to Boswell to visit him on those rare days when he was well enough to receive guests. She also went regularly to visit the men in prison and paid the warden to ensure that they received basic necessities. But, tormented by guilt for the fact of being free when they were yet locked up, and seeing with her own eyes that Boswell was dying, she grew increasingly depressed. At length she herself grew ill, and the five men conspired to persuade her to leave the city.
Where was there to go but to the cottage where Mary had once lived? It was derelict, of course, its meagre contents long gone. She supposed her mother’s treasured Bible had been taken for compensation by whoever came to remove the body. The few utilitarian items left behind had probably been scrounged by neighbouring families as poor as her own had been.
Mary went into the village to purchase candles, a few cooking utensils, garden tools, and bedding. Villagers stared with mouths agape but none approached her. Even clerks in the shops, who chattered gaily with everyone else, handled their transactions with her in silence and looked past Mary to the next customer in a way that said they could scarcely wait for her to leave so they could begin to speculate about her.