The Potato Factory

Chapter Twenty-seven

Imprisonment is intended to break the spirit, to render harmless those who are thought to be harmful. Such is the human condition that it will endure the brutal lash and the bread and water of society's pious outrage, but is finally broken by the relentless boredom of prison life. The blankness of time, the pointless repetition, the mindless routines undertaken in a bleak and purposeless landscape addles the brain and reduces a person to whimpering servility. Humans best survive when they are given purpose; a common enemy to defeat, revenge to wreak or a dream to cling to.

Mary survived her sentence because she had a dream. She saw her incarceration in the Female Factory as her apprenticeship out of the hell of her past. Henceforth, she determined that she would be judged by her competence and not doomed by the circumstances of her birth. Here, under the shadow of the great mountain, she would take her rightful place in life.

During the four grim years she spent at the Female Factory Mary knew that she had taken the first steps in her great good luck. The Potato Factory in the prison vegetable gardens had prospered and when she was granted her ticket of leave to live outside the prison she had accumulated the sum of five hundred pounds. Ann Gower also now possessed sufficient money, saved for her by Mary, to achieve an ambition she talked of a great deal, open a bawdy house on the waterfront area of Wapping.

The King's Orphan School had achieved exemplary results, with most of Mary's pupils numerate and literate and some beginning to show a most gratifying propensity for learning. So impressed was Mr. Emmett, the chief clerk, that he persuaded Governor Arthur to offer Mary the position of headmistress. This independent position meant that she would no longer be under the baleful eye of the Reverend Smedley, and would be entitled to a small salary. Much to the dismay of Mary's sponsor, she had once again refused his generous offer.

'What ever shall we make of you, Mary Abacus? Will you never learn what is good for you? A more stubborn woman would be most difficult to find upon this island! If you were a man you would be quickly dismissed as a complete fool!'

Mary, who had the greatest respect for Mr Emmett, was sorry to be the cause of his disappointment. In the three years she had been teaching he had come to support her keenly and had seen to it that she was supplied with equipment from government stores, and that the Reverend Smedley did not unduly interfere with or undermine her work.

'Mr Emmett, sir, I thank you from the bottom o' me heart for the trust you have shown in me, but I must remind you, I am a teacher only for the lack o' someone more qualified. You gave me the position only because I believed the brats could take to learning.'

'I'll give you that, Mary, I'll give you that,' Mr Emmett repeated, somewhat mollified. 'You've proved us all wrong and a salutary lesson it has been, I agree.'

Mary smiled. 'You're very kind, Mr Emmett, but it be time for you to make a proper appointment. There be a widow, Mrs Emma Patterson, a free settler out from England, a Quaker I believe. She has excellent references and is well trained to her vocation. She has applied to us for a billet and she is much superior in her knowledge and methods to me or Miss Smedley.' Mary paused. 'You would do well to grant her the post in my stead.'

'Oh Mary, Mary, quite contrary, what shall we do with you?' Mr Emmett asked.

Mary grinned, thankful that he seemed reconciled to her decision. 'A reference, sir. I intend to apply for a clerking position, with some bookkeeping, just as you would have me do for the government, but in commerce. Will you grant it me?' She tilted her head and gave Emmett a most disarming smile. 'Please?'

The chief clerk tried his utmost to appear disapproving, but finally nodded his head. 'It will do you no good, my girl,' he said.

The position of headmistress of the orphan school was duly given to Mrs Patterson who, together with the patient and loving Elspeth Smedley, would ensure that the future for Mary's pupils was a bright one.

On the day before her ticket of leave was granted Mary took a tearful farewell from her orphans and cried all the way back to the Female Factory. She loved her children and had watched them grow and take pleasure in learning. Mary felt sure that some, at last, would have respectable lives. She wondered how she could possibly have given up her post, for the children loved her, gave her a purpose and had confirmed her as being a natural teacher. But deep in her heart she knew that teaching would not fulfil her ultimate ambition, that her skill with numbers and her abacus was meant for a different purpose.

With the Potato Factory, Mary had gained a further sense of business and was reminded again that the rules of supply and demand work best when they are predicated against the innate weakness of men. The brothel in Bell Alley and the supply of poteen from the Potato Factory both demonstrated this fundamental principle. To this end Ann Gower had begged that once they were free of the Female Factory they do more of the same. She also suggested they take the still with them so that they might continue in the trades that had been so lucrative for them in the prison vegetable gardens.

But Mary had resisted her friend's offer. She wanted no more of the criminal life, and was determined to be as free as the brilliant green parrots which had welcomed her to Van Diemen's Land. Freedom meant a great deal more to her than the opportunity to live a respectable existence in a new land, where old beliefs and habits were applied to circumstances which had greatly changed. She would use her freedom as though it were truly the gift of being born again to a new life. Mary's conviction that destiny had called her to something more than a life of drudgery had persisted, and she responded to it with a full heart and the unstinting application of her nimble mind. Her body had grown strong on a diet of fresh vegetables and from working in the open air, and she was ready to make whatever sacrifices were necessary.

Mary's ticket of leave included a probationary period of three years and then her sentence would be completed. She wished to use this time to learn a new trade, so she would be ready when she was permitted to go into business on her own. She would take a billet where she might learn the intricacies of trade, and her first task had been to purchase a copy of the Colonial Times so that she might peruse the advertisements for employment. The number of these which requested the need for a bookkeeper, eight in all, filled her heart with joy. But before she set about walking to each address she had a promise to keep to herself.

She had been escorted to the gates of the Female Factory by the keeper, Mr Drabble, not much past six in the morning. To Mary's surprise he had taken her hand.

'You have served your time, Mary Abacus, and I wish you well. It is my most earnest hope that you shall never return to this place.'

Mary smiled. 'Not as earnest as mine, Mr Drabble. You'll not see hide nor hair of us again!'

Mary had left without Ann Gower, who was to serve an extra week in solitary on bread and water for insubordination when drunk. Mary was somewhat relieved, for though she loved Ann she feared that she would never change, that she would always be, as the popular expression went, 'A nymph o' the pave', though such a description of Ann Gower would have been a gross underestimation of her rapidly growing size. A diet consisting largely of grog and potatoes had caused her to grow exceedingly gross, which Ann described to her customers as 'the luxury o' comfort on the ride', and she would have charged an extra sixpence if she could have gotten away with it. Mary had been reluctant to hand Ann the money she had saved on her behalf, though she told herself she could no longer be responsible for her friend. She had also given the still to her partner, to be secretly dismantled when Ann left the Factory. If Ann should show the minimum of good sense then she had the means to prosper well on the new waterfront area of Wapping.

Mary did not go directly into the town when she left the Female Factory. Carrying her bed roll, a clay pot, her abacus and a small cloth satchel, she climbed the hill immediately behind the Factory and headed towards the great mountain. Sometimes, on her way to the orphan school, she would divert into the tall trees growing on the slopes of Mount Wellington. Along a secret path of her own making she had discovered a small stream, though stream was too grand a word for the trickle of sweet, clear water which came from a large overhanging rock.

Mary now made her way to the secret rock set into the mountain side, which was flat at its top and made an ample ledge. She would sit on a carpet of moss surrounded by fern and look out beyond the shadow cast by the rock to where clumps of brilliant yellow wattle grew under the gum trees. The air around her was scented with blossom. Mountain blueberry, the berries ripe and brilliant, twisted and trailed over the smaller trees and shrubs, and every once in a while she would see a splash of wild fuchsia or a clump of pale pink and lilac early snowberries.

On hot summer days it was cool under the shelter of the rock, which was scarred with lichen and pocketed with moss. On mild winter days Mary would climb on top of the rock ledge and the sun would dapple through the leaves to warm her.

Mary imagined sleeping on this ledge so that she might see the stars at night. Slowly the desire grew in her and she would think upon this prospect as she lay in the stale dormitory filled with the tainted breath of forty other prisoners, a heaving, snoring body on either side of her. Finally she had determined that she was going to spend her first night of freedom on her secret rock under the stars.

Mary arrived at the rock no later than seven in the morning. She removed a clump of moss from deep within the recesses of the overhanging rock and carefully buried the clay pot. Inside it was the five hundred pounds she had saved. She replaced the moss and marked the spot with a handful of small pebbles which appeared to be resting naturally. Mary paused only to take a drink of water and wash her hands before leaving. With her she took her abacus and the small satchel in which she carried a pound in copper and silver and Mr Emmett's letter of recommendation. She walked further up the mountain slope, making a wide arc well away from her rock, until she found a woodcutter's path which led down to the precincts of Hobart Town.

She walked down Macquarie Street and into the centre of the town. Every inch of ground was taken up with some small business concern. Even the fronts of the houses and business establishments for some yards were taken up by traders with stalls and hastily erected sheds of canvas and hoarding. There were lollipop shops, oyster shops, barber shops and butcher stalls where flies hummed about the carcasses of lamb and kangaroo. Men and women shouted their wares at every approach with extravagant promises. 'Oyster the size of a plate!' one would shout. 'Fat lamb that weighs heavy to the pound!' cried a bloody-aproned butcher. 'Birds, song birds, what whistle hopera!' called a boy carrying a cage of yellow canaries.

At eight o'clock in the morning she was waiting at the doorway of the London amp; Overseas Insurance amp; Shipping Company, the first of the business concerns which had advertised for a bookkeeper clerk. Mary had arrived early, anxious to be the first if there should be a crowd of applicants. But she had no need to worry -Hobart Town had more billets for clerks than applicants to fill them.

By six o'clock that evening Mary had presented herself at each potential place of employ, dutifully proffering her letter of reference from Mr Emmett. Nothing had changed from her days in London. Mary was a woman, and a ticket of leave convict, and there had scarcely been a rejection of her services couched in even modestly polite language.

The first interview, which had taken place a few minutes after nine in the morning with the insurance and shipping company, had been no better or worse than the last. The manager, a tall, thin and exceedingly pompous chief clerk with the unprepossessing name of Archibald Pooley had looked askance at Mary, his eyes fixed on her mutilated hands. 'Be off with you, miss! I doubt that you could count to ten, but it would try my patience to test you even in this.'

'Please, sir, I have a reference.' Mary smiled brightly and proffered Mr Emmett's letter to the thin-lipped clerk.

He took the letter and held it up to the light. 'Ha! A forgery! No doubt about it!' He handed it back to Mary. 'Count yourself most fortunate that I do not have you arrested! Chief clerk of the colonial secretary's department, eh? You are not only forward but also most stupid. If this letter of reference had been from a lesser mortal than the inestimable Mr Emmett I might have believed in it.' Pooley wore an expression of utter disdain and now he tilted his head backwards as though assaulted by some odious smell. 'You reek of the Female Factory and you expect one to think you honest? Do you take me for a fool, miss?' He sniffed. Then his eyebrows shot heavenwards. 'Good God!' he exclaimed, pointing to Mary's abacus. 'What on earth is that?'

'Me abacus, sir. Please would you let me do a reckonin' for you, any calculation what is a part of your business?'

'Reckoning? On that contraption?' Pooley snorted. 'I sincerely trust you are not serious.'

Mary placed the abacus on a small table close to her and smiled.

'Any reckoning what pleases you, sir,' she said brightly, trying to hide her nervousness. 'As complicated as you wish.'

Pooley ignored Mary's request. 'That be a Chinee contraption, an abacus, is it not?'

'Yes, sir, and well able to do sums o' the most complicated nature,' Mary repeated.

'Not here it isn't!' Pooley said, alarmed. 'Beads for counting in my office? We do not count with beads here, just as we do not count with our fingers!' Then he brought his hands to his head. 'A woman and a convict who plays with beads thinks to clerk for me!' He spoke this at the ceiling and seemed for a moment genuinely upset that Mary should think so low of him. 'Your kind are made to be washer women not bookkeepers! Be gone, you have tried my patience long enough!'

As Mary left the scene of each not dissimilar rejection she could hear the words as they had reached her through the swirling, yellow mist of the London East India Docks: Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary…

You're the monkey on our back!

She walked in some despair to the edge of Hobart Town and then, looking carefully lest she might be followed, veered into the shadows of a stand of tall trees that led to her rock. A chill autumn wind blew down from the mountain and the light was fading under the trees as she made her way to her secret sanctuary.

She had bought a small loaf of bread and a tiny jar of maple syrup. She'd not had anything to eat since her bowl of gruel at daybreak, her last meal at the Factory. Mary would have loved to stop at the orphanage, if only for a few moments, to regain her courage. She suddenly longed to have her children skipping around her anxious to be held and loved, she yearned to hold a child in her arms and feel its tender skin against her cheek. She knew she would also greatly miss Elspeth Smedley's midday meal which, despite the tedious presence of Thomas Smedley, had always caused her to feel less a prisoner and more like a civilised person. For the better part of an hour each day she could pretend to be normal. Now she was back to being dirt on the street. Although she had earned her ticket of leave she was still regarded as convict scum and she longed for the comfort of Elspeth's quiet voice. 'I fear a little too much salt in the gravy, Mary. Will you forgive my clumsiness?'

Elspeth had invited her to eat at the orphanage any time she wished, but Mary knew that the resources of the Reverend Smedley were meagre enough and that Mrs Emma Patterson would now take her place at the table. Besides, Mary told herself, she could no longer return Elspeth's generosity. The bountiful supply of vegetables she had brought from the prison garden was no longer available to her, and her pride would not allow her to arrive empty-handed. Now, seated under the rock where it was already dark, she devoured the loaf which she had soaked in maple syrup. By the time she was finished her hands and face were sticky but she could not remember a treat more sumptuous. It was Mary's first meal free of the shackles, and if it had been a banquet set for a queen it could have not tasted better. Mary washed, the icy mountain water leaving her poor, twisted hands aching with the chill and her face devoid of feeling, then climbed to the top of the rock to spread her mattress roll and blanket.

Mary, who had spent many a dark night alone in some foul corner of a London alley, had never before slept open to the elements. Above her myriad stars frosted the dark sky. Though she felt some trepidation at so much open space, and though it was cold under the thin blanket, she was stirred by a strange feeling of happiness. She was free at last, born again under the crystal stars of the great south land, a child of the green parrots and the great mountain. Somewhere high up in the trees she heard the call of a nightjar and before she fell into an exhausted sleep she determined that in the morning she would once again visit Mr Emmett. She smiled to herself at the thought of the exasperation she would see on his small face, though she knew her benefactor was most fond of her.

As Mary had predicted, Mr Emmett at first professed himself annoyed at her return. 'Mary Abacus, you have twice rejected my charity and now you ask again. I repeat my offer. You may come to work in the government as a clerk. We have a great need for your skill at numbers and ability to write up a ledger, and I shall see that you are treated fairly.'

'Sir, please, I should learn nothing working for the government but the task o' working for the government. There be new settlers coming in greater numbers each year to make their homes on the island and I feel certain there will be abundant opportunity for trade. If I should learn an honest profession, it would be greatly to my advantage. I wants a man's work at clerking and I begs you to make enquiries on my behalf.'

'Mary, you are a woman!' Mr Emmett protested. 'It will be no easy matter to find you a position in any trade as a clerk.' Emmett looked at Mary steadily. 'You see, my dear, even though I trust you, few others would. They would think they take a double risk, both a woman and a convict, it is too much to ask of them. A woman and a convict put to the task of preparing their ledgers would be an abomination!'

Mary sighed. 'Will you not help me then?' She explained how she had been rejected at eight separate places the previous day.

The chief clerk looked at Mary without sympathy. 'Help you? How can I help you? I have tried everything I know to help you! You have rejected my offer to be a clerk with me and then another as a teacher! All that's left for your kind is scrubbing, working in the kitchen or as a washer woman!' He thought for a moment, then added, 'You cannot even work at a market garden as it is forbidden for you to own property.' Then, as if an idea had suddenly occurred to him, Mr Emmett brightened. 'Though perhaps you could rent it. There are plenty here who have property they are too idle to till, your skill with vegetables is well known and your fresh produce will find a ready sale in the markets.' He clapped his hands, delighted that he had solved Mary's problem. 'That's it! I shall make enquiries at once!'

Mary shook her head. 'I am truly grateful, sir, but I have worked as a kitchen maid, lady's maid, laundry maid, and in the Factory as a gardener.' She lifted her crippled hands. 'Me hands won't stand for it and nor will me head.' Mary looked pleadingly at the little man. 'I wants to learn a trade, Mr Emmett! Something to sell what people must have and what uses numbers and me own good sense!'

'And what of your sly grog, will that not profit you handsomely as a trade?' the chief clerk demanded suddenly.

Mary was greatly shocked and began to tremble violently. She was not aware that the chief clerk of the colonial secretary's department had known about the Potato Factory. Fortunately Mr Emmett did not thrust the barb further but waited for her to defend herself. Mary knew not to deny her guilt. Mr Emmett was not a cruel man and he did not listen to idle tittle-tattle. He would have been certain of his information before he sought to employ it against her.

'Sir, that were different,' she stammered. 'I were in the crime class and might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, there weren't nothing to lose.' Mary felt more in control of herself as she continued. 'It were good grog what didn't rot your guts like what's sold elsewhere, even in respectable taverns.'

'My dear, in Hobart Town there are no respectable taverns. Besides, if you had been caught, it might well have caused your sentence to be doubled!' Mr Emmett said sternly, Mary looked appealingly at him. 'I owes you me life, sir. I don't think I could have endured without what you done for me at the orphan school. Now I owes you this too! For keeping stum! I thank you from the bottom o' me heart. Please, sir, I ain't never going back to the Female Factory. I don't want to start me new life as a mistress o' sly grog. I ain't so stupid as not to know that, sooner or later, I'd be caught and sent back to the Factory! I couldn't stand that, honest, I couldn't!'

Mr Emmett sighed. 'I'm most glad to hear that, Mary. I shall make enquiries, though I should not hold out any hopes if I were you.' He paused. 'Remember, I make no promises. You have seen for yourself how difficult it will be to persuade any business to take you on.' Then he added, shaking his head, 'You are a most stubborn woman, Mary Abacus. What will you do now? Have you a place to go?'

Mary remained silent and dropped her eyes.

'Well?'

Mary looked up slowly and smiled. She knew she could not remain camped under the rock. It snowed on the mountain in winter and she would freeze to death. Her green eyes rested on the chief clerk. 'I could tend your garden, sir, and sleep in your potting shed, if you was to give me rations.'

Emmett shook his head slowly. 'You take me to be too soft, Mary Abacus. Perhaps even an old fool to be used by a pretty woman. You refuse to be a market gardener, yet you would tend my garden?'

'Not soft, or a fool, Mr Emmett, but a person what's been wise and kind and most generous beyond anyone I've ever known.' There were tears in Mary's eyes as she said urgently, 'I shall repay your kindness, I swear. The time will come, I know it!' Mary blinked away her tears. 'It would only be a short while, sir. Until your enquiries prove fruitful, which I know they shall. All speak of you with great respect!'

Emmett looked doubtful and Mary hastily added, 'With the season changing, your roses need pruning and there be much clearing to be done so that your plants may catch the weaker winter sun, and your cold weather vegetables are not yet planted nor straw cut for the seed beds against the coming frost.'

'The potting shed?' Mr Emmett hesitated. 'It's not very big. I daresay we could find a corner for you in the servants' quarters.'

Mary laughed. The previous night spent under the stars had been cold but tolerable, and she had woken to a bright autumn morning with the raucous call of parakeets feeding on the nectar of the butter-coloured eucalypt blossom in the trees above her. Mary knew she had spent her last night with dirty snoring bodies squeezed hard against her sides.

But she hesitated, thinking that to object to this arrangement might cause Mr Emmett to decline her proposition altogether. Finally she found herself saying, 'Sir, I ain't got fancy notions about meself, but I ain't no servant ever no more! The potting shed be more than I'm used to. I have no wish to disturb your household. I have a blanket and mattress roll and will be glorious comfy.'

Mr Emmett looked at her in surprise but then a small smile played at the corners of his mouth. 'Very well, Mary, I shall tell cook to issue you with rations.'

Mary, of course, had sufficient money to live comfortably had she wished to siphon off only a small amount from the contents of the clay pot. She could have stayed in one of the numerous cheap boarding houses which took in ticket of leavers, though the idea did not occur to her. Comfort was not a consideration in her life, and the money she had made from the Potato Factory was to be used only to make a new life. Mary was determined she would have a profession. When she'd earned out her ticket of leave and was free, she would start on her own in business. She didn't much care what business except that it should cater for people's essential needs. She would not touch a penny of the five hundred pounds for any other purpose.

Mary could not light a fire in the tiny potting shed so she spread straw over the cold brick floor. At night she stuffed her clothes with newspaper and in this way remained tolerably warm. During the day she worked in Mr Emmett's garden. He would sometimes visit her when he returned home from work in the early evening, and twice he had brought her a glass of fruit punch flavoured with the heavenly taste of fresh apricots. Mary had scarcely wished to accept the delicious concoction for fear that it might corrupt her resolve.

Mr Emmett always came upon her in the same way. As though to dispel any anticipation Mary might have at his approach, he would precede his arrival by shouting the selfsame words. 'Not much luck, my dear. If I may say so, no blasted luck at all!'

Mary would look up from where she was working and attempt a smile. 'I am much obliged to you, sir,' she would say, standing up at his approach and trying not to show her disappointment.

Mary took two hours each day to try to secure a position on her own, trudging into town if she should see an advertisement in the Colonial Times. This was the only money she spent, sixpence every week to purchase the newspaper. While there were vacant positions aplenty, none of those advertising for a clerk bookkeeper required a female bookkeeper who was a ticket of leave convict. Mr Emmett's letter was beginning to look weary at the folds and greasy at the edges, as though it too was possessed of a forlorn and hopeless disposition.

Mr Emmett tried again to get Mary to join him in the employ of the government but she would not surrender.

A month passed and Mr Emmett's garden was now well prepared for winter. Neat rows of winter cabbage and cauliflower seedlings filled their beds in the vegetable patch. The soil around the standard roses and young fruit trees had been dug around, aired and then bedded down with straw and the garden was now completely cleared of summer's dead leaf. Mary woke one chilly morning and went to the door of the potting shed. The grass outside was silver with hoar frost and, as was her habit each morning, she looked up at the great mountain. Snow had fallen during the night and had turned it into a veritable Christmas pudding. Above it an icy, cobalt sky stretched high and, though she could not see them, she could hear a flock of cockatoos in the trees near by.

'Please, mountain, let something happen today!' Mary appealed to the snow-covered monolith towering above her. 'The work be done in Mr Emmett's garden and I cannot accept no more charity.'

'Mary, Mary! Come here, girl!' She could hear Mr Emmett's excited voice before he reached her. It was just before sunset on the same day and Mary was planting lemon grass. 'Mary, where are you? It's good news at last!'

Mary stood up at Mr Emmett's approach.

'Good news, my dear!' he said a little breathlessly, flapping his arms as he came up to her. 'Mr Peter Degraves the sawmiller is building a brewery at the Cascades and he needs a clerk!'

Mary dropped the trowel she was holding and looked querulously at her benefactor. 'A woman, sir?'

'They'll take a chance on a woman… on you!' Mr Emmett laughed, well pleased with himself.

'Have you told them I be ticket o' leave, sir?'

'Yes, yes, everything! Do not fret yourself, my dear. Mr Degraves has been in debtor's prison himself. He sees nothing to harm him in your past.' Mr Emmett grinned at Mary. 'I daresay those silly Chinese beads of yours will be just the very thing for counting bricks and timber eh?'

'A brewery is it? Will he keep me on when the building is complete?'

'If you serve him well, I don't see why not.'

Mary, unable to restrain herself, burst into tears and Mr Emmett, no taller than she, even by an inch, stood beside her. He patted her clumsily on the back. 'Now, now, my dear, it isn't much, an outdoors job with winter almost here, among crude men loading drays, I doubt it will exercise your skills to any extent.'

'Gawd bless you, sir!' Mary whispered, her voice choked with relief.

'Tut, tut, you have little to thank me for, Mary Abacus. My garden is splendidly prepared for winter and I reward you with nothing but the smell of hops in your nostrils and the cussing of rough men in your ears. I think it a poor exchange indeed!'

'Thank you, sir, I will not forget this.'

'There is little for you to remember on my behalf, my dear,' Mr Emmett said gently. 'You are worthy of much, much more, Mary Abacus.'

The chief clerk of the colonial secretary's department was not to know that on the brisk autumn evening in late May 1831, he had watched a small woman with large green eyes, bright with recent tears, take the first tentative step in what would one day be a vast brewery empire that would stretch around the world. Mary Abacus had discovered the commodity men could not live without and yet was not condemned or forbidden by society.

The dream was in place, the new life begun, and Mary's great good luck had persisted. In the gathering darkness she could only just make out the frosted top of the mountain.

'Thank you!' Mary whispered, clasping Ikey's Waterloo medal tightly to her breast.