Dara

PART FIVE. THE GOLDEN VIRGIN

Tired out after our journey from Liverpool, I slept soundly throughout our first night at 'The Eight Bells' hotel. James was still asleep when I got out of bed, curious to see what was causing the continual roar in the street below. It was my first sight of bustling, thriving, noisy London. The street was filled with vehicles of every kind, costermongers' carts, lumbering market wagons filled to overflowing with vegetables. Their screeching iron-rimmed wheels on the cobbled surface added to the confusion and tumult of the bells of the barrow boys, the raucous shouting of men and women selling gingerbread, hot meat pies and other cooked food, whelks, watercress and a variety of wares. The pavements were strewn with cabbage leaves and litter of every description.

After breakfast James set off to call on some magazine editors and I sallied forth to explore the Covent Garden market. Stepping into the street I unwittingly became the cause of a dispute when two women, carrying baskets, converged on me.

One of them, an Irish woman, smoking a short clay pipe, shoved her basket at me, 'Gingerbread, lady? The best in London.'

The other woman, wearing a stiff gown tucked up with a large quilted petticoat, pushed Irish to one side with strong, brawny arms and thrust her red, bloated face towards mine. “Ere y'are, lady. Buy me spiced gingerbread, smo-o-king 'ot, fresh out'a the oven,' she demanded in a coarse cracked voice.

Irish, outraged at this intrusion, forced her basket into me and cursed the other woman with some Celtic oaths.

First one basket and then the other pushed me backwards towards the hotel entrance as they argued and screamed abuse at each other. I could see that it wouldn't be long before they would be coming to blows. Potboys and ragged dirty-faced children, attracted by the screams of anger, gathered around us, eager to see a fight. As I extracted two pennies from my purse, a pot-boy shouted encouragement to Irish: 'Put the kye-bosh on her, Mary.'

Dropping a penny in each of their baskets, I fled across the congested street, negotiating my way through a higgledy-piggledy confusion of vendors of fried fish, hot pies, muffins, caged linnets, almond toffee and costermongers' barrows loaded with fresh fruit and vegetables. The pandemonium and cries of 'Hi-i-i! Carrots, penny a bunch; pahnd o' grapes for thrupence; hot chestnuts; cherry ripe, round and sahnd, fivepence a pahnd; fish alive-O,' vibrated through my head and filled me with an excitement that was a welcome change after weeks of boredom on board ship.

Resisting the tempting smell of hot coffee wafting out of an eating house on the corner, I turned into Mart Street where, although the thoroughfare was narrow, my movements were less restricted because the traders' vehicles were confined to one side of the street. I hadn't got very far when a voice, rising above the other street cries, clammered for my attention.

'Oy! Oy! Oy! Hi there, lady. Turn abaht and look at these 'ere apples. Rosy red and juicy.'

It was a young man about my own age. He was dressed in the usual costermonger's clothing, a long cord waistcoat with shining brass buttons and trousers tightly fitting over the knees and billowing out over highly polished boots. Beneath a cloth cap pulled jauntily down to one side, his mischievous eyes invited me to examine a large apple that he held in a hand outstretched in my direction.

Eve tempted Adam with an apple. On this occasion it was Adam tempting a woman with the same fruit. For that was indeed his name as I was soon to find out. The apple was all he said it would be: tasty and juicy. Little did I know as my teeth crunched into Eve's fruit that Adam Sutton's friendly face would be my introduction to the foul obscenity of London's underworld.

There was always a hearty welcome for me when I purchased fruit at Adam's barrow. In the first half of the week he was not to be seen in Mart Street as those were the days he pushed his barrow into other parts of the city. Our acquaintanceship ripened very quickly into a flirtatious friendship that kept me amused for hours as I stood chattering with him and his customers. It didn't take me long to learn the prices of the fruit and vegetables on his barrow and I often helped out when he was very busy with a crowd of housewives demanding quick service.

There was nothing else for me to do as James was out nearly every day and attending theatrical performances most evenings. He struck up a friendship with John Sweetapple, a theatre critic, who was more successful than James at getting his work published in the magazines that were in circulation in those days. I spent two or three boring evenings with James at John's lodgings listening to him reading out loud extracts from some of the plays he had written. Try as I may, I couldn't arouse any interest in his plays and he obviously wasn't concerned about me as he addressed most of his conversation to James.

Apart from John Sweetapple and James, the only person I could talk to was my costermonger. Adam was one of those people who have the knack of getting you to open out and confide in them. It wasn't long before he knew all about my adventures in America and how I had met James and wed him in New York.

I asked him once if I talked too much. 'Nah!' he exclaimed, 'I like listening to your la-di-da lingo.'

Puzzled by this remark, I asked what he meant by my 'la-di-da lingo'.

'You talk proper-like a toff. You're not like me; you're edicated, ain't yer. You've got the words for ev'ryfink. I s'pose you got to 'ave, bein' married to a gent that is. I don't know why you bower wiv me. I'm just a costermonger.'

The idea of me talking with a 'la-di-da' accent seemed so absurd and ridiculous that I laughed out loud. My amusement quickly subsided when I saw the angry expression on his face. He thought I was laughing at him. To make amends I put a hand on his arm and said, 'Don't be angry, Adam. I'm laughing at myself not you. You are my friend. My best friend. Believe me I wouldn't do anything to upset you.'

To get over his embarrassment he began to pile up the apples into a neat heap. 'Don't just stand there like a loony,' he said brusquely. 'Make yerself busy. Tidy up them oranges.'

Because of this difference in speech he obviously felt some sense of inferiority. Up till then I hadn't given the matter any thought but he was painfully sensitive about his lack of education and somehow, when the opportunity arose, I would have to convince him that I loved his cockney accent. In fact, it added colour and life to his words. Everything he said held me fascinated and I never got tired of listening to the descriptive phrases he used.

We had been at the hotel about three weeks when I woke up one morning to find that James had dressed and left the hotel before I had opened my eyes. I was curious as to his haste because invariably I was the first one out of bed, but thought nothing of it, assuming that he had an early appointment that morning. Although I didn't see him that day, I wasn't unduly worried and settled down to sleep in the evening thinking that he was probably drinking with friends until the early hours of the morning.

Much to my concern, when morning came I found myself alone in bed. I dressed in a hurry of anxiety and went downstairs to enquire if anyone had seen my husband, as he had failed to make an appearance since the previous day. At a loss as to what I should do next, I sought out Adam to his advice.

He made light of my fretting saying, 'Nothin' to worry abaht. Got boozed up last night I s'pose. Mark my words, he'll wake up wiv a sore 'ead and crawl back to yer feelin' more dead than alive.'

His words were reassuring, but I couldn't help feeling apprehensive. It was unlike James to be out all night.

From the expression on Adam's face I could see he thought I was making too much of it. 'Don't just stand there lookin' like a sick cow. 'Ere, make yerself busy. I could do wiv some 'elp this mornin'.'

I stayed with him until midday then hurried back to the hotel. Mr. Dawkins, the owner of 'The Eight Bells', was waiting for me and hailed me as I was about to mount the stairs to our bedroom saying, 'Just one moment, Miss. I want a word with you.'

Nettled by him addressing me as 'Miss', I asked sternly, 'Did you say “Miss”?' Impatient to get to our chamber to see if James had returned, I took a step up the stairs and turned and fixed my eye on him. Aren't you aware that I'm Mrs. James Kennet?'

'Be that as it may. Your husband, if that's what he is, owes me a tidy bit of money and I want it now.'

'Have you seen Mr. Kennet?' I enquired hopefully.

'No. Not for two days. That is, not since I threatened him with the debtors' prison if he didn't pay me the seventeen pounds he owes me.'

I looked at him aghast, hardly believing my ears. Whatever could James be thinking about, allowing us to run into debt like this. He had assured me on the voyage coming over that there would be no more money problems once we got to London.

Mr. Dawkins snorted, 'Gents like him usually do a bunk when their debts get bigger than their pocket. I am sure we won't see him again so you're the one who will have to pay.'

'How can I pay you?' I exclaimed, 'I haven't got any money.'

'You can sell those two rings on your hand,' he answered. “That's if they are genuine.'

'But it's all the jewellery I have left,' I protested.

'He has taken you for a right mug, hasn't he? I'll bet this isn't the first time you have had to bail him out when he has been living above his means. I'm sorry, Miss, but you'll have to come with me. I'll show you where you can sell your rings.'

For the first time I began to doubt James' integrity. I didn't know what to think. Crestfallen at this sudden turn of events, I allowed Dawkins to take me by the arm and lead me along the road to a shop showing a window display of clocks and watches. He released my arm at the shop doorway saying he would wait outside.

'Vot have you got for me?' the man in the shop asked as soon as I entered. 'Or is it you vould like a vatch… maybe a clock? Eh?'

His dark, grizzled hair, topped by a little black skullcap, hung down in ringlets on each side of his heavy, sallow face. The dark eyes above his hooked nose fired with interest when I removed the two rings from my fingers and placed them before him but his words belied his thoughts.

Picking up the rings he gave them a quick glance. 'Glass!' he sneered. 'Pretty, but just glass. Not vorth more than a few shillings. Veil, vot do you vant for zem?'

My attention was distracted by a tapping on the window behind me. I looked around thinking it was Mr. Dawkins getting impatient for his money only to see a roguish street boy, nose and goggling eyes pressed up against the window with his tongue lolling out. Turning around I was about to speak when the tapping became more urgent and louder.

The shopman, furious at this interruption to our business, rushed to the door and shouted, 'If you vant to buy a vatch, come in and buy a vatch-if you don't vant to buy a vatch take your snotty nose away from my vindow!'

The boy pulled his mouth wide with his fingers, stuck out his tongue, then ran down the street. I made up my mind that I wasn't going to be intimidated nor was I going to enter into tedious bargaining about the rings.

T want seventeen pounds,' I announced. 'And if you won't give what I'm asking for them I'll take them elsewhere.'

He took an eyeglass out of his pocket and examined the rings minutely, giving me a sharp hard look. 'Not vorth more than fourteen pounds.'

I reached out for the rings. 'I owe that man out there seventeen pounds. I can't take a penny less for them.' He stepped back out of my reach. 'Give them back to me,' I said angrily.

'You owe ze man ze money?' His features softened but he wasn't going to give in without a protest. Raising his hands palm upwards he shrugged his shoulders. 'Pretty faces viz pretty rings will be ze ruin of me.'

After he had slowly counted out seventeen sovereigns he gave them to me with great reluctance and an anguished expression.

An impatient Mr. Dawkins wanted the money as soon as I left the shop but I wouldn't give it to him. 'You will have to wait until we get back to the hotel,' I said, 'where you can write me out a receipt for it.'

I went up to my bedchamber after settling the account where I intended to wait until James returned.

Sitting on the bed idly looking around the room it suddenly came to me that none of James' personal effects could be seen. Usually his hair brushes, writing paper, etc., were strewn around in various places. I remembered about a week ago having a fleeting thought about how tidy the room was and assumed that James, for once, had put all his things into drawers or his clothes cabinet. In a daze, I looked everywhere. He had left nothing, not even a small item of clothing. Everything that belonged to him had gone.

Stunned, I stood in the middle of the room unable for a while to accept the thought that he had walked out of my life without even saying goodbye. He wasn't strong in character, that I knew, but he had always been kind and considerate. It was unbelievable that he could desert me in this way without any warning.

Flinging myself on the bed I cried out loud like a stricken animal. With tears flowing down my cheeks I sobbed quietly into the pillow. He had cast me aside when his debts had got too much for him. Cast me aside as a thing of no importance. How could he do this to me, I asked myself time and time again and spoke the words out loud but could find no reasonable answer in my mind.

There was nothing for it. I would have to leave the hotel before I got further into debt. Collecting clothing and everything that was mine I slowly packed them all into my leather bag and walked out of the hotel. With dragging feet and a feeling of rejection and dreadful loneliness I returned to Adam and his barrow.

There weren't many people about and Adam was trying to whip up some business by beating an old tin box and calling out the prices of his stock.

A-ho there! What d'you think of this 'ere? Carrots penny a bunch.'

Without a pause in his words he signalled me to come alongside of him. 'Hurrah for free trade. Pertater, turnips, onions. All fresh and good. Oy! Oy! Now's yer time. 'Ere y'are guv'nor, fine broccoli-i? Dirt cheap. Oranges 'n apples, thrupence a dozen.'

When Adam heard my tale of woe he asked me what I was going to do now that I was on my own.

'I've got no money and nowhere to go,' I answered tearfully. 'What can I do, Adam?'

He averted his eyes, embarrassed by my tears and misery, it's an 'ell 'ole where I live. Not fit for the likes of you,' he mumbled.

I was becoming more and more aware of the hopelessness of my situation and couldn't see any way out of it. In this world you've got to have either a man or money and I had neither. 'Where do you live, Adam?' I asked.

'I've got a room in an 'ouse that's old and musty. You wouldn't like it. It's the worst 'ouse on Exeter Street. Broken windows stuffed wiv rags and full of street hawkers, thieves, sluts and cryin' babies-the scum of London.' He hesitated. 'There's only one bed. You'd 'ave to sleep wiv me. How about that, my La-di-da Lady? You wouldn't like that-would yer now, eh?' He was grinning all over his face but uncertain as to how I would reply.

I had got the drift of where all this was leading to before he had finished and was ready with my answer. 'You're a lovely man, Adam. If I have got to share a bed, I would rather it was you than anyone else. Do you think you can put up with me? I'll try to earn my keep by helping you in any way I can. Whatever happens, I promise not to be a burden on you.'

It was obvious he hadn't expected such an easy conquest and I wondered if he thought I was too eager to get into bed with him, so I said, 'I can sleep on the floor, Adam, if you'd prefer it.'

'What d'yer take me for? I can relish a woman and bull 'er as good as the next man so don't let any of me mates 'ear yer say anyfink abaht sleeping on the floor. They would fink I was a proper Jessie boy.'

After many months of married celibacy his cheerful virility quickened my pulse and raised my spirits. What matter if I lived in a ramshackle old house with the castoffs of society? It wouldn't be anything new to me as I had experienced abject poverty in my years of childhood and had come out of it unscathed.

An hour or two passed before Adam decided that, as there was so little left on the barrow, it was time to knock off and get something to eat. We packed what was left into a sack and returned the barrow to the hiring yard. The hire of a barrow cost threepence a day during the winter months and fourpence during the summer.

There was no need to go to an eating house as all round us was a wide selection of food on the street stalls. There were pies, muffins, eels, plum puddings, fried fish, baked potatoes, all steaming hot, as well as ham sandwiches, pickled whelks and eggs. Despite the squalor and filth of the streets it was a cheerful scene with the warming red glow of the charcoal braziers and swinging oil lamps hanging from the stalls. Adam and I had two mutton pies each and finished off our meal with plum puddings.

On our way to Adam's favourite ale-house, 'The Half Moon' tavern, we passed several splendid gin houses with their glittering chandeliers lighting up the elegantly carved mahogany bars which extended the whole length of the saloon. I had a peek in one and viewed with awe the huge green and gold barrels of gin stacked behind brass rails labelled 'Corpse Reviver', 'The Real Knock Me Down', 'Blue Tarter', 'Mother's Favourite' and other enticing names.

At 'The Half Moon' tavern I was introduced to Tom Biggs, a crony of Adam's who was also a costermonger. He looked a slippery character to me and I was on my guard from the first moment he gave me an admiring leer. He had on the usual dandified costermonger's garb with a bright multi-coloured silk neckerchief. They were all proud of these pieces of silk around their necks. 'King's Men' they called them and when they took to living with a girl they usually gave her a similar neckerchief. Adam settled our arrangement the next day when he proudly tied one around my neck.

All Tom's words were over-emphasized by nods, sly winks, shrugging shoulders and extreme facial expressions.

Adam had a drink waiting for him. Tom raised his glass in a salute, ''Ere's to you, Adam; may your cock and purse never fail yer.'

His girlfriend turned up shortly after we arrived. She was coarse in language and manners but a pleasant, amiable girl who treated me with a certain amount of reserve until she got to know me better.

In answer to calls from Adam and Tom, Florrie, the barmaid, replenished our drinks. She was a full-breasted, plump, well-built woman, about forty years of age, who ruled the roost in the tavern, keeping everyone in order, including 'Pig Face', the landlord. When she returned to the bar I couldn't help commenting on the tattoos emblazoned on her arms. From her wrists upwards the tattoos covered almost every inch of her skin. The most outstanding was an impression of St Paul's Cathedral encircled by a multitude of pink roses.

Tom Biggs snorted and, with a wink at Adam, said, 'Yer should see the rest of 'er. She's tattooed from neck to foot wiv everyfink yer can fink of; ships, lovers' knots, sights o' London, devils and angels. You name it, she's got it. Up 'er legs, on 'er belly, everywhere.'

'But why?' I asked.

Tom laughed. 'Well, it's like this, see. She was married for two years to a tattoo artist who practised 'is craft on 'er when 'e 'ad nuffink better to do. At the time she worshipped the ground 'e trod on and would let 'im do anyfink 'e wanted wiv 'er. You women are bleedin' fools when a man takes your fancy. She's proud of 'em cos, now 'e's dead, she carries on 'er body the best tattooing 'e ever did do while 'e was 'er 'usband. She's got somefink to remember 'im by. See?'

Adam bent forward and whispered something to Tom which I didn't catch.

'What are they whispering about?' I asked Betty, Tom's friend.

'They're not gonna tell yer so I will. It's wot she's got tattooed dahn 'er back.'

'What's that?' I said, full of curiosity.

'Tell 'er abaht the fox,' said Tom, sniggering.

Betty ignored him. 'Startin' up near 'er waist she's got some 'untsmen on 'orses, jumpin' over fences and gallopin' like mad.'

'Tally-O!' shouted Adam. “Oo's gonna foller the fox?'

Betty was having difficulty suppressing her giggles and said, 'You've never seen anyfink like it. When she bends dahn you see all these 'ounds runnin' all over 'er backside arter the fox which is disappearin' up 'er arse 'ole.'

I looked round at Florrie. With her light grey hair tucked under a white bonnet, she looked so respectable and dignified it was difficult to imagine all those tattoos under her clothing and to understand why she had allowed her fair skin to be disfigured in this manner.

Adam and his friends were pushing each other and laughing uproariously at the shocked expression on my face. 'How do you know all this?' I asked.

Adam lit up a tuppenny cigar. “Cos she'll show it to anyone for 'alf a sovereign-would yer like to see it?'

'No!' I said quickly. 'It's bad enough thinking about it without seeing it.'

Adam sniffed. 'We've vexed Mrs. La-di-da,' he said to his friends. Then he turned to me and spat out, 'Don't put on any airs and graces wiv us. Take us as yer find us, or 'oppit.'

Surprised and shocked, I could think of nothing to say in reply to his abrupt outburst. Luckily Betty chose that moment to get up from her seat and say to Tom, 'Well, I'm orf. If yer want to come wiv me put yer shillin' on the table.'

Tom looked at Adam, laughed and with a knowing wink gave Betty a shilling and followed her out of the tavern.

'What was all that about?' I asked Adam.

'Nothin' much,' he answered. 'She's a shillin' dolly mop. If she likes yer, she'll give yer all yer want for a shillin'.'

'Is she a prostitute then?' I asked.

'Nah. She works in the fish market. Yer get nuffink for nuffink in this world. The shillin's not important. She don't see no reason why she should give it for free. Even though she enjoys it as much as the cove 'oo's on top of 'er.'

'If you ask me,' I said, 'she's nothing but a common tart, selling herself cheap.'

'Ah. Yer don't understand. Yer not like us. She's just a good sport. I remember the first time Tom and me met 'er. They say two into one won't go but it did that night. Tom and me 'ad 'er sandwiched between us, piggin' it in the same 'ole as yer might say.'

It was pitch black when Adam and I stumbled up the stairs to his room later that evening and I paid scant attention to the decaying, fetid smells that seemed to infect the whole house. Adam's room was spotlessly clean but barely furnished, with its cold floorboards, bed, wash stand, clothes cupboard, small table and two chairs. In the fluttering light of a tallow candle I undressed and he did likewise, removing all his clothing except his shirt, before jumping into bed.

When I pulled my shift over my head and stood naked before him he turned his head away. 'Put yer bloody shift on,' he shouted. “Ave yer got no shame, showing all yer got like that? Wot d'yer fink this is, a broffel?'

This was my first experience of lower class prudery. Later, as time went by, I was to learn that Adam was no exception to the idea prevalent amongst the poor that it wasn't decent to expose your private parts to anyone however intimate the relationship had become. In all the time I was with Adam I never saw him naked; he always undressed with his back to me and held the front of his shirt over his private parts until he got into bed.

Wasting no time on kisses or caresses, he pulled me roughly under him. He was what you might call a 'knee-elbow lover'. Taking most of his weight on his forearms he crouched over me and viciously thrust deep into my giny saying, “Old yer breaf when I pass yer 'eart.'

In spite of the rough manner of his entry into my soft underparts, it was good to feel the warm full flesh of a man inside me again. The deep probings of his aggressive cock began to arouse my passions but the warm, sensual feeling wasn't to last for very long, for in less than two minutes his frantic stabbing brought him to a head. Gasping for breath, he flopped down on me.

Bitterly disappointed, I said with feeling, 'Is that the best you can do for a girl?'

Without any warning I was stunned by a stinging blow across the mouth from the back of his hand. 'Shut yer mouf, you stupid cunt,' he growled, 'or I'll shut it for yer.'

I could hear the slumbering anger beneath the surface of Adam's words the following morning when he bid me rise and dress. 'Come on, woman, there's work to do.'

He was determined to bring me down a peg or two to keep his own self esteem. The difference in our education and speech irritated and belittled him. His constant harping on what he called my 'la-di-da' speech and genteel manners exposed his sense of inferiority with those who had the advantages that he associated with the self-assured gentry. What he wanted from me was admiring respect.

It was obvious that if our intimate relationship was to continue he would have to be top dog and I his subservient woman. It would be difficult for me to play such a role but it would be easier for me than have us both tearing each other to pieces in constant bickering. A long day of sullen resentment was not a happy prospect so I decided to put the matter to rights immediately.

Standing before him with eyes downcast in an attitude of meekness and submission bare-footed and wearing only my shift, I murmured in an apologetic voice, Adam, I'm sorry for what I said last night. Please forgive me.'

The angry resentment he felt was still boiling up inside him and had to come out. He scowled at me. 'Yer're a tight-arsed, snooty bitch and I won't stand for it so yer'd better knuckle dahn and mind yer tongue.'

He waved his fist in front of my face. 'Yer fink yer're better than me- don't yer?'

'No, Adam, I don't,' I protested.

Stuck for words, he mumbled hesitantly, 'Mind yer place-or I'll wallop the 'ide off yer.'

By the time we arrived at Covent Garden, Adam was his usual lively, agreeable self. It was hard work helping him push the barrow through dismal streets and into gloomy courtyards to get the sales for the fruit and vegetables. Despite the drizzling rain that soaked us to the skin, he remained talkative and entertaining, doing his best to bring good cheer and laughter to the pale, pinched-up faces of the women who came out from crumbling houses to buy our vegetables. Their thin, tawdry dresses gave them little protection against the cold wind and rain.

I was dog tired at the end of the day and ready for bed but Adam insisted on us having another evening at 'The Half Moon' tavern. The cosy atmosphere and warm welcome I received from Florrie soon revived my spirits.

Sitting next to Tom Biggs was a little dwarf. He was so hideous and grotesque that I couldn't take my eyes off him. I tried to concentrate on the conversation between Adam and Tom, but became increasingly uneasy as the fixed staring eyes that bulged from the monstrous head of the dwarf followed all my movements. He never took his eyes off me from the moment I sat down in a chair opposite him. The diabolical grin on his fat lips unnerved me every time I glanced at him.

Adam seeing the dwarfs interest in me, gave him a push and said, 'Take yer eyes off 'er, yer randy little bastard. Anyway she'd get nuffink from your short stick.'

The dwarf turned with his heavy head lolling to one side. 'My short stick 'as pleased a lot of women.' Sticking out a thick, wet tongue at Adam, 'Yer know what they say, “Long and thin, goes right in but it's short and thick wot does the trick.”'

I took my eyes off the dwarf just for an instant and in that fleeting moment he had disappeared from view. Looking around the tavern to see where he had gone, I became aware of something crawling up my leg. My searching fingers found a hand half way up my thigh. Letting out an outraged yell, I flung myself backwards toppling over onto the floor. Scrambling to my feet amidst a roar of laughter, I caught sight of the dwarfs head rising above the table, and thumped it hard with a clenched fist.

Florrie intervened and with a comforting arm around my shoulders ushered me behind the bar and poured out a glass of brandy.

'Here you are, luv, drink this. That bloody dwarf, you never know what he is going to do next.'

To my disgust Adam and Tom were splitting their sides with laughter. When they saw me looking at the dwarf with an excess of loathing they hooted even louder. To everybody's amusement the dwarf climbed onto the table and, with tongue lolling out, 'cunt thumbed' me with a thumb folded into his fist. In triumph at my discomfort his fat little legs danced a mad Irish jig to the accompaniment of Adam and Tom's hand clapping.

The landlord, with a scowling face, gestured for me to get back to my seat and I was about to do so when Florrie muttered, 'Don't take any notice of him. Stay where you are.'

Pig Face, as Florrie so aptly named him, was a big bully of a man with a florid complexion. His scanty crop of hair was plastered over the top of his head in a vain effort to hide a bald patch.

With some harsh words he was ordering Sniffler, the little waif who helped out at the back of the bar, to bring more glasses. Sniffler had obviously got her name because she was constantly sniffing a wet nose. For something to say, I asked Florrie if she and Sniffler slept on the premises.

'Yes, we share a room upstairs. That way I can protect her from Pig Face. Poor little sod, she's never had a chance. Born in the Poor House and kicked out to fend for herself when she was twelve, she knew nothing of the world outside and was scared stiff when I found her, curled up in the doorway. I brought her in and gave her some hot soup. We needed some help so I persuaded Pig Face to let her stay and she's been with us now about twelve months.'

She shot a quick look at her boss and her voice dropped to a whisper. 'You wouldn't think it looking at that belly of his but he's a right randy sod. He's always at her. She never complains because she's frightened he will chuck her out into the street. I've caught him more than once having his way with her in a cupboard. Yesterday he had her bent over on the stairs and was ramming it into her like a street dog with a bitch.' She sighed. 'I do my best, but you can't have your eyes everywhere, can you?'

'What about you?' I asked. 'Doesn't he try it on with you?'

Florrie snorted, 'Just let him try; he will get what he got last time.'

'What was that?' I asked with a laugh.

'Well, it was like this. I was born and bred in Chelmsford.'

'So that's why you don't talk cockney,' I exclaimed.

T couldn't, luv-even if I tried. The doctor taught me how to speak proper and I've done so ever since.'

'What doctor?' I asked.

'Well, I was going to tell you if only you would stop interrupting. When I was twelve I got work as a serving maid with a Dr Huddle. Although he had a wife he crept into my bed the first night I was there saying, “Huddle wants a cuddle.” You couldn't help laughing at the things he said. He was always coming out with comic remarks like that and, mind you, always with a straight face.'

'Well go on,' I said, interrupting her again. 'What happened?'

'To tell you the truth I was frightened out of my wits. Being a virgin and in the flower of my youth, as you might say, what with his wife asleep downstairs and him up with me, I didn't know what to do. I put up a struggle but he got it in me just the same. It hurt a bit at first but not all that much.'

She broke off for a moment to serve some drinks then came back to me. 'Where was I? Oh, yes. He was a handsome forty at the time and very clean about his person-if you know what I mean. I was big for my age, a grown up girl before I was fourteen and that's when I started to get as much pleasure from it as he did.'

As she seemed to have run out of words, I asked, 'How long did it go on for?'

'Oh! Let me see. I was twenty-three when he collapsed all of a heap on the kitchen floor one day. His heart gave out I think. About eleven years I would say. The day after they buried him, his widow had a stand up row with me and kicked me out, bag and baggage. You see she had known all along what was happening but never let on until after her husband had died. He had always given me a shilling every time he did it and as I never spent any of it I had quite a bit put by for me when I needed it.'

'What did you do when she kicked you out? Come to London?'

'Yes, that's right. I had never been anywhere but Chelmsford and I had always wanted to see London. That's when I met Fred. Oh, he was a lovely man, was Fred. A wonder in bed and a wonder with his tattoo needle. That's how I got all the tattoo pictures on me. I'll show you them some time. You will be amazed. I'm a living work of art. It wouldn't be decent,' she said with a giggle, 'but sometime I would like to walk around stark naked so that everybody could admire Fred's pictures.'

She came to an abrupt stop when Pig Face brushed past me, nipping my bum as he went by. 'That's just like him, the dirty old sod,' said Florrie. 'This was Fred's regular drinking place and after he died I came to work here. Pig Face's wife was still alive then, but that didn't stop him trying to get his hand up my skirt. He didn't get very far because I pushed my thumbs into his eyeballs and kneed him hard in the nutmegs. He never tried it on again after that.'

Awakening before Adam the following morning, I found myself cuddled to him with a hand on his crotch. I don't know how long I had been in that position but he was firm and sticking up proudly. It jerked each time my fingers stroked. Each twitch of his cock brought a tremor to my giny and sent a thrilling spasm of desire through my burning flesh.

His eyes were still closed in sleep as I eased under him and guided him into me. In this drowsiness he lay heavy on me but that's the way I wanted it. After all those months without ever feeling the full weight of a man on me it was good to feel the hard muscular belly pressing into mine. Twining my legs around his, I levered my hips upwards, forcing my giny hard up against him. Swooning with joyful bliss my swiggling buttocks raised my fevered passions to the dizzy heights of fulfillment.

Adam was fully awake by this time and in his usual crouched position driving himself deep into me. I lay back with languid limbs, in blissful submission, as he savaged my throbbing giny and rose again to join him in a thunderous whirling storm that left us clasped tight against each other.

Clinging to him in warm contentment, I opened my tear-smeared eyes to find him smiling at me with tender amusement and, for the first time since we had met, received a fond kiss on the lips. A kiss that opened the flood gates of my affections, but he pulled away when I reached out to caress his lips with loving fingers and rolled out of bed to pull on his trousers impatiently, as if ashamed of showing the soft underside of his nature.

It didn't happen all that often but whenever I awoke before Adam my persuasive caresses soon had him ripe and ready for loving. With his head clouded in sleep I could take full advantage of his drowsiness to have it my way. My clinging legs held him close to me until my giny tensed and I lay back, all passion spent.

It was only on such mornings that we got together as lovers should, allowing the deep longing of the flesh for union with someone of the opposite sex to reach fulfilment. It seems contradictory but, after I had risen in joy and happiness to achieve the sensual bliss that follows desire satisfied, I welcomed the onslaught of his aggressive lust. Satiated with sensual warmth I submitted willingly to the rapist that is in all men and opened my thighs wider to further his passions. Clinging to him after he had emptied his loins into me I would await the tender kiss of gratitude that was my reward for awakening him with loving caresses.

It was about this time that I discovered who was living in the cupboard on our landing. I can only assume that in better days, when the house was occupied by a family with servants, it had been used to store bedding. It protruded into our room to a depth of about three feet.

Adam was having an evening out with Tom Biggs and had left me to my own devices. As I sat mending a small tear in my skirt, my concentration was disturbed by scraping and scratching sounds coming from the space taken up by the cupboard. Often during the night I heard rats scuffling under the floorboards but this was altogether different. Coming out onto the landing I cautiously opened one of the doors of the cupboard to find a ragged boy about eight-years-old, smeared in oil and grime, scraping away at a piece of copper by the light of a tallow candle. He was squatting on a straw-filled mattress which covered most of the floor of the cupboard. His clothing was tattered and torn and between his open legs was a basket of odds and ends; bones, copper nails, pieces of coal and a filthy variety of other curious objects. I was about to ask him what he was doing there when a girl of about ten or eleven rudely pushed past me to sit down beside her brother.

'Wot d'you want?' she demanded of me.

'Nothing. I heard a scraping noise and wondered where it was coming from. How long have you been living in this cupboard?'

'Wot's it to you?' she said and pulled the door to.

I went back to my sewing, intrigued at the thought that Adam and I had neighbours who lived practically in our room. More in a sense of fun than anything else, I knocked three times on the wall that was the back of their cupboard. In less than a minute there was a knock on our door.

'Come in,' I shouted.

The door swung open and there she stood, bristling with indignation. 'Wot the 'ell d'yer want now?' she asked, prepared to do battle with me.

She was completely disarmed when I took two apples from our fruit sack and offered them to her. Viewing the apples with a stark, hungry look she licked her lips and slowly moved towards them. When she was within reaching distance she grabbed the apples and stepped backwards and took a bite out of one of them. Munching away she looked at me doubtfully. 'Wot's yer name?' she asked through a mouth full of apple.

'Dara-what's yours?'

'Polly Barnes.'

And your brother?' I asked.

'Peter. You frightened 'im when you came on 'im suddenly like that. You're a bit of a nosey parker, ain't yer?'

I laughed. 'Bring him in here and I will give him an apple.'

She banged on the wall and shouted, 'Peter, come in 'ere.'

When he appeared in the doorway I offered him an apple and asked what he was doing with the bits and pieces he had in his basket.

'Sortin' 'em aht,' he mumbled as he chewed on the apple.

'We're “mud larks",' said Polly in the way of an explanation.

'What the hell is a “mud lark”?' I asked.

'Cor. Where've you been? Mean ter say yer never 'eard of mud larks?' I shook my head. Alright, tell me what you do when you are mudlarking.'

'Well! Everyday we search in the mud by the riverside for coppah, nails, coal, old iron, bones-anyfink that we can get a penny or two for. Las' week Peter fahnd a shillin' an' I pulled aht a baby's shawl. We got thrupence for it-it was a good 'un-that's arter I'd washed it.'

As the weeks went by we became good friends. On the nights that Adam was out I would often sit in their cupboard helping to sort out and clean the pieces of copper and iron. Everyday they were down by the river banks, up to their knees in mud and floating scum, searching the dregs of the tide.

They had previously lived with their mother and her man in the room now occupied by Adam and me. When their mother died the man just got up and walked out on them. They had no money for rent so they sought sanctuary in the landing cupboard and since then had made a precarious living as mud larks. I took them under my wing, giving them what I could in the way of fruit and vegetables and occasionally buying them meat pies. They always looked lean and hungry even with the extra food I gave them.

Polly was always trying to sell various little items to the people in the house. She knew them all and was brutally frank in her descriptions of the characters who slept and fed in this dingy warren of a place. First she warned me about the man in the attic above us.

“E's a thievin' bastard,' she said. 'Nothin's safe when 'e's arahnd. 'E'd take the pennies off a dead man's eyes, 'e would.'

In the room below us lived a 'tosher' with a wife and six children. A tosher's work was extremely dangerous. They were often bitten on the hands and face by rats as they scavenged with seven foot long poles for anything of value in the sewers that flowed into the Thames. Some of them suffocated in the poisonous vapours that arose from the foul sewage. The risk of being crushed by the roof of a sewer falling on them was always there and so was the danger of being sucked down in the perilous quagmires of mud and sewerage where the floor had collapsed. There were terrible stories of toshers' skeletons being found picked clean of skin and flesh.

Upstairs there was a married couple not yet fifteen, who Polly said had just moved in. At that time there was a well-known dubious church in the East End which married youngsters for sevenpence and no questions asked, provided both partners were over fourteen-years-old.

According to Polly, a drunken Irishman rented the basement cellar and charged beggars, prostitutes, thieving vagabonds and the like, twopence for a night's rest on the stone floor. Most of the other rooms were occupied by large families sleeping as many as ten in a room. Of them all, the worst was a dirty old cadger in filthy rags, who slept on the landing or wherever he could find a place to lie down. His melancholy face was pitted with smallpox marks. Even the corners of his eyebrows seemed eaten away by the awful disease. He was forever getting into trouble for groping one of the dozen or so little girls that swarmed all over the buildings. He would lie and wait in dark corners on the stairs and jump on them, getting his hands on their private parts before they had time to scream. Then he scuttled down the stairs and into the busy street before anybody had time to catch him.

It was about this time I began to notice that Adam seemed very flushed with money, spending it freely on clothes and amusements. He became very bumptious and overbearing when he donned his new 'togs', strutting and swaggering like a proud peacock.

Puzzled as to where all this money was coming from, I would ask him how he came by it only to be told to mind my own business when my questions became too pressing for his peace of mind. Of course, life became a lot easier for me. We only worked weekends when we were in Mart Street market. The rest of the week we were free to do as we wished. As we strolled at our leisure through the busy streets, frequently stopping to chat with his costermonger cronies, he would show off by giving me some money to spend on whatever took my fancy.

They were balmy days and nights. We became regular visitors to the theatres that catered for the lower orders and I was often taken to such sports as cock-fighting, the savaging of hordes of rats by terriers in private rooms at the rear of some tavern and bare-fisted fights between burly women who were compelled to grasp a coin in their hands as they were likely to scratch each other's faces with their finger nails. The first woman to drop a coin being accounted the loser.

Our favourite theatre was the Queens in Tottenham Street, London's most disreputable playhouse and consequently nicknamed the 'Dust Hole'. At the Queens we were entertained by melodrama, comic songs, acrobats, jugglers and dancing girls singing lewd songs.

Friday nights were reserved for 'The Half Moon' tavern where the dwarf was constantly catching me off my guard while I was talking to someone. On the night of the new year when we were celebrating the end of 1860 and the beginning of 1861, he was nowhere in sight as we entered the tavern and I settled down happy that he was absent from our revelries.

You could never predict what would happen next when he was around and I would sit, knees tight together in an agony of apprehension, waiting for a sly assault on my private parts by the lecherous little monster. I couldn't understand why Adam was so genial with him. Every time the dwarf looked at me I could plainly see the hatred and lust that lurked behind that fixed grin on his face.

I was leaning back in my chair, legs astride, laughing at something Adam had said when I felt a finger sliding into my giny. For a moment I couldn't believe my senses and was too stunned to move. Somehow the dwarf had come into the tavern and had got beneath our table without me seeing him. The revulsion and shock I felt at that moment cannot be described. Speechless with raging emotions, I ran behind the bar to stand beside Florrie.

Adam and his friends burst into laughter when they saw the cause of my sudden retreat as the dwarf emerged from under the table prodding the air with his forefinger. They roared with raucous laughter when the dwarf put the moist finger to his nose, sniffed and pulled a wry face. My humiliation was complete and there arose in me an ice cold hatred for this repulsive creature who had become a loathsome nightmare which often haunted my thoughts.

Florrie's soothing words did little to still my agitation. Trapped behind the bar I watched the dwarf climb onto the table with a helping hand from Tom Biggs. Looking directly at me with an obscene grin he put a hand between his legs and cunt-thumbed me once again.

'Now yer up there, yer little bugger, sing us a song,' Adam cried out.

In a voice as thick as treacle, the dwarf began to sing:

'All you that in your beds do lie,

Turn to your wives and occupy;

And when you have done your best

Turn arse to arse, and take your rest.'

This lewd little ditty was greeted with loud laughter and applause, giving him the encouragement to sing another song but my attention, being drawn elsewhere, I didn't hear the words. There was a respectably dressed woman, about forty, sitting near the door with a small glass of gin before her. I had seen her many times before, sitting alone staring into space, but what caught my interest this time was her exposed breasts and something wrapped in a white baby shawl which she cuddled close to her chest.

My curiosity got the better of me. Moving away from the bar as far as the door I got a closer look. Inside the shawl was a rag doll with a white bonnet on its head. There were two bright, wide-open, blue eyes painted on patches of kid leather sewn into the doll's face, and lower down one could see soft leather red lips in an open smile.

The woman looked up at me and smiled. 'Do you want to see my baby?' she asked.

After my latest encounter with the dwarf I was wary, suspecting another trick to humiliate me but nodded dumbly, keeping an eye on the dwarf who was now dancing an Irish jig on the table top.

Opening the shawl so that I could get a better view of a broderie anglaise gown she said, 'It's my first,' and then with a face glowing with motherly pride, 'Isn't he lovely?'

Taking a firm hold on one of her breasts she pushed the brown nipple between the doll's red lips and softly hummed a lullaby.

Looking around the tavern to see if anyone was observing what was going on, I became aware of Florrie beckoning me back to the bar.

'Who is she?' I asked Florrie. 'I've seen her before but didn't know she was deranged.'

'She's been like that for about two weeks now. I think her mother's death turned her head. You see, apart from when she was with her husband, Maggie has lived alone with her mother all her life. Twenty years ago her husband fell to his death when he was replacing some roof tiles. Three weeks after, Maggie gave birth to a baby who only lived for a few hours.'

'How awful,' I exclaimed.

'The way I see it,' Florrie said, shaking her head, 'Maggie can't stand being on her own in that big house where she lives so she has made another baby to keep her company through the long lonely days and nights. The first time she opened her blouse and put the breast to the doll's mouth there were a few coarse remarks from the men here but I soon put a stop to that. After all, she is not doing any harm so leave her to get on with it, that's what I say.'

I think it was about the end of February or the beginning of March when they hung Mrs. Lucy Flowers outside Newgate Prison. We left The Half Moon' tavern just after midnight to join the streams of people converging on the prison. When we got there Adam pushed me into the jostling crowd already assembled around the gallows. As more and more people came to witness the dawn hanging, I was so squeezed by the swaying dense multitude that it was a wonder some of my ribs did not get broken. From the way almost everybody was behaving you wouldn't think we were waiting to see someone meet with a sudden death. Brutish ruffians, boozed up to the eyeballs, were shouting obscenities as they fought with bottles of beer; tipsy whores with arms linked sang the most disgusting bawdy songs; young bloods, the sons of the aristocracy, dangerously drunk, lashed out with their sticks at the slightest provocation, and slippery villains picked pockets as they slipped through the crowd.

When Lucy Flowers appeared on the platform of the gallows she was greeted by a deafening roar from the crowd. She was a stoutish woman of middle years who had been condemned to death for poisoning a relative to get her money. It was a wicked thing to do but I couldn't help feeling sorry for her, shrinking back before the onslaught of fearsome oaths and filthy language directed at her as the hangman slipped the noose around her neck. It was a gruesome spectacle. I couldn't bear to look and had to close my eyes just before she dropped through the open boards. Adam said that because she was a heavy, well-built woman 'she fell beautiful.'

The night after the hanging we were in 'The Half Moon' tavern. I was talking to Florrie when Adam came to tell me that he and Tom Biggs had some business to see to and they would be back at the tavern within the hour. He had done this often enough before, returning full of cheer and good humour. I had no reason to be concerned but I became agitated with worry when an hour passed and they were still absent.

It didn't help to stand in the doorway of the tavern peering anxiously into the darkness of the street so, after a time, I came back to our table to have another drink. I had hardly got seated when Tom Biggs rushed in all of a sweat and breathless with excitement. He helped himself to my drink, took a deep breath, looked across the room vacantly, and in a low voice said, out of the side of his mouth, 'They got 'im!'

Adam?' I queried.

'Yus. The police collared 'im wiv the swag. It was lucky they didn't see me, 'cos I 'ad stopped to tie up me boot lace when they nabbed 'im.'

'You were out thieving?' I asked in shocked surprise.

'Gaw blimey! Didn't yer know?' he exclaimed. 'I fought you were in on it. Gawd, luv a duck, where did yer fink all the money was comin' from?' Shaking his head in wonder, he exclaimed with admiration, ''E put up an 'ell of a fight, kickin' an' buttin' 'em. They 'ad ter knock 'im aht wiv their truncheons before they could get the grapplin' irons on 'is wrists.'

I sat deflated in stunned silence, unable to take it all in. 'Can I go and see him?'

'Nah, yer'll 'ave to wait 'til after the trial,' he answered gruffly. “E'll be at least a year on the treadmill if yer ask me. Poor bugger, it'll bleedin' break Mm-you'll see.'

I tried to see Adam after he had been sentenced to two years' hard labour on the treadmill but was brusquely turned away by an officer at the prison gates. Two weeks later, a sovereign discreetly passed into the 'turnkey's' hand opened doors for a brief visit. With a heavy bunch of keys clanking by his side he led me through long passages to a room divided by an iron grille.

Adam looked at me through the bars. 'Yer shouldn't 'ave come,' he said in a low, lifeless voice. 'I told 'em I didn't want no visitors but they forced me to come an' meet yer.'

He was a pale shadow of his former self, a hollow thing with all the stuffing knocked out of him. I could have wept but held the tears back and tried to put on a bright smile.

With head hung down he muttered in a whisper of bitterness, 'I'm not stayin' 'ere. You'll see. I'll break aht of 'ere some'ow.'

There was a long pause with neither of us knowing what to say next. Moving away from the iron bars, he looked at me with an expressionless face. 'Get aht. I don't want yer to see me like this and, for Gawd's sake, don't come again.'

With a heart heavy with sorrow I watched him shuffle to the guard who took him through a stout oak door at the back of the room, and out of my life for ever.

Now that I was left to my own resources the problem of earning a living was uppermost in my mind. Selling some of my clothes and other personal items brought in sufficient money to stock the barrow with an assortment of fruit and vegetables. Pushing the loaded vehicle from Covent Garden to Mart Street just about exhausted me and I had little energy left to shout for trade. All around me were costermongers much more experienced than I. We were in fierce competition to attract people to our stalls. As the day wore on I learnt that owing to my inexperience I had bought at too high a price and, if I was to clear what remained on the barrow, I would have to sell at a loss. By nightfall there was less money in my pocket than I had started with.

The money from selling my personal possessions had to feed three mouths as my two little mud larks were going through a bad patch, unable to find sufficient odds and ends on the riverside to feed them. They would have starved to death without my help. Altogether it was getting to be a desperate situation. When I got down to the last few items that would bring in some money I decided to consult Florrie in the hope that she might come up with an idea that would solve my financial problems.

As I was about to enter 'The Half Moon' tavern a voice from the shadows alongside the door said, 'Dara, I got a message for yer. It's Adam, 'e wants ter see yer. 'E's 'idin' at my place.'

It was the dwarf. At first I thought he was up to one of his usual tricks, then remembering Adam's words at the prison, 'I'm not stayin' 'ere. I'll break aht of 'ere some'ow', I began to wonder; was it possible that he had made an escape from the jail after all?

The dwarf tugged at my skirt. 'Come on. We don't want ter wait arahnd 'ere. Somebody might foller us.'

I still hesitated, unable to make up my mind if the dwarf was speaking the truth, but if Adam was in need of help I ought to get to him as soon as possible. Adam had told me on one occasion when we had been discussing the lecherous little maniac that the dwarf lived behind some empty warehouses. It would be just the sort of place for Adam to make for if he had escaped.

There was urgency and impatience in the dwarfs voice as he stepped away from me. Are yer comin' or aren't yer? P'raps Adam'll believe me now. I told 'im wot a fool 'e was, expecting 'elp from a toffee-nosed sod like you. S'only when yer dahn 'n aht yer find aht 'oo yer real mates are.'

I hesitated no longer. 'Shut your mouth,' I said angrily. 'Take me to Adam.'

To avoid being seen, he led me through darkened, stinking back alleys, stopping from time to time to listen in case someone was following. Convinced that he had been speaking the truth after all and that Adam was anxiously waiting for me, I was in a fever of impatience to get to him as quickly as possible and urged the dwarf to quicken his steps.

The wooden stairway we ascended took us to a jetty jutting out above the swirling waters of the river. Moving cautiously along a gangway to a small building at the very end of the wharf, we came to a door which the dwarf unlocked and pushed open, then made way for me to pass him. I couldn't see a thing as it was pitch black inside.

'Hurry up,' the dwarf whispered. 'I want to get the door shut before I light a candle.'

Treading warily, I moved slowly forward with hands outstretched in case I bumped into something and asked, 'Adam, where are you?'

I had hardly got the words out of my mouth when I was sent sprawling by the weight of the dwarf jumping on my back. We fell face downwards with his arms around my shoulders.

'Don't move,' he said in a hoarse, menacing voice. 'I got a knife at yer froat and I'll cut yer fuckin' 'ead orf if yer move as much as an inch.'

The sharp tip of the knife was pressing into my gullet as he lay astride me. I knew by the sound of his voice he meant every word of his threat and was scared spitless, waiting for what might come next. Terrified that this demented monster who had tricked me into this dark, lonely place might take it into his head to finish me off, there and then, I lay, my whole body paralysed with fear.

He forced me to crawl to a low, iron bed and onto a coarse mattress. He turned me onto my back and said, 'I'm puttin' the knife between me teef where I can get at it quick so lie still or else yer'll get yer bleedin' froat cut.'

Shuddering in fear with the blood pounding through my head, I felt a rope being tied around my wrist, and then jerked tight as he attached it to a corner of the bed; then he did the same with the other arm. He pulled the skirt away from my trembling legs, then tied my ankles to the bottom corners of the bed. I lay spread-eagled, limbs apart and unable to move more than an inch or two.

Scrambling on top of me, he pressed the razor sharp tip of the knife into the tender skin of my throat and loosened the buttons of my blouse. There were screams of terror rising from the whirlwind of my mind which only I could hear, that ended in deep sobs in my throat and left me in a cold sweat. Although I opened my lips at each scream it was only to gulp in more air, breathless with a shuddering which shook my whole body again and again.

Loosening his neckerchief, he forced it between my teeth and tied it in a strong knot at the back of my head. The darkness of the room seemed to cause him no hindrance in his movements.

I could only make muffled sounds of protest as he tore open my shift and pressed his wet, thick lips around my nipples. He went at them as if he was going to eat the tender flesh of my breasts, nibbling with his teeth and making disgusting nasal snuffles.

Getting off the bed he sunk his teeth into the soft rounded flesh of my belly. I gasped and let out a muffled cry of pain.

'That's nuthin' ter wot yer gonna get,' he sniggered as he undressed.

'Yer'll wish yer'd never been born by the time I've finished wiv yer. Nobody knows yer 'ere so when I've 'ad all I want the fuckin' fishes can 'ave yer.'

Climbing on top of me, he attacked my breasts again. His thing was hardening against my belly as his lips and teeth savaged at my nipples. Crouching down between my thighs he got an inch or two of it into my giny then, getting a firm grip on my breasts, pulled himself up until he had got it all inside me. The strain on my breasts was unbearably painful and brought tears to my eyes. No words can express the agony I felt as his fingers dug into the tender skin each time he drew himself up to thrust himself into me. The stench of his sweat filled my nostrils and the spittle from his mouth dribbled onto my chest when his heavy breathing became harsh with lust. I was choking with nausea at the foul indignities he was inflicting on my defenceless body when the pig-like grunts from his slobbering lips quickened and he galumphed to a finish.

Throughout the hours of darkness my body was frequently defiled by his bestial, obscene attacks. I lay awake all night prostrated by grief and a burning humiliation that left a deep scar in my memories for many years.

Some slivers of daylight penetrating the oak boarded walls of the room shortly after dawn awoke the dwarf from his slumbers. Without a word to me he donned his clothes and departed, slamming the door behind him.

Soon after he had left, a storming rage of angry frustration set me struggling with the bonds that tied me to the bed. In a vain attempt to break the ropes around my ankles I gripped the iron bar of the bed and cut one of my fingers on a protruding splinter of metal. Casting my eyes upwards at the slight wound on my finger gave me the notion that if I could get the rope around my right wrist to that sharp point of metal I might, given time, be able to fray the strands of rope fibre and break free.

The possibility of being released from my bonds filled me with excitement and hope. Moving my body to the right hand side of the bed put a painful strain on my left ankle but slackened the rope around my wrist and made it possible for me to get part of it onto the sharp splinter. Holding it by the tips of my fingers, I moved it backwards and forwards in the hope of tearing one of the strands. A good hour passed before I felt something give. My fingers were losing their strength and I had to rest for a while before I was able to continue with my labours.

Some hours later I had sawn through most of the rope and was straining with all my might to break free. Mad with anger and fear, I threw the whole weight of my body about the bed in a desperate struggle and suddenly rolled over onto my left side when the torn rope snapped under the strain. Exhausted and exhilarated, I wasted no time in loosening the knots that bound my other limbs.

When I got off the bed my knees buckled under me and I lost my balance several times before I could pull my skirt up to my waist and stand upright. Walking around the room, swinging my hands around, brought the blood back into my arms and legs again. I was overjoyed to be on my feet but my spirits were soon dampened when I tried to open the stout oak door. It was firmly locked and wouldn't budge an inch.

My hopes of freedom dashed to the ground, I gave vent to my anger by kicking at the door until my toes hurt. I went berserk, throwing a small table against a wall and hammering a wooden chair on the floorboards until it fell to pieces. I picked up a leg that had come off the table when it crashed against the wall and hit the door repeatedly with it until all the energy went out of me and I had to sink to the floor exhausted.

Panting for breath, I looked at the table leg, eyes glazed with tears of despair and thought of the dwarf coming back to get me. Picking up the table leg I swiped at the door, resolved to put up a fight to the death rather than let him ravish me again.

Sitting with my back to the wall I fell asleep and awoke with a start just before nightfall, sweating at the thought that he might have got in while I slept. Standing behind the door I waited for his return. The room was in complete darkness when I heard his footsteps on the stairway. With my heart thumping in my chest and my legs trembling, I raised the heavy leg high above my head as the key went into the lock, and held my breath in fearful suspense.

He pushed open the door and cleared his throat as he was about to close it. It was the sound of a dry cough that followed which directed my aim. Summing up all my strength I brought my wooden bludgeon swishing down with such a force that it must have cracked his skull open when it hit his head. Emotions of fear, hatred and vengeance flooded my mind, drowning all reason and sanity. In a fit of madness I repeatedly hammered the dwarf until, in a hot sweat of exhaustion, I pitched forward onto the battered body, gasping for air.

After a little while I struggled slowly to my feet. It felt like moving in a dream where everything seemed vague and shadowy, arousing no interest or curiosity. Pulling the door to, I locked it and dropped the key into the waters sloshing around under the river wharf. I have only a hazy memory of walking with quiet, timid steps along dark back-alleys, emerging into the gas lit Strand and ascending the stairs to my room with heavy feet.

Dirty and dishevelled and feeling dreadfully weary, I undressed leaving the clothes to lie where they had fallen. With soap and water the foul filth of the dwarf was scrubbed from my skin. Dropping onto the bed I pulled the cover up over my head and floated uneasily on the surface of a fitful sleep.

Awakening at daylight, shaking with a fever which consumed my flesh in waves of heat, I quenched my thirst with two glasses of water and returned to bed to fall into a deep sleep that held me fast until late the following afternoon. My first thoughts were of food for pains of hunger gnawed my innards. Rising from bed much refreshed, I quickly dressed and went into the streets to look for a seller of hot meat pies who traded nearby. As I approached his stall I searched my skirt pocket for coins to discover that there was only just sufficient money to purchase two pies.

The first pie tasted a treat and I wolfed it down before you could say Jack Robinson. As I hurried back to the house, street vendors were lighting their oil lamps against the dark shadows of nightfall. Looking at the remaining pie which I had intended giving to my two mud larks, the temptation was too much and with greedy hunger I ate half the pie before getting to my room. The tearful face of Peter looked up at me as I opened the cupboard door. The sight of his pitiful skinny little body and shrunken cheeks made me flush with shame that I had only half a pie to offer him. He was like a ravenous animal as he stuffed the remains of the pie into his mouth. It disappeared down his throat in no time at all.

“Ave yer got anyfink else?' he asked hopefully. 'We 'aven't 'ad nuffink to eat for nearly free days.'

'Where is Polly?'

He didn't answer, so I asked him again where his sister had got to.

'She's gorn ter get some money so we can eat.'

'Where?' I asked.

A broffel 'ouse in Windmill Street.'

Stunned, I looked at him in astonishment, 'I don't believe you. That's a terrible thing to say about your sister. You shouldn't tell lies like that.' it's not a lie-it's true, I tell yer. I 'eard 'er askin' a girl where it was. Polly's gorn there now. She won't be back till late and she's bringin' me some food.'

He was obviously speaking the truth but it didn't make sense. What sort of work would a girl of eleven be doing in a brothel, I asked myself? Whatever the work, it was no place for a girl of her age and I made up my mind to fetch her straight away before any harm was done.

I knew Windmill Street was near the Queen's Theatre so it didn't take me long to find it, but none of the buildings looked like a whore-house. I'd never been in a place of that sort, which didn't help much, and I couldn't see me knocking on a door and asking is this a brothel?' It was then I remembered a house in Tottenham Court Road where police were stationed. They would know the whereabouts of the brothel.

The policeman immediately showed concern when he heard I was seeking a girl of eleven who was thought to be in a brothel. He left me for a moment and returned with a police inspector, a thick-set, pugnacious, good looking man, who wanted to be assured that the girl was not yet twelve.

'Oh yes,' I answered. 'It was but three weeks ago that Polly told me it was her eleventh birthday. What difference does it make whether she is twelve or eleven?'

The inspector drew himself up. 'All the difference in the world, my dear. It's against the law for a man to have carnal knowledge of a girl under the age of twelve.'

'Do you mean to say it's alright for a man to sleep with a girl at that young age?'

'You shouldn't be surprised, young lady. I can detect some American in your speech. Am I right in thinking you have spent some time in that country?'

'Yes,' I answered, 'but what's that got to do with it?'

'Well… in some states of America the age of consent for girls is as low as seven years.'

'Seven years?' I echoed. 'It's too horrible to contemplate. What I want to know is can we do something about Polly?'

'If she's under twelve we can run Ned Dawkins into jail tonight, have no doubts about that. He has been too cunning for me up to now. I have visited his house three times but to no good purpose. He's got all his girls trained to answer that they are over twelve years old. That way he is on the right side of the law and I can't touch him.'

'Who is Ned Dawkins?' I asked.

'Ned is the whore master of the house you are looking for in Windmill Street. His pimps are everywhere, handing out little cards to gentlemen. “All the girls are under fifteen-fresh and clean-disease free” it says on the cards. He is an impudent villain who laughs behind my back every time I question his girls. I would like to get him behind bars and I'll do just that tonight, if your Polly tells me she is eleven. You will have to come with me to point out which is Polly.'

Turning to a police sergeant, 'I'll need you, too, to keep an eye on Ned while I search the rooms.'

The door of the brothel wasn't locked so the inspector pushed it open and almost bumped into Ned Dawkins as we entered. He gave a sharp command to his sergeant, 'Hold on to Ned' then, grabbing me by the arm, rushed me upstairs and into the first room on the landing.

An elderly gentleman, wheezing and blowing like a boiling kettle, had just finished his congress with one of the girls. The poor little thing was so small she was out of sight, completely covered by the old man's fat, naked body. The inspector, moving very quickly, got alongside the bed and rolled the man onto his back. Taken by surprise, a fair-haired young girl looked up at us with innocent blue eyes. There were no signs of developing womanhood on her youthful, baby skin.

'What's your name?' the inspector enquired gently.

'Ann Mundy, sir,' she replied nervously.

'How old are you?'

'Twelve, sir.'

'You don't look more than ten. Are you speaking the truth?'

'Yes, sir.'

Throughout all this the stout gentleman by her side just lay there with eyes closed. The inspector wasted no further time with her and made for the next room.

The uniform of an army officer was neatly folded over a chair and on the bed lay a well-built, muscular man about thirty. The hands of two naked girls, kneeling beside him, held his thick upright cock. It was only when they turned their faces towards us that I realized one of the girls was Polly. No bigger than walnuts, her protruding virginal breasts stood out on her skinny, ribbed chest.

'Polly,' I cried out. 'Get dressed at once. You are going back to Exeter Street straight away. This place is not for the likes of a young girl. I don't know what's got into you.'

'So this is Polly,' the inspector exclaimed in triumph. 'Now we are getting somewhere. What's your age, Polly?'

'Twelve,' she answered, right smartly.

'But, Polly,' I protested fervently, 'you told me it was your eleventh birthday about three weeks ago.'

'Nah, yer got it wrong. Yer want yer ears washed aht. I said twelve.'

'Twelve or eleven, I don't give a damn. Get your clothes on. I'm taking you home.'

'I 'aven't eaten for days. Ave yer got six shillin's cos that's wot this 'ere gentleman 'as given me.'

The older girl, kneeling on the other side of the man and still holding on to his cock, looked at me with an insolent grin on her face. 'Fer Gawd's sake give Polly six shillin's so she can give the gent 'is money back an' then get the 'ell aht of 'ere.'

I stood there exasperated, looking at the two girls, who, ignoring my presence in the room, had returned to their task of caressing the man.

Descending the stairs, fuming with anger, I vowed never to allow myself to get into a situation again where I was without money. But for a miserable six shillings, I could have saved Polly from becoming a prostitute. There is no justice in this world, especially for the hungry poor.

The following morning I made my way through a not particularly salubrious neighbourhood to the Queen's Theatre, determined to make a living somehow. My experience in American theatricals, I thought, should stand me in good stead in applying for work on the English stage. Viewing the bill posters exhibited on the facade of the theatre gave my hope of employment a further boost. They announced in large, bold letters a new version ofThe Marble Heart, a melodrama by Charles Selby, which would simulate classical statuary by means of living models. The theatre was to be re-opened by its new owners, Venus Productions, the following Saturday.

I was about to knock on one of the main front doors when a tall uniformed theatre commissionaire appeared by my side with a large key in his hand.

'And what can we do for you, young lady?' he enquired.

I explained briefly that I was an actress looking for work in the theatre.

'If that's the case you'll need to see Mr. George Guyatt, the new owner and producer of this play,' he said, waving vaguely at the posters. “E's probably still abed. Sleeps in one of the dressin' rooms,' he added, by way of an explanation.

I had to wait a good half hour before seeing Mr. Guyatt who was busy frying a kipper for his breakfast. He was a large, fat man with a beetle-browed face and a completely bald head. Chewing slowly at a mouthful of kipper, he surveyed me from head to tail.

Swallowing his fish he compressed his lips and then questioned me in a loud, deep voice. 'Are you modest, bashful or given to prudery?'

Giving the matter some thought before answering, I replied with a grin, 'No, not particularly.'

'Then I may have some work for you. It's good pay. Eight pounds a week and all you will have to do is stand still through the first and third acts.'

Eight pounds was a great deal more than I had expected. I considered myself indeed fortunate to be offered such a sum when skilled craftsmen were earning less than two pounds a week for working twelve hours a day.

Swallowing another mouthful of kipper, Mr. Guyatt went on to give a summary of the play. 'It's about a sculptor who loves unworthy women and neglects his mother and gentle sweetheart. Much of the melodrama takes place in Raphael Duchatlet's studio in Athens. The studio has a number of statues of Greek women, nude from waist upwards. How do you feel about having your tits whitewashed to look like marble? For that's the effect we will be aiming for: live women looking like marble statues.'

Once again I took my time before answering. The idea of exposing my breasts to the public took some getting used to. On the other hand, I was desperately hungry and without a penny to my name. As the saying goes, 'Beggars can't be choosers', and so I agreed to be one of the statues for the play.

In my impoverished circumstances I needed a friend who would loan me some money to tide me over until I received my first week's wage of eight pounds. The only friend that came to mind who might give me a loan was Florrie, the barmaid at 'The Half Moon' tavern.

Good, kind Florrie was generosity itself when I asked for a loan to see me through till pay day. Without a moment's hesitation she placed five sovereigns on the bar and asked me if that would be enough. Overcome with emotion and faint with hunger, I collapsed on a chair and burst into tears. Florrie's answer for anybody in trouble, a glass of brandy, was placed in my hands with her usual words for these occasions: 'There, there, luv, drink that up. It will do you good.'

I wanted so much to open my heart and tell her about what the dwarf had done to me and how I had left his battered, dead body locked away in a deserted wharf shed above the river-but managed to restrain myself. That was a secret I dare not reveal to anybody.

We had only three days for rehearsals before our first performance on Saturday. There was little for me to do but learn to stand very still which wasn't as easy as it sounds, as I soon discovered. Most of the work was done before we 'living statues' got onto the stage. With two different shades of whitewash we covered all our flesh from the waist to the hair line on our heads. I arrived before anybody else to apply whitewash to cover up the bruises and bite marks that the dwarf had inflicted on my breasts. The second coating of whitewash was of brown stain colouring which was brushed on lightly in streaks to give an effect of old marble. When it was dry, glycerine was dabbed on to make the marble colouring look smooth and shiny.

I must admit that when we put on the thin, wet pieces of cloth across our eyes and the papier mache helmets which had received the same treatment of whitewash we really did look like Greek statues. The final touch was the white material which hung in folds from our waists.

The theatre was packed to full capacity for the opening night. When the stage curtains were drawn the audience gasped in amazement at this realistic display of semi-nude living statues and showed their appreciation with loud, prolonged applause. I could see very little of the audience through the tiny slits of my eye coverings but the thunderous applause lifted my spirits and I listened with great interest to the dialogue of the other play actors as the plot of melodrama unfolded.

In conversation with the other girls that evening I queried how the play had passed the censorious Lord Chamberlain. To my knowledge no English theatre had ever staged half-nude women. One of the older girls retorted with a sniff, 'It won't last for long, maybe a few weeks, before it will be closed down. It has escaped the eye of the Examiner of Plays because it has never been submitted to him.'

'If that is so,' I exclaimed in alarm, thinking of the five pounds that I owed Florrie, 'the theatre could close tomorrow.'

'Calm down,' a woman replied. A sleazy, backstreet theatre like this holds little interest for the Examiner of Plays. It will be weeks before he gets round to venturing into a notorious neighbourhood like Tottenham Street.'

The physical spectacle of women nude to the hips while a melodrama was being enacted on the stage created a sensation that brought in the crowd, including certain members of the nobility who were attracted to any place that offered something exceptional. The old 'Dust Hole' theatre was therefore enjoying a prosperity that, in my opinion, couldn't last for more than a few weeks. Every night the nearby streets were lined with rows of coroneted carriages and other expensive conveyances. We had been playing to full houses for over a fortnight. Surely it couldn't be long now, I thought, before news of our scandalous play reached the ears of the Examiner of Plays.

As it happened there was no cause to worry. Destiny had something else in mind for me. The commissionaire at the theatre entrance approached me one afternoon as I was about to go into the changing room. Could I spare him a few moments of my time, he asked politely, adding that he had a message of some importance for me. Intrigued, I accompanied him to a coffee house in Goodge Street where I was introduced to a Dr John Kersley. After shaking me by the hand, he passed over a fist full of sovereigns to the commissionaire who thanked him profusely, then made his departure.

Ordering coffee and cakes from an obsequious waiter, Dr Kersley then turned his attention to me. With a sonorous, authoritarian voice he declared, 'On the advice of a friend, I visited the Queen's Theatre last night with the sole purpose of seeing if you are the type of girl I am looking for to be a special attraction at my Palace of Health and Beauty in Pall Mall.'

He paused while the waiter placed on our table a pot of coffee and a plate of cakes. His tall, thin figure and elegant attire gave him the appearance of a man of some distinction. I must say I was impressed and a little overawed by the piercing dark eyes under a rather large forehead.

Viewing the cakes with some distaste, it's a poor assortment,' he announced. 'Would you prefer something else?'

On the plate were some 'Jumbles', thin crisp slices made from a mixture of treacle, butter and flour, and three-cornered puffs filled with sweet preserve.

'Not for me. “Coventrys” are my favourite cake,' I said, biting into the puff pastry and letting the delicious warm jam fill my mouth.

Handing me a steaming cup of coffee, he said, 'Now to business. I will give you thirty pounds a week for what you are doing for eight pounds.'

Astounded, my mouth full of pastry and jam, I gazed at him in wonder, astonished that anyone was prepared to give me thirty pounds a week, just for exposing naked breasts. There must be a catch in it somewhere, I thought. 'Just for showing my breasts?' I exclaimed.

'Well no. Not exactly. You will appear before my clientele with your skin covered in gold paint and completely naked but for a small piece of silk pasted over your vagina. For, make no mistake about it, you will be painted everywhere except on your back which will be covered by a rich, purple cloak, edged with white ermine.'

I sipped at my coffee, taking time to clear my confused thoughts. The idea of appearing before an audience without any clothes on didn't trouble me a great deal. After all, I wouldn't be completely naked, with a piece of painted silk covering my private parts. 'What will the Lord Chamberlain say to me appearing without clothing?' I asked doubtfully.

'He and his lackey, the Examiner of Plays, have no jurisdiction over medical establishments. There is nothing to fear from that quarter. We are not to be compared to a common playhouse,' he snorted with indignation. 'You will meet only the corps d'elite at my house in Pall Mall.'

It was clear from his angry expression that I had committed a faux pas and that I had better watch my P's and Q's in the future. 'The Palace of Health and Beauty sounds a grand place,' I said deferentially. 'When can I see it?'

Somewhat mollified by my change of tune, he replied, 'There is no time like the present. I will take you there now.'

'Oh! But I have to prepare for this evening's performance at the theatre.'

'Don't talk such nonsense, girl. They have no claim on you. You are working for me from now on. I will pay you for this week's work. Come along, there is no time to waste.'

In a hired Brougham drawn by two fine bay horses, the doctor confided that the display of live statues at the Queen's Theatre had attracted many of his clientele. The result of this had been an alarming reduction in the number of people who usually attended his lectures on health and beauty. Sir Charles Cheyney, a close friend, had seen me on the stage and had returned to Hebburn House full of enthusiasm for my physical charms. In a long discussion with the doctor that had lasted until the early light of dawn, they had come up with the idea of a Golden Virgin, and had worked out all the details of how it could be presented to the upper crust of society.

When the driver of the Brougham drove his carriage through the pillared entrance of Hebburn House I got my first glimpse through the foliage of the trees and shrubs of the impressive front of the Adam-designed mansion that was the Palace of Health and Beauty. On each side of the driveways that wandered across the spacious lawns of the front garden a number of elegant carriages were drawn up. Guarding the door were two very tall muscular porters wearing superb colourful liveries with large gold-laced cocked hats.

There were several ladies and gentlemen, attired in the height of fashion, conversing in the reception hall. Every room inside was set out in the most lavish style with magnificent furnishings. The walls were hung with long draped, ornate gilt mirrors and oil paintings of languid nudes displaying their beautiful bodies in most provocative poses.

A former banqueting hall was now used by the doctor for his lectures. About fifty carved mahogany chairs with rich red velvet seating faced a small stage at the rear of the room where there were two exquisite marble statues of the Greek goddesses, Hymen and Psyche.

I was taken to a sumptuously furnished, large bedchamber on the second floor where two women, seated before a glowing coal fire, immediately rose to their feet as the doctor entered. One of them, a handsome woman about forty, was introduced as the matron and housekeeper. After a few words with Dr Kersley she took her leave of us with a polite apology for her hasty departure. I was to learn at a later date that she had the honour of sharing the doctor's bed and had his authority to dismiss any member of the staff who didn't meet with her approval.

The other woman, Betty, was in her early twenties and a different class of person altogether. An overblown blonde, plebeian in looks and thoughts and, as I was soon to discover, prone to excitable, shrill laughter when a man was present. She was to be my personal maid when not working downstairs, so the doctor informed me.

The next morning and during the days that followed experiments were made with various shades of gold paint on my skin to see which would shine most brightly when dry. My first ordeal was of having a triangular piece of silk pasted over my private parts and, later, the pain of it being removed. It was not to the doctor's liking as the covering showed a marked line beneath the paint. He refused to have any further experiments until all the hairs at my armpits and crotch had been removed.

It took Betty and me nearly a whole day with small, metal tweezers to painfully pull out every hair on the parts affected. This harsh treatment left the skin inflamed and sore and another two days elapsed before I could bear to have the silk pasted on me again. The doctor was still not satisfied and, taking up the material, he cut out a small oval, pasted this miniscule of silk over my slot and insisted on a fold running down through the middle. The gold paint was then applied and he stood back, well pleased with his efforts to achieve the natural appearance of the nude female body and announced that invitations could now go out to the creme de la creme of high society for the first tableau of the Golden Virgin and her male attendants.

'What male attendants?' I asked.

'Two magnificent coal-black negroes wearing only brief loin cloths,' was the answer as he departed hurriedly from the room.

In the early mornings before the ladies and gentlemen arrived, I was allowed to wander around as I pleased in the company of the ebullient Betty. Hebburn House was nothing less than a celestial paradise of sensuality, solely devoted to pleasing the sexual whims and vanities of the nobility. Health and beauty were its supposed aims but little attention was given to either. Private rooms for 'treatment' abounded everywhere. What went on behind those closed doors would have brought a blush to the face of Satan himself.

All the staff had been chosen for being personally agreeable, blooming in health, sweet tempered and with a commitment to indulge the clientele in whatever they desired. They were attired in white, diaphanous chiffon robes drawn in at the waist by a gilt, chainlink girdle. Beneath their robes there was only a small loin cloth for the men and lace-edged pantaloons for the girls. The pantaloons were really two separate garments, one for each leg, and held at the waist by a silk tape.

For ladies suffering from ennui but fearing pregnancy there were dildoe rooms where negroes, or white males, administered to their need for excitement and satisfaction.

Young women with a rare talent for giving pleasure by massage served the noble gentry in chambers set aside for that purpose. The medical needs of the aristocracy were not entirely forgotten. Baths of warm sand mixed with aromatics and healing herbs gave relief to those with inflamed and swollen joints. The Hermippus technique of gaining new life and vigour by inhaling the breath of young maidens was very popular with the more elderly gentlemen whose hands were allowed to stray between the open pantaloons during treatment.

Punctuated with bursts of shrill laughter, Betty went into lengthy details that left nothing to the imagination as she described these activities with obvious enjoyment. Although I liked the girl, despite her faults, the other members of the staff had a very poor opinion of Betty for being always ready to oblige any man who asked for it without thought of reward for services rendered. They considered she was as common as a barber's chair and just as easy to get into. What I liked about Betty was that she never had any reverence for titles. Dukes, lords, or randy porters were all the same to her; she made no discriminations. To her they were just men who had what she described as the 'necessary dilator' between their legs that gave her so much pleasure.

With gold paint applied, auburn hair brushed until it shone like the gold on my body, I stood waiting to be called for my first appearance as the Golden Virgin. After Betty had tied the ribbons of the purple cloak around my neck in a neat bow, she led me to a full-length mirror. The transformation was such that, apart from the hair, I was unrecognizable as my former self. The mirror reflected a gold statue of lifelike proportions. Following out the doctor's instructions, I arched my back and straightened my shoulders. This stance brought a pert, upward tilt to my gold breasts, bringing a statuesque beauty and dignity to my naked body. The hazel eyes in the mirror reflected admiration and pride for the gold goddess image.

The oily black negroes were about to lift me to their shoulders when the doctor hurried into the room with a many-faceted, highly polished piece of glass that sparkled like a large, cut diamond. With the aid of some very sticky substance he placed it firmly in my navel.

Sitting high on the shoulders of the negroes, I looked down at the doctor as he slowly, with measured steps, led us into the lecture hall to the sound of a fanfare of trumpets. There must have been nearly a hundred people in the hall, all agog and impatiently waiting for my entrance. About fifty or more were seated in the mahogany chairs, the rest of the people standing at the rear and against the side walls. The sound of the trumpets ceased as I descended to stand on a raised platform covered in rich red velvet.

At the first sight of my gold nakedness the audience were awe-struck, mouths agape and eyes nearly popping out of their heads. The men were gasping for breath and devouring every inch of my body with their lustful eyes. The ladies were admiring the muscular proportions of the negroes who stood at a lower level on either side of me. They were all spellbound for a moment or two, then quite spontaneously, they started to clap and cry out their applause.

As soon as the excitement died down, Dr Kersley commenced his lecture. I thought it was very interesting but very few of the people seemed to pay much attention. The theme of his talk was fertility and virility. Using his cane to point out on my body the positions of various organs in the female, he launched into an attack on the faith some persons had in the aphrodisiac powers of Spanish Fly. He said more natural methods of arousal would bring about true happiness and conception.

He then spoke of the 'Celestial Bed' that, until I arrived on the scene as the Golden Virgin, had been the main attraction of the establishment.

'This bed of fertility,' he said with pride, 'is the only bed of its kind in the whole, wide world. It is my invention to stimulate any gentleman and his lady desirous of progeny. Twelve feet long and nine feet wide, it is supported by forty pillars of brilliant glass of the most exquisite workmanship, in richly variegated colours and surrounded by eight large mirrors whose reflections fire the limbs with greater energy.

'We all know how virile and excitable a stallion becomes when taken to a mare. To bring vigour and warm desire to the gentleman, the mattress is stuffed with hair from stallions' tails that have a buoyance which is most helpful to the male in his efforts to propagate. To invigorate both parties the mattress has numerous inlets which are filled with ethereal spices and a pot-pourri of aromatized essences which give off, with each bounce, a most pleasing fragrance to stir the emotions of love.'

Throughout the discourse his face remained at all times solemn and his voice extremely earnest. 'Primitive tribes in tropical climates have a form of contraception where the woman, after intercourse with the male, jumps violently up and down. My bed is designed to achieve the opposite result. It has a mechanism that, after coitus, tilts the lady's hips upwards to facilitate impregnation. The female desiring pregnancy must then lie in this position for at least half an hour to allow the spermatozoa to drain into the ovum.'

Carried away by his own eloquence, he spread his arms out wide as if he was about to bestow a blessing on the audience. 'The superior ecstasy which the parties enjoy in the celestial bed can bring about the utmost satisfaction, for the barren are more likely to become fruitful when they are powerfully agitated in the delights of love Any gentleman wishing to spend an evening in the celestial bed with his lady wife, for a complement of a fifty pound bank note, may be permitted to partake of the heavenly joy it affords.'

Night after night, for weeks, I had to listen to these lectures while the men explored every inch of my body with lust-filled eyes and the women speculated on the virility of the negroes flexing their muscles beside me. Nevertheless, it was an easy way to earn thirty pounds a week. There was little need or opportunity for me to spend my money as I was only allowed out for two mornings each week. The doctor didn't want me to mingle with his clientele.

There was much curiosity as to my identity and Dr Kersley, knowing that a mystery is always an object of great attraction, added further interest to the enigma of the Golden Virgin by hinting that I was an illegitimate child of a European prince. Everyone actually believed that I was a virgin and some of the more wealthy gentlemen had offered the doctor considerable sums of money for the privilege of being the first man to bed me. He had to refuse these requests for the honour of depriving me of my maidenhood, for once it became known that I had lost my virginity I would lose my attraction as a desirable female.

In the exciting intoxication of my life as the Golden Virgin, I had scarce given a thought to my value as the star attraction of Hebburn House. It wasn't until the end of June that I learnt from Betty that people were paying two guineas for admission to the lecture hall to see my naked, gold-painted body. It didn't take me long to work out that Dr Kersley was collecting over fourteen hundred pounds a week for displaying his Golden Virgin.

That very evening, five minutes before I was due to appear in the lecture hall, I demanded a wage of one hundred pounds a week for my services. I was prepared for the angry consternation of Dr Kersley when I made a claim for more money, but not for the abuse that came from the tongue of his matron and housekeeper, Mrs. Murdock.

In the convivial company of the nobility Mrs. Murdock was all grace and charm, aping their manners and speech but if any of the staff upset her she upbraided them with a stream of scurrilous obscenity. Lurking behind that sweet smile and snooty voice was a vitriolic, foul-mouthed harridan.

'Shut your filthy gob, you cock-teasing, dirty bitch or we'll throw you back into the gutter where you belong,' she yelled in an intimidating voice.

It was obvious that she had been nursing a jealous hatred of me for some time, and it was bursting to be released. In a blazing temper she made a swipe at me with an open hand and I reeled back as she screeched at the top of her voice, 'You've got a bloody cheek, you greasy-arsed slut. A hundred pounds just for showing your tits and buttocks? You brazen whore, who do you think you are?'

My hackles rose and, looking at her with lips curled in contempt, I spat out, 'You are a two-faced hypocrite, coarse and disgusting and clearly not a lady. I only wish those people waiting in the lecture hall could hear you now. The stench from your filthy mouth turns my stomach.'

She rushed at me, tooth and nail, ready to tear me to pieces. Before we could get to blows the doctor intervened, holding us apart at arm's length, and ordered Betty to take Mrs. Murdock to her room.

With angry eyes wet with tears of vexation, she hurled further abuse at my head before Betty could get her through the doorway.

Glaring at me, the doctor gasped fiercely, 'Get down to the lecture hall at once.'

I stood my ground and answered calmly, 'Not before I get your solemn promise that you will pay me a hundred pounds a week from now on.'

He cast his eyes about the room as if seeking inspiration, took out his watch and looked at it anxiously and sighed in resignation at the stubborn expression on my lips. Alright, you ungrateful hussy. You have my word that's what your wages will be in the future.'

My ears were deaf to the lecture that evening. I was too busy calculating how much money I had banked since coming to Hebburn House and what it would soon amount to. Seven weeks at thirty pounds plus two months at my new wage came to a sum exceeding a thousand pounds, which meant that within a short period I had risen from abject poverty to become a woman of independent means. I was cock-a-hoop at the thought of having enough money in the bank to keep me in comfort for at least three years. When you are flat broke you only have the choice of digging your own grave or getting back up on your feet, determined never to be penniless again. Money is a commodity you can depend on, which is more than you can say about men.

Mrs. Murdock never ever spoke to me again but from that time on I knew she would be scheming to find some way of getting rid of me. It took her three weeks to find a girl who could stand in for me as the Golden Virgin if ever, as she put it to the doctor, I was ill or unable for some reason to take my place on the podium in the lecture hall. I could see how her cunning mind was working. With a substitute Golden Virgin waiting in the background I would never again be able to hold the doctor to ransom for more money.

Mrs. Murdock's prodigy, Virginia Norman, was well-named but ill-equipped for the part intended because she was inexperienced, shy and, actually, was a sixteen-year-old, untouched virgin. I knew instinctively that in her innocence she would be unable to stand as I did, stark naked before the hungry lust of dozens of male eyes, and yet pose as an unruffled virgin, cool and confident in her superiority.

I took to her straight away. You couldn't help liking Virginia; she was so sweet natured and eager to help Betty when she was applying the gold paint to my body.

After my appearance on the podium they worked together removing most of the gold paint with a solvent especially prepared by the doctor. And then, with me lying in a warm soapy bath, they would gently pick away at any remnants of the paint still adhering to my skin.

Virginia was about my height with the same colouring in hair but her under-developed body needed to be filled out if Mrs. Murdock intended to fool the clientele that they were looking at the same female who had appeared before them since the beginning. Every day the poor girl was stuffed with fattening foods and the best cuts of meat in an effort to get her to put on more flesh. I knew my days as the Golden Virgin were numbered and estimated that it would take at least a month before she came up to my proportions.

One evening near the end of July, I had just finished my bath and was about to dress when the doctor marched into my room, ordering Betty and Virginia to go downstairs, and sat in a chair with an annoyed expression on his face waiting for me to finish dressing.

After a while, he coughed nervously and asked, 'Do you remember, Dara, when we first met I spoke to you of Sir Charles Cheyney, the gentleman who saw you at the Queen's Theatre and recommended you as the girl to be the Golden Virgin?'

'Yes,' I answered, wondering what was coming next.

'He has become quite obsessed with the idea of seeing you in the nude, without the gold paint, and has been pestering me for some weeks now with his requests. It has been very difficult for me because it was his idea in the first place to present you painted in gold and also he happens to be a friend of long standing.'

'If that is all he wants,' I said, 'and you want to oblige him, I have no objections.'

'Believe me, Dara, I've done my best to put him off but now he is threatening to tell everyone where we found you if I don't give way.'

'Is he here now?' I asked.

'Yes. He's waiting downstairs for your answer.'

'See to it that Betty and Virginia are kept busy elsewhere,' I said, 'then bring him up here. The sooner we get this business over with the better.'

I was trying to tidy up my room when the doctor returned to introduce me to Sir Charles Cheyney. Bowing from the waist, he then took my hand in a refined, delicate manner and brought it to his lips. 'I am most charmed and very grateful that you have granted me this favour.'

This gentlemanly approach was in keeping with his dress and deportment. His savoir-faire and courtesy were far from what I had expected. I had assumed a man who wanted a private view of a girl in the nude would be an old reprobate, physically gross and mentally repellant. With such a man I would have had no qualms about displaying myself naked provided he didn't touch me, but Sir Charles didn't fit into this picture by any means.

He was about my age, tall and slender, with very handsome features. I liked the sound of his voice, too, which was low and melodious. Because he was so attractive I was overcome with modesty and embarrassment. The thought of being just a nude object to him filled me with self disgust. Under different circumstances I would have set out to gain his admiration and respect.

He must have sensed the confusion of my feelings for, as soon as Dr Kersley left us alone together, he said, 'Dara, I know so little about you that my principal aim in seeking this assignation was in the hope that we may become better acquainted. There is no need for you to undress. I have seen your beautiful body many times in the lecture hall for I am one of your most devoted admirers. Please be seated so that we can converse in comfort.'

Relaxed in a chair, I now examined him more closely. He was undoubtedly the most beautiful man I had ever seen, with short dark hair, tightly curled, greyish-blue eyes beneath thick masculine eyebrows which gazed at me quizzically. There were small lines of humour around his mouth and eyes which softened the effect of his strong cleft chin and brought a warm expression of geniality to what would otherwise have been a stern face. is Dara your real name?' he asked diffidently with an amused expression on his face.

'Yes. I am Dara Kennet from the Isle of Man but recently returned from a visit to America.'

'Kennet,' he repeated. 'An uncommon name, if I may say so. I know of only one Kennet, a man of my own age with whom I was well acquainted when we were at Heaton together; a rather effeminate boy who shared a school desk with me for a number of years.'

He mused on the matter for a moment, then exclaimed, 'Why, that is quite extraordinary! James Kennet was also in America last year. Maybe you met him?'

'Yes, maybe,' I answered in some confusion. 'Where is he now… I would very much like to meet him?'

He gave me a long searching look. 'You know this man, don't you. Is it possible you are a relation of his?'

Getting no answer to his questions he asked, 'Have I stumbled on to some secret in your past? Why the reticence? Surely you can trust me; I wish you no harm.'

He was right, of course. There was no need to hide the truth from him. It was possible that the man who had been his schoolboy friend was the same James Kennet to whom I was wed. The only way to find out if this was so would be to trust him.

'Sir Charles,' I said, but got no further for he interrupted me to exclaim with a smile, 'Forget the title; just address me as Charles. There is no need for formalities between friends.'

“Very well,' I replied. 'The truth of the matter, Charles, is that the James Kennet you speak of could be the man I married in New York and who deserted me shortly after we arrived back in England. But I cannot be sure. Where and how can I meet him? Is he in London?'

'Yes, to be sure. But from what I know of him he is hardly likely to be the type of man YOU would choose for a husband. I saw him but only yesterday, strolling down the Strand with his lover, Nicholas Dawney. No, not your man, I'm sure.'

While he was speaking I remembered something that would be a means of identifying this James Kennet as my husband: a birthmark on his neck that looked like a small red ladybird.

'Tell me, Charles, has your James got a birthmark?'

'Why, yes,' he answered quickly. 'I saw it often enough when we sat beside each other at school. It was like a little red beetle just under his left ear. I know it was on the left side of his neck because he always sat to the right of me.'

That clinched it. There was no longer any doubt in my mind that he was speaking of my James. In my agitation I stood up and declared that I would go to him at once.

'Not before you satisfy my curiosity on one or two questions that puzzle me,' Charles replied calmly. 'In my opinion James is incapable of husbanding any woman, however attractive she may be. How did you come to marry him?'

I told him the truth of how we met, our first night together in bed and the celibate months of marriage that followed the wedding.

When I had finished, he said, 'How dreadful it must have been for you, my dear, and yet how fortunate for, as it turns out, you are married to one of the wealthiest men in England. A man who owns thousands upon thousands of acres of land, an elegant town house, a huge mansion in Berkshire and an equally large house in Kent. His father died about two months ago. He was out hunting and his horse threw him head first into a tree. James, being his only child, succeeded to the title and inherited a great fortune.'

'What shall I do, Charles? Please advise me.' it is much too late for you to go calling on James tonight. Besides, think of the embarrassment for all parties concerned if we found him in bed with his lover? Will you put yourself in my hands and allow me to protect and support you in what could be a very tricky confrontation with your husband? It will have to be in the morning for later in the day I board a ship bound for Australia where I am to be secretary and aide to my uncle who is taking up a very responsible position out there.'

'What will I say to Dr Kersley?' I asked, anxious as to what I should do next and very much disturbed by this news of titles, great wealth and male lovers.

'Dr Kersley? Ah, I can see trouble there. It would be better for your future position in society if he knew nothing about this. Will it take long for you to pack your belongings? We could make our escape now, before he returns to your room.'

I threw some clothing into my leather bag and followed Charles down some back stairs to an exit at the rear of the building. Once out in the open we ran helter-skelter across the grassy lawns to his waiting carriage. 'Hurry, Baldwin,' he shouted to the coachman. 'Make all haste to Cheyney House.' In the plush, dark interior of the carriage I lay back to recover my breath.

Charles put a protective arm around me and I snuggled up close to him feeling warm and secure in his embrace. He kissed me warmly on the lips and I responded with all the affection of my nature. Cool fingers loosened the buttons of my blouse and delicately caressed the nipples of my breasts. To my hot delight he made free with my body. His hands were everywhere. When his fingers began to gently probe between the tender lips of my giny I arched my back in an intensity of feeling.

My clothing was in great disarray when the coachman brought the horses to a halt outside Charles' home in Catherine Place. All was quiet in this by-street sheltering near Buckingham Palace. Luckily there was nobody about to see me descend from the coach and enter the house. Taking up the small lighted candle placed in a china bowl on the hallway side table, Charles led me upstairs to his bedroom.

Clothing was scattered all over the room when our bared bodies came together in a breathtaking embrace. His cock filled out and pressed against my burning flesh. It was so sturdy and thick when I grasped it in my hand. Getting down on my knees, I held the throbbing cock firmly as I delicately licked its swollen head with the tip of my tongue. I nearly choked when, in a spasm of quickened lust, his hips thrust forward and it penetrated the top of my throat.

Throwing me on the bed he came on me like a raging bull, churning my innards with savage lust. Strong hands gripped the cheeks of my bottom and pulled me into him as he strove with rapist thrusts to get deep inside me. I brought my knees up high and submitted willingly to this ravishment. Swirling in a storm of passion that shook my innermost senses, my feelings rose and clashed in an explosive climax as his hands pulled my buttocks up to him for my giny to receive the gushing sap from his dilated, pulsating member. We lay, released from all earthly desires, our senses dissolved in a blissful nirvana of extinction that the French speak of as 'the little death'.

Bright sunlight was filtering through the window curtains when I awakened from a night of Elysian dreams. The polished oak of the wall panelling and the wide floorboards shone in the morning light making a perfect setting for the satinwood cabinets and gilt chairs. Stretching out, I looked up at the canopy of the ornate four-poster bed and sighed in the luxury of happy contentment. Charles chose that moment to come out of his sleep and pull me close to him.

'Good morning, Lady Pulrose,' he murmured in my ear.

'Is that really my name?' I asked.

He nodded. 'Yes. Your James is now the seventh Lord Pulrose.'

'Is it all true, what you told me last night?'

'What in particular?' he replied with a smile.

'About James being very wealthy and his lover, Nicholas Dawney.'

'Of course it's true, every word of it.'

'I'm not looking forward to meeting them. What shall I do? And, oh, Charles, where shall I go afterwards? It'll be impossible for me to live in the same house with them. I just couldn't do it.'

'You can live here. I shall be in Australia for at least two years. In my absence the family solicitor will be paying the servants and other household expenses. But the house needs a trusted occupant to keep an eye on the servants who tend to get lazy and negligent if there isn't anyone to give them their orders daily. Will you do that for me while I'm away?'

'Charles, you are a most kind and generous man but I haven't the means to keep this place in the style your servants would expect.'

'Nonsense,' he retorted. 'You are forgetting that your husband is very wealthy. We will see him this morning and demand an annual financial allotment that will enable you to live in accordance with your social standing as a member of the nobility.'

Wasting no further time on words, Charles threw back the bedclothes, got between my legs and showered kisses on my breasts. Flushed with excitement, he rolled onto his back and brought me above him to suck at the nipples of my breasts. When he came up to give me a kiss on the lips I got into a kneeling position and guided him into my moist giny. Moving with a gentle rhythm up and down on him as you would with a cantering horse, aroused my sensual desires to a fever pitch. With a desperate, urgent need to reach the heights of my passion I flung myself down on him and, with my hands gripping his shoulders, I ravished him as fiercely as he had possessed me the previous night.

Crying out in the intensity of my ecstasy, I gave myself up to him when he got a firm hold on the cheeks of my buttocks and forced me hard up against his loins each time he thrust into me. I lay limp across him, all passion spent as he had his way with me, rotating my hips with strong hands until he could hold back his seething lust no longer. My belly, pushed up tight against his, convulsed as he emptied his spurting, manly essence into me.

When Charles recovered his breath he patted me on the bottom and asked me to move over as he was going to ring for breakfast. After giving two strong pulls on the bell rope he got back into bed. Shortly after that his butler arrived holding a large wooden tray of cooked food-kippers, sausages, bacon, eggs-and chunks of bread. Placing the tray on a side table he asked his master if he would prefer tea or coffee. On receiving the answer that it would be a coffee morning he gave a slight bow and departed to go downstairs. I was watching him closely the whole time he was in the room and not once did he glance in my direction. Indeed he didn't look at Charles either and yet he returned with another plate and cutlery within less than a minute.

While we were eating I commented on Billings, the butler, not looking at either of us as we lay in bed.

'A well-trained butler should never look at you when he is speaking or when you are addressing him,' he answered. 'This applies to all the servants. If any of them should have the impertinence to do so in my absence, dismiss them immediately. I will not tolerate servants who do not know their place. Just remember, Dara, that they are employed to do your bidding at any time of the day or night. Believe me, you will lose their respect if you do anything for yourself. Don't even brush your own hair. There is a personal maid to do that and if, by chance, you wish the fire to be stirred to life with a poker, then you must ring for a servant to perform this service for you.'

'Won't they talk about you and me being in bed together?'

'Only amongst themselves. Never to anyone else,' he answered. 'Our conduct in or out of bed is none of their business. Don't concern yourself with what they think or talk about. They are our inferiors, in every respect, little better than dumb animals and to be treated as such.'

When the front door was opened to us at Astral House, Charles instructed the butler to inform Lord Pulrose that Sir Charles Cheyney awaited him.

Taking me by the arm Charles pushed the butler to one side just as he was about to knock on a door and entered the room unannounced. James and his friend were lounging in armchairs near a large marble fireplace. Hearing the butler's outraged protests at our rudeness, James looked round and went pale when he caught sight of me.

Quickly recovering from the shock of my sudden appearance in his morning room, he got to his feet and stood before me. 'Dara! Is it really you?' he said in a voice just above a whisper, then flung his arms around me.

I thought he would never stop hugging me. When he did, I saw that he was wet-eyed and overcome with this unexpected reunion. While James was wiping the tears from his eyes I took a quick glance at his friend, Nicholas Dawney. There was a sardonic expression on his face and, in his eyes, a look of derisive contempt for James and me as we struggled to contain our emotions.

'It is such a relief to see you, Dara, standing there, alive and well,' exclaimed James as he stood back and viewed me fondly. 'I got back to the hotel only hours after you had left and have been on the lookout for you ever since. Where did you get to? Nothing ever came of my enquiries as to your whereabouts.'

T don't want to talk about it James.'

He embraced me again. 'I understand, Dara. It can wait. Oh, it's so good to see you again. I'll get the servants to prepare a room for you. This is your home from now on.'

'No, James, I cannot stay here,' I said quietly, looking meaningfully at Nicholas Dawney, who was staring at me with a supercilious grin.

James had momentarily forgotten Nicholas Dawney's presence in the room and had the decency to blush in embarrassment when he got the meaning of my words.

'There are other houses where you can stay,' he said hesitantly. 'You can have Kennet Towers in Berkshire and we have another great house in Kent. I will make out an allotment so that you will have sufficient money for all your needs. After all, Dara, you are my wife and I want to look after you and make amends for… Please let me try to make up for all that you have suffered in the past.'

I felt ashamed at the vile thoughts I had harboured about him since we had parted at 'The Eight Bells' hotel. Although obviously infatuated with Nicholas Dawney, he was still very fond of me and concerned for my welfare. His desire to make amends was very touching but I was determined to be free and uninvolved in his liaison with Nicholas.

'Charles is sailing for Australia on the first tide tomorrow and has kindly offered me the hospitality of his home in Catherine Place while he is abroad,' I said.

Getting on to his feet, Charles decided this was the moment to discuss the question of my allotment.

'Well, James, friend of my schooldays, have you forgotten me?' he asked.

'Of course I haven't,' replied James quickly. 'Forgive me, I was so overcome that I had thoughts only for Dara. Accept my heartfelt thanks for bringing her back to me. I owe you a great debt of gratitude which I will never forget. Please allow me to pay all your household expenses while Dara is a guest at your home. It is the least I can do under the circumstances, my dear fellow.'

'Why, that's very decent of you,' said Charles with a smile. 'I'll instruct my solicitors to send you a monthly account. Now, what allotment are you going to bestow on your Lady Pulrose?'

James thought for a moment. 'Would ten thousand a year be adequate?' he asked tentatively.

Charles fixed his eyes on James' nose in a steady stare. He told me afterwards that this was his habit when he wished to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

'Twenty thousand?' James stuttered questioningly.

Charles didn't answer. The silence was painful as he continued to stare at the tip of James' nose.

'Tell me, what do you think would be an adequate allotment to settle on Dara?' James asked, appealing to Charles and squirming with embarrassment.

'One must take into consideration that a lady in high society has many expenses if she is going to mix with the nobility on equal terms,' answered Charles gravely. 'You are a man of great wealth, James. You wouldn't want your friends to think that your wife was living on slender means.'

'Would thirty thousand be sufficient do you think?' asked James doubtfully.

Charles pursed his lips. 'Yes, that is possibly the right figure.' Then turning to me, he asked, 'Will you settle for thirty thousand, Lady Pulrose?'

These large sums of money they were bandying about as if they were discussing pennies just left me dizzy and speechless. I could only nod my head in amazement at Charles' perspicacity.

'Good,' exclaimed James with relief that satisfactory arrangements had been made for my future welfare. 'Will you stay and have coffee with us?'

Charles, with polite apologies, explained that there was insufficient time as many arrangements had to be made before he departed for Australia.

James embraced me at the front door and extracted a promise that I would call again as soon as I had settled into my new home.

I was very upset when Charles departed for Tilbury Docks in the afternoon. Although I had known him but a short time, I was heartbroken at the thought that we wouldn't see each other again for a very long time and wept bitter tears when he kissed me goodbye on the doorstep. In less than twenty-four hours he had brought great changes to my lifestyle. His friendship and affection was something I would treasure in the conviction that destiny would somehow bring us together again.

Later that afternoon Billings, the butler, assembled all the servants, including Baldwin, the coachman, in the hall for my inspection.

'This, my Lady,' he said, pointing to a pleasant, plump woman, 'is the cook, Mrs. Wakeford,' and so went on down the line introducing maids and other servants. There were nine of them in all and everyone showed great respect in my presence. I could think of nothing to say so I dismissed them with a nod of the head and they went off downstairs to attend to their various duties.