The Potato Factory

Chapter Four

Towards noon the fog had cleared sufficiently for two dock workers to discover Mary hunched in a dark corner, moaning. At first they thought her some drunken slut, her swollen face and broken lips the result of some gin brawl in the nearby and notorious public house, The Ship Aground, and so passed her by as they pushed their loaded barrow from a ship's hold to a nearby warehouse. Finally her continued and pitiful moans caused them to stop and examine her dark corner more closely. It was then that they observed that her skirt was wet with blood and saw her broken fingers pushed through the beads and bars of her abacus.

'Goldstein!' Mary groaned. 'Goldstein.' The two men lifted her as gently as they could onto the barrow and wheeled her to Mr Goldstein's warehouse where they accosted the gatekeeper. 'She keeps callin' name o' Goldstein, ain't that yer gov, sergeant?' Sergeant Lawrence nodded, then bending over Mary's body took in at once the nature of her injuries. 'Jesus Christ! The sharks, the bloody sharks got her!' He helped them lift Mary from the barrow and laid her down outside his hut.

Mary, who had long since given up any thought of God, would later in her life ponder on whether it had been divine guidance which had taken her to Mr Goldstein's gatekeeper. For at the great Battle of Waterloo he had been seconded as sergeant to a platoon of stretcher bearers.

The veteran soldier sent the yard boy to the warehouse and the lad soon returned with a large bottle of oil of tar and a length of used canvas. Whereupon the sergeant tore strips from an old canvas sail and soaked them in a solution of oil of tar. He bound Mary's hands in the Waterloo manner, as was done when a cannoneer had burnt or lost his hands from a breech explosion, binding the hands together in a single parcel of coarse cloth.

'She needs a bone-setter or 'er 'ands ain't gunna be no good no more,' the gatekeeper said to those gathered around, then he lifted his chin and pointed to the twisted abacus beside Mary, 'no more Chinee counting contraption for the likes of 'er, ain't a bone what's left straight in them fingers, nor one what ain't broke!'

'Bone-setter? Ja, zis is gut!'

Mr Goldstein in his coat and top hat suddenly stood bottle-shaped beside the gatekeeper. He opened his dumby and from it withdrew a five pound note. 'You must be fixink!' he said to the gateman. 'You get better this younk lady.'

Mr Goldstein bowed stiffly to where Mary lay whimpering on the dockside.

'Such a pity, so schnell for vorkink sums! Accht! Maybe she can be vun day chief clerk, now finish, ticht, ticht.' He bowed formally again. 'Aufwiedersehen, Miss Abacus.' Then turning on a precise little heel he allowed the coachman to hand him up into the waiting carriage.

Mr Goldstein's five pound note paid for the bone-setter and ten days in hospital plus several bottles of physic of opium to kill the pain of her mutilated hands. This left Mary a pound over which would allow her to live for two months in one of the foul netherkens in Rosemary Lane, existing on a single tuppeny meal each day. Though the tar oil had prevented infection, for some reason Mary's hands remained a peculiar blackened colour. They had been too badly damaged for the bone-setter to repair properly and when some movement eventually returned to her fingers, they were twisted and bent, like the tines of a tin fork, and hideous in appearance.

As soon as she could stand the pain Mary began once again to practise on the abacus. She would work on it for six years before she would once again regain her old skills, although the beauty of her movements was gone forever.

The six years which passed were not good ones. It was not long before Mary was standing on a street corner as a lady of the night. But other prostitutes ganged up on her, chasing her away. Mary moved on to meaner and meaner streets until there was no pavement or doorway left on which she could safely ply her trade. Eventually she was forced into a brothel.

Mary had still not learned to hold her tongue. When she was intoxicated she had even more difficulty concealing her bitterness and controlling her temper. And so she moved ever lower down the whore's ladder, until six years later only the dockside brothels and opium dens were left open to her. She had formed an addiction for opium from the physic she had obtained from the hospital while her hands were mending and now she craved the dreams and oblivion the pipe would bring.

She caught the pox and the brothel mistress, a vile, toothless hag, sent her to a pox doctor who treated her successfully, though at some considerable expense. The money was advanced directly to him by the old woman who, in turn, advanced the debt to Mary at the rate of interest of fifty percent on the principal amount per week.

Mary knew herself to be enslaved for it was a debt she could never hope to pay. She was on her back eighteen hours a day, and in what time was left to her she sought the comfort of the dreams the opium pipe brought. She knew that should she attempt to escape, she would be cut. The 'Slasher' would be sent after her with his cut-throat razor and sulphuric acid, and her face would be disfigured forever.

Nevertheless, as might be expected, Mary reached a point where she could no longer tolerate the old hag's greed. One evening, having shared a pint of gin with a customer and having been continually chastised by the old hag to get back on her back, Mary finally lost her temper. In the furious battle which ensued, for the old woman was well bred to fighting, Mary lashed out blindly and her sharpened talons raked across the old crone's cheek. Her hands went up to cover her face and in a moment Mary could see blood running through her fingers. Mary took up her abacus and fled from the brothel, running wildly into the dockland night.

The acid slasher found her two days later in a dark alley in Spitalfields, led to her by two street urchins. Mary had collapsed from hunger, fatigue and the vicious cramps resulting from the withdrawal of opium and she lay propped against a wall, her chin resting upon her chest. After examining her by slapping her face several times with the knuckles of his hand and discovering that this did not have the desired effect of reviving her, the slasher hesitated, fearing that cutting her in such a state might lead to her bleeding to death. The earnings from a simple slashing with a drop of acid added did not warrant the risk of a murder charge being brought against him.

The police would make a light search for the culprit of a prostitute knifing, but the law required a full and exhaustive enquiry into a murder victim. Murder was a crime of an altogether more serious nature, even when done to a poxed up prostitute. Furthermore, the slasher knew himself to have been seen and heard enquiring after Mary in several public houses and netherkens and in all of the central London rookeries.

Paying the older of the two street urchins a farthing to watch over Mary in case she should revive and attempt to move, the slasher left and soon returned with a small toke and a quarter pint of rough brandy. He lifted Mary's inert body to a seated position and poured a measure of brandy down her throat. Handing what remained of the brandy to the older of the urchins to hold, the slasher slapped her hard several times until Mary, taken in a coughing fit from the sudden burning of the brandy on her empty stomach, returned to consciousness. Then he fed her small pieces of bread soaked in brandy until she had the strength to sit up on her own.

He handed a second farthing to the younger of the two urchins, though he knew the bigger boy would soon enough take the coin from him.

'She's me wife and ya saw nuffink, see? If you speak o' this to any geezer what may be interested, I'll come after ya and cut yer bloody throats, ear to bleedin' ear!'

The folded razor with its white ivory handle suddenly appeared as though by magic in his hands and the slasher slowly opened its bright blade. 'Now scat!' the slasher commanded and the two boys took flight and disappeared down the darkened alleyway.

The slasher now turned back to Mary, ready to complete his original purpose.

Mary, by now sufficiently out of her daze to understand what was about to happen, stared mesmerised by the razor in the man's hand. She was too weak to fight, too exhausted even to resist, yet the spirit within was not yet willing to die. 'Fuck me, kind sir,' she said, her voice hardly above a whisper.

The slasher leaned closer to her, carefully inspecting her face as if deciding where to make the slash. 'Ya can make it easy on y'self, lovey, jus' close yer eyes and think of summink beautiful.'

Mary fought back her fear and smiled in a coquettish manner, her hands concealed behind her back.

'I'm clean, I'm not with the pox, you have my Gawd's honour!' Her smile widened and her green eyes looked steadily at him, 'G'warn, just one more time with an 'andsome gentleman so I dies 'appy, please, sir.'

'Tut, tut, yer too pretty to die, lovey, it's just a little scratch and a bit of a burn. A bit o' punishment, a permanent reminder, 'cause you've been a naughty girl then, 'asn't ya?'

Mary kept her voice light, though inwardly her bowels twisted with fright.

'You'll fuck me to be remembered by and I promise you, kind sir, you too will not quickly forget me lovin' ways!'

'No fanks, lovey, I don't mix business wif pleasure, know what I mean?' A slow grin spread upon his face, an evil grin but with some of the harm gone out of it. 'Yer game, I say that for ya, game as a good ratter and still a nice looker!'

'Game if you are?' Mary replied cheekily, knowing her life might depend on the next few moments. Though she had long since abandoned any faith in God she now made a silent prayer that, if she should survive, she would never again let strong drink or opium pass her lips.

'Tell ya what I can do,' the slasher said suddenly. 'I can give ya a bit of a kiss, ain't no harm in that is there?' He threw back his head and laughed. 'I'll not spoil yer gob, just a little slash, add a bit of character. It won't be the last time a man wants to kiss ya!'

For a fraction of a second Mary could not believe what she had seen. The slasher's laughter revealed that he was missing his two front teeth but to either side of the gap he sported gold incisors. Her heart leapt and started to beat furiously.

'If it ain't Bob Marley, last observed fleein' from the laundry of a certain Chelsea 'ouse, by means o' the garden wall with 'is breeches 'alf on and 'is boots carried, quick as a ferret down a rat 'ole you were, over the wall with your bum showin' where you 'adn't got your breeches fully up!'

Mary, though weakened by the effort this outburst required, held her smile. She had a good head for names and faces, though in the ensuing years both of them had changed greatly and for the worse.

'Ow d'ya know me name, then?' Marley demanded.

'The laundry maid? Remember? We met in Shepherd Market? Me buying fish, nigh eight year back! You 'ad a gold watch what had a brass chain. You was ever so posh! I took you back to me master's 'ouse. Remember, we done it on the linen pile. Well, not done it really. You see, before you'd 'ad your wicked way with me the bloody cook come in on us and you 'ad to scarper! Surely you must remember that, Bob Marley?' Mary, exhausted, lay back panting.

Bob Marley grinned broadly as he suddenly recalled the incident and the details of it flooded back to him. 'Blimey! That was you? You was the dollymop?'

He shook his head in wonderment. 'Well ain't that a turn up for the bleedin' books! I remember it now, I stubbed me big toe 'cause o' not 'avin' me boots on, all black an' blue it were, took bleedin' forever to come good so I could walk proper again. I've told that self same story a 'undred times or more. Oh, deary me, what a laugh, eh?'

Marley had closed the razor in his hand and now he slipped it into the pocket of his jacket.

They sat together in the alley and finished the brandy, talking of the things that had happened to them. Marley asked Mary about the abacus which lay beside her and she explained its use to him in accounting and numbers.

'Pity ya wasn't a man, lovey. I knows a gentleman, matter of fact I used to be 'is snakesman when I was a nipper, before I grow'd, I'd climb in an' out of 'ouses like a rat up a bleedin' drainpipe, thievin' stuff for 'im. This self same gentleman's got word out, very discreet mind, that 'e needs a clerk what 'e can trust. Someone wif a bit of form, if ya knows what I mean?'

Ikey Solomon, Marley explained, trusted no one and was loath to make such an appointment, but stolen goods were piling up unledgered and unaccounted for.

Bob Marley pointed to the abacus. 'Don't suppose 'e'd en'ertain a contraption like that,' he remarked gloomily, 'even if ya was a man. I think 'e's got more yer normal quill and blackin' pot in mind, some old lag what is a clerk and can be trusted never to talk to the filth and what can be suitably blackmailed into keepin'

'is gob shut.'

Mary explained to him that she could use a quill, ink and paper for clerking and that she knew how to write up a ledger. Bob Marley scratched his head, pushing his top hat further back in order to do so.

'If it were up to meself I'd give ya a go. "What's I got to lose?" I'd say. Nice lookin' tart like you, well worth a try, eh?' Marley mused for a moment. 'But then I got a kind 'eart and 'e ain't, 'e's an old bastard!' He looked up and smiled. 'I can give ya 'is address, confidential like, mind.'

He scowled suddenly. 'But if ya tells 'im who give it to ya, I won't take it kindly, know what I mean?'

Mary shook her head. 'Gawd's 'onour, Bob, I won't tell no one who it was what told me. I'm exceedin' obliged to you.'

Mary's hopes soared. Bob Marley was not going to kill her, or even mark her.

'It's Bell Alley, ya know, ring-a-ding-ding, bell, got it? Islington. I dunno the number, but it's got a green door wif a brass lion wif a loop through its nose, as a knocker, like. There's a lamp post in Winfield Street where ya turn into the alley, only light in the 'ole bleedin' street, but it don't work. Best time to catch 'im is dawn when 'e's coming 'ome. It's not 'is real 'ome, it's where 'e keeps 'is stuff and does 'is accounting like. Wait for 'im at the entrance o' the alley; 'e can't come no other way.'

Their conversation waned and then came to a complete silence. Bob Marley had shown no signs of producing the razor again, but the tension so overwhelmed Mary that she could not put the prospect of the razor aside and idle chatter between them became impossible for her.

'You ain't gunna cut me, then?' she asked finally, smiling disarmingly at the man squatting in front of her.

Marley coughed politely into his fist and looked up at Mary so that their eyes met again for the first time in a long while.

'I'm sorry, love, but I 'ave to.' He smiled in a sympathetic way, and his gold teeth flashed. 'I don't like doin' it in yer case, I sincerely don't!' Bob Marley shrugged and turned away.

Mary was flushed with the brandy, but with only a few mouthfuls of stale bread inside her stomach she felt it turn and she was sure she was going to be sick.

'Please don't cut me, Bob Marley,' she begged.

'I won't cut ya bad, lovey, just a straight slash what will 'eal quick, a slash and a little dab of acid to keep the scar permanent like and as witness that I done me job. Yer still a corker to look at an' all, I don't wanna spoil that, it don't say in the contract I gotta mutilate ya, I can make up me own mind 'bout that! Cut 'n acid, a slash 'n dab, that's all I gotta do accordin' to me code of efficks.'

Mary, attempting to hold back the bile rising in her throat, concentrated on looking into Bob Marley's eyes. She didn't see the razor come out of his pocket and she barely saw the flash of its blade when she felt the sharp, sudden sting of it across her cheek.

'I'm truly sorry, lovey,' she heard Bob Marley whisper. 'If ya move now I'll splash the acid, stay still, very still, so I don't 'arm yer pretty mug too much.'

Mary wanted to scream and vomit at the same time but she clenched her teeth and held on and then there was a second blinding, unbearable sting as Bob Marley pushed back her head and poured acid into the cut. She could no longer keep her hands behind her back and now she clasped them to her face.

'Jesus Christ! What 'appened to yer 'ands?' Bob Marley exclaimed, then he rose quickly and was gone before the scream was fully out of Mary's mouth.

Mary could scarcely remember how she survived the next three weeks. Despite her pain and misery she had determined she would somehow fulfil her promise never to drink again. Denying herself gin and the opium pipe to which she'd become accustomed sent her into fearful spasms and cramps. She sweated profusely so that her clothes were soaked and she was only dimly aware of her surroundings.

By the time she had set out to meet Ikey Solomon, though still shaky, she was over the worst of her tremors. The scar on her cheek, though not entirely healed, was free of scab. Bob Marley had done his job skilfully and her face, despite the scar, was not in the least misshapen, the parts of it remaining as is normal on a woman's countenance, nose, lips and eyes where they ought to be and perfectly intact.

Mary waylaid Ikey at dawn, just as Bob Marley had suggested. Standing in the shadows several feet into Bell Alley, she had seen him enter from Winfield Street and let him almost pass her before she stood suddenly in his path.

Ikey stiffened and gasped in fright, bringing his arms up to his face as Mary stepped out of the shadows, but then seeing it was a woman he lowered his hands, dug his chin deeper into his overcoat and proceeded on his way.

'Please, Mr Solomon, sir,' Mary called, 'can you spare just one minute of your time? I've waited 'ere all night with news that may be o' great benefit to you.'

'What is it, woman? 'Ave you got somethin' to sell?'

'Yes, sir, but I cannot speak of it here, you must grant me time to see you elsewhere. What I 'ave to offer is o' great value. You will wish to see a sample, I feel sure.'

'Where will I come? When? Be quick, it's late! I must be gorn. Where?' Ikey snapped, expecting to intimidate the woman who stood before him.

Mary had thought about this meeting too often to be thrown by Ikey's brusque manner. 'I shall come to you, sir,' she said calmly, though her heart was beating furiously. 'What I shall bring with me will be worth your while.'

'Bah, humbug!' It was unusual for a woman of Mary's standing to confront him unless she had some urgent business, probably of the stolen goods kind. Or she might be a spy of some sort, or a trap set by the runners.

'Who sent you? Who told you to wait 'ere?' Ikey asked.

'I cannot say, sir, I pledged to keep me gob shut, but it ain't no one what means you 'arm.'

'Hmmph! I cannot think that such a man exists,' Ikey sniffed, though his instinct in these things was usually sound and he could feel no malice of intent in the woman who stood before him. 'Very well, tonight, at seven o'clock precisely in Whitechapel. If you are late and not alone you will not be let in. You shall say one word, "Waterloo", to the woman what answers the door, "Waterloo" and no other, do you understand?'

Mary nodded, too nervous and overcome even to thank him as Ikey gave her the address of his home in Whitechapel.

'G'warn, be off with you now and don't you be late, you shall 'ave ten minutes tonight!' Ikey paused. 'That is, if you 'ave something of worth to show me, less, much less, I can assure you, if you doesn't!'

Without a word Mary moved past Ikey and into Winfield Street. She had succeeded in the first step, though she had done so with a trick, a deception, yes, but not a lie. Now she had given herself the chance to pick up the broken pieces of her miserable life and perhaps change it forever.

At seven o'clock precisely that evening Mary, carrying her abacus, tapped on the door of Ikey's Whitechapel home. It was not as big a house as any in which she had once worked, but imposing nevertheless and grand for where it stood one street from the Whitechapel markets. The door was answered by a raw-boned woman who appeared to be about forty and whose breath smelled of stale beer.

Mary, afraid even to offer the pleasantry of an evening greeting lest she betray Ikey's instructions, blurted out, 'Waterloo!'

'You're expected t' be sure,' the woman said in an Irish brogue. 'Will you be after followin' me then, miss?' The woman, taking a candle from a ledge in the hallway, then led Mary through the darkened house to the door of Ikey's study where she tapped three times and departed, leaving Mary waiting in the darkness. She had a sense of being watched and then she heard a sniff followed by the muffled giggle of a child, though she could see no one.

In a moment or so Mary heard the rattle of a key placed into the lock and the door opened, though only a crack. The light was behind Ikey's head and Mary could only just make out his long nose, a single beady eye and a scrag of beard in the space allowed by the opening. The door opened wider and Ikey silently stood aside for her to enter the small room beyond. The door closed behind her and she heard Ikey lock it once again.

Ikey brushed past where Mary stood, turned and surveyed her with his hands on his hips. He was wearing his great coat though he'd removed his hat and she now saw his face clearly for the first time. This she found the way she had imagined it to be. That was the point with Ikey's face -to those who saw it clearly it was exactly what you would expect his face to look like if you knew his vocation in life. Behind Ikey stood a coat-stand and beside it a high desk above which a lamp burned brightly. Two further lamps lit the room to give it an almost cheerful look which contrasted markedly with the general darkness of the house.

Ikey did not bid her to be seated, though there was a small table and single chair some four feet from the desk. Mary moved past Ikey and placed her abacus flat upon the table and then returned to where she'd formerly stood.

'Well, what is it? Why 'ave you come? Show me, I 'ave no time to waste.' Had she been a man who might be carrying news of a rich haul, Ikey might have been more circumspect, he might have smiled at the very least, ingratiating himself, but such pleasantries were not necessary for a woman of Mary's sort.

'Please, sir, you 'ave granted me ten minutes, it will take some of this time to tell you me story.'

'Story? What story? I do not wish to hear your story, unless it is business, a story o' the business o' profit, some for who it is who sends you 'ere and some for yours truly! Be quick. I am most busy of mind and anxious to be about me work.'

Mary smiled, attempting to conceal her nervousness. 'You will assuredly profit from what I 'ave to say, kind sir, but I begs you first the small charity of your ears, no more, a few minutes to 'ear a poor widow's tale.'

Mary then told Ikey how she had been recently widowed from a merchant sailor who had been swept overboard in the Bay of Biscay. How she, penniless, had been forced with her darling infant twins to share a miserable room with a destitute family of five and pay each day from her meagre salary for an older child to mind her precious children while she worked as a laundry maid in a big house in Chelsea. How the husband of the mistress of the house took advantage of her desperate circumstances to use her body for his pleasure whenever he felt inclined and without any thought of payment. How one night a most frightful fire had swept through the netherken where she slept with her baby infants and she had been dragged from the flames but had rushed back to save her precious children.

'I bear the marks, good sir, the marks of that terrible tragedy!' She gave a little sob and withdrew the woollen mittens from her hands, holding them up to reveal her horribly blackened and mutilated claws. 'It were to no avail, me little ones was already perished when I pulled them from that ghastly inferno!'

'Ha! Burnt into two roast piglets, eh?' Ikey snorted.

Mary ignored this cruel remark. 'I lost me billet as a laundry maid 'cause of me 'ands and being burned an' all and not even a sovereign from the master of the 'ouse to send me on me way!'

At this point Ikey waved his hands, fluttering them above his head as though he wished to hear no more.

'Enough! I 'ave no need for a laundry maid 'ere, missus. Be off with you, at once, you will get no charity from me!'

'No, sir, you are mistaken,' Mary hastily exclaimed. 'I want no charity. I 'ave come to apply for the position as clerk, the same as what you was lettin' out you wanted, a clerk well acquainted with all manner of bookkeepin'.'

Ikey's face took on a look of bewildered amazement.

'A clerk? You come 'ere to offer your services as me clerk? A woman and a laundry maid is a clerk? 'Ave you gone completely barmy, missus?' Ikey thumped the side of his head with the butt of his hand. 'Bah! This is quite beyond knowing or supposing!' He made a dismissive gesture towards Mary. 'Go away, I'm a busy man. Be off with you at once, you 'ave already taken up too much of me time. Shoo, shoo, shoo!' He made as though to move towards the door.

Mary took the abacus from where she had placed it on the table. 'Please, a moment, sir, Mr Solomon! I 'ave a gift with the Chinee abacus, sir.' She held the abacus up in front of her. 'A most extraordinary gift what will make you very rich, sir!'

'Rich? That thing? A Chinee… why, it be nothin' but a bit of wire and beads! Coloured beads! What manner o' trickery is this? Beads and laundry maids and 'anky panky, roasted twins and drownings, gifts and very rich! Bah! Go! Be off with you at once!'

'Please, sir, I beseech and implore you. I ask for no charity, not a brass razoo, only for a test.' Mary appealed to Ikey with her eyes. 'Me abacus, that is, me beads and wire, against your astonishin' and well-known and altogether marvellous way with numbers. Ways what people talk about in wonderment.' Mary gulped. 'While I know a poor clerk like me 'asn't got no chance against such as your good self, it's a fair chance I'm a better bet than most men who count themselves clerks.' Then she added, 'And I am trustworthy, most trustworthy and not known to the beaks, you 'ave me word on that, sir!'

'Ha!' Ikey barked. 'Trustworthy by your own word! I am the King o' Spain and the Chief Justice by my own word!'

'No, sir, but the Prince o' Fences and known chiefly for just dealin' by the admiring word o' others,' Mary said quickly.

Ikey, despite himself, was impressed with this quick wit. He knew himself to be a positive wizard with numbers and calculations, and enjoyed the flattery, though he knew it to be false. Ikey's heart had never so much as skipped a beat in the vaguest general consideration of charity or goodwill or justice, not ever, not even once since he'd been an urchin selling lemons on the streets of Whitechapel. Though he didn't believe a word of Mary's tale, even had it been true it would have drawn no emotion from him. Mutilation was so common in his experience that he hadn't even flinched at the sight of Mary's grotesque hands. Children being consumed by fire was a nightly occurrence as soon as the weather turned cold. The scar on her face told him all he needed to know about her. Moreover, it annoyed him that Mary had shown not the slightest sagacity in the concocting of the story she told. The least he would have expected from her was a letter from a screever, slightly worn and faded and perhaps even somewhat tearstained, purporting to come from the captain of the vessel from which her imagined husband had been swept overboard and to testify to this tragic event. Such a document would be readily available for a shilling or two from any forger, a fundamental requirement if the slightest degree of deception was to be practised. In Ikey's opinion Mary clearly lacked the most elementary criminal mind and he could waste no further time with her. The contest of numbers, an absurdity of course, was a quick way to be rid of her, to send her packing, for good and all.

'Bah! Beads and wire against me! Impossible, my dear, quite, quite absurd, ridiculous, improper and impossible!'

Mary sensed from this outburst that Ikey's curiosity had been roused and, besides, his voice was somewhat mollified. She smiled, a nice, demure smile.

'Announce me any five numbers in any number of digits in any combination of multiplication, division, addition and subtraction you please,' Mary challenged. 'If I best you in this purpose, then I pray you listen to me plea for a position as your clerk.'

'And what if I best you, me dear? What will you give me?' Ikey liked the idea of a challenge and the ferret grin appeared upon his face.

Mary smiled and her pale countenance was momentarily most pleasantly transformed, for she had an even smile that would light up her face and cause her lovely green eyes to dance, though this was beyond the ability of Ikey to notice. Po-faced once more, Mary stooped to lift the hems of her skirt and the two dirty calico petticoats beneath to just above her thighs. What Ikey witnessed was a pair of shapely legs quite unencumbered.

'It is all I 'ave to give, but I know meself clean, sir,' she said, trying to imagine herself a respectable though destitute widow so that her words carried sufficient pathos.

'Ha! Clean by your own word! Trustworthy by your own word! Bah! Not good enough for the master o' the 'ouse to pay for, but good enough for me, is that it, eh?'

Ikey, who had been standing in front of Mary now moved over to his clerk's desk. He removed the ledger from it and placed it on the ground, then reaching for a piece of paper from a small stack placed beside where the ledger had been he laid it squarely in the centre of the desk-top. Then he fumbled briefly within the recesses of his coat and produced a pair of spectacles which he took some time to arrange about his nose and hook behind his large hairy ears. Then he removed the coat and hung it upon the coat-stand.

The absence of his coat made Ikey look decidedly strange, as though he had been partly skinned or plucked. Mary was surprised at how tiny he appeared standing in his dirty embroidered waist-coat and coarse woollen undershirt beneath. It was almost as though Ikey wore the heavily padded great coat, which stretched down to touch the uppers of his snouted boots giving the effect of a much larger man, to conceal from the world his diminutive size. That he should choose to remove it now so that he could more rapidly move his arms to write indicated to Mary that he had taken her challenge seriously. Or, otherwise thought so little of her presence that he cared nothing for her opinion of his physical stature or the rank, ripe cheesy odour which came from his tiny body as he climbed upon the stool and hunched over his desk.

Ikey glanced scornfully at Mary over his spectacles as he took up his quill.

'You shall 'ave your challenge, my dear, and if you win, which I very much doubt, I shall make enquiries as to your past.' Ikey paused and shrugged his shoulders. 'If you pass you shall 'ave your billet, you 'ave me word for it.'

Mary laughed. 'And your word, it is to be trusted and mine is not, sir?'

Ikey did not reply, nor even look up, but he liked the point and the boldness it took to make it. He turned away from Mary's direction and briefly rubbed the tip of the quill with his thumb and forefinger, testing its sharpness, whereupon he dipped it into an inkwell and dabbed its point on the blotter which lay beside it.

'But if you lose…' Ikey looked down at the area of her skirt, now once again concealing her legs, and pointed the tip of his goose quill at its hemline. 'Lift, my dear, lift, lift, a little 'igher if you please!'

As Mary's skirts rose slowly to her thighs, she tried desperately to remember some past incident of embarrassment so that she would appear to flush with modesty. Instead she felt herself growing angry and fought to contain her temper while her face remained impassive. 'Now turn around, my dear, right around, that's it! Now lift, 'igher… Ah!' Mary now stood with her back to Ikey. 'That will do very nicely, my dear,' his voice grown suddenly hoarse. 'You may turn around again, though keep your skirt raised if you please.'

Mary's face was a deep purple as she beat back her rising anger. The display of her buttocks and now her cunny did not dismay her, it was the feeling of complete powerlessness which angered her. She was at Ikey's mercy. The billet he was empowered to give her could mean the beginning of a new life for her, but if he summarily dismissed her, she felt certain that she would not survive. She dropped her hands from her skirts and did not look directly at Ikey for fear her eyes might betray her anger.

'Ah, you 'ave done well to flush, my dear. A touch of modesty is most becoming in a laundry woman, even in a poor widow what 'as lost 'er darlin'

'usband and precious little ones, the one in water, the terrible stormy briny and t'others in a roastin' pit, the crackle o' hell itself!' Ikey paused and smiled his ferret smile. 'Perhaps you will make a modest clerk, a very modest clerk, so modest as not to be a clerk at all but altogether something else, eh? What do you say, my dear?'

'I shall be most pleased if you would give me your calculation, sir,' Mary said quietly. She kept her eyes averted, fearing that should she glance up she might lose control and spoil her chance to take him on at calculations.

Ikey leaned backwards in the high chair showing a surprisingly large erection through his tightly pulled breeches. He was most gratified at this unexpected event. He could not remember when he'd been so encouraged by a woman's display of immodesty, especially a woman such as the one who stood before him. Women and sex seldom entered his mind. He had thought simply to humiliate Mary and to erode her confidence before the contest by showing her he knew her to be a whore, yet she had stirred a part in him so seldom stirred that he had almost forgotten that it was possessed of a secondary purpose beyond pissing.

Ikey looked down at his swelling breeches with some approval, then looked up at Mary with a mixture of pleasure and fear. If anything, this woman, with her ridiculous contraption of wire and beads, had gained the upper hand and he knew he must do something at once to regain the advantage. The thought of losing to her caused an immediate diminishing within his breeches, but upon his becoming aware of this, the perverse monster came alive again, pushing hard against the cotton of his breeches.

Ikey concentrated desperately and cast his thoughts to embrace his wife Hannah, an act of mental flagellation which was at once sufficient to damp down the unaccustomed fire that burned in the region of his crotch.

Waving the goose feather quill in an expansive gesture above his head, Ikey announced to Mary, 'If you should lose, do not despair, my dear. Mrs Solomon, a woman of a most benign nature and generous heart, who 'erself is an expert on,' Ikey coughed lightly, '… er, figures… is in need of someone capable of your very well-presented, ah, hum… figurations'

Ikey moved forward, leaning both his elbows on the desk so that the area of his loins was concealed. His bony shoulders were hunched up above his ears to make him look like an Indian vulture bird. 'You will do very nicely, my dear, very nicely indeed, my wife will be most pleased to make your acquaintance!' Ikey felt immediately better for knowing what Hannah might do to the woman who stood before him should she lose to him.

Mary remained silent nor did she change her expression, though she was acquainted with Hannah's vile reputation and Ikey's insidious suggestions were not lost on her.

'I shall need a surface upon which to place down me abacus,' was all she said in reply.

Ikey motioned her to a small table and chair and Mary seated herself, placing the brightly beaded abacus at the required distance in front of her. Her voice was hardly above a whisper. 'I am ready please, sir.'

'Mmph!' Ikey said in a tight voice. 'Ready you may be, but beat me you shan't, not now, not never and not likely!'

It is a matter of history how Ikey threw all sorts of mathematical computations at Mary and before he could properly ink his quill her flying fingers sped the coloured beads this way and that to find the answer. This she announced in a steady voice free of emotion, fearing to upset Ikey if she appeared too bold and forward with her triumph over him.

She need not have feared, for had she whispered the answers in a voice most demure and modest she would have upset Ikey no less. He soon grew furious and, it being in his nature to cheat, attempted to grab back the advantage by trying to think ahead the total of the sum before announcing it. Yet Mary bested him, beat him on every occasion, until finally he was forced to concede defeat. This he did with the utmost bad temper, claiming a headache, a blunt quill and the mix of blacking ink in his pot not to his usual liking.

'You 'ave won the first round, my dear,' he finally mumbled without grace. 'The second test remains.'

Mary held her gaze steady as Ikey continued. 'Now we shall 'ear of your past, my dear, for the position of my clerk is one requiring great trust and I shall want to know that your background is spotless, blameless and pure as churchyard snow.'

Mary knew the game was up. The hideous little man was playing with her. She now realised that he'd been playing with her from the beginning, though she felt sure she'd caught him by surprise with the abacus. Why, she now asked herself, had she not simply told him the circumstances of her life? Why would her feigning of respectability, a widow fallen upon hard times, have influenced this odious creature? Perchance he would have preferred the real story of her descent into debauchery and whoring. It was much more the world he knew and understood.

Mary could feel her temper rising, the heat of her anger suffusing her entire body. She rose without haste from where she was seated and, taking up her abacus from the table, moved in slow, deliberate steps towards where Ikey sat smiling triumphantly at the counting desk. She came to a halt in front of the desk and it seemed that she was about to beg him for his mercy, but instead she lifted the abacus above her head and swung it as hard as she might at the grinning little fence. The abacus caught him on the side of the head and sent him sprawling from the high chair onto the floor. Ikey's spectacles launched from his head and landed with a clatter in the corner behind him.

'You can keep your poxy job, you bastard!' she cried. 'Fuck you!'

'No, no! Please! Don't 'it me! Please, no violence! I beg you, missus! Anythin', take anythin', but don't beat me!' Whereupon he began to sob loudly.

'You shit!' she said disgusted, though the anger had already gone half out of her voice as she looked at the pathetic, whimpering weasel cowering at her feet.

Ikey, sensing the danger was over, let go of her leg. He scrambled frantically to his haunches and with his arms propelled himself backwards into a corner. He sat down hard upon his spectacles which promptly broke and pierced through his breeches and cut into his scrawny bum.

'Ouch! Fuck!' he yelled, then lifting his arse he felt frantically at the damaged area and his hand came away with blood on the tips of his fingers. He looked down at his bloody paw, his expression incredulous. 'Blood! Oh, oh, I shall faint! Blood!' he sobbed. 'I shall bleed to death!'

Mary moved towards him, the abacus raised above her shoulders ready to strike him again. Ikey, sobbing, pulled up his knees and covered his head with his arms.

'No, no! I'll pay you! Don't 'urt me! For Gawd's sake, I beg you! Don't 'it a poor man what's bleedin' to death!' Ikey, cringing in the corner with his arms about his head, waited for the blow to come.

'Get up, you gormless lump!' Mary snapped.

Ikey scrambled hurriedly to his feet, sniffing and sobbing, snot-nosed and flushed with fright. Mary grabbed him by his scrawny neck and steered him towards the counting desk, bending him over it so that his arms hung over the front and his head lay upon its writing surface. Then she placed the abacus on the floor beside the desk.

'Now be a man and don't cry while I remove the glass from your arse,' she laughed.

It was at that precise moment, crouched with his bleeding bum facing her and his miserable head face downwards on the desk that Ikey knew for certain he was deeply and profoundly in love for the first and only time in his life.