treat more sumptuous. It was Mary's first meal free of the shackles, and if it had been a banquet set for a queen it could have not tasted better. Mary washed, the icy mountain water leaving her poor, twisted hands aching with the chill and her face devoid of feeling, then climbed to the top of the rock to spread her mattress roll and blanket.
Mary, who had spent many a dark night alone in some foul corner of a London alley, had never before slept open to the elements. Above her myriad stars frosted the dark sky. Though she felt some trepidation at so much open space, and though it was cold under the thin blanket, she was stirred by a strange feeling of happiness. She was free at last, born again under the crystal stars of the great south land, a child of the green parrots and the great mountain. Somewhere high up in the trees she heard the call of a nightjar and before she fell into an exhausted sleep she determined that in the morning she would once again visit Mr Emmett. She smiled to herself at the thought of the exasperation she would see on his small face, though she knew her benefactor was most fond of her.
As Mary had predicted, Mr Emmett at first professed himself annoyed at her return. 'Mary Abacus, you have twice rejected my charity and now you ask again. I repeat my offer. You may come to work in the government as a clerk. We have a great need for your skill at numbers and ability to write up a ledger, and I shall see that you are treated fairly.'
'Sir, please, I should learn nothing working for the government but the task o' working for the government. There be new settlers coming in greater numbers each year to make their homes on the island and I feel certain there will be abundant opportunity for trade. If I should learn an honest profession, it would be greatly to my advantage. I wants a man's work at clerking and I begs you to make enquiries on my behalf.'
'Mary, you are a woman!' Mr Emmett protested. 'It will be no easy matter to find you a position in any trade as a clerk.' Emmett looked at Mary steadily. 'You see, my dear, even though I trust you, few others would. They would think they take a double risk, both a woman and a convict, it is too much to ask of them. A woman and a convict put to the task of preparing their ledgers would be an abomination!'
Mary sighed. 'Will you not help me then?' She explained how she had been rejected at eight separate places the previous day.
The chief clerk looked at Mary without sympathy. 'Help you? How can I help you? I have tried everything I know to help you! You have rejected my offer to be a clerk with me and then another as a teacher! All that's left for your kind is scrubbing, working in the kitchen or as a washer woman!' He thought for a moment, then added, 'You cannot even work at a market garden as it is forbidden for you to own property.' Then, as if an idea had suddenly occurred to him, Mr Emmett brightened. 'Though perhaps you could rent it. There are plenty here who have property they are too idle to till, your skill with vegetables is well known and your fresh produce will find a ready sale in the markets.' He clapped his hands, delighted that he had solved Mary's problem. 'That's it! I shall make enquiries at once!'
Mary shook her head. 'I am truly grateful, sir, but I have worked as a kitchen maid, lady's maid, laundry maid, and in the Factory as a gardener.' She lifted her crippled hands. 'Me hands won't stand for it and nor will me head.' Mary looked pleadingly at the little man. 'I wants to learn a trade, Mr Emmett! Something to sell what people must have and what uses numbers and me own good sense!'
'And what of your sly grog, will that not profit you handsomely as a trade?' the chief clerk demanded suddenly.
Mary was greatly shocked and began to tremble violently. She was not aware that the chief clerk of the colonial secretary's department had known about the Potato Factory. Fortunately Mr Emmett did not thrust the barb further but waited for her to defend herself. Mary knew not to deny her guilt. Mr Emmett was not a cruel man and he did not listen to idle tittle-tattle. He would have been certain of his information before he sought to employ it against her.
'Sir, that were different,' she stammered. 'I were in the crime class and might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, there weren't nothing to lose.' Mary felt more in control of herself as she continued. 'It were good grog what didn't rot your guts like what's sold elsewhere, even in respectable taverns.'
'My dear, in Hobart Town there are no respectable taverns. Besides, if you had been caught, it might well have caused your sentence to be doubled!' Mr Emmett said sternly, Mary looked appealingly at him. 'I owes you me life, sir. I don't think I could have endured without what you done for me at the orphan school. Now I owes you this too! For keeping stum! I thank you from the bottom o' me heart. Please, sir, I ain't never going back to the Female Factory. I don't want to start me new life as a mistress o' sly grog. I ain't so stupid as not to know that, sooner or later, I'd be caught and sent back to the Factory! I couldn't stand that, honest, I couldn't!'
Mr Emmett sighed. 'I'm most glad to hear that, Mary. I shall make enquiries, though I should not hold out any hopes if I were you.' He paused. 'Remember, I make no promises. You have seen for yourself how difficult it will be to persuade any business to take you on.' Then he added, shaking his head, 'You are a most stubborn woman, Mary Abacus. What will you do now? Have you a place to go?'
Mary remained silent and dropped her eyes.
'Well?'
Mary looked up slowly and smiled. She knew she could not remain camped under the rock. It snowed on the mountain in winter and she would freeze to death. Her green eyes rested on the chief clerk. 'I could tend your garden, sir, and sleep in your potting shed, if you was to give me rations.'
Emmett shook his head slowly. 'You take me to be too soft, Mary Abacus. Perhaps even an old fool to be used by a pretty woman. You refuse to be a market gardener, yet you would tend my garden?'
'Not soft, or a fool, Mr Emmett, but a person what's been wise and kind and most generous beyond anyone I've ever known.' There were tears in Mary's eyes as she said urgently, 'I shall repay your kindness, I swear. The time will come, I know it!' Mary blinked away her tears. 'It would only be a short while, sir. Until your enquiries prove fruitful, which I know they shall. All speak of you with great respect!'
Emmett looked doubtful and Mary hastily added, 'With the season changing, your roses need pruning and there be much clearing to be done so that your plants may catch the weaker winter sun, and your cold weather vegetables are not yet planted nor straw cut for the seed beds against the coming frost.'
'The potting shed?' Mr Emmett hesitated. 'It's not very big. I daresay we could find a corner for you in the servants' quarters.'
Mary laughed. The previous night spent under the stars had been cold but tolerable, and she had woken to a bright autumn morning with the raucous call of parakeets feeding on the nectar of the butter-coloured eucalypt blossom in the trees above her. Mary knew she had spent her last night with dirty snoring bodies squeezed hard against her sides.
But she hesitated, thinking that to object to this arrangement might cause Mr Emmett to decline her proposition altogether. Finally she found herself saying, 'Sir, I ain't got fancy notions about meself, but I ain't no servant ever no more! The potting shed be more than I'm used to. I have no wish to disturb your household. I have a blanket and mattress roll and will be glorious comfy.'
Mr Emmett looked at her in surprise but then a small smile played at the corners of his mouth. 'Very well, Mary, I shall tell cook to issue you with rations.'
Mary, of course, had sufficient money to live comfortably had she wished to siphon off only a small amount from the contents of the clay pot. She could have stayed in one of the numerous cheap boarding houses which took in ticket of leavers, though the idea did not occur to her. Comfort was not a consideration in her life, and the money she had made from the Potato Factory was to be used only to make a new life. Mary was determined she would have a profession. When she'd earned out her ticket of leave and was free, she would start on her own in business. She didn't much care what business except that it should cater for people's essential needs. She would not touch a penny of the five hundred pounds for any other purpose.
Mary could not light a fire in the tiny potting shed so she spread straw over the cold brick floor. At night she stuffed her clothes with newspaper and in this way remained tolerably warm. During the day she worked in Mr Emmett's garden. He would sometimes visit her when he returned home from work in the early evening, and twice he had brought her a glass of fruit punch flavoured with the heavenly taste of fresh apricots. Mary had scarcely wished to accept the delicious concoction for fear that it might corrupt her resolve.
Mr Emmett always came upon her in the same way. As though to dispel any anticipation Mary might have at his approach, he would precede his arrival by shouting the selfsame words. 'Not much luck, my dear. If I may say so, no blasted luck at all!'
