The clergyman looked up and pointed a stubby finger at Mary. 'I am not mocked saith the Lord!' he shouted.
Oh, Gawd, not another one! Mary thought, casting her mind to the dreadful Potbottom, though outwardly she smiled modestly at the Reverend Smedley. 'I had not meant to mock, sir, my only desire is to teach the word o' man and leave the business o' Gawd to the pulpit men, like yourself.'
'God is not business! God is love! I am the way, the truth and the light saith the Lord! Unthinkable! Quite, quite, unthinkable!' His eyes appeared to narrow and his fat fist banged down upon the desk. 'Unless you are born again we cannot allow you to teach children! How will you show them the way, the truth and the light? How will you example the love of Jesus Christ?'
'Who is teaching them now?' Mary asked, hoping to change the subject.
'They have religious instruction twice each day,' the principal shot back angrily. 'That is quite sufficient for their need.'
'Oh, you have used the Bible to teach them to read and write,' Mary said, remembering this was how the Quaker women had suggested they perform this task on board ship.
'We teach salvation! The love of the Lord Jesus and the redemption of our sins so that we may be washed clean, we do not teach reading and writing here!' the preacher barked. 'These children shall grow up to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, that is the place for which they are destined in the Scriptures. They are no less the sons of Ham than the blacks who hide in the hills and steal our sheep. These orphan children are loved by the Lord, for He loves the sparrow as well as the eagle, the less fortunate as well as the gifted child.'
'Then, with Gawd's permission and your own, I will teach them to be more fortunate, sir. Surely Gawd will see no 'arm in such tinkering?'
Reverend Smedley looked up at Mary who stood with her back directly to the open window so that the light from behind flooded into the tiny room to give her body a halo effect, though, at the same time, it caused her features to darken, so that, to the short-sighted clergyman, she seemed to be a dark, hovering satanic form.
'Tinkering? Permission? God's permission or mine, you shall have neither. You shall have no such thing! You are not saved, you are not clean, you are not born again, you are an unrepentant and dastardly sinner whom I have every right to drive from this temple of the Lord!'
Mary sighed. The worst that could happen to her was that she be sent back to the Female Factory and to the prison gardens and this was no great matter. She was not in the least afraid of the silly little man who yapped at her like an overfed lap dog. Her fear was for the orphan children, for the child she had been herself, for the fact that had it not been for the Chinee contraption of wire and beads she would have remained in darkness. Her fear was that if she were not permitted to teach these orphan children they would grow up to perpetuate the myth that her kind were a lower form of human life, one which was beyond all salvation of the mind and therefore of the spirit.
'What must I do to be saved?' she asked suddenly.
The clergyman looked up surprised. 'Why, you must repent, of course!'
Mary shrugged and raised her eyebrows. 'Then I repent,' she announced simply.
Smedley sat up, suddenly alert. 'That's not proper repenting. You have to be sorry!'
'So, I'm sorry, sir,' Mary sighed. 'Most sorry.'
'Not me! Not sorry to me, to the Lord Jesus! You have to go down on your knees before Him and repent!'
'Repent or say I'm sorry? Which is it to be?' Mary asked.
'It's the same thing!' Thomas Smedley shouted. Then abruptly he stood up and pointed to the floor at Mary's feet, where he obviously expected her to kneel.
'No it ain't! It ain't the same at all,' Mary said, crossing her arms. 'I could be sorry and not repent, but I couldn't repent and not be sorry, know what I mean?'
'On your knees at once. The glory of the Lord is upon us!' the Reverend Smedley demanded and again jabbed a fat, urgent finger towards the bare boards at Mary's feet.
Mary looked about and indeed glory had entered the tiny room. A shaft of pale late afternoon sunlight lit the entire space, turning it to a brilliant gold, and small dust motes danced in the fiery light.
Mary looked directly at the clergyman. 'If I repent, can I teach?' she asked.
'Yes, yes!' Smedley screeched urgently. 'Kneel down! Kneel down at once! His glory be upon us!'
Mary knelt down in front of the desk and the Reverend Smedley came around from his side and placed his fat fist upon her head. 'Shut your eyes and bow your head!' he instructed. Then he began to pray in a loud and sonorous preacher's voice which Mary had not heard before.
'Lord I have brought this poor lost lamb to Thee to ask Thee to forgive her sins, for she wishes to repent and accept Your Glorious salvation and receive life eternal so that she may be clasped to Your glorious bosom and receive Your everlasting love.' There was a silence although it was punctuated several times with a loud sucking of the clergyman's lips as though he were undergoing some mysterious ecstasy. Then suddenly his preacher's voice resumed. 'Thank you precious Jesus. Hallelujah! Praise His precious name!'
Mary felt his hand lift from her head and in a tone of voice somewhat triumphant but more or less returned to its former timbre the Reverend Smedley announced calmly, 'Hallelujah, sister Mary, welcome to the bosom of the Lord Jesus Christ, you are saved, washed in the blood of the Lamb! You may rise now.'
Mary rose to her feet. 'That was quick,' she said brightly. 'When can I start, then?'
The Reverend Smedley smiled benignly. 'You have already started on the journey of your new life. God has forgiven you your sins, you are a born again Christian now, Mary!'
'No, no, not that,' Mary said impatiently. 'When does I start with the brats?'
For a moment the Reverend Thomas Smedley looked deeply hurt, but then decided not to turn this expression into words. He had scored a direct hit with the Lord and saved another sinner from hellfire and he was not about to cruel his satisfaction.
'Why, tomorrow morning. You will be here by eight o'clock and will have fifty pupils.' The Reverend Smedley paused and looked at Mary. 'Though we have no slates, or bell, or even board or chalk and nor shall we get them if I know anything of the government stores!' The irritable edge had returned to his voice.
Mary turned to leave. 'Thank you, sir!' she pronounced carefully. But she could barely contain her excitement and took a deep breath, though she was unable to conceal her delight. 'Thank you, I'm much obliged, sir.' She held her hand out and the Reverend Smedley shuddered and involuntarily drew back, so that Mary's crippled paw was left dangling in the air. Then he scuttled to the safety of his side of the desk and opened the ledger to reveal a letter which had been placed between its covers. He spoke in a brusque voice, attempting to conceal his terror at the sight of Mary's hands.
'It says here in your letter of appointment from the governor that you are to take the noon meal with myself and my sister. Have you learned proper table manners, Miss Abacus?' It was obvious to Mary that the image of her hands at his table was the focus of Smedley's question.
Mary suddenly realised that her appointment to the school was not the decision of the irritable little clergyman at all, but that Mr Emmett had independently secured her position from Colonel Arthur himself. The interview with the Reverend Smedley was simply a formality.
'Blimey, sir, I ain't been born again no more'n two flamin' minutes, I ain't 'ad no time to learn proper Christian manners!' She held up her hands. 'They ain't pretty but they works well enough with a knife and fork and I knows what spoon to use for puddin'.' She turned and took the two steps to the door then turned again and grinned at the preacher. 'See you tomorrow, then!'
Mary had no sooner escaped through the front door than she reached for the Waterloo medal and, clutching it tightly, rushed down the path away from the orphanage. She should have told the fat little bastard to sod off, but her heart wasn't in it. A little way down the road she turned and looked up at the great mountain toweri
ng above the town.
'Thank you,' she said quietly to the huge, round-shouldered mountain, then she threw caution to the winds. 'Thanks a million, rocks and trees and blue skies and Mister oh-so-magic Mountain!' she shouted at the top of her voice. Mary remembered suddenly that yesterday had been her birthday and that she was twenty-nine years old, though for a moment she felt not much older than the children she would begin to teach in the morning.
'Go on, then, send us a nice bright day tomorrow, will you, love?' she shouted again at the mountain. To Mary's left, high above the massive swamp gums, a flock of brilliant green parakeets flew screeching upwards towards the summit of Mount Wellington. 'Tell 'im I want a real beauty! A day to remember!' she yelled at the departing birds. 'Thanks for the luck!'
Chapter Twenty-four
Ikey arrived back in London on the Prince Regent on the 27th of June 1830. He was accompanied on the voyage by the chief constable of Van Diemen's Land who was under instructions from Governor Arthur not to let Ikey out of his sight, even to attend to his needs at the water closet.
On board ship Ikey had set about the task of starving himself and no manner of coaxing could bring him to eat a sufficient amount to sustain normal health. He would go for days on end sipping water alone and then he would add a few spoonfuls of gruel to his diet in order that his frail heart should continue to pump. He seldom spoke to anyone and allowed his hair and beard to grow again so that the former fell to his shoulders and the latter almost to his chest.
If this was intended to make the citizenry of the great metropolis sympathetic towards him, the ploy did not work. In every tavern, dance emporium, club and home London celebrated his capture and the City police took on the mantle of the heroes. It was as if they had hunted their quarry to the ends of the earth and brought him back in chains to face the full retribution of British justice. At no time was any credit accorded to Colonel Arthur. The governor of an obscure convict colony was simply not grand enough for such a prominent capture.
Though retired, Sir Jasper Waterlow travelled up to London to ascertain that it was indeed Ikey Solomon who had been returned, and he was rumoured to have visited him in Newgate to shake his hand.
This time Ikey was placed in a cell in the very centre of Newgate Prison. He was guarded twenty-four hours a day and allowed no visitors except for the barrister, Mr Phillips, whom he had briefed to represent him. He was arraigned at the Old Bailey and charged with seven additional counts of theft on top of the original charge of forging Bank of England five pound notes.
These additional charges had come about when, following Hannah's sentence, the police had observed that Ikey's home in Whitechapel was in the process of being bricked up. They had immediately served a search warrant on Abraham Reuban and thoroughly ransacked every room. They found the trapdoor under Hannah's bed and within it the false ceiling which contained a small fortune in stolen goods. When Abraham Reuban was finally permitted to brick up the windows and doors, only the safe under the pantry floor remained undiscovered.
Eleven days can make a marked difference in the appearance of a man and Ikey still had a sufficient sum to treat himself well in prison and pay for the best legal advice in England. He abandoned his hang dog demeanour and hirsute looks and ordered a new suit of clothes and linen from a tailor, though not from Abraham Reuban, who was not permitted to see him. A gentleman's barber from the Haymarket was brought in to cut his hair and to trim and shape his ragged beard. With ten days of good food in his belly Ikey was much improved in every circumstance but that of hope. When he stood in the dock at the Old Bailey to hear the reading of the indictments against him he was thought by many to be a man of handsome appearance.
The scene of the day of the trial, consequently much exaggerated by Grub Street hacks, is best described by reading from the eminently respectable Morning Post of the following day.
…shortly, after the opening of the Courts, every avenue leading to the New Court, in which the case was appointed for trial, was thronged almost to suffocation. The decided majority of the crowd seeking admittance was evidently the descendants of the patriarchs. As was but naturally expected the utmost anxiety was evidenced on the part of all those of the Jewish persuasion to catch a glimpse of the person and the features of the prisoner. At 8 a.m. the Common Sergeant took his seat on the bench and shortly afterwards Ikey was placed at the bar. In the Newgate Calendar he was described as a dealer and the age given as 45. He did not, however, appear nearly so old. During the time the indictments were read, he frequently and piercingly surveyed the persons in the body of the Court as if he were prepared to find an accuser in everyone his eyes rested upon.
Five of the eight indictments read out in court carried with them capital offences and Ikey, it was supposed, could not bring himself to hope that he might escape them all and so save his neck from the gallows. It was often enough reported that since his arrival in this country he had suffered considerable dejection of the mind, but there was no sign of this in court. When the indictments were completed and the prisoner allowed to answer them he spoke calmly and in a voice devoid of despair.
'Your honour, it is my modest hope that the jury will find me innocent and that under all circumstances His Majesty's Government will be induced to spare my life, and permit me to join my wife and family who are still residing in Van Diemen's Land.'
This little speech, short and sweet, when picked apart seems somewhat confused. It claims his innocence, then asks to be spared the rope under all circumstances so that he be allowed to go free to join his wife and family. It is most doubtful that there existed in court, or anywhere in England, a person unaware of the notorious Hannah Solomon. Yet Ikey spoke of his wife as if she were some contented colonial settler's spouse waiting patiently for her loving husband to return home having been exonerated of all crimes by a just and benign English legal system.
The overcrowded court and the mayhem in the streets outside had delayed proceedings, but Mr Phillips, Ikey's barrister, was crisp on the uptake and the first two charges, neither of which were capital offences, were dealt with in a summary manner. Ikey, who naturally denied everything, was found not guilty by the jury.
Then three of the capital charges were heard and disposed of with equal speed. Thus in the process of one morning five of the charges against Ikey were dismissed. Mr Phillips had proved himself an able defender of his celebrated client and Ikey, standing in the dock, appeared almost nonchalant. He did not evince the slightest pleasure at the 'not guilty' verdict. It was as if he had not been possessed of the smallest doubt as to the outcome of each hearing. Though it was always allowed that the first five cases were weak in point of proof, three of them were also invalidated by the ruling that a person could not be called upon to account for the possession of goods found in his custody three months after they had been stolen.
However, the noose was not yet removed from Ikey's scrawny neck. The court was adjourned to the 12th of July, when the remaining three indictments would be heard. Two of these were capital charges and the evidence available for the prosecution was most compelling. All of London was ablaze with gossip and every tavern and chop house produced any amount of boisterous speculation. Customers with not a scintilla of knowledge of the law turned into street lawyers who waxed more wise with each jug of ale or snifter of brandy. A great deal of money was laid in bets as to whether the eventual outcome would be the rope or the boat. Only the most foolishly optimistic accepted the odds of a hundred to one on Ikey's ability to beat the rap entirely.
When Ikey returned to the Old Bailey the crush of people wishing to get in was even greater than on the first occasion. A near riot occurred when the court attendants attempted to close the doors to the New Court, there being not room enough for a dormouse to squeeze into the public gallery. Ikey was brought back to the bar of the court to face the final three charges against him.
The first charge to be heard, the only one of the three that was not a capital offence, was the one broug
ht against him by the Bank of England and involved the forgery of banknotes of five pounds denomination. Sir Reginald Cunningham, a Scot and a barrister of the highest repute, led the prosecution. He proceeded to lay out in chapter and verse the story of Abraham Van Esselyn who was in partnership and under the influence of the notorious Ikey Solomon. Finally he had shown in evidence the result produced by Ikey and his Belgian partner. Sir Reginald then asked that he might present the two fake five pound notes to the judge together with two of legitimate currency, with the further request that the jury might be allowed to examine them thereafter.
In a dramatic gesture Sir Reginald handed the judge a large magnifying glass and begged him to choose the fake from the real. While the judge examined the banknotes Sir Reginald, in a further dramatic thrust, asked the judge to examine the watermarks on all of the notes, pointing out that they were all identical in nature, the paper used being the very same as was employed by the Treasury. The great barrister paused and waited for complete silence, then he added in a stentorian voice, 'I need hardly remind this court that the theft of paper used in the manufacture of banknotes is a crime against the Crown and the Treasury and therefore punishable by death!'
There was a murmur of astonishment from the public gallery, for in one stroke the Bank of England's case had been turned into a capital crime and Ikey seemed certain to hang.
'I should remind the prosecution that the decision as to whether a crime is a capital offence most fortunately does not rest with the prosecution but with this bench. If it did not I fear that the least of crimes would earn the ultimate sentence!' It was plain that the judge was not pleased with Sir Reginald's final remark. He then caused the notes to be handed to the jury, and it might have been supposed that Ikey had, in the truest sense of the words, finally met his Waterloo. With the exception of his last statement, Sir Reginald appeared not to have put a foot wrong.
The Potato Factory Page 43