The Wanderers of the Water-Realm

by Alan Lawton

  But she also noticed that the man’s shallow blue eyes did not carry that sharp tell-tale glint of intelligence that invariably suggested an advanced intellect; whilst she knew that it would be dangerous to consider Pasco a fool, she was already convinced that some other person was directing and controlling the growing business empire that bore his name.

  ‘Aye, someone pulls the strings and makes that handsome puppet dance.’ She thought.

  ‘Probably his wife Mildred, or perhaps the draymen are quite right and it’s Albert Pike, the fight promoter who owns the property and keeps a firm grip upon the purse-strings.’

  The wisewoman kept her eye upon Pasco as he threaded his way between the work benches and she turned her body sideways as he approached, giving the young man an ample opportunity to notice and admire the outline of her breasts.

  As she hoped, the man halted before her workstation.

  “You’re new here!” He exclaimed. “I hope that you find the work to your liking?”

  Hetty smiled at him before dropping her gaze.

  “Yes indeed sir.” She replied. “And I wish to express my deepest gratitude for the opportunity to earn my bread. Life can be hard for a poor woman such as myself.”

  Pasco rapped the top of the work bench with his walking stick.

  “In that case woman,” he replied sternly. “See that you carry out your tasks diligently, and continue to obey the commands of your masters and then you can be assured that you will continue to receive our support!”

  Joe Pasco disappeared into the dining room and the wisewoman almost laughed aloud.

  ‘It certainly doesn’t take much to set that young stallion sniffing around a woman’s skirts.’ She thought. ‘Aye and I’ll bet a pound to a shilling that not many days will pass before he tries to get between my thighs. Well, all to the good, I might as well play that young treasure along and see if he leads me to something interesting.’

  Only four days elapsed before Pasco again visited the kitchen, and on this occasion he lingered for a few minutes in the vicinity of Hetty’s work bench; ostensibly testing the quality of a batch of pies that were being prepared to a new recipe, but the wisewoman knew instinctively that her employer was using this task as a pretext for gaining a closer and clearer view of her body. She stretched even further across the top of the work bench, as she kneaded a mound of suet dough, thus tightening the rear of her skirt and further accentuating the curve of her shapely buttocks.

  ‘Take a good look you bloody ram.’ She thought as she stretched out and pummelled the dough. ‘Get yourself good and randy and then let’s see what you try to do about it.’

  Hetty did not have to wait long to discover to result of her womanly ruse, for the following morning, Simister strode across the kitchen and addressed the two women as they toiled at their work bench.

  “See here ladies.” He said. “Mr Pasco has instructed me to offer you both the opportunity to wait-on, part time, in the dining room. You will work in the kitchen in the mornings and relieve some of the dining room staff in the afternoon. You won’t receive any increase in pay, but you will have the chance of gleaning a few tips and the work is also lighter. Well ladies, what do you both say?”

  “Hetty smiled at the young London girl, who appeared to be slightly hesitant.

  “Shall we give it a try?” She asked.

  Marsie’ nodded. “Swore that I would never wait on table again, after toilin’away me childhood working in one of them boarding houses near Brick Lane. Still, it will give us a break from all that washing up, so let’s say… Yes!”

  Mr Simister then instructed the two women to be washed and presentable by a quarter past twelve, and then report to the head waiter who would assign them to their new duties.

  ‘So Pasco thinks enough of me and Marsie’to grace us with a small promotion.’

  The wisewoman pondered, as she returned to making suet dumplings. ‘Yet I wonder if a good tumble is all that he expects in return? Or has he another reason? However, time will tell, of that there can be no doubt!’

  Waiting upon tables in a public dining room was a new experience for Hetty. But Marsie’ nursed her companion through the first few days until she became fully conversant with the work, and she even began to enjoy the interlude from the drudgery of the kitchen.

  The two newcomers, now dressed in clean white linen aprons, had begun their new careers by waiting upon the rows of benches and tables that ran along the rear wall of the dining room and only brought into use when the lunchtime trade was at its frantic height. The normal clientele, Hetty soon discovered, were the young clerks and tellers who worked in the surrounding offices and warehouses. The young men could normally afford to dine in the restaurant once or twice a week, and they were invariably a merry crowd, for a hot beef pudding with vegetables was frequently the high point of their working week.

  A smaller number were senior clerks and various types of commission agents, who dined on a daily basis; whilst a handful of the diners were the sons and close relatives of factory and warehouse owners, residing in the city whilst being taught the skills of management. The latter invariably occupied the best tables and were far more fashionably dressed than their more lowly colleagues who sat upon the rear benches.These privileged diners often ordered expensive none standard items from the kitchen, such as beefsteak, fresh oysters and port wine. Yet even the ones known to be heirs to substantial fortunes had to quit the restaurant in haste when their lunch break drew to a close, for the discipline of the mills and trading houses was strict and extreme punctuality was required of everyone.

  The common clerks, the wisewoman noted, consumed every last morsel of the food placed before them and seldom had a single spare coin to slip under their plates as a tip, but their senior colleagues sometimes deposited a halfpenny before departing the establishment. The well-to-do sons of the mercantile families, by contrast, were often generous to the dining room staff. One lucky waiter was rumoured to have once caught a half sovereign that had been casually flipped in his direction by some extremely generous diner.

  Marsie’ was very adept at loosening the wallets of these young gentlemen. A knowing smile and a few words of her cockney banter often earned her a tip from the young gentlemen. One youthful toff, anxious to gain the approbation of his fellows, once pressed a silver florin into the palm of the London girl’s hand.

  Days passed into weeks and the routine of kitchen and dining room became second nature to the wisewoman.

  One morning, she noticed an old ash tree struggling for life in a corner of the courtyard, was beginning to burst into leaf, and realized that winter was rapidly giving way to spring. She could not help pondering upon the fact that she was making little progress with her inquires into the affairs of Messer’s Pasco and Pike and their associates. Indeed, only one small item of interest had come her way since she had begun working in the dining room. The male waiters, it transpired, were under strict orders to recommend the ‘Cleopatra Music Hall’ as a lively evening venue to any of the young gentlemen who expressed an interest in going out on the town with their friends.

  Yet, even this instruction could well be perfectly above board, for would not Pasco’s various business enterprises be expected to support each other whenever possible? Indeed, no entrepreneur would turn his back on such an opportunity to increase his trade.

  Joe Pasco never spoke to the wisewoman during his subsequent visits to the eating house, yet he still seemed to be sexually attracted by her voluptuous form and Hetty sensed that the young businessman was feasting his eyes upon her whenever he was in her presence.

  On one occasion, the man had reason to pass close behind her as she was clearing away a pile of dirty crockery and she felt his fingers sliding lightly across her buttocks as he brushed past. Pasco then paused momentarily by the door of the restaurant and glanced for a second or two in her direction, but quite long enough for her to reward him with a coy smile, before he averted his gaze and disappeared through the
door of the establishment. However, the entrepreneur made no attempt to cement a closer relationship between them, and the wisewoman began to suspect that Pasco was little more than a rather nervous voyeur. So her scheme to seduce the man and wheedle her way into his confidence was unlikely to succeed. Indeed, as the weeks passed by, Hetty became less sure that her enquires could be advanced by remaining in Pasco’s employment. But her inner-eye warned her to persevere and she resolved to remain at the eating house until late May at the very least. Yet the month of April had not even drawn to a close when Hetty’s occult intuition proved to be correct and a door opened that was destined to lead her into the murky depths of the Manchester underworld.

  On the morning of the last day of April, the two women were called into Mr Simister’s tiny office where the kitchen gaffer was waiting to receive them. He invited them to be seated and poured them two cups of tea from an old china pot. Hetty accepted a cup, but she noticed, at once, that Simister was far from being his stern confident self. In fact, he appeared to be strangely troubled and unhappy.

  “Ladies,” He began. “This morning, I received an urgent message from Mr Pasco, who, as you probably know, owns the Cleopatra public house and Music Hall.

  In the message, he states that the Cleopatra is desperately short of a pair of barmaids and that I am required to hire a horse cab and send you two ladies there without delay!”

  Simister paused for a moment and the wisewoman knew instinctively, that the man was struggling with his conscience.

  “There are many who hold that a place where strong drink is sold is no place for respectable women. And I confess that I am among that number. But ladies, you must either accept Mr Pasco’s orders or leave his service immediately.”

  The kitchen gaffer paused. “If you both decide to leave, then I will give you excellent references and seek to find you alternative employment amongst the members of my chapel congregation. I shall now leave you both for a few minutes and I expect your answer when I return.”

  ‘The man is trying to give us a warning,’ Hetty decided, as Simister left the room, and as openly as he dares, without risking his position and the livelihood of his large family. But the wisewoman knew that she must disregard the kitchen gaffer’s words and enter service at the Cleopatra, if she was to continue with her current line of enquiry.

  ‘Yet what of Marsie’; Hetty thought and she turned and faced her workmate.

  “You know, lass,” she said. “Simister’s quite right about some of those drinking dens; they are no place for a respectable woman to be! Me, I’m going to give it a chance, for I’m fair sick of makin’dumplings. I might get more tips from buttering up drunks than I receive from serving dinners to hard up clerks with empty pockets?

  But you are still young lass! Perhaps you should leave and start a new life as Simister suggests?”

  The London girl laughed loud enough to make the teacups rattle.

  “Bless you for your concern.” She replied. “But I’d sooner serve ale to Old Nick himself, than scrub floors for one of Simister’s stuck-up chapel cronies! No Hetty,

  I’m going along with you for better or worse and that’s the end of the matter!”

  The horse cab deposited the two women on the pavement outside the ‘Cleopatra Music Hall.’ The building occupied a corner position where two streets met and the structure was obviously brand new, for the chimney smoke which begrimed the air of Manchester, had not yet removed the shine from the ornate marble cladding that decorated its facade.

  The hall was closed at this early hour, but the billboards already carried the names of the various artists who would be performing there during the coming week. The Cleopatra public house stood immediately adjacent to the music hall; this was a much older building and its soot blackened exterior stood out in sharp contrast to its newer companion.

  The wisewoman and her friend passed through the glass panelled front door of the public house and gazed across the sea of tables and chairs that occupied the floor of the spacious front saloon. They were also able to make out a long bar, made from polished mahogany running the entire length of the room. This ornate bar, together with the polished glass mirrors, the gleaming brass fittings and the mass of gilded stucco work, suggested that the Cleopatra pub belonged to the huge family of ‘Gin Palaces’ that had sprung up in every industrial city from London to Glasgow.

  It was still early and the handful of customers, who had arrived for a late morning drink, were being attended to by a single bored looking girl who was lounging behind the bar.

  “You’ll be the new ones.” She remarked, hardly sparing them a second glance.

  “Go through the back of the bar and into the rear passageway then knock upon the door marked ‘Office.”

  The newcomers did as they were told and they were ushered into the office by a powerfully built woman of about forty years of age and who stood a good six feet in height. The woman was no classical beauty and her plain features were far from improved by the livid purple scar that ran across her forehead and down her right cheek, until it petered out alongside her heavily squared jaw.

  The woman gave the London girl little more than a cursory glance, but her dark piercing eyes wandered over the wisewoman’s face and form for almost half a minute.

  “So you’re the one they call Hetty! Well, I can make out that you’re much older than your face and figure suggests, you could doubtless give most of the girls who work here a good ten years. But you carry your age well and most of the toffs will take to you as readily as your younger friend here.”

  The scar faced woman treated the two newcomers to an almost malevolent stare.

  “My name is Mrs. Pasco. Mrs. Mildred Pasco and I run this pub and music hall along with my husband Joe. Work hard and obey every order without question and you’ll both do well here. But if you cross me, it will be at your peril!”

  She handed Hetty a room key.

  “The pair of you can take the attic bedroom at the head of the stairs. You may also make free with the dresses that you find in the wardrobe. But be sure that you are both on duty in the saloon bar at six o’clock sharp, tonight.”

  The newcomers were about to leave the office, when a sharp word from Mrs. Pasco halted them on the threshold.

  “A word of warning,” she hissed. “That husband of mine has an over fondness for the ladies and I care not a fig if you let him finger that thing you keep beneath your petticoats. But if I catch him with something else pushed right up yer’skirts, why then I’ll put a scar on yer’faces that will be the twin of the one the brickfield hussies put on me, when I was but a feckless girl. Now get out the pair of you!”

  “Gawd’help us!” The London girl breathed in alarm as the office door closed behind them. “I’d not have a tumble with Joe Pasco, not even for a king’s ransom. Not if it means havin’ yonder battle-axe after me blood and no mistake!”

  At precisely six o’clock upon the same evening, the wisewoman and her companion began working in the saloon bar of the Cleopatra public house. At first, the two women found the complexity of the work bewildering, for they had to tackle the necessary task of memorizing the complex range of alcoholic drinks, which the establishment sold and the accompanying list of prices. Even so, only a few days were needed for them to become fully conversant with the duties expected of them.

  The task of serving pints of beer and measures of spirits to the Cleopatra’s thirsty customers was often hard and hectic, especially in the early evenings when the nearby offices and warehouses were closing for business and the city’s reasonably affluent class of foremen and scribes were free to consume alcoholic beverages in the company of their friends. Yet the work was far less exacting than the grinding toil of the eating house kitchen and the two women were seldom exhausted when the big glazed doors were locked behind the last of the evening’s revellers. In addition, the meals served to the staff were of excellent quality and the attic room, shared by the two women was clean and comfortable. Indeed t
he wisewoman quickly noticed that all of the barmaids who worked in the Cleopatra public house were enjoying a standard of life that would have been the absolute envy of their sisters who toiled in the city’s shops and factories.

  Yet, Hetty noticed that little camaraderie existed between the numerous female employees who worked in the establishment. True, the customers were always greeted with a smile, but the maids only conversed when trade was slack and they seldom attempted to strike up friendships with the other members of the establishment. At first, this strange absence of social intercourse puzzled the wisewoman, but she shrugged the matter off and put it down to the fact that most of the women appeared to be quite new to the City of Manchester and had little in common with each another. However, the reason for this lack of sociability was revealed at the beginning of her third week of employment, when she and her young companion were ordered to leave the bar and report to Mildred Pasco’s office without a moments delay.

  The two women entered the office and were confronted by Joe and Mildred Pasco and two other men who were unknown to them. One of the strangers was a short middle aged man who wore the uniform of a Sergeant in the Manchester Constabulary; whilst the other was a broken nosed individual whose powerful build and cold dark eyes gave him a frighteningly menacing appearance.