She started as the voice of 'that 'un' said, 'Good morning. I found my own way down. There was no water to wash. There was a basin and a jug in the room but no water. And I've managed to do up two of the buttons at the back, but I can't reach the top two. Would you, please?' As the child turned her back to her, Aggie bent down and buttoned the top
of the dress; then she said, 'You hungry?'
'Not very; but I would like a drink, please. And may I get washed? I should have washed before I put my dress on, you know. But when I see Mama and I tell her, she won't mind.'
Aggie looked down on the child. She said she was seven. As Ben had pointed out last night, his Annie was scurrying between the looms when she was seven, and barefoot. This one had certainly had it soft. And God help her! Whichever way her life was goin' she would never have it soft again, not as she saw it at this present moment.
'There's a pump round the back of the house. Go on out there; Ben'll show you where it is. Ask him to put some water in a bowl, and you can bring it into the scullery. There's soap and a towel there.'
Millie looked at Aggie for a moment before saying quietly, 'Thank you.' Then; as if forced to say something polite, she said, 'I slept very well. It was a nice bed. Thank you,' and turning about, she went out, not running like a child but walking sedately.
A few minutes later she returned with Ben, who was carrying a tin bowl of water. The child was smiling and she looked up at Aggie, saying, 'The pump was funny. It talked the water out; it went gurgle, gurgle, gurgle.' And Ben raised his eyebrows as Aggie looked at him.
When he returned to the room, having left the child in the kitchen, Aggie was pouring some milk into a mug, and she said to him, 'Look at that!
the rain for a long time. By! I'll see that bugger tomorrow mornin' if I have to get up at five, an'
I'll tell him what I've meant to do for a long time; I'll take the can along to the authorities. By God!
I will. That cow would have kicked the pail out of the byre in shame if it had squirted anything
out like that.'
'Oh! Aggie.' His smile was wide. Then changing the subject completely from milk and children to the necessity for a clean yard, he said, 'I know where I can get some broken slabs. I'll only have to pay him a dollar and the cartage, and there'll be enough to cover the rest of the yard. When it's wet it's a mire out there. How about it?'
'Oh, well, yes, if you're afraid to get your feet muddy. Yes, of course, sir. But a dollar, no more.
How many loads would it be?'
'Oh' - he shrugged his broad shoulders - 'two, three. It's heavy stuff, even for a horse. It could be done in half a day; I mean, the cartage.'
'Well--' She went to the fire and ground the kettle on top of the glowing tins, then added, 'As you're takin' over, you'd better see to it.'
'That'll be the day when you allow anybody to take over. Anyway, Aggie--' He sidled close to her and looked into her face, saying, 'That little 'un's got under me skin. If her mother has to do the month, keep her here till she comes out. Will you?'
She jerked herself away from him. 'Not on your life, lad,' she said. 'Not on your life.' Then in a lowered voice, she added, 'What would I do with her in here all day? And when I'm out, take her with me? Her lookin' like that! Then, look at this place.
What is it like? A hovel.'
'Well,' he hissed back at her, 'it needn't look like a hovel, if you'd get off your big fat arse at times and do a bit of scrubbin'.'
Her hand shot out and caught him fully on the side of the face, causing him to wince. Rubbing his cheek, he said, 'It's years since you did that. It struck home that, didn't it? 'cos it was the truth. You're always talking of speaking the truth yourself, aren't you, Aggie? but you can never face up to hearin' it. We'll forget about this now but I'm warnin' you, Aggie, never raise your hand to me again. Never! 'Cos I would die of shame if I retaliated and hit back; and
I would, because I've levelled men almost as big as you before today, and you know it.'
'Is this milk for me?'
They both turned to look at the child. She was pointing to the mug. But Aggie's anger rendering her unable to speak, Ben said, 'Aye, me dear. Drink it up.' And going to the table, he asked, 'Would you like some bread an' drippin'?'
'Yes, please.'
'And there's some bacon there.' He pointed to the plate on which were some slices of cold streaky bacon.
She reached over to look at the bacon before saying, 'No; thank you. I'm not very fond of fat.'
Making a sound in his throat, he turned his head away, then said, 'Funny thing, but neither am I; yet I've had to get used to it;' and on this he went out, leaving Millie looking at the big fat woman and feeling she must make conversation: 'It's a beautiful morning,' she said. 'You have a lot of clothes in the next room. And why are all those heaps of things in the yard? Is it a kind of shop?'
Oh no; she couldn't put up with that, not at this moment; and so, saying, 'Stop your jabber and get on with your breakfast. Then stay put until I come down,' Aggie walked to the door leading to the hall.
In the hall, she stopped and looked about her. 'It needn't look like a hovel,' he had said, 'if you'd get off your big fat arse at times and do a bit of scrubbin'.' She had worked like nobody else for years, right from when she was ten, and before that, hard manual labour. But during these last few years she had felt tired, weary. It was as much as she could do to push the hand-cart and to carry her body around with her. It was too big, too cumbersome. If she could only stop eating. But why should she? Aye, why should she?
Not one of these questions had hit her before. It was since that child had come into the house last night. Was it only last night? My God! It seemed that
she had been here years, and already she had driven a wedge between her and Ben. And Ben was all she had for companionship; those who would have been her so-called friends she wouldn't let over her step, and those she would have liked to call friends wouldn't come near her step. No; she had only Ben, and she had struck him.
She must get rid of that child.
She stood at the back of the dingy room, the child close by her side, and she listened to the clerk calling out the offences - soliciting was a common phrase, but once he said 'Procuring of men' - and she noticed that the Justice hardly raised his head: 'One pound or one month. One pound or one month. One pound or one month.'
He had seen them all before. They mightn't have a pound between them but he knew it would be paid. Big Joe would see to that, or one of his cronies. But he raised his eyes and then his head when the last one stood before him. He hadn't
seen her before.
'Soliciting ... she was known to have men at her house and was seen to stop them in the street.
Constables Walton and Makepeace apprehended her.' Et cetera, the et cetera going on to explain that she had been taken to the hospital and there examined by Doctor Bright in the presence of Constable Makepeace.
What Aggie didn't know about the ways of loose women, prostitutes, and pimps wasn't worth learning, but it was a business and she believed that everybody should mind their own business. Only one thing she drew the line at and that was when the prostitution took up bairns. She couldn't stand that.
Until now her knowledge had come from conversation and confidences and such; she had never
before been in a morning court and listened to the proceedings.
From this distance, and her being among the other women, the child had not recognised her mother, but when the sentence was passed, 'One pound or one month', and the woman turned about and the child saw her face, a cry escaped her, and she was about to spring forward when Aggie pulled her tight against her leg and, bending down, hissed at her, 'Quiet! Be quiet!' only for the child to hiss back, 'That is Mama. What is going to happen to... ?'
'Shut up! Shut up!'
Gripping the child's arm, Aggie pulled her from the room and through into a hall and there she stood waiting, for she guessed that the women lined up like
felons against the wall would now be led out to pay their fines at the desk in the corner, or be taken through the door back to the cells. She was not surprised that most of them were laughing and giggling.
Two men were standing near the main door. One was a big man with a bullet head and a short neck, with shoulders almost as broad as Ben's; but he had height with it, being all of six foot tall, which in itself made him different from most other men, for it was only here and there you would see his like. His companion was a head shorter and he was thin; but a reader of character would have stamped him the more evil of the two.
The women knew that their fines had already been paid, and so, after signing their forms, in most cases by making crosses, they joined the men the while throwing quips at the policemen standing
by the door.
The last in the line was the fair woman. She wrote her name on the form; then, as the wardress motioned her forward, she turned and looked at Aggie and the child, and with a quick gesture she thrust out her hands towards them. But as the child again made to run to her mother Aggie held her firmly and the wardress pushed the woman through a door; even so contriving to keep her head turned towards her child.
The crowd of women and the big man had gone out into the street, but the thin man remained; and he looked from the child towards the closed door before he, too, turned and went out.
'Don't cry. Don't cry.' They were out in the street now and Aggie, for once in her life, stood helpless, knowing not what to do.
'Is Mama wicked?'
'No, no.'
'Then why has she gone away? What has she done? She ... she shouldn't have gone. She loves me. She said she did.'
'Be quiet. Here! dry your eyes.' Aggie took a surprisingly clean man's handkerchief from her pocket
and handed it to Millie.
'Where am I going? Am I to stay with you?'
She couldn't answer.
They were turning the corner at the end of the road when they almost ran into Constable Fenwick, and he greeted them: 'Hello, Aggie.'
She didn't respond in like manner but said, 'She's got a month.'
'Well, it was to be expected. When they go into that business they know what they're doing.'
'Was she really in it?'
'Oh yes; using the house an' all.'
'But Nelson Close is quite a way from here. How did your lot find out?'
'Some Nosey Parker in the house. And then they were thinking of--' he indicated the child with a slight nod. 'But I was surprised at her type; you would think she could have got a job, a decent one somewhere. But then,' he again indicated the child,
'they're a handicap where jobs are concerned, unless you farm them out for the day, or altogether. What you going to do with her?'
Perhaps it was the term 'farm out' that brought the retort: 'Hang on to her until she comes out, I suppose.'
'That's good of you, Aggie. God knows what would happen to her if she was let loose. Slim Boswell would soon do a bit of trade there.'
'He was there this morning with Big Joe.'
'Oh? Well they look after their own. I can stand Big Joe, but not Slim.'
'Then why don't you arrest him?' Her voice was harsh.
'Oh, we do, we do, Aggie. But when you keep the big names supplied with a particular kind of amusement you can always depend on it that the police are found to be in the wrong, or that they are framing an innocent man, or that the children in question are his nieces. And he will produce a sister, or a cousin, or an aunt. My God! I've seen it all. But things are changing, Aggie, things are changing. It'll take time. It'll take time. And it will be women that'll change it. Oh yes, women. There's one or two ladies already shouting their mouths off. And I can tell you something' - he bent towards her - 'their husbands have been warned to gag them, or else. But I know one in question who said, to hell, or words to the effect' - he grinned - 'that he couldn't gag her if he tried. Women have power, you know, Aggie,
if they but knew how to use it. Look at yourself, for instance.'
'You tryin' to be funny?'
'No,' he said, and seriously: 'no, I'm not. There's a good few people around this quarter afraid of you and of what you can do when you open your mouth.
And you have once or twice, haven't you? Anyway, have you any news for me?'
'No, nothing of importance, except I think you want to keep an eye on Billy the welder. He'll go berserk one of these days and murder the lot of them. And the papers will get at you and ask why wasn't something done before. He was mortallious last night, so I bet hardly any of those bairns will be able to move this mornin'. She certainly won't. Oh, somethin' should be done with her. I'm not for the workhouse, you know that, but I think they'd all be better off in there.'
'I'll look into it, Aggie, and I'll have a word with the committee.'
'You might as well spit on it as go to them.'
'All right, all right, yes; but they do the best they can.'
'Maybe; but they're knocking their heads against brick walls when it comes to Billy Middleton.'
'He's not the only one that uses the belt, Aggie.
You know that. And it's part of the Christian doctrine, you know, spare the rod and spoil the child.' And he added somewhat sneeringly, 'Jesus loves little children, they say. Well, He's the only one who seems to, yet He doesn't do much about it. Get a few ranters together and they give you broth if you let them save your soul. But there' he sighed - 'that isn't altogether true. There's Parson Wheatley, you know, over in the Dyke district. He's got a school going. Free, that's something, free, not tuppence, fourpence, or sixpence. And it's true, you know, some of them do charge sixpence a week, I'm bearing. But with the parson, the youngsters do a half day in the mill and a half day at his school, an' you wouldn't believe the difference it's made to those little 'uns. And what's more, his wife has classes at night for women. And it's growing; you just wouldn't believe.'
'Well, that is something,' said Aggie. 'But different from what you hear about the convent; you know, Christ the Saviour's place. They don't take them under a shilling a week, and God knows what they charge when they live in. And of course they don't want any snotty-nosed ones, no. Holy nuns. My God! mean as muck, they are. I've found that out.'
'Now, Aggie.' He laughed at her. 'Don't stamp on the Catholics; else I'll have to run you in for kicking me mother in the face.'
'You a Catholic then, constable?'
'I am, for me sins.'
'I would never have believed it.'
'It's a dark secret, Aggie. An' you know, little pigs have got big ears and this little pig is looking up at me.' He now smiled down into the wet, tearstained face, saying, 'You're going to be all right. Aggie'll look after you. In the meantime, if you would like
to come to church with me next Sunday, it'll be my pleasure.'
'No, by God! She's goin' to no Catholic Mass as long as she's under my care. Good day to you.'
'Good day to you too, Aggie. You're a good woman in spite of the muck.'
Her step slowed and she was about to turn round to voice some rejoinder but continued on, gripping the child's hand hard now and stepping up her walk into almost a trot.
Well, she had saddled herself with something, hadn't she? Dear God! she had. How she was goin' to put up with the wee 'un's fancy talk and fancy ways, she didn't know. And a month was a long time...
Ben said, 'I knew you would keep her.'
'Well, you knew more than me. It was the last intention in me life to saddle meself with her. But I'll tell you this much: she'll have to spend most of her time with you 'cos I couldn't put up with her round me feet all day.'
'Oh, I'll see to her. Don't worry about that. So she got a month? Well, well.'
'Aye, well, well; but I'll tell you, there's one thing I'm sure of an' that's the child will take to the yard quicker than the mother will take to the cells an'
the life she'll be forced to live there. Good God in heaven! Aye.'
Five days later Aggie
felt she could stand no more.
The child never stopped talking, and in that refined voice too. And the questions she asked! She was causing a stir in the yard, too, upsetting some
folks, while making others laugh. She would advise a customer not to have that: it looked too old, or it smelt. One good thing she had done was to point out two women pushing articles up under their coats without paying. Obviously very pleased with herself over this and Aggie's reaction, she then brought it
up so many times that Aggie was eventually forced to yell her into silence.
Aggie was now in the market-room, as they called it, talking in a low voice to Ben. 'I can't stand her and her jabber any more, Ben,' she was saying. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry, lad. Look, take this sovereign and go down to the station. I should have done it at
first; I could have paid it then. It never struck me at the time. If those pimps could pay, I could've paid.
Oh aye, I could've paid the fine. Anyway, take it down. See the sergeant and ask him to let her out.
Of course, it'll take a day to get it settled; but I can put up with that.'
Ben took the coin from her hand, then looked hard at her before he turned abruptly and went out. She stood looking after him for a moment; then
she dropped on to an upturned box, and bending her head into the folds of flesh under her chin, she asked of herself why she had to do this. What was
the matter with her? Was it that the child was too refined and showing up her own shortcomings? Was it that just the sound of her voice grated on her? Was
it that her bright loveliness caused something like a pain in her chest every time she looked at her? Was it that she was getting old and past bothering with children? What was it she was afraid of?
She stopped her questioning, then got up heavily from the box and went into the kitchen.
Well, it was done. This was the last day she'd have to put up with her. And there she was, washing the
bottom panes of the window. She couldn't reach very far, but for as far as she could, the window was clean, bright. The sun was showing a different sheen as its beams passed over a stretch of the stone floor.
The Rag Nymph Page 4