SEVEN
During the week before the great event, the growing activity and excitement it was engendering in The Grange itself was also seeping into The Little Manor, and especially was it felt by Millie, who had been given to understand from Mrs Quinton that she would be invited to the staff party, which was to take place the day following the main party, and which Jane had told her was to be held in the big games room.
During one of her collections, Aggie had been given a lady's taffeta dress with a blue silk lining.
The outside of the dress was marked in various places, but the inside of the material looked as good as new, as did the lining. She had taken it to Chinese Charlie and asked him if his wife could turn it into a dress for her Millie. Mrs Charlie was very good at remaking clothes and it was she who suggested that the material would be suitable for a Chinese style of garment. And so that was what was being made for Millie to wear on the great day.
Millie was as excited about the dress as she was about the party itself; but she was anxious, above all, to see the inhabitants of the house; except for the coachman and Ken Atkins, the boot-boy, who
sometimes slipped into the wood with Jane, for what purpose she hadn't yet discovered, nor would allow her mind to guess at, because she liked them both; yes, except for these and, now and again, a gardener, she had seen no other members of the household, for The Little Manor was as separate from The Grange as if it were set in another part of the town. The staff never used the drive that led past The Little Manor, having been ordered not to pass the bailiff's residence. The party was due on the coming Tuesday evening; but this was Saturday, and there was no school on Saturday; and Saturday afternoon was a time for play, inside or outside the house. On this afternoon it was to take place outside the house.
It was a bright but cold day, and Millie had had the children running around in the wood to keep themselves warm, and the game they all liked was to skip behind her the while following Patrick as he played on his whistle.
In and out of the trees they went, and always in this game Millie herself became a child again, dancing and experiencing a particular kind of joy through the exuberance.
It was in this state that Millie emerged from the wood behind the whistle player, followed by the four children, to come to a staggered halt when confronted by the tall lady and the gentleman.
Not having seen the master and mistress of the house, Millie had not imagined what they were like. But she was immediately given their identity by Betty, stumbling over the grass verge and on to the road and dipping her knee and looking from one to the other as she said, 'Master ... Mistress, we were playing.'
Berenice Crane-Boulder stared down on the girl and, her voice belying the slightness of her frame, she said, 'I should have thought you were beyond the playing stage, child. And this girl,' She flicked her fingers towards Millie; then stared hard at her for a good moment before she said, 'Who is she?'
Before Betty could answer, Millie said, 'I am nursemaid to the children and helper to Mrs Quinton, ma'am.'
Both the voice and the manner seemed, for a moment, to deprive the mistress of speech; but only for a moment: assuming further authority, she rose her tone to a bawl and cried at Millie,
'Speak when you're spoken to, girl! Apparently your training has been neglected.' Then looking at Betty again, she said, 'Tell your mother I wish to see her at ten o'clock tomorrow morning in my office.'
'Berenice.' It was the master speaking now; but his wife, seeming not to hear, looked at Patrick, saying, 'Boy! go to the stables and tell the men a wheel of the carriage needs attention. Away with you!'
Millie watched the lady now walk away, the rustle of her voluminous skirts making a swishing sound, as if she were walking through dried leaves; and she imagined her to be a bird about to fly,
for the feathers in her hat protruded from the back like wings.
The tall man was now patting Betty's head and saying, 'It is nice to play. One's never too old to play,' and the child, wide-eyed and smiling, said,
'Thank you, master. Thank you, master,' dipping her knee with each statement. Then he turned and looked at Millie before taking two steps towards her and saying, 'You like to dance?'
'Yes, sir.'
'How old are you?'
'Thirteen, sir.'
'Thirteen. It is a very nice age. Your ... your dancing was so energetic, it has caused your cap to go awry.' And he put out his hand and pulled the small starched cap from where it had slipped almost to the back of her head and behind her ear, and bringing it into place again, he said, 'You have beautiful hair.'
As his hand touched her cheek her head moved back just the slightest, and she looked up into his face. It was a thin face, but with a kindly expression. She remembered Jane telling her he was thin. His eyes were brown, the nose pointed; his top lip, too, was thin, but the lower pouted a little in its fulness. And when he smiled as he did now widely, he showed a mouthful of gleaming teeth.
There then came a diversion, for Florrie's plump legs had seemingly given way beneath her and she sat down with a plop on the grass verge, saying,
'Oh, dear me,' which caused the children to titter, and the master to turn to Millie again and say, 'You have worn her out.'
Without answering the man, Millie picked up Florrie, slightly inclined her head in acknowledgement towards the man, and turned away to go
into the wood again, and one after the other the children dipped a knee to the master and then ran after her.
Chattering among themselves they entered the house, and Daisy, quickly preceding the rest, ran into the sitting-room to her mother and father. Rose was sitting on the couch, William Quinton was at a table to the side, writing a report, and she cried at them, 'We saw the master and mistress! and the master straightened Millie's cap.'
Her father stopped his writing to say, 'What are you talking about, child?'
The rest of the family were now trotting into the room, and he looked from one to the other and Betty repeated Daisy's statement: 'We saw the master and mistress, Dada. The mistress was in a tear. She wants to see you in the morning, Mama, at ten o'clock in her office.'
The husband and wife exchanged glances; then William said, 'Where did you see them?'
'Just along the road.'
'On our drive?' He was on his feet now.
'Yes; the carriage had broken down. It must have been outside the gates at the bottom. She went for Millie, but the master was nice.
He straightened her
cap and patted her face.'
Rose was quickly on her feet, saying, 'He straightened Millie's cap? Why?'
'Well, we had been dancing through the wood and the jigging must have loosened the hair pins and it had fallen to the side and he straightened it and patted her cheek. And he talked to her.'
William again exchanged a quick glance with his wife; then looking down on his family, he said,
'You're all getting too big for jigging and dancing through the wood, especially you, Betty, and you, Daisy. And Paddy, I'm going to burn that whistle of yours. And what's more, Millie should have more sense.'
Patrick now said, 'If you did, Dada, I'd just make another. Taggard showed me how to whittle one.'
William spread his arms now, saying dramatically,
'What kind of a family am I rearing?' Then looking at his wife, he said, 'What kind of a family are you bringing up, woman, when my son defies me and my daughters act like abandoned females, dancing in a woodland? ... Robert! you take that grin off your face before it is wiped off.'
When Robert rubbed his hand all over his face, leaving his expression tight-lipped, the children all burst out laughing, bringing the immediate command from their father, 'Get yourselves away, everyone of you! Out of my sight!' And they scampered from the room, leaving their parents looking at each other. And then William said a strange thing:' I don't want to believe it,' he said, and his wife answered just as enigmatically, 'Perhaps it's because she's a dreadful woman.'
Aggie and Ben stood back and looked silently at the slim young creature standing before them in a blue brocade dress with its tiny stand-up collar and a sash waist, and at the skirt flowing down to the top of her black leather shoes. The sleeves were wide, and when Millie lifted her arms and swung round, it was evident that right down to the cuffs they were attached to the dress itself.
'Did you ever see anything so lovely as that frock in all your days?'
'Well, all I can say is, Charlie's wife's made a good job of it.'
'My! she has that. I knew it was a piece of good stuff when I first got the dress, but I never thought it would make up like that.'
'But look who's wearin' it, Aggie. Look who's wearin' it.'
'Oh' - Aggie tossed her head - 'that kind of frock would make anybody look good.' But her words were accompanied by a grin; and then she added,
'But you'll have to do something with your hair, lass. You can't leave it loose like that.'
'Oh, Mrs Quinton said she will gather it for me into a special kind of bun at the back.'
'She seems a nice woman, that Mrs Quinton.'
'She is nice, Mrs Aggie. Oh, yes, she is nice. And she's young.., well, I mean she's had six children but she's still young somehow, in spite of being
twenty-nine.'
'Twenty-nine?' Aggie and Ben looked at each other, and Ben repeated solemnly, 'Twenty-nine.
She's practically ready for the grave.'
'Oh, you! Ben. You know what I mean. But isn't it lovely?' She stroked her hands down the skirt. 'I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life. Oh, thank you, Mrs Aggie. Thank you.'
When she threw herself on Aggie, Aggie pushed her away, crying, 'Look! It's ... it's been steamed and pressed and cost me a pretty penny, I can tell you; hail a dollar from beginning to end. So don't muck it up.'
'Oh.' Millie now gently caught at the two hands that were half extended towards her as she said, 'Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you. You know, you're wonderful, and you can't stop me saying thank you.
And you know what? I told the children a story about you the other day. I keep them quiet at night telling them stories. Anyway, I was in the middle of this one and there wasn't a sound, and I think that's why Mrs Quinton came upstairs. She sat on the side of Betty's bed and listened, and afterwards, when we had gone downstairs, she said to me, '"That was a lovely story. It was about Mrs Winkowski, wasn't it?" '
'Oh, God in heaven!' Aggie went into her flouncing attitude, and as she turned away she glanced at Ben, saying, 'Did you ever! What'll we hear next?
She'll be in one of those ranters' chapels telling the tale, and praisin' God while she bangs the bairns'
heads together.'
As Aggie disappeared through the doorway and Ben, his body shaking with controlled laughter, was about to say something, Millie put in sadly, 'You can't thank her, can you? She won't take thanks.'
'Aw, me dear.' Ben went over to her and put his arm around her shoulder, only to withdraw it quickly, saying, 'Eeh my! I mustn't touch you, not with that on. But that's her way. If she had stayed a minute longer she would have been blubbing her eyes out. Don't you realise, me dear, that for her you're the sun that rises an' the moon that sets an'
all that goes on in between.'
Millie was smiling at him now: 'That was nice,' she said. 'Who's it by? Did you read it somewhere?'
'No! No! I didn't. It came out of me own thinkin'.' 'Really? The sun that rises and the moon that sets
and all that goes on in between... That says it all, Ben.' And now she added, 'You're still liking the night classes?'
'Aye. Yes, I'm still liking them and still havin'
me say. Most of them are scared to death to open their mouths in case they'll be stopped coming to the classes. I've told them that wouldn't happen.
And anyway there are other teaching places round about now. It's catchin' on. In my mind, though, they're going wrong in one direction: they're not making us write enough. They read to us and get us to read bits back; but it's all snatches, if you know what I mean. This week he's gone back to 47, dealing with the Corn Laws, you know, and
how some of the big blokes were scuppered when the corn dropped from a hundred and twenty-four shillings a quarter to forty-nine and six within a few months. Poor people benefited, but sympathy seemed to go to the corn dealers and the bill brokers because they were ruined. And not afore time, I said.
From then, apparently, the trade began to boom. But here we are at the end of the fifties, and are we much better off? There were all those who scarpered to the gold dig, gin's in California and Australia. Have we heard of any of them making their fortunes? A lot of them died, that's known. Bill Watson's brother, for instance. And, you know, Bill didn't even know until nine months later. All this talk of prosperity gets up my bloody nose, 'cos while there's a lot gettin' on in the world there's a lot more dying of poverty and muck. And a sevenpenny loaf! That's certainly not saving them in Ireland dropping dead by the hundred. Eeh! there's a place for you.
'One teacher said a golden era has dawned on all the Northern Counties, and right up to Scotland, and even into Wales. You know, Millie' - he sat down heavily on the settle - 'I'm in another world when I'm in that room listening to that fella. Sometimes there's a woman teacher. Oh aye, there're women teachers an' all. But they get me a bit mesmerised, and I think, yes, things are gettin' better, aye, they must be; and then I walk half a mile back here to The Courts and I say to meself, what's up with you, Ben Smith, Jones, or Robinson? They haven't skimmed the skin off the top of the watery milk yet. And you know what I think, Millie,-I mean, who's the cause of most of this muck and filth in The Courts? It's the Irish. The teacher said their poverty over there was caused by religion and ignorance and she said we might think there were some bad slums here, but they were nothing compared to those in Belfast and such places. Well, I said to her after, you want to come down to Belling Court, not five minutes down the road from where I live. That's what I said to her. They've brought over their pigs and muck; the
place's full of 'em. There's fourteen living in one of the cellars there and they've got pigs in with them an' all, I believe. And of course, what'd 'they do?
They
work for practically nowt, and if the bosses can get cheap labour like that they're not going to pay an Englishman a decent wage, are they? Oh, Millie' he
shook his head from side to side now - 'I wish I was learned.'
'Well' - she laughed at him - 'you're going the right way about it. And you're telling me things I never knew. I'd like to go to those classes.'
'Oh, you'd have to grow up first.'
'I am grown up.' She was indignant. 'I'm coming on fourteen.'
'Aye, coming.' He rose from the seat, saying,
'Well, I'm off for a dander.'
'May I come with you?'
'No, you can't, not where I dander. And anyway you'd better get out of that frock if you want it to be fresh for the party.'
'You always go for a dander on Sunday. Where do you go?'
'Oh, different places. Talk to different people.
It's amazing how on a Sunday places change from their week-day look, and people an' all. They talk differently; they come out with things differently. Oh, you learn a lot on a dander. '
He now gave her a form of salute with his fingers to his forehead, then went out.
But the door had
hardly closed on him when Aggie came back into the room, saying, 'I would get out of that if you don't want it crushed to bits and the hem soiled. As you've likely noticed, miss, this floor isn't as clean as it used to be when you were here.'
'Well, I can clean it.'
'You'll do no such thing. It suits me. So, get out of that frock. And where's his lordship gone? Oh, need I ask? His Sunday dander. And he's gettin' too big for his boots by half.'
'He's a good man, Mrs Aggie, and you know that.'
'Look, am I to take that frock off you?'
&nb
sp; Millie now hurried from the room and upstairs, where she changed into her Sunday dress; then she folded the beautiful garment and laid it in between two sheets of paper ready for its journey back to her happy place of work.
When she again returned to the kitchen Aggie said,
'Come and sit down a minute and tell me about the gentry you ran into yesterday. What's this I hear about the big master straightenin' your cap?'
'Ben told you?'
'Well, use that napper that's supposed to be bright; how otherwise would I be speaking about it now?'
'Well, if he told you word for word, and that's what he likely would do, there's nothing more I can say. That's what happened: he straightened my cap, patted my cheek and smiled.'
'What kind of a man was he?'
'He was tall and had a nice face and seemed kind. But his wife sounded a bit of a terror. I understand she drinks.'
'So do I, in moderation.'
'Well, I think she doesn't know about moderation.
From what I can gather from Jane and from what she picks up with her big ears from the kitchen jabber, there's skull and hair flying in that house at times.'
'And that's where you're goin' on Tuesday night?'
'Yes, Mrs Winkowski, that's where I'm going on Tuesday night, and I'm looking forward to it.'
Aggie turned to gaze into the fire, saying softly,
'You'll move away from us and this quarter, like he's doin'.'
'What do you mean, move away? Look here.' She pulled at Aggie's arm. 'I'll never grow away from you. You know that. As for Ben, to say that about him, that's unfair.'
Aggie sighed, then said, 'I know the secret that's between you. I found out some time ago. I made it me business to find out, anyway. He's goin' to school, isn't he? At his age, goin' to school!'
'Well, I thought you would have been proud of him.'
'Education, lass, is all right in its place for them that needs it, if you're goin' to do something with it, if it means your livelihood or some such, but otherwise what does it do? It just stirs the mind and never brings pleasure, because the more you know the more you realise you don't know, an' so you go on probin'. Change doesn't do anybody any good.
The Rag Nymph Page 13