The Rag Nymph

by Catherine Cookson

  'No. No, thank you. I... I must return as quickly as possible.' He smiled at the shorter man, adding,

  'I have a job to do. As you know, I'm bailiff to Mr Crane-Boulder.' He gave this last piece of information in turning towards Aggie; and, still addressing her, he said, 'I would consider it a favour if I could call now and again and bring one or two of my children to see Millie. They would love that.'

  With a forearm Aggie now heaved up her sagging breasts and glanced at Ben, and whatever expression she saw on his countenance, tempered what she now said to the visitor: 'Well, if that's your wish, sir, you'll be welcome. And ... and thank you for bringing her back home.'

  He now walked over to Millie and, taking her hand, he said, 'I'll come and see you soon, and bring the girls and Patrick. If I promise them such a treat it might keep them tolerably quiet for a time.' He pulled a small face at her, and she said, 'Thank you, Mr Quinton. I would like that. Yes, I would like to see the children again. Will you give them my love?'

  And she smiled faintly now as she ended, 'And tell Paddy to keep playing his pipe.'

  'I will. I will.' He straightened up, then turned and looked from Ben to Aggie, saying, 'Goodbye, then.'

  And as Aggie answered, 'Goodbye, sir,' Ben said, 'I will see you out.'

  In the yard Ben demanded, 'What's all this about, sir?' And after taking in a deep breath, William Quinton gave him a brief outline, finishing by saying,

  'That's as much as I know, and from what Bernard ... Mr Thompson told me, he didn't think she had ... well, been touched. You know what I mean?'

  Ben's answer was a growl. 'Yes, I know what you mean. My God! You're telling me that the son of the house tried to... Good God in heaven!'

  'They were very drunk, the young men, and I'm afraid their mother was the instigator of the whole incident. Unfortunately, her drinking is habitual, and nobody is more sorry than my wife and I that all this has happened, because we became very fond of Millie. And my children, well, they adored her. She was like a child with them, yet she could control them.' He nodded his head now while adding, 'In a strange way the other side of her seemed very adult.

  Well, I hope to see you again, Mister... I'm sorry I don't know your actual name. Millie has spoken of you, and often, but by your Christian name.'

  The name's Smith.'

  'Oh, Smith. Well, I think I prefer Ben.'

  Did Ben detect a little slackening of class, a slight condescension? Whatever it was he retorted quickly, The name's Smith.'

  William Quinton's expression changed, and stiffly now he said, 'Well, good day, Mr Smith;' then he mounted the trap and left the yard.

  Ben re-entered the house; but he did not immediately go into the far room, he stood with his hand gripping the back of an old couch and his head bowed to his chest for some minutes before he pushed the door open, there to see Millie with a cup of tea in her hand.

  She looked at him as if she had been waiting for him, and as he approached her, she said, 'Oh, Ben.

  Oh, I'm so pleased to see you again. I've ... I've said to Mrs Aggie that.., that I never want to leave home, leave either of you ever, ever again.'

  'Well, that'll suit us both down to the ground. But

  ... but how you feelin', really?'

  'Not too bad; but I have a headache most of the time. The doctor said it would go if I rested for a week, say.' Then her head drooping and her voice low, she said, 'My dress is ruined, Mrs Aggie,' which brought no harsh retort from Aggie; instead, she put her arm around the thin shoulders and pressed her into her side as she said, 'Who cares about a frock? There'll be another where that came from. If that's

  all that's worryin' you, you can stop. But can you give us the rights of what happened? I mean... '

  Millie raised her head and looked from Aggie to Ben, who was on his hunkers before her, and hesitantly she said, 'I ... I shouldn't have gone dressed like that, but ... but they said it was a party. Yet every one of them was in uniform.'

  'Is that a fact?'

  Ben poked his head towards her. 'All in uniform at a party?'

  'Yes. Except' - she nipped at her lip now before adding - 'the mistress, of course. And ... and I seemed to stick out. And then Mr Thompson, him whose birthday party it had been on the Monday, you know. He was twenty-one. He asked me to dance and we did the polka. He was ... he was very nice; and yet' - again she bit on her lip - 'he is the half-brother of the mistress, they say. But...

  but he's not a bit like her. Then... then they had a quadrille and the master asked me to dance.'

  'The master asked you...?' Aggie's expression was one of disbelief and she drew her head back into her thick shoulders, repeating, 'The master asked you?'

  'Yes. Well, he didn't ask me, he sort of took me into the dance, and ... and he swung me round.

  And I didn't know my petticoat and stockings were showing, but Jane said they were. You know, I've told you about Jane. She has all the dirty jobs, and she was so excited about the party. She told me yesterday when she came to see me that the mistress had been watching from the doorway, and it was after that that she sent for her and me to go along to the study.'

  With a quick movement she thrust her head into the back of the couch and opened her mouth wide, and Ben said, 'It's all right. It's all right. You needn't go on if you don't want to'. It's all right.'

  But she went on haltingly, and told them as much as she could remember, and when she had finished they were both gaping at her. Presently, Aggie said,

  'This Mr Thompson carried you from the house?'

  'Yes; and I understand Mr Winters, the valet, helped him, and they brought me home ... well, I mean, to the Quintons'. And Mr Thompson came the next day to see how I was. He was leaving the house. And Annie said there was a lot of talk about that because he had come for the holidays.'

  She raised her head again and said quietly, 'Oh, you've got no idea how wonderful it is to be home.

  But do you think, Mrs Aggie, I could go and lie down for a time?'

  'Lie down, me dear? You're goin' to bed and you're goin' to stay there for the next few days, as that doctor said. And what's more, I'll have old Partridge come and see you.'

  'Oh, I don't need a doctor, Mrs Aggie.'

  'Leave it to me, girl, to know what you need.

  Anyway, old Partridge has been wantin' to get his foot in this door again for years. The last bill I paid him was sixteen years ago when me father died. Two shillings a visit he charged.

  Daylight robbery. And

  I told him that.' She smiled softly and, holding her hands out to Millie, she drew her gently up from the couch, saying, 'Come away. Come away.'...

  It was the same evening. The yard gates were closed. They'd had their evening meal. Millie was asleep upstairs and Aggie and Ben sat facing each other, Ben with a mug of beer to his side on the settle and Aggie with a glass of gin resting on a shelf to her hand. They had been sitting in silence for some time.

  When Aggie spoke her voice was quiet. 'I know what you're thinkin',' she said. 'It's such as my own thoughts. We did what we thought was best: we sent her away to save her being picked up and from the outcome of what that would mean; yet she walks straight into it; and all arranged by that bitch of a woman. Have you thought what would have happened to her if the men of the house hadn't come in at that moment?'

  'Aye, I've thought what would have happened to her. And aye, me thoughts have just been similar to your own. Well, here she is and here she stays. And she won't get out of me sight if I can help it.'

  'Huh! -And how long d'you think you can keep your eyes on her? She's growing fast.

  The solution for her is

  to be married, that's the only safeguard... '

  She hadn't finished the last word before he sprang to his feet, crying, 'Married? She's only thirteen, woman!'

  She stared at him for a moment and, her voice deceptively quiet now, she said, 'She's near fourteen and she's an old fourteen.'

  'Aye, all right, she's near f
ourteen, but you're marryin' her off.'

  'I'm not marryin' her off now, but in two years'

  time she'll be ready for it, aye, if not before.'

  'What's come over you, woman? You want rid of her?'

  Aggie now heaved herself up and on to the edge of the sofa, and her words were ground out: 'Yes, I want rid of her because she's brought into me life the only happiness that I've ever had. Of course I want rid of her: I want rid of her because I love her; I want rid of her because I won't know a minute's peace until I see her safely married. Yes, I want rid of her.'

  Ben was standing, his feet apart, his arms away from his side, his stance giving the suggestion that he was about to spring; but bending his thick body forward, he said, 'And where do you propose to find her a husband? Someone from The

  Courts? Or are you thinkin' someone from that big house will come riding down and offer to take her off your hands? Say, this Mr Thompson who carried her from the house? You were asking her about him, weren't you? Well, which is it to be?'

  Aggie wriggled herself back on to the couch, and in a subdued tone now, she said, 'I wasn't thinkin'

  of anyone from The Courts or a big house, but somebody in between, like one of those teachers

  you learn from at night.'

  'Oh. Oh, you've had your spies out, have you?'

  'No, I haven't had me spies out. I don't have to; in my business I just keep me ears open, and I hear everything. Rosie Dillon, she's an old customer, her brother apparently is caretaker for that, what do they call it? national school, and for the rooms that are used at night. She said, "I hear your Ben's goin' to school again." You would have told me sometime, I know. Anyway I have it in me mind that one thing she'll be wantin' is to take some kind of learnin'

  again and that it would be safe for her to go to the night class along of you. And you never know who she might meet there, not among the learners, oh no, but one of the teachers, perhaps. And, you know, with her head on her shoulders she could become a teacher herself.'

  'It hasn't taken you long to get it all worked out.'

  'Well, there's a sayin' about desperate needs need desperate measures. And--' She paused, reached out, lifted up her glass, took a sip of the gin, then placed the glass back on the shelf before ending, 'I want to see her settled before I take me last journey, because where would she be then? Any day now I'm likely to hear you're goin' to go off and marry your Annie.'

  'What did you say?'

  'You heard what I said right enough. And I'll add this: it's not before time, the years you've been hangin' on.'

  Walking over to the couch and bending over her, Ben said with emphasis but quietly, 'Get this into your head, Aggie. I'm not gonna marry Annie, sooner or later. She knows that. Right from the beginning she's known that. I can't get it into your head that she's a friend. She's good company, she's good chat. She took notice of me when nobody else did... I mean, as a lass might. How old was I when I first came to your dad? Eight? And she was then sixteen. She seemed grown up to me, but she was kind and she was lonely and lost, like I was. Behind all me chatter there wasn't anybody more lonely an'

  lost than me. I'd known her for more than a year before I came into the yard here, and what you don't know and what I've never said is that she gave me shelter many a night when I would have frozen to death otherwise. She had only one room.

  Her mother was in bed in the corner, had been for years, her body like a balloon. She lay there all day by herself while Annie was at the mill. Each night Annie would dose her with laudanum to keep the pain down, and when she went to sleep she'd let me in and I'd lie on the mat in front of the banked-down fire till early next mornin'. For two winters she did that. An' then her mother died and she let me carry on, sleeping there on the mat, until your dad offered me the room above the stable. And for the first time in me life I had a place of me own.'

  When Aggie's head began to wag and she was about to speak, he held up his hand to silence her, and went on, 'Now that I've started I'll give you the whole story. There were times when, lonely, we

  comforted each other. And I was still a lad, mind; but I told her that I'd never marry anybody and she understood that. She's still nothin' to look at, just skin and bone, mostly; but I had noticed over the last few years that she had started to titivate herself up a bit, and then when she got the chance of moving from The Courts to one of the New Buildings, she took it. It was then I found out the reason. A man she's worked alongside for years in the mill, he's a widower and much older, but he must think something of her for he comes a-courtin', you might say. And I'm happy for her.'

  'My! My! My! But tell me, if that's the case, why you still go along there.'

  'For the simple reason, Aggie, as I've tried to pump into you before, we're friends. We can play cards, we can chatter, we can discuss the gossip of the day. And she's got a lot to gossip about because, as you know, her cousin's the best-known whore on the street. And sometimes she pays a call on her and we have a laugh at her tales.' He paused.

  'Not always, though, because there's some things that happen down on the street that turns even Nancy Pratt's stomach. And, I can tell you, that takes some doing. So there you have it, Aggie, and you've no need to pry any more. But to go back to your ... what the teacher would call, demise, and what would happen to Millie should that come about. There'll always be me here until my demise, which, not knowin' the Lord's intention, deal I'll have a few years ahead of me yet, being but twenty-three.'

  Once more Aggie pulled herself to the edge of the couch and, thrusting her face close to his, she almost spat her next words at him: 'And you expect her to grow up an' to go on livin' here under your ... what? your guardianship? A girl like her, growin' into a woman that'll bring men round her like flies? Oh, be your age, Ben Smith.

  And let me tell you somethin'.' She now thrust her doubled fist into her chest. 'I'm willin' to let her go, and by God! I'm goin' to see that you do the same, because, where she's concerned, your head's not recognising your short legs. I know what's in the back of your mind. I know what all this education business is for. I know what the new overcoat and the high hat is for. Well, all the high hats in the world won't put inches on you, nor smart overcoats see you any other than you are, So, get that into your head, Mr Ben

  Smith.'

  He couldn't speak for a moment; his Adam's apple was jerking up and down in his throat; when he did, his voice was quiet: 'Aggie,' he said, 'I'll never be out of your debt, for I know I owe you what I am today, and never for one minute in all the years I've known you have I ever wished you any harm.

  Just the opposite. Oh, just the opposite. But in this minute I could take me fist and land it between your eyes, not because you've tried to read me mind with less than a man.'

  They stared at each other as they had never done in all their acquaintance; then he turned and went from her.

  PART THREE

  The Cook

  ONE

  From the day Mr Quinton had returned her home and she had entered the kitchen, Millie knew that, although she never wanted to be separated from these two people again, her outlook was changed with regard to her surroundings.

  As the days passed and she filled her time with cooking and cleaning, she knew there was a want in her. Even though she now accompanied Ben to his class on three evenings a week, there was always the nagging question: what was really to become of her? How could she earn a living? At first, she had thought it could be through cooking, only to reject this immediately. Her experience at The Grange had left her with no desire, and a real fear, of ever finding herself in service again.

  Yet, she was faced with the fact that cooking was the only thing at which she was any good. When she had put this to Aggie, Aggie had added, 'And talking. Why don't you think of learning to teach children, like?' To which her answer had been, 'You have to have a special education.' Yet at times, she felt she knew more than Mrs Sponge, who took one of the classes, but then not anything near what her husband,
Mr Sponge, knew. He was a clever man, Mr Sponge, not only with dates and history but about things that went on in the mind. It was he who had said there was a solution to every problem; you only had to sit down and spread your problem out before you, as it were, like cards on a table, then look to see if there was an outlet through any part of the pack that would present a solution to your problem.

  Well, she had thought about it, and she had spread her cards on the table, and most of them pointed out to her that she could make good meat pies, scones, and currant buns. She could also make a very good nourishing stew. Another card pointed out to her that she had a craft at her hands that would enable anyone to start a cook shop. But at the idea of a shop she turned the card face down, as it were.

  Almost immediately another card pointed out that she already lived in a shop. That yard outside was a shop; well, a kind of one dealing with the residue of many trades.

  And the card seemed to jump from the table and confront her with a picture of an absolutely clean yard and, at the open gates, a long wooden bench on which were arrayed her pies, scones, and currant buns. And at the end of the bench, a big kale pot full of hot stew, with herself standing at the other side of the table, dealing with customers.

  But what about customers? Why! the mill workers: most of those who worked at Freeman's passed the gates to reach their particular Court, At six o'clock every night there was a stream of them. And then,

  too, during the day, all types of people were passing up and down the road; although she had to admit they were mostly the ragged, filthy children and those adults emitting the stench of gin and filth, that made the smell rising from the yard seem like that from a herb garden.

  But it was an idea, and who knew, it might in the end lead to something. Although she never wanted to leave either Aggie or Ben, she knew that Aggie, at least, would die sometime, and Ben would likely marry Annie; and although she liked Annie as ...

  a nice little creature, she could not imagine Ben living with her. But then, on further thought, she could not imagine Ben marrying her. What would they talk about? Annie had no conversation. She had noted she could listen, but she didn't talk or discuss anything ... well, not when she was present anyway.