The Rag Nymph (aka The Forester Girl)

by Catherine Cookson

  As she looked at Millie rocking herself slightly like a little old woman getting a child to sleep, she thought, If I were to tell her her mother has died, she would likely think it was the same way as her father had, whichever way that was, which wasn’t real dead. So what am I to do?

  Her answer came at seven o’clock that evening. She heard Ben come into the market room, but when the kitchen door did not immediately open, she went over to it and saw him throwing off a wet sack that he had been wearing over his head and shoulders like a cape. And when he bent to take off his boots, she said, ‘You’re wringin’.’

  ‘What d’you expect?’ he said, without looking at her. ‘D’you think I walk between the drops?’

  ‘Take off your pants.’

  ‘Me pants can stay where they are…Is she upstairs?’

  ‘No. Come right in and close the door.’

  Inside the room he wiped his face and neck with a piece of old towelling. Then he said, ‘The decision’s been made for you.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘She hung herself.’

  He straightened up, and they stood looking at each other. Then Aggie turned and looked around her before making her way to an upturned box, saying, ‘Oh, dear God! No!’

  ‘It’s the best way, I think.’

  ‘Oh, shut up! How did it happen?’

  ‘By puttin’ a rope round her neck.’

  ‘By God! If you joke about this I’ll put a rope round your neck.’

  ‘I wasn’t meanin’ to joke, Aggie. It just comes out with me. You know it does. I’m sorry…I’m sorry for the lass: she’s past feeling anything now. And it wasn’t the rope, it was a pair of fancy stockin’s that they dish out, so I was told.’

  ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘Last night. And I’ll tell you something more: it would have been hidden up, as many another’s been, an’ she would have been dumped somewhere, or found in the canal, but one of the lasses that found her had a screaming fit and ran out into the street, went barmy, they said, yelling, “She’s hung herself! She’s hung herself!” Well, the pollis was brought, naturally, and they took the body away to the workhouse mortuary. And you know what happens from there, she’ll be dumped in a common grave: there’ll be no pious words said over her, her being a suicide. But the other thing. Apparently, when the pollis went back this morning he found the house empty, bare, absolutely stripped, and Slim Boswell and the lasses gone, and every stick of furniture just vanished, the lot. It’s happened before, the midnight flits. But that was a biggish house, ten rooms or more, so I heard. Slim’ll surface again, though, never fear. You see, he knew if they had taken him in and it was proved he had been using her, or, as a little bird told me, he had got her ready for shipment, they would have surely sent him along the line this time, and stripped the house of all his fine pieces. And that’s another thing I heard: it wasn’t only bairns and young lasses he collected, but furniture and foreign crockery, mostly from China, they say. Oh, he had taste in his own way. But my God! When I think what that lass must have gone through before doin’ that, I could spew.’ And then he added, ‘I was talking to one of Big Joe’s bouncers and it was his opinion that she got wind of what was to happen, before they had time to give her a dose, likely. He seemed pleased that Slim had disappeared from the district ’cos Big Joe was never for tradin’ in bairns. Huh!’ He tossed his head. ‘You wouldn’t believe it, Aggie, but he talked as if Big Joe, being above that kind of thing, could be classed as a caring, honest man. People are funny, aren’t they?’

  She looked up at him, saying, ‘That’s enough for now. You talk as much as she does.’ Then added, with a little concern, ‘Go inside and get yourself warmed.’

  ‘I’m not cold, not now. Anyway, you’ll keep her if you can, won’t you?’

  She paused and allowed her gaze to wander round the room before she said, ‘I hate the authorities and their bits of paper.’

  ‘Well, far better that. And do it now rather than them pounce on you later and accuse you of hidin’ her. I’m sure your friend will put a good word in for you,’ which brought from her the sharp retort: ‘Yes, he will! There’s good and bad in every quarter, and he’s a good bobby. He’s been kind to me.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve repaid him: you’ve opened his eyes to things that’ve been under his nose, and he couldn’t see the wood for the trees. Oh, you’ve repaid him.’

  ‘Huh,’ she said, and then smiled faintly as she said, ‘odd, you know: you tell me that Annie’s a good woman, and I suppose she is, but I can’t stand the sight of her; then I tell you the constable’s a good man, and you know he is, and you can’t stand the sight of him. Funny, isn’t it?’

  ‘Aye, Aggie, it’s funny.’ And he was about to add, ‘But you know as well as I do there’s a reason in both cases,’ but instead, he said, ‘Well, well! Now I’ll go and join the new permanent member of the family. I suppose I can look upon her as a younger sister?’

  ‘That you can’t, because I’m mother to neither of you.’

  He had been about to open the door into the kitchen, but now he turned and looked at her, and his next words cut her to the bone as they were apt to do when they spat the truth at her. ‘And for that you’re to be pitied, Aggie.’

  PART TWO

  The Nursemaid

  One

  Millie stood by the pony’s head, stroking its muzzle while she talked to it, saying, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll soon be home, laddie, then you’ll have your tea. I could do with my tea an’ all.’

  Two years ago she would not have said ‘an’ all’, but ‘too’. However, many things had happened during the two years since she had been told that her mother had died of the fever and that, prior to this, she had not been allowed to see her in case she should catch it and spread it further. And it wasn’t until she had knelt by the heap of earth that signified her mother’s unconsecrated grave that she had stopped crying. It was as if she had accepted the fact that her mother had gone out of her life and that her future lay with this big fat woman, who alternately yelled and cajoled, and the nice man called Ben.

  She had been content to stay in the house all day and to try to clean it; but Mrs Aggie had told her she must go to school, at least for part of the day. They both told her that. And so she went out to school every morning, not to the threepenny one run by the Council, nor to the Church of England, but to the penny school run by the Methodists.

  At first she had complained to Aggie, saying they were stupid because they taught nothing but the ABC and counting, and that most of the time was spent singing hymns and listening to stories from the Bible. She remembered, too, how surprised she had been when Ben had said, ‘Well, you can go to the Ragged School and see if you like it there. There’s one thing sure, you won’t have much time to grumble because you’ll be taken up with scratchin’ yourself. And that beautiful hair of yours will walk off your scalp with dickies.’

  Yes indeed, she knew now if she had ever gone to the Ragged School that’s what would have happened. She always felt sorry for the children at the Ragged School and there seemed to be hundreds and hundreds of them. Another funny thing she had had to have explained to her was why some grown-ups would go to the Ragged School at night-time.

  Oh, she knew she had learned a great deal during the last two years; she also knew that a good part of herself was happy, mostly, she thought, because she had come to like Mrs Aggie and living in her house. Of course, she still shouted at her and still grumbled. But she, too, seemed to be learning. She had heard Ben tell her it was about time, too, but almost too late; that was when she had stopped pushing the handcart and bought Laddie and the flat-cart.

  What was more, she’d also got a cover for the couch and some rugs for the hall and a stair-carpet. As for the yard, it had become almost clean over the last two years; it was all paved now. And Ben had painted the front of the house, and the barn doors and such; and the market room had been moved into the barn itself, and that room had been paint
ed, and papered, and odd pieces of furniture put in. She smiled as she recalled that Mrs Aggie had sworn a lot whilst that was being done. But that, too, was the time when Mrs Aggie struck her so hard that she had fallen on her back, and all because she had called Mrs Nelson ‘a bloody cow’. Well, that was Mrs Aggie’s other name for Mrs Nelson. Anyway, Mrs Aggie had been very sorry she had struck her and she had taken her into the town and bought her a real new bonnet, although she would allow her to wear it only on a Sunday. During the week, whenever they were out, she insisted that she roll her hair up and put it under the cap. She liked wearing the cap; it made her feel different, as did the long grey coat that went down to the top of her boots, because then she did not feel like Millie Forester, whose mother and father were dead and had no-one belonging to her, except the fat woman and the man with short legs, but more like a princess who, every now and again, donned strange clothes and went out among the common people, and was kind to them, and yet always remained a princess under the disguise.

  It was during the night that she would conjure up this picture of herself; in the daytime she was practical. That Mrs Aggie no longer went ragging in The Courts but, instead, encouraged the children to bring what rags they had to the yard, there to receive their candy rock, and also the women to come on a Saturday morning to the barn and buy what they wanted, she knew was very wise. She also felt somewhat pleased, feeling that it was better for Mrs Aggie to concentrate her collecting efforts in the nicer part of the town. Ben called it breaking new ground; she herself would have put it ‘widening her scope’.

  She had read the words ‘widen your scope’ in a phrase book. She liked it. But she recalled it was to do with God. All the books that people read were to do with God. Everybody seemed to be praying; except, of course, the children who went to the Ragged School and those who flooded The Courts at the back of the house and round about…But there; she was wrong when she thought that everybody prayed, because Mrs Aggie didn’t pray, nor did Ben, nor his Annie. She liked his Annie, but Mrs Aggie didn’t. She wondered why. Perhaps it was because Annie was thin and not very pretty. But, then, she was nice to talk to, and she was jolly. The last time Ben had taken her there—on the quiet; it was to be a secret—Annie had done the clog dance to Ben’s playing his tin whistle.

  That was another thing that gave her pleasure; to listen to Ben playing his whistle. He could make it sad or gay, or even funny. Ben liked Annie, and Annie liked Ben. But she was older than him. In fact, she was very old; she was twenty-four years old and she worked in the mill and earned eight shillings a week.

  She herself earned a wage. Mrs Aggie gave her a shilling a week, because, as she said, she was her assistant; for there must be someone to hold the horse and look after the cart and see that the children didn’t nick…steal the clothes off it.

  Mrs Aggie was now paying a visit to one of her good houses. She called it a good house, because the maid always kept things for her. Mrs Aggie would give her anything up to a shilling for them. Generally, they were the cast-offs of two children in the house who happened to be about her own age, and this could mean a pretty frock coming her way, but only if, Mrs Aggie said, she kept her nose clean. That was a funny saying, wasn’t it, because her nose was always clean.

  She now turned from the pony and looked towards the side gate, separated from the front gate by a hedge of trees. All the houses along this road had two gates. From where she was standing she couldn’t see the house, but she knew it was big, red-bricked and square. They were all big, red-bricked and square along this road.

  It would be very nice, she told herself, to have a house red-bricked and square with two entrances. Perhaps one day she might live in a house like this. Perhaps, in the years to come, she would get Mrs Aggie to move, but that would only be when she was too old to take the cart out.

  A snort from the pony interrupted her daydreaming; and immediately her slight body stiffened: walking quickly down the road towards her was a man, and even over the distance she knew he was smiling at her.

  She almost jumped forward and darted towards the side entrance, dashed through the gate, up the shrub-bordered path and into the yard where, at a far door, Aggie was standing in the act of handing something to the maid. And they both turned startled faces and looked at her, as she cried, ‘The man! Mrs Aggie. The man! He’s…he’s in the road.’

  Bending and whipping up the wicker basket full of odd garments, Aggie nodded hastily towards the girl, saying, ‘Ta, lass. Ta.’ Then as fast as her legs would carry her, she shambled down the path towards the gate. Outside, she looked up and down the road; then turning to Millie, she said, ‘There’s nobody here now.’

  ‘He was, Mrs Aggie, he was. And…and it was the same man who…who took off my cap that day when he was with the lady, and before that, asking if…if I’d like to see the fair on the green.’

  ‘Get up.’ Aggie pointed to the seat at the front of the cart, and immediately Millie had done so, she gripped the iron frame of the seat, heaved herself onto the first step, then, almost with a lunge, onto the seat; but this time she didn’t say, as she usually did, ‘I’m past this; I’ll sit on the back in future and you’ll take him,’ but she jerked the reins and put the pony into a trot.

  Twenty minutes later, she was driving into the yard. Neither she nor Millie exchanged a word during the journey, evidence of the seriousness of the situation felt by them both.

  Ben was there to help her down, and once on the ground, she said, ‘I want to see you inside.’

  ‘Oh?’ He turned an enquiring gaze upon her as she marched towards the house, but before following her he held out his hands to Millie as she went to jump off the last step, saying now in a low tone, ‘It looks a good enough day’—he pointed to the back of the cart—‘what’s up?’

  She had her head down as she said, ‘That man, the one who frightened me. He was on the road. He was smiling, and I ran to the house and told Mrs Aggie.’

  Even before she was finished speaking he was walking quickly from her towards the house.

  Aggie had taken her hat and coat off and had dropped on to the settle, and as he entered the room she said immediately, ‘Somethin’ will have to be…’ but paused as Millie came in on Ben’s heels, and she nodded towards her saying, ‘Go and take your things off and set the tray.’

  Millie was about to speak, but Aggie barked, ‘Go on! Do as you’re told for once, without opening your mouth.’

  After Millie had flounced away to do her bidding, Aggie said, ‘She came in that yard as white as a sheet. She senses what he’s after: she can’t exactly explain it, but she knows that he could take her away. Something’s got to be done. I can’t keep a stronger tag on her than I do now, almost night and day. I hadn’t left the cart more than five minutes. Oh no, not that!’ She shook her head. ‘The lass had apparently got the bundle ready for me. A nice lot of stuff: a whole man’s outfit an’ all, the granddad had died; an’ there was bairns’ clothes. I gave her half a dollar this time. She was pleased an’ all. But before she could say a word that ’un came rushin’ in.’ She sighed deeply before ending, ‘What’s to be done, Ben?’

  He was standing before her, one arm extended, the hand gripping the mantelpiece, and he said, ‘You can’t keep her here much longer. I’ve told you that before. He or one of his bloody cronies will pick her up. I don’t know how he found out that she belonged to that lass, but find out he has. God help her! She seems to be suitable material for what he wants: her father a murderer and her mother a prostitute.’

  ‘The parson’s wife’s letter didn’t actually say he was a murderer. A man had died through him, that’s what she said.’

  ‘Well, you don’t get twelve years for a busted jaw or a black eye. I thought it odd when you wrote and asked her how it had come about an’ you got no answer. And d’you remember what else you put in the letter? You asked her if she would like to have the bairn, her being a minister’s wife. But no; their Christianity wasn’t goin’ to go that far.�
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  ‘Blast her to hell’s flames!’ And with this interjection Aggie now beat her closed fist against the end of the settle as she added angrily, ‘If she had acted like the friend that she was supposed to be to the mother I wouldn’t be faced with this lot tonight.’

  ‘You could send her away to a school.’

  ‘How could you be sure that he wouldn’t pick her up from there? He could dress up one of his ladies to look respectable an’ make a call.’

  ‘He wouldn’t know where you put her. Anyway, if it was some place like where those sisters are.’

  Aggie was on her feet now. ‘Nuns? No. I’m surprised at your suggestin’ them.’

  ‘I thought it would have appealed to you, bein’ as your friend Fenwick’s one of their ilk.’

  ‘He’s not one of their ilk, not in that way; he’s respectable, an’ there are respectable ones.’

  ‘He’s a Catholic, nevertheless. And it surprises me that they took him into the Force, ’cos he’s made no secret of it an’ you know yourself how they’re thought about.’

  ‘Aye, I do, by the Protestants, the Baptists, the Methodists, the Temperance-ites, an’ every other bloody one of the ranters. But I didn’t think you were among them.’

  ‘Oh, me? You know me, I run with the hare an’ hunt with the hounds: I’d suck up to the devil himself for a penny.’

  ‘Oh, shut your mouth an’ talk serious about what we’re goin’ to do.’

  ‘Well, I’ll talk serious. You’ve got to get her away from here if you don’t want her to end up where her mother was; an’ the best place, as I see it, is a closed school, an’ there’s not a closer one, I should imagine, than the one under them sisters. Now don’t let your hair rise. You asked me advice an’ I’m givin’ it to you. I get around, as you know; I’ve seen all the schools, right from the ragged one, the penny, the tuppence, the threepence, right up to the fourpence a week one. I’ve seen the type of bairns that go in and out of them. And I’ll tell you something else. I’ve heard mothers enquiring why their little daughter hasn’t come home. Even little boys have gone missing. There’s a racket goin’ on, Aggie; but you know as well as me it’s been goin’ on for years. Probably always has done. But the middle class an’ the upper lot don’t seem to recognise it goes on, not until lately anyway, when one or two ladies seem to be trying to get somethin’ done about it. As far as I understand from the gossip there’s nothing’ll come out of it by goin’ to the pollis; it’s got to come from Parliament. They’ve got to make a law, like, an’ them that break it…well’—he drew in his breath noisily—‘I would like to see them swing.’ He turned abruptly away now, saying, ‘Take my advice, Aggie, get her into a closed school.’