The Rag Nymph (aka The Forester Girl)

by Catherine Cookson

  Millie learned that some of the servants were all right, that they would speak to you, but not Mr Winters the valet, nor the lady’s maid Miss McNeil. The butler neither; he was uppish. But Mr Boswell the first footman, he was all right; well, he would laugh at you at times; but not John Tester, the second one; he was as snotty as a pollis. There were four maids attached to the kitchen and three others on the first floor; and there were four men in the yard, and four gardeners.

  At first Millie was confused with all their names, but through time, and at least twice a week listening to Jane’s chatter, she felt she had come to know the members of the household and their particular jobs. But what she didn’t know, because Jane herself didn’t know, was the layout of the rooms in the house, for although the girl had been in service since she was eight and was now eleven, she had never got past the servants’ hall, and certainly not past the green-baize door that led from the passage into the main hall, not even to receive her yearly pay of fifty-two shillings; for she received this as the rest of the kitchen staff received theirs, from the butler across a table in the servants’ dining room.

  But Jane had high hopes that this year would be different, for, later on, the mistress’ brother, or her half-brother, she explained, was going to have his coming-of-age party, and it would be a big do. And there was a whisper that there would be a special party for the servants, too. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

  Millie felt sorry for Jane, and she told Aggie so on one of her half-days. ‘She’s from the workhouse,’ she said, ‘and so is the bootboy, and they are treated as though they have the plague, by what I can gather. But she’s so grateful for a kind word, and she keeps on about this party that’s going to be held for the mistress’ half-brother. But as far as I can gather, he won’t be of age until next year. Sad, really. I’m so sorry for her.’

  She was sitting on the couch by Aggie’s side, and as she leant her head against the broad forearm, saying, ‘She wasn’t lucky like I was,’ Aggie put her arm around her, and in an unusual show of her feelings said, ‘And I was lucky in my turn to get you, my dear.’ Then she pressed her away and, looking into her face, she asked quietly, ‘D’you know what Ben’s up to?’

  ‘No. What?’

  ‘That’s what I’m askin’ you, lass, ’cos he talks to you on the journey backwards and forwards. So, has he said anything?’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Well, where he goes twice a week in that good suit of his. Now when he drops you off he doesn’t wear it. He’s decently put on, I’ll grant you that; he always has been, even when he’s goin’ down to Annie’s he’s spruced himself up a bit, but this is something different. The night he puts on that suit he doesn’t turn down the road that would lead to her place, but goes on towards the town. So where does he go? And he hasn’t said anything to you?’

  ‘No, Mrs Aggie. No; but it must be somewhere special he goes to, if he puts on that suit.’

  ‘Well, that’s what I think an’ all, lass. I said to him, jokin’, like, “Have you given your lifelong friend the push and taken up with a fancy piece?” And you know what he said to me?’

  Millie shook her head.

  ‘“I shouldn’t be a bit surprised.” That’s what he said: “I shouldn’t be a bit surprised. Stranger things have happened.” And then d’you know what he said?—and he put one of those fancy voices on—“For the first time, Mrs Winkowski,” he said, “you’ve given the right term to the association I have with Miss Annie Blackett.” Eeh! I nearly threw the pan of stew over him, I did.’

  But Millie too was curious as to where Ben would go in his good suit twice a week, and on the journey back to the Quintons’ she asked him bluntly, ‘What are you doing, Ben, going into town twice a week in your new suit?’

  ‘Oh, she’s been at you, has she? I’ve been waiting for it. Well, miss, if I told you, you’d know as much as me, wouldn’t you? Then come Sunday you would tell her on the quiet.’

  ‘Oh no I wouldn’t, not if you didn’t want me to. You know that, Ben.’

  He glanced at her, then said quietly, ‘Well, if I tell you, you’ll laugh; at least you’ll do that.’

  ‘I mightn’t laugh unless it’s funny. Is it something funny?’

  ‘No; I don’t think it’s funny. It’s what I’ve wanted to do for a long time but hadn’t the nerve. But then, I got to thinkin’: there’s you, a bit of a lass, and your head’s full of all kinds of things; and there’s me, ten years older than you, a fully-fledged man, and I know practically nowt. Well, what I mean is, me mind’s workin’ all the time, but it’s goin’ round in circles, like, and the circles are not gettin’ any wider, if you know what I mean. So, I thought: well, there’s many a better man than me started to learn when he was well on in age. And so that’s what I’m doing. I joined the night class.’

  ‘Oh Ben. Oh, I am glad! What made you think I would laugh at you? And as for me having more in my head than you have, that’s silly. I’ve always found you wise.’

  ‘Me, wise?’

  ‘Oh yes. Yes, the things that you say in your summing up of things…and people. But I’m so glad you’re going to night classes. What are you learning?’

  ‘Well—’ He flapped the reins, calling, ‘Gee up there, Laddie!’ and he seemed to ponder a moment before he answered her question: ‘It seemed daft, the first time I went, just listenin’ to the fella readin’ bits from this and that, then askin’ what you thought about it. Well, I wasn’t the only one there that couldn’t tell him what they thought about the Poor Law unions before the Board of Guardians came into bein’. I ask you. But as one bright spark said, the less he knew about the workhouses the happier he would be; he had just come to the class in order to help him get a better job to keep him out of the workhouse. We all laughed at that, and the teacher fella did, too. It sort of broke the ice. Mind, I nearly did say something when he got on about the Public Health Act that had come in in ’48. Eeh! I wanted to say they must have overlooked the mile warren of Courts, where the rats have more space than those livin’ there. But it all makes you think. Well, it’s opened my eyes. But mind, I felt a bit rattled when he said there were good workin’ class houses goin’ up and people wouldn’t go into them because they were used to herding together in lice-ridden hovels. One fella did stand up and go for him, but he told him to go to Boston Lane and there he would see what he had said was true. And you know, Millie, it was, ’cos I went along there meself an’ had a look. They were smallish houses, but neat like, brick built, yet half of them were empty. I wouldn’t have believed it until I saw it.’

  ‘It all sounds interesting, Ben; makes me wish I was there with you.’

  ‘Oh, you are better off where you are, far better off lookin’ after those rips of bairns, as Aggie’s police friend calls them. And one of the lessons was about children, bairns, and the New Act of 1842. According to that, apparently, children shouldn’t be sent to work until they are ten years old. But half the country were up in arms against it: farmers, even parents. I mean the young ’uns’ parents, because they were breadwinners. Of course, they were cheap labour for the factories and the farmers. Well, I’ve always known that. But when you hear it read out to you, an’ you hear of the laws that were passed against it and weren’t carried out, it makes you think. So, there you are, Millie Forester, that’s what I’m doin’ in me good suit twice a week: learnin’. And reading more—when I get the chance.’

  ‘Oh, I am proud of you, Ben. I really am.’ And when he muttered, ‘You must be the only one then,’ she shook his arm, saying, ‘Don’t be silly. I’m not. Mrs Aggie loves you.’

  She waited for the denial, but it wasn’t forthcoming, not even the cocky one that would have come easily to him, ‘Aye, I can’t help it, she can’t help it.’ Instead, he just shouted to the horse, ‘Gee up there!’

  Thinking of Ben going to school, even if it was only a two-hour night class twice a week, set her mind working again on the thought that she, too, would like to go to school.
Yet, she knew she couldn’t have it all ways; and she loved working with the Quinton children, as she did helping Mrs Quinton. In fact, she did most of the cooking now, and she knew that they appreciated her and thought of her in a way as perhaps being different from a servant. Even so, on the three Sundays in the month when the children had their midday meal in the dining room with their parents, she was never asked to sit down with them. And yet they made her feel as if she was one of the family, whereas Nellie Fuller, the coachman’s daughter, who came for two hours every morning, was given no privileges at all. Mrs Quinton was kind to her in that she never shouted at her—but she was never offered a drink or a bun before she left, and her wage was always given directly to her father.

  She was another one Millie was sorry for, and she sometimes sneaked her a currant bun that she had kept over from her own middle-morning break, and which Nellie always accepted and ate without saying a word.

  But it was one morning when she was escorting the children on their mile walk to the church school in the village that she got an idea, and that evening she put it to Mrs Quinton in a very diplomatic way.

  It was Mrs Quinton herself who gave her the opening, saying, ‘I bless that school. They get on so well there, and your reading to them at night has helped considerably, Millie. You know, you yourself could be a teacher.’

  ‘Well, I have high hopes of being one, ma’am…’ The idea had never entered her head. ‘Before I came to look after the children I was going to return to school, and I would like to do that again.’

  Before she got any further, Rose Quinton cried, ‘Oh, no, Millie! No! You couldn’t possibly leave the children, not now. And they love you, they really do, they really love you. You have been able to manage them like no other; in fact, they obey you more than they do me. Oh, Millie, Millie, you’re not thinking of leaving us, are you?’

  ‘Well, I really would like to go to school again, if it was only for half a day.’

  ‘Oh, Millie, Millie. I thought you would be settled here until the children grew up, I really did. You are such a help to me. And we do appreciate you, both Mr Quinton and I. He will be so disappointed.’

  ‘But I am not going right away.’

  ‘No; but you’ve got it in your mind, haven’t you?’

  ‘Well, yes. Yes, I have, but…but there is a way out if…if you really feel that the children would want me to stay.’

  ‘Yes? Yes? What is it; I mean, the way out?’

  ‘Well, if it were possible for me to attend school with the children two or three mornings a week just for half the day, I’d make that do for a time.’

  Rose Quinton seemed to think for a moment, and then she said brightly, ‘Yes. Yes, indeed, Millie, that is an idea. I must speak to Mr Quinton, and he will talk to Mrs Wilkins. She is the teacher, you know, and I’m sure, in a way, you could likely be of help to her with the younger ones. Yes. Yes, I will speak to Mr Quinton as soon as he comes in. That is a way out. And the children would love it and they wouldn’t take advantage of you. Well, you don’t let them, do you?’ She nodded knowingly at Millie before rising and leaving the kitchen, sighing deeply as if with relief.

  So Millie went to school again and life went on very smoothly, and such was the feeling of the family for her, she was given tea in the dining room on her thirteenth birthday.

  And it could be said that life took on a rosy glow for Millie during the months ahead, until the celebrations at The Grange for the coming of age of the mistress’ half-brother Bernard Thompson and the staff party that followed it, changed things entirely.

  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 bootboy, 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 pul
led 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 fullness. 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?’