The Rag Nymph (aka The Forester Girl)

by Catherine Cookson

‘Mrs Aggie, please, don’t ever think such a thing. I…I wouldn’t be able to look at him or speak to him ordinarily if I thought he’d imagine that I…Well, it’s as Ben said, sixteen is no age and I’ve never thought about being married. Well, not really. I’ll not marry for years and years. And then it would have to be someone I was at ease with, never anyone like Mr Thompson. Anyway’—her voice was louder now—‘I wouldn’t like the way they live, and they certainly wouldn’t tolerate anybody…well, like me, coming into the family. I know that. Oh, yes, yes, I know that. You’ve just got to listen to Mr Sponge at the school. He was speaking the truth, and that’s why they stopped him teaching. But he just pointed out the gulf there is between them and us, I mean, the middle classes and the working class. And not only just…well, like the people around here, but the artisans…you know, those men with trades whom the middle class still think of as scum. Do you know what? They won’t allow working men on to the station when the gentry’s there because the sight of them might offend their eyes, not until the train is about to go, when they can scramble into the third class, and have to stand up most of the way. Oh, Mrs Aggie! And you think that Mr Thompson…?’

  It was she who now turned about and hurried from the room, leaving Aggie sitting quietly nodding to herself. Then as if she were speaking to someone, she said aloud, ‘Well, we’ll see what we shall see. I hope I live long enough.’

  Two

  It took nine months for Millie’s suggestion to bear fruit in the form of pies at tuppence and fourpence each. Plain scones at a ha’penny each, currant ones at a penny each, or three for tuppence; mutton soup at a penny a ladleful, the implement being of a generous size; peas to be served as required, a ha’penny or a penny a scoop, with the Saturday being the currant teacakes and light pastry squares day, both at a penny each, yet the latter thick enough to be split and hold some form of preserve or a slice of meat.

  But the business had brought with it a disappointment, at least for Millie: there was no chance now of her attending the night school; and although there had been no pressure on Ben to give up his free time, he had done so. One thing, however, he would not do was to accompany her into the adult Sunday School in the Methodist Hall. No; they weren’t going to get him among the ranters, he said.

  Millie was happy; at least she appeared so most of the time. And Aggie was happy, very happy, particularly on a Friday and Saturday night when she reckoned up the takings. But always Millie had to remind her that the cost of the ingredients, and of Ben’s eight shillings and her own wage of five shillings, had to be taken into account before she could say what amount was profit.

  ‘Well, Miss Smarty,’ said Aggie, ‘what d’you make of it tonight?’

  ‘If you give me a few minutes I’ll tell you, but it won’t be as much as you think.’

  ‘Well, there’s seven pounds, four shillings here. How much have we made?’

  ‘You, my dear Mrs Aggie, have made one pound, seventeen shillings and two pence.’

  ‘Well, I suppose I can pay meself, say ten shillin’s, takin’ all in all, so that leaves a profit of one pound, seven shillin’s and tuppence. Well, that isn’t bad. And what we’ve made durin’ the rest of the week, how does that answer?’

  Millie started to scribble on the slate on which she had worked out the accounts, and then after a few minutes she said, ‘Well, altogether the profit for the week looks to have been four pounds, eighteen and sixpence.’

  ‘Not bad, not bad. I would have had to travel the town for nearly three weeks before I touched on that. A little gold mine this, isn’t it? But’—she now put her hand out and touched Millie’s—‘you can’t keep it up, lass. You’re at it from early mornin’ till late at night, except like tonight, when we’ve sold out. And it’s no use talkin’ about gettin’ a two-oven grate in, ’cos you’ve only got one pair of hands, no matter how Ben an’ me help. You’ve got to make the stuff, and you’re gettin’ as thin as a rake where you should be filling out. You’re as flat as a pancake.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Well, if you’re not you’ve got it well hidden, both up your front and in your rear. No, dear, I can’t see you goin’ on like this. In a fortnight’s time you’ll be sixteen; and a great age will have come upon you; and I’m not bein’ funny now either, because then you’ll be really enterin’ womanhood.’

  When a bell clanged she turned round impatiently towards the door, saying, ‘Can’t they see that we are closed? Why he had to go and stick a bell outside, God alone knows.’

  ‘Because,’ Millie put in, laughing now, ‘you complained about them walking practically into the kitchen here after we were closed. That’s why he put the bell outside, Mrs Aggie. Anyway, I’ll go and see who it is.’

  ‘You’ll do nothin’ of the sort. You’ll sit there. You’ve never been off your feet since first thing. An’ the more you sit the more chance there’ll be for you to grow a little bit of shape. Look at me.’ She went out laughing at the joke against herself. And Millie sat back in her chair and closed her eyes for a moment. It was true; she did feel tired. It was also true that in a fortnight’s time she would be sixteen, when Aggie had suggested she would enter into womanhood. But hadn’t she entered that area some time ago? At what stage did one become a woman…? When one lay thinking in the night how wonderful it would be if…if…if, yet had sense enough, when daylight came, to deny every night thought with such terms as, ‘Keep your head on your shoulders’, or ‘Have sense’.

  As if she had been suddenly transported back into the night she saw with a gape of surprise the man who had been in her thoughts. There he was in the flesh, standing by Aggie’s side and smiling at her.

  When she sprang to her feet, she toppled the chair over, and he came rapidly forward and straightened it, saying, ‘I’m so sorry. Were you dozing?’

  Before she could answer, Aggie put in, ‘She’s tired, sir. She’s never off her feet. This business was her idea, but it’s wearin’ her out.’

  ‘Oh, be quiet, Mrs Aggie, and don’t talk nonsense.’ Millie now put her hand out and indicated the settle, saying, ‘Won’t you sit down?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, for a moment or so, but I won’t stay, as I’m putting you out.’

  ‘You’re not. You’re not at all, sir,’ Aggie put in. ‘Can I offer you a drink?’

  ‘No, thank you. I…I had a meal a short while ago, and it was washed down. You understand?’

  Aggie’s head was bobbing now and she was smiling widely as she said, ‘Oh, yes, sir, I understand that all right. It’s a habit of me own. Mine’s called cream of the valley. Eeh!’ She swept her arm towards Millie, saying, ‘Look at us both! Saturday evening and not changed out of our old duds. Well, if I can’t offer you a drink I won’t offer you my conversation, ’cos it wouldn’t be what you would call edifying. But I’ll away and change meself into something better. If you’ll excuse me; I won’t be all that long.’

  Millie made a sign of protest with a half-open mouth and a gesture as if to halt Aggie’s departure; but Aggie was not to be stopped; she was already disappearing through the door leading to the hall.

  As Millie stood staring at him he rose to his feet, saying with a smile, ‘I can’t sit while you stand.’

  ‘Oh.’ As if coming out of the night dream, she turned and lowered herself slowly down on to the couch, and he resumed his seat on the settle.

  ‘How are you? You look tired. As Mrs Winkowski says, you’re working too hard.’

  ‘It’s natural. One is always tired towards the end of the day and Saturday is an especially busy day.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Is the business still going well?’

  ‘Very well indeed.’

  ‘Have…have you ever thought of taking a shop?’

  She looked to the side before she said, ‘Yes. Yes, I have, but that would mean leaving here and Mrs Aggie and Ben.’

  He did not reply saying, ‘Yes, I understand’, but sat staring at her, all the while wondering how she could tolerate these surr
oundings after having, for a time at least, lived in the more refined, even though boisterous, atmosphere of the Quintons’. This room for instance: it was really dreadful. Of course it was a working room, but it was taken up mostly with the couch on which she was sitting and the two tables, one under the window on which were laid out the various flours and substances for her cooking; the other, at which, he imagined, they would have to eat, was also used by her for writing, for on it were sheets of paper and a pencil, besides a slate. And that room which he had just come through; it smelt; not a bad smell, but a stale smell as one would get from old people. And here she was, this beautiful lily-like creature who, besides looking so beautiful, had also a mind, which had been so apparent in the short conversations they’d had previously. God! If only things were different. If only…if only. How often, over the past months, had he said that to himself, whenever the picture of her had sprung like a vision unheralded before his eyes, that picture which had brought him here tonight. How long could he go on and what would she say? ‘You have a birthday soon,’ he said now; ‘I remember you telling me it was in September.’

  ‘Yes. In a fortnight’s time.’

  ‘And then you will be sixteen. Do you feel grown up?’

  She did not answer him immediately, but she was looking him straight in the face across the narrow space when she said, ‘In a way, I can’t remember not feeling grown up. Yet, in another way, I resent the feeling and want to remain, if not a child, then young.’

  He laughed gently, saying, ‘But you are young; and you’re the type of—’ he stopped here, not knowing whether to say lady, or woman, but tactfully substituting, ‘personality that will always retain a youthful freshness right until you are a very old lady like my Aunt Chrissie. Yet—’ He waved his hand now before his face, saying, ‘that was a bad comparison, because although, at sixty-five, she still has that girlish vitality, unfortunately she has become a little troubled in her mind. She lives not so very far away from here in a sweet little house, with an old retainer. I would dearly like you to come and meet her some day.’ To this he added playfully, ‘When you are sixteen and allowed to go out.’

  ‘I’m allowed to go out now, Mr Thompson; no-one stops me.’

  ‘But I’ve never been allowed to take you out, have I?’

  She stiffened slightly as she replied, ‘As yet you have never extended the invitation.’

  He had a nice laugh; what she called a clean laugh.

  ‘This conversation,’ he said, ‘could be taking place in a drawing room with tasselled mantelborders there’—he pointed to the bare wooden mantelpiece, bare except for a pair of brass candlesticks and two ornamental jugs—‘and the windows almost obliterated with heavy brocade drapes, the table with an ivory marquetry top. Oh, and that one’—he laughingly now pointed to the table under the window—‘oh, that one is carved Indian style. And over there’—he indicated the far door—‘is a piano, but you can’t see the top of it because it’s covered with a huge Spanish shawl. And the walls are thick with paintings, all by great painters. Oh yes. And the floor? Well, nothing less than a Brussels carpet for the floor. And under my feet here’—he now tapped his feet on the home-made mat—‘is a bearskin rug, an actual bearskin rug that once kept the poor old bear warm somewhere out in the snows. And you know’—he now leant towards her—‘your reply just suited that room.’

  ‘I don’t know whether to take all that as a compliment or the reverse.’

  Her answer evidently surprised him, and he was definitely nonplussed when she said, ‘Well, you’ve described the drawing room you are used to, so how do you find this in comparison?’

  She watched him blink two or three times, wet his lips and then say softly, ‘I don’t draw comparisons. It was a picture to match your voice at that moment; although, I may add,’ his tone dropped still further, ‘that you would fit admirably into my description.’

  He rose from the seat as if about to come towards her, but at that moment the door opened and Ben entered, to pause, then slowly walk towards the kitchen table.

  ‘Hello, there.’ Bernard Thompson’s voice was light. ‘I…I was just passing and popped in to’—he inclined his head towards Millie—‘to see how our young friend was getting on.’

  ‘Oh, aye. Were you makin’ for The Courts?’

  ‘The Courts?’ It was a puzzled question.

  ‘Aye, the only destination past our gate is to The Courts; you know, Nelson Court and the like.’

  ‘Ben!’ Millie’s voice was quiet. ‘Mr Thompson called in to see me as he has done before; he knows what The Courts are like.’

  ‘Huh! I doubt it. Have you ever been along there…sir?’ The word seemed to come as an afterthought.

  ‘No, I haven’t been along there, but the stench proclaims the condition of the houses.’ Bernard Thompson’s expression was stiff now, as was his tone. ‘And although you might not believe it, I’m well aware of the disparity between one end of this town and the other. In fact, I could say that, in a way, I’m as much concerned as Mr Engels is. And now that I’m part-owner of a mill I shall do my utmost to alleviate the situation wherever possible.’

  He now turned and looked at Millie—his face was flushed—and by way of explanation he said, ‘Mr Crane-Boulder senior, my godfather, died recently and in his will was kind enough to leave me co-owner with his son. So’—he now jerked his head towards Ben—‘whereas before I was somewhat restricted in my efforts, not having anything to do with the mill, I hope now to make some favourable changes, at least where I can within the law.’

  There was silence for a moment before Ben spoke, and the sarcasm in his tone was evident as he said, ‘Aye, of course, within the law. Well, I hope when you count the young ’uns who die between five and ten in your mill that you’ll pop up to London and have a word with Mr Disraeli, or Gladstone, or one of ’em. Of course, they’re all in deep mournin’, aren’t they? Up there and all over, because since Prince Albert died, everybody is in black. Even I’ve read about the piano legs changing their stockin’s to black. One fella dies and, after all, he was just a human bein’ like the rest of us, only he, of course, was brought up with some form of sanitation. But who mourns for those who are thrown into paupers’ graves by the dozen, aye, by the dozen? Or them, too sick to work at nine years old, pushed up the hill to the workhouse from where they can view the stinkin’ river? And…’

  ‘Are you quite finished?’

  ‘No, I could go on; but of course I can’t explain as well as Mr Sponge. Now he’s a teacher along at the Methodist Hall and he’s been educated as much as you, or more, and he’s had first-hand knowledge of both sides of the line. He was born over your side, so he tells us, but that didn’t stop him living in The Courts for a while just to taste their bit of comfort, you know.’

  ‘Ben!’

  ‘Aye, Millie?’ He raised his eyebrows towards her in mock enquiry. ‘You want to stop me tongue? Well, you should know better than that by now. You know, as Mr Sponge has told us, once you start thinkin’ there’s no more rest for you. It’s like a black beetle in a walnut shell; you know, tied on a bairn’s belly to make it cry in order to get sympathy. It nags at you, scratches.’

  ‘Perhaps your instructor, Mr Smith, has not yet come by the axiom that a little learning can be a dangerous thing. Now I will bid you good evening.’

  After inclining his head towards Ben, he now turned to Millie, saying in a most stilted and polite manner, ‘Will you do me the kindness to walk with me to the gate?’

  Millie did not answer, but she rose from the couch and, as she passed Ben, she turned her head and levelled at him a look that held disdain; then, walking forward, she opened the door and led the way through the other room and into the yard; and it wasn’t until they reached the locked gate and she stood staring through the rusty bars that she said, ‘I’m sorry. I…I must apologise.’

  ‘There’s no need. And do you know? I understand how the—’ He was about to say, ‘the fellow’, but went
on, ‘how he feels in more ways than one, believe me. Well now, look at me.’

  She turned slowly and looked into his face, and again it was brought to her notice that he wasn’t all that tall and that her eyes were almost on a level with his; and in his eyes was a look that was bringing into her throat that tight restriction which she could describe as having risen from some place behind her breastbone. It was like a pain.

  ‘I’m sorry I won’t be here to wish you a happy birthday; I’m due in London over the next two or three weeks. There is so much business to be attended to. At another time I might have enjoyed the free hours, after dealing with the business side of my visit, but as our friend’—he turned his head now and looked back across the yard towards the house door—‘so aggressively put it, London is in mourning and is likely to be for some time, as the Queen is so distressed. However, as soon as I return I’m going to come and ask leave of Mrs Winkowski to drive you out to Aunt Chrissie’s little house. I feel sure you will like her, as dithery in all ways as she is. And also, you may be taken with the house. If permission were granted would you be agreeable?’

  The answer was simple: ‘Yes,’ she said; ‘yes, I’d be agreeable.’ And immediately he was comparing it with the reception his proposal would have received had it been offered to any other female of his acquaintance. There would have been a little simpering, a little hesitation and the answer would have been coy, implying how adventurous, if not even naughty it was. But this girl’s answer had been straightforward. There was nothing false about her, nothing frivolous, yet there emanated from her something that was really indescribable, like joy. The only thing he knew was he longed to hold her, and had done, he thought, since the time he had carried her to William’s house. William, too, had sensed the quality in her.

  Thinking of William, he recalled their last conversation, in which he had told him that Raymond had asked if he had heard anything further of the fair child, and had probed him as to where she lived. And William had answered that she used to live in one of The Courts, the unsavoury Courts, but that she had since moved, and he didn’t know where. William was wise. Oh, yes, William was wise. As had been his godfather in leaving the Little Manor to William, together with an acre of freehold land: he had known that once he was gone Raymond would have got rid of him, because there was no love lost between them, for William could never be subservient.