The Rag Nymph (aka The Forester Girl)

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘You didn’t go in that place? They would have set their bullies on you.’

  ‘I didn’t need to’—he laughed—‘there’s a big glass window and you can see the bar through it, but not the eatin’ place. They tell me it’s very plush behind there. Anyway, one of the ladies came out of the door an’ spies this handsome fella, not over-tall, but standing glancin’ through the window, and she comes up to him and says, “Good evening, sir. This is a good meat house, an’ would you…?” Ben stopped and chuckled deeply before going on, ‘Then I turned to her and said, “Not at the present moment, Nellie, but I wouldn’t mind some other time.” And she pushed me an’ said, “Oh, Ben! Ben Smith, Jones or Robinson…”Aye she did, she gave me me full title. Then she asked what I was doin’ there, and so I asked her if she knew of a new fella, a waiter, in there called Forester.

  ‘“Oh aye,” she said. She knew him all right and who he was. And then, to use her own words, Aggie, she said, “He says he’s father of Raggie Aggie’s darlin’ fair nymph over in the woods.” She said he was somethin’ of a big-mouth an’ he liked his duckie and the more he drank the more his mouth opened. And something else she said.’ Ben paused here, nodding his head. ‘And Aggie, this sets the seal on him for me, because he’d told them he hasn’t turned up before because he’s been to sea and was stranded with some shipmates on some foreign coast. Can you believe it? Well, apparently they do, they’ve swallowed it, at least some of them; but not Nellie. You know what she said? “He may be her father but I think the faraway foreign coast where he was stranded was some clink or other. The first time I saw him,” she said, “I noticed he had a pallor on him that spoke of the clink, an’ you don’t get that unless you’re stranded on that particular shore for a long time.” And then she asked me what I thought. I said I thought along of her. And then she asked me to walk along with her because, as she said, laughing, in her business they don’t stand about. Lie, aye, but not stand. She’s a good ’un really, you know.’ He now grinned at Aggie. ‘Then you know what? She walked as far as Bale Street, Aggie. They’re not small houses, an’ that street’s on the fringe of respectability. Anyway, the first three, she said, belonged to Boswell; in fact, the end one was where she and the lasses are apparently housed. There are six of his specials. But the other two…well, by then it was getting dark and I couldn’t see her face when she was speakin’. There was enough in her voice, though, to tell me that she wasn’t quite in favour of what they were used for. She said they were kept for special customers. Known as guests, relations or visitors. As she laughingly said, nature had to have its way, and one way or other it did: rich men havin’ strange pastimes had to be provided for.’

  He drained his glass of the gin, then said, ‘I was daft enough to ask her why she stayed on the game, for, after all, she’s been picked up by the coppers more times than I’ve got fingers an’ toes. And, from what I’ve heard, there’s no gentle examination by the police doctors. You know, Aggie, she can’t be thirty…well, she might just be that. But the answer she gave me dried up me mouth: “I started young, Ben,” she said, “even before I was made into a woman. You understand what I mean? So, after twenty years in the business, you haven’t any time to learn anythin’ else.” And Aggie, I knew she wasn’t laughing then.’

  Aggie made no comment for some time; and then she asked practically, ‘Did you give her anything?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I did. I…I slipped her half a dollar.’

  ‘Oh, half a dollar! That was generous. Enough for two and a half tries.’

  ‘You’ve a mucky mind, Aggie. But anyway, I know this, an’ we can both be grateful for it, it’s good to know somebody workin’ on the inside of that lot.’

  ‘Huh! Don’t bank on it, lad. They don’t give their own away; they know if they did, they would wake up in a gully somewhere. Look at the young lad who stood as witness against Big Joe. He was supposed to’ve hung himself. Well, if he did, it was because he decided he was for it in any case an’ he might as well do it himself. So don’t bank on any help from Nellie Pratt, or go soft in the head ’cos she relates her life story to you. I’ve got little time for any of them; an’ less for them that live off them. But I don’t like what you tell me about that fella workin’ in Reilly’s, although it does fit in with him somehow.’ She now pulled herself up from the couch, saying, ‘Well, here’s one off to her bed. I’ll let you out. I hate Sundays. There’s something about Sundays; they’re weary days. I’ll be glad when the mornin’ comes.’ She paused as she was opening the back door and, turning and looking at him in the dim light from the candle lantern hanging from a nail in the wide wall, she said, ‘But can you understand him breedin’ her?’

  ‘No, Aggie. No, I can’t. But it’s been known afore that a pip from a rotten apple can start a good tree. Goodnight to you.’

  ‘Goodnight, lad.’

  She bolted the door top and bottom, then took the lantern from the nail and went back into the kitchen, where she turned down the wick of the oil lamp. As she pulled herself wearily up the stairs with the aid of the banister, she thought, She must get married. She must get married. We’ve got to get her married; and he’s there ready and waitin’.

  Five

  Millie’s birthday came and passed without much fuss. Aggie gave her an envelope in which there were two sovereigns: enough, she said, to get her a new coat and bonnet; only to feel outdone in her generosity when, after breakfast, Ben went back to his room and returned with a box, a fancy box with stripes on the lid and tied with a brown cord; and Millie, in some excitement, opened it to reveal a really beautiful large, pale blue, silk shawl with motifs of flowers worked in each corner and edged with a deep fringe, and she held it up, saying in genuine amazement, ‘Oh, Ben. It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.’

  ‘Well, it’s for a bonny lass.’

  ‘Look, Mrs Aggie, look.’

  ‘Aye, I’m lookin’.’ Aggie now turned to Ben, saying, ‘You must have travelled a bit up to the top end to come across that.’

  ‘And…and it must have cost…oh…oh…’ Millie shook her head, then impulsively rushed at Ben and placed her lips against his. It was the first time she had ever kissed him. She had, on occasions, hugged him, and on occasions he had held her when aiming to soothe her crying, but never before had she touched even his cheek in a kiss.

  His arms hanging limply by his sides, he made no attempt to return the embrace; but when she drew herself back from him, saying, ‘I’ll treasure it all my life; and when I’m very old I’ll still wear it,’ he managed to gain a little of his composure and say, ‘Well, it’ll likely be in shreds by then.’

  After the excitement of the shawl the day was to pass as any other: there was baking to be done, the customers to be seen to, then more baking to be done; and then the short sit round the fire, and so to bed…

  It should happen on a Saturday and into the fourth week of her seventeenth year that they should have three male visitors, and none had come to buy any pies or pastries.

  The first was Sergeant Fenwick. He’d had to ring the bell because the gates were never opened now until half past eleven of a morning, and after the long table had been set out.

  It was Ben who answered the ring and greeted the sergeant with a joke, saying, ‘I know nothin’ about the diamonds, the pearls, or the tiara,’ and assuming a very stiff countenance, the sergeant kept it up by saying, ‘Well, my man, if you don’t, then nobody does. So, until you get your memory back I think you’d better come along with me, because we must find that tiara.’

  For the first time in their acquaintance they exchanged a laugh. And now Sergeant Fenwick said, ‘Where is she?’ and Ben answered, with a jerk of his thumb, ‘She’s over in the barn there.’

  ‘Is Millie with her?’

  ‘No. She’s indoors, cookin’ as usual.’

  ‘Well, from all accounts I hear she’s good at that.’ They were walking towards the barn door now and as they entered, the sergeant said, �
�Pity she hasn’t a shop. She’d do well in a shop.’

  ‘Who’d do well in a shop?’

  ‘Your ward, Mrs Winkowski, your ward. With the proper help and the proper settin’ she’d make a go of it.’

  ‘She has the proper help. What’s the matter with us two?’

  The sergeant looked from one to the other. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t know where to start on that question,’ he answered, and he shivered, saying, ‘It’s freezin’ in here.’

  ‘Yes, I know it is,’ responded Aggie; ‘and that’s what you call an asset to the business because it keeps the food fresh…Well, have you come to tell us anything?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, quite a bit, Aggie, quite a bit. But I can only give you the bare details. Part of what that fellow said was true; he was a butler and his wife was a lady’s maid. But she wasn’t his wife at the time the jewellery went missin’.’ He turned now and cast a laughing glance at Ben, saying, ‘I think it must have been that tiara you seem to know about.’

  ‘What’s that? What tiara are you talkin’ about?’

  ‘It’s a joke, Aggie. It’s a joke. Your assistant here has a sense of humour. I’ve always known that, but I haven’t experienced much of it until this mornin’. Anyway, there was this jewellery missin’. The fella denied takin’ it and the family didn’t bring a case against him; it seems he was the son of an old retainer who had recently died. But the lady’s maid believed in the fella’s innocence, and so she left with him and they got married. But not havin’ a reference, it was difficult for him to find work. Eventually he must have succeeded, because he became a shopwalker. He also became enamoured of one of the women on the staff; and apparently she wasn’t the first. Her husband, so it appears, was on a boat trading between the Tyne and London. It was a rough passage and could take anything from two weeks to two months, all depending on the weather and the blockages in the river. Anyway, the crux of the matter is he must have returned one day and found the two of them together, and he sets about him with the definite intention of killing him, as the scar on his face shows. But our man must have been stronger for he managed to relieve the outraged husband of the knife and stab him in several places. The fella eventually died. At the trial, the woman in question stated that our fella had followed her home and had assaulted her and it was then that the husband had found them. Well’—he smiled—‘as my informant wrote to me, if you told that tale to the cat it would scratch your eyes out. Anyway, the court didn’t believe her either, and it’s as well for him that it didn’t. It was proved the affair had been going on for many months. So it was brought in as self-defence, which saved him from the rope and he got twelve years. Well, what have you got to say, Aggie?’

  ‘That I’m not surprised; in fact, I never believed his version of it. But all I can say is that that lady’s maid was a damn fool. Yet, I’ve got to look at it in another way. If she hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have had Millie’s company for the last nine years and I would have been the poorer for it.’

  ‘Yes, Aggie, I think you would, because she’s a bonny lass, and a good lass into the bargain.’

  ‘But what’s goin’ to be done about him? Can we stop him comin’ here?’

  The sergeant turned to Ben and, shaking his head, said, ‘I can’t see how that can be done, he’s her father. He’s done nothing, at least so far, that can bring him under the law. Now if he were to threaten…’

  ‘Well, he’s done as much as that. He says he’s seen somebody. It sounds like a solicitor man, and he’s under the impression he can get control of her until she’s twenty-one.’

  ‘Well, he’ll have to fight that out in the court, and with his record I doubt but that he’ll come off second best. I shouldn’t worry. Well, I must be off,’ and he added, ‘before I freeze to death in here. It’s warmer outside. How does it keep so cold?’

  Aggie smiled. ‘It’s likely the draughts comin’ through the cracks of the old timbers.’ She added ‘even years ago when it was stacked with hay, as I remember, it still remained cold. Anyway, will you come in and have a hot drink?’

  ‘No. No, thanks, Aggie. I must be on me way. But I thought you’d like to know the facts about that fella.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I wanted to know the facts. Somehow, though, they don’t surprise me. Nevertheless, thank you very much, sergeant. And if at any time there’s anything I can do…’

  He turned to her, laughing now and saying, ‘What can you do for me, Mrs Winkowski, unless you get that cart out and get on the road again? I bet you don’t hear much gossip over that pea and pie table.’

  ‘Oh, you’d be surprised. Oh, you would indeed.’

  ‘Would I now?’

  ‘Yes, you would.’

  ‘Well, would you like to surprise me?’

  ‘Not at the moment, not at the moment.’ She, too, was laughing now, loudly. ‘But pop in again, any time, when you’re stuck an’ you want something solved, you know.’

  He left with a wave of his hand and his broad smile and when, at the gate, he turned to Ben, saying, ‘She doesn’t change,’ Ben answered, ‘No, she doesn’t; and it’s a good thing…Thanks for comin’.’

  The sergeant turned a look on him, and he said quietly, ‘You’re a good fella, Ben. Take care of her. Take care of them both.’ And with that he walked away. And Ben, crossing the yard towards Aggie, who was about to enter the house, said to himself, He’s one of the decent ones, as she says; but they’re few and far between, I’d say.

  The Saturday rush was over. Again they had sold out, and it was not yet two o’clock. They were in the kitchen now and Aggie was answering Millie: ‘Well, if you had help could you bake twice as many?’ And Millie came back impatiently, saying, ‘No; I’ve told you, it’s the oven. It isn’t so much the making of the stuff, it’s the cooking of it. The oven won’t be hurried.’

  ‘What she’s sayin’,’ put in Ben, ‘is that you need a new kind of fireplace. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you should spend out and get in a new range.’

  ‘Would you like to go to hell and mind your own business?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind; it would be warmer than here. Anyway, I’ve been under the impression for some time that this was part of my business.’

  ‘Be quiet, both of you, will you?’ There was a weary note in Millie’s voice, and they both turned and looked at her, and Ben, glancing at Aggie, said, ‘She’s tired.’

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ Aggie said; ‘And anyway, who gave their blessing to her becoming a cook? I didn’t want it; I was happy enough with me yard as it was.’

  ‘Look, both of you, I say again, be quiet,’ said Millie. ‘I’m not tired, and I’m happy enough with the yard as it is now. We can talk this thing out quietly.’

  ‘Can we? Listen to that!’ Ben thumbed towards the door. ‘The bell again.’

  ‘Well, go and tell them to get the hell out of it. There’s a sign out there says “closed” and if they can’t read they still know what it means.’

  As Ben left the room muttering to himself, Aggie turned back to where Millie was sitting on the settle, her head leaning back into the corner of it, and she said softly, ‘Look, I’m not goin’ to ask you to take to drink, but when you’re feelin’ like that, just a little nip of gin does you the world of good. Now will you have it?’

  ‘No, thank you, Mrs Aggie. You know I’ve said so many times I don’t like gin or beer. And I’m not tired, I’m just a little weary.’

  Yes, that was the word. She was weary. She was weary of the daily routine. She was weary of the house as it was now, for she couldn’t keep it as spruce as she used to. She was weary of that lonely feeling inside her, that longing feeling, that wanting feeling.

  Suddenly as if touched by a magic wind, all such feelings were swept away, for there, coming through the door behind a stiff-looking Ben, was Mr Thompson…Mr Bernard Thompson…Bernard.

  She rose from the settle, her hands pressing down her ruffled apron before going to her hair. But he wasn’t lo
oking at her, he was addressing Aggie, saying, ‘How are you, Mrs Winkowski? It seems such a long time since I saw you.’

  ‘As you see me, sir, as you see me. No better, nor worse. Take a seat, will you?’ She pointed to the settle.

  Now he did look at Millie, saying, ‘And you, Miss Millie, how do I find you?’

  She managed to keep her reply cool as she said, ‘I suppose I could answer the same as Mrs Aggie; no better, no worse.’

  ‘She’s tired. She’s overworked and it’s all her own fault.’ Aggie’s voice was louder now. Then speaking to Bernard again, she said, ‘Have you just come back from the city, sir…London?’

  ‘Yes. Unfortunately, I was kept down there longer than I anticipated, although I wasn’t in London all the time. It’s very dismal there now. But I had to drive into Sussex to visit some friends. It was to be only a short visit, a matter of two or three days, but it stretched into a week or more. You know how things are when people get talking and’—he shrugged his shoulders—‘and arranging everyone’s life but their own.’

  ‘Can I offer you a drink, sir?’

  ‘No, thank you, no. But there is something you can do for me, Mrs Winkowski; I have come with a request.’

  ‘Me, sir? Now you tell me what I can do for you.’

  ‘Well—’ He inclined his head towards her, then towards the stiff countenance of Ben, before looking at Millie and saying, ‘You could grant me permission to take your ward on a little journey to inspect my new abode. I have a house…well, it’s really a cottage, on the outskirts, you know. It’s a very small affair and presided over by an aunt of mine. She would be delighted to entertain Miss Millie to tea.’