The Rag Nymph

by Catherine Cookson

  She walked round the end of the partition. In this part, there was a narrow iron bed, covered by a patched quilt, and at its foot was a large suitcase.

  Near the wall was a bass hamper. Clothes, mostly small garments, were hanging from the rails that had been knocked in the partition.

  The child had followed her, and as she started to finger the clothes, she said, 'It... it isn't a very nice place. It's always cold. But ... but, as Mama said, as long as we kept it clean and it was only for a short time... But--' She turned and looked at Aggie as she ended slowly, 'But it wasn't like the house we had in Durham. That... that was so nice. I... I miss that house. I miss Durham. I... I... '

  'Now, now! there's no time for cryin'. Come on, come on. Stop that! I'll take these clothes down and you fold them on the bed there, nicely, then we'll put them on the cart. And the cases an' all.'

  'Why? Why? Mama will be coming back.'

  'Look! Do what you're told! Your mama sent word for me to do this. You understand? I told you. And you're to stay with me...

  well, until she

  comes for you or other arrangements are made.'

  'Where is Mama really?'

  'I told you, she had to go to Durham.'

  'I... I don't believe you, Mrs Aggie.'

  To put it in her own words, as she explained the scene later to Ben, she was flabbergasted. And she had to ask herself if this young 'un was seven or seventeen.

  'You don't, eh? You don't believe me? Well then, all right, you can stay here by yourself, and see to yourself, until your mother comes for you.'

  'I... I cannot stay by... by... my... self. I'm ... I'm afraid, and.., and I'm too little.'

  'You're only little in stature, not in your tongue or your mind. So look, let's have no more of it. If you don't fold them up I'll just toss them on the cart like I do the rags. It's up to you.' She now stripped the partition of the clothes, threw them on the bed, and then went and lifted the lid off the case, only to find that it, too, was full of clothes, both the woman's and the child's. She groped under the clothes, thinking there might be anything else, probably a small box of some kind, and recognized the feel of leather.

  When she took out the leather writing case, the child turned and cried, 'That's Mama's! She keeps her letters in there.'

  'Oh aye!' Aggie retorted, while thinking, that should be interesting. And then she said, 'Look, there's no way I can get this case and that bass hamper up them steps, full as they are, I'll have to tie the stuff in bundles an'

  put them on the cart. I'll

  hand them up to you from the bottom of the steps, and you stay by the cart.'

  During the next half hour they worked in this way, and when the empty cases and the bed covers were at last placed on the cart, Aggie locked the door, then hesitated for a moment, wondering what to do with the key. Her rent would have certainly been paid in advance and the rent man, whoever he was, would likely be the only one who would come down here, except of course the child's uncles, and they must have been hard put to it to resort to this hole. Aye, but, of course, there was the bed, and the woman.

  But what did this child do while it was going on?

  Likely what hundreds of others had to do: wonder, and think, and stick their fingers in their ears; some, on the other hand, might even ask themselves how long it would be before they could try it. But this child was so different, and so bonny. Oh, for God's sake! get on with it, woman. With a final gesture she put the key on the sill of the narrow window and pulled herself up the stone steps.

  After unlocking the cart from the gatepost, they were off, the child now walking between Aggie's outstretched arms and adding her small strength to the pushing.

  'What d'you make of it all?' Aggie looked at Ben, who shook his head, saying, 'Beats me. Those are all good clothes. Best quality; some of the woman's bits are real high-class stuff, I would say.'

  'So would I. But about these letters. They tell you something, and yet they tell you nothing. This Mrs Melburn, the parson's wife.., she seems a motherly figure, in a way, but that bit' - she pointed to the page of a letter that was on the table - 'that bit tells you why they came this way.' She picked up the page and read aloud:

  'I'm sorry at the disappointment you found that your friend had left the town without leaving a forwarding address. I can understand how upset you were after expecting to make your home with her. Human nature is very odd. Perhaps it was her husband's doing.'

  Aggie lifted her head and looked at Ben, saying,

  'Reading between the lines, the husband of this friend, whoever she was, wasn't going to allow his wife to get mixed up in something. What d'you think?'

  'It reads like that.'

  'Then this other one.' She picked up another letter, and again read aloud:

  'I think of you often and of the happy times we had at The Hall, and they were happy times. We never thought then that there was such a thing as tragedy in life and such falseness.

  'Then this last one. Just a few lines on this page:

  'I am distressed for you, my dear. You must come back. Don't do anything silly or anything you would be ashamed of. It isn't like you. Do come back. People forget. They have short memories.

  John is with me in this.

  My love to you in friendship. Yours Jessie.

  'Again I ask, what d'you make of that? I think it must be as I said: either she'd done something or her man had done something. That's as far as I can think. Except that it's more likely the man, because, you know, the child talked about him dying, but in a funny way, as if dying was another name for something else. Well, I don't suppose we'll ever know the real ins and outs of it. But I've got a good idea about one thing: that little miss upstairs knows more than she lets on. That look that comes over her face when you start probing. Like this afternoon, when I said to her, "There's no letters from your father in here. Didn't he ever write to your mother at some time or other?" and she said, "I ... I don't know." But there's something she does know and she's keepin' it to herself. She had another cryin'

  bout, too, when I took her upstairs.'

  'If the authorities find out that her mother's walking the sidelines,' Ben said, 'there'll be no chance she'll get her back. Would you then sign a paper for her?'

  Aggie gathered up the letters from the table, returned them to the writing case, then rose heavily, saying, 'Time enough to think about that. See what happens in the meantime. But I think I'll write to that parson's wife and see what she has to say about it.'

  The meantime came to an end three days later.

  The weather had changed. It had been pouring with rain all day, and half the yard was a quagmire.

  The lanes, courts, streets, and roads were the same.

  It was Aggie's day to visit the outskirts, but as she looked out of the window on to the patch of grass that was welcoming the steady downpour, she said, half to herself, 'It's a good job I'm not forced to go out,' and a voice in her mind added,

  'You need never go again if you don't want to.' And she answered it: 'Then what would I do with meself?

  Sit and listen to Madam Correctness for the rest of me days? Oh no!'

  She turned and looked towards the child, who was sitting hugging a doll. It had a china head, a

  stuffed cloth body, and wooden legs. But the legs were cleverly jointed at the knees and the ankles, and

  the whole was prettily dressed. They had found the doll in the bass hamper where, Millie had informed her, it slept when they were out of the house. She had been foolish enough to ask if it had a name.

  And when told it was Victoria after the Queen and that the Queen was a wonderful lady, and her Prince was wonderful, too, she'd had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from saying, 'Aye, she's a wonderful lady all right, she's still for bairns your size working twelve hours a day. And she with a squad of her own.

  Don't talk to me about the wonderful Victoria.'

  As she looked at Millie rocking herself slightly 78

&nbs
p; 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.'

  The 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 polis 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 polis 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 grownups 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 hand-cart 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 painted, 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 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