The Rag Nymph

by Catherine Cookson

  It was so seldom that Aggie heard herself addressed by her surname that she turned and looked at the nun, but the woman's eyelids were lowered as if in shame; then she inclined her head towards the woman sitting behind the desk before turning and closing the door quietly behind her.

  'Sit down, Mrs Winkowski.'

  Aggie recalled that Constable Fenwick had said that the Mother Superior, as she was called, was a bit of a foreigner, half French, he imagined, but a nice woman for all that, and very holy.

  Aggie sat down on the wooden chair and drew Millie close to her side as the woman at the far side of the desk smiled gently at her, saying, 'I am very pleased to meet you, Mrs Winkowski.

  I understand you wish to put your ward in the care of the house.' She did not say, in my care, but added, 'Which will be in God's care, too. How old is she?' She looked down at the sheet of paper on her desk. 'Ah yes; you are ten years old, Millie, aren't you?'

  'Yes; I am ten years old, but only lately.'

  The tone of the voice seemed to surprise the Mother Superior just the slightest, and she said,

  'You have a clear speaking voice, child. That is good; you will be open to education. Which school did you attend? Was it the Church of England Sunday School?'

  'Yes, partly.' Millie nodded towards the woman.

  'But that was only on a Sunday. Mrs Aggie' - she turned and glanced at Aggie - 'paid for me to go to the penny school.'

  'Oh, was that the Wesleyan or Methodist? It wasn't a Catholic school, was it?'

  'No, ma'am; it wasn't a Catholic school, it was the Methodist.'

  'Oh, yes, yes.' The Mother Superior was now addressing Aggie. 'So she knows nothing whatever about religion?'

  'Well, I wouldn't say that, ma'am. The Methodists preach religion and so does the Church of England.'

  'Yes. Yes, of course; but I mean the Catholic religion.'

  'No, nothing. Why should she? I mean, how could she? She wasn't brought up a Catholic to my knowledge.'

  'You, I understand, have been her guardian for two years?'

  'Yes, that's right.'

  'And I'm sure you found her a very biddable little girl?' She now turned her smile on Millie, but she received no answering smile, only a stare from what she thought were those very odd grey eyes. A very odd-looking child altogether. Too beautiful for her own good. Oh, yes, from what Father Dolan had said and through information he had got from Constable Fenwick, much too beautiful for her own good. Well, she would have protection here. No sin would reach her in this house. And her next words went on to express this when she said to Aggie, 'Well, you can rest easy, Mrs Winkowski, your ward will be well looked after. You need have no fear that she will come in contact with any intruders. And I think you will agree it will be to the best advantage of all if the holidays were curtailed. You yourself may come and visit her for an hour once a month. Don't you think this is a wise plan?'

  She was talking now as if the child were not present, but the child was present, and she spoke up: 'An hour a month? Oh, that's awful. And you promised there would be holidays.' She was looking at Aggie now, and Aggie said, 'Well, there will be holidays, dear, there will be holidays;' then turning to the Mother Superior, added firmly, 'she'll have to come on a holiday three times a year, otherwise it's no go.'

  'Oh well, it's your responsibility, Mrs Winkowski, when she's out of our care. The only thing is, I want to reassure you that she will be perfectly safe here.

  And of course she will be mixing with a very good class of pupil.'

  'I understand that all right.' Aggie's tone was aggressive now. 'But understand, from my side, that I'd like to see her once a fortnight, if it's just for an hour, and that whatever holidays the

  other bairns have, she's got to have the same. Is that understood?'

  There was a long pause before the Mother Superior said, 'Yes, if that's how you wish it, Mrs Winkowski.'

  'Yes, ma'am, that's how I wish it, because it'll be me that'll be payin' the fees, won't it? Ten and six a week is a deal of money, indeed it is, don't you think?'

  Mother Francis stared at the enormously fat and none too clean woman. This is what came of dealing with the common herd. It was hard to remember that God had made them, too, and that He begged for leniency for them. Inwardly praying that she might be able to show her piety and understanding, she said, 'Yes, I'm sure it must mean a lot to you. But, you know, real education never comes cheaply. And then the child has to be fostered, fed, and provided with a school habit and hood, besides night attire.

  Did you ever go to school, Mrs Winkowski?' God hadn't fully maintained His help to keep condescension from her tone or to prepare her for the answer when it came: 'Yes, I went to school, ma'am. I started at the early age of five, and I was taught until I was ten, and all day at that. And from then on I read.

  I could repeat the catechism for you from beginnin'

  to end, and chunks of the Bible. But perhaps I've been misinformed, like, for I understand you don't read the Bible.'

  'Yes, I'm afraid you have been misinformed, at least in some parts, Mrs Winkowski.' The tone was stiff now. 'Those who can understand the Bible are allowed to read it, but there are passages that could be misinterpreted by the unintelligent or those of simple understanding.'

  'Oh, aye; it's not good to let people know about human nature, is it? And that the so-called Holy men were not above... '

  The Mother Superior didn't need to check Aggie's flow, she did it herself, saying, 'Well, this one here' - she now thumbed towards Millie - 'I'd like to

  bet she's read the Bible from beginnin' to end, an'

  many other books besides. We get all kinds thrown into our yard, you know.' Then she couldn't help but add, 'It's amazing how educated some of the ignorant people are. Surprising. Surprising.'

  The Mother Superior knew it was time to end this interview, so now she stood up, saying, 'Well, Mrs Winkowski, I'm sure you can leave your charge with us with an easy mind. And I shall look forward to giving you a good report when you next visit us in a' - she paused - 'fortnight's time. Say three o'clock in the afternoon a fortnight today. Will that suit you?'

  Aggie, too, was on her feet and her voice was much lower now as she said, 'Aye, it'll suit me.' Then turning to Millie, whose expression almost broke her down and gave her the urge to take her by the hand and run from this place, only her good sense stopped her; and bending down, she put her arms around the child and when she felt the tightness of the embrace and the pressure of the thin body against her belly, it was only with an effort she stopped the tears from

  flowing. But they were in her voice as she whispered down to her, 'It'll be all right. It'll be all right. And ... and if you don't like it, we'll think of something

  else. You've just got to tell me. D'you hear? You've just got to tell me.'

  When the arms reached up and her head bent to the face, for the first time she kissed and was kissed.

  It was too much. Almost thrusting the child away, she turned and stamped from the room, banging the door behind her; and, had not the Mother Superior moved quickly round the table and caught Millie's hand, the child would have followed her.

  'Come, my dear, it will be all right. Sit down. She's upset; and I suppose naturally, she seems very fond of you. Were you fond of her?'

  'Fond?' Millie's lids were blinking, and her lips were licking up the salt tears as she brought out, 'I

  ... I love her. And Ben.'

  'Ben? Who is Ben?'

  'He is the man who works there, lives with her.

  She... she took him in when he was a little boy.'

  'Oh, she's a good soul.'

  'She's lovely.'

  Lovely? That half-washed, great hulk of a woman?

  Maybe she was quite intelligent; but she was no more so than were quite a number of the poor she already knew. Yet, what was she thinking, poor?

  when she could apparently afford to pay the fees for this child. Obviously there was money in rags.

&n
bsp; But she had to admit that this child was of a different type altogether: her voice, her manner suggested a refined type of background. She'd have to find out more about her. The only thing Father Dolan had been able to tell her was that her mother had died of a fever soon after arriving in the town; he himself had learned this from the constable. Apparently there were no relatives, the father, too, being dead.

  Again she rang the bell, impatiently this time, and the nun who appeared was contrite, saying, 'I'm sorry, Reverend Mother; I ... I had to show her out. She was agitated; she was walking across the lawn instead of to the gate.'

  'It's all right. It's all right, Sister Aloysius. What is your class doing?'

  'I left them sewing, Reverend Mother.'

  'Well, we have a new member of our family. Her name is Millie Forester. Isn't that right?' She was looking down on Millie now, and Millie answered,

  'Yes, that is my name... Millie Forester.' And the tone of the voice seemed to surprise Sister Aloysius as much as it had done the Mother Superior. And the sister was further surprised when, holding out a hand to Millie, it was not taken, but, instead, the child began to walk out before her, only to be brought to a stop by the nun saying, 'You must always ask Mother Superior if you may leave her presence. You say, "May I go now, Mother Superior?"'

  'Why? She... she knew I was leaving the room.'

  The nun and her superior exchanged glances; then Mother Francis, with a small inclination of her head, gave the nun leave to take this very

  awkward child away.

  If the Mother Superior and the nun were thinking the child was odd, it was nothing to what Millie was thinking about them and her introduction to the school and its inmates.

  THREE

  Everything that happened to Millie during that first week in the House of Christ the Saviour she objected to. She discovered there were seventeen pupils, ranging in age from six to twelve, and that they were housed in two so-called dormitories, which were divided by panels into cubicles, each being about twice the area of its narrow iron bed, just enough to hold a chest of drawers and leaving

  standing space in which to undress. There was no chair. And that first night she experienced how one undressed for bed and how one was expected to lie. Sister Mary saw to that. Having been told to strip off her clothes, even her shift, without looking at her body, and don a long, unbleached, calico nightdress, she was then told how she must lie in bed, straight down, her hands by her sides. And

  when she protested she never lay like that and had proceeded to demonstrate how she did lie, crossing her legs and pulling her knees up, she had let out a high squeal when the side of Sister Mary's hard hand came across her knees in a whacking thump.

  For a moment she had lain stunned, then had vowed to herself she would be out and away by the next morning. It didn't matter about that evil man with

  the smiling face; she would go to the police herself and tell them what he meant to do.

  She knew she wouldn't sleep; moreover, she was hungry. That had been an awful tea they'd had at five o'clock; two slices of bread and fat, a slab of hard cake and a bowl of milk; then nothing else, only a drink of water, if they wanted one, before they came to bed, and it only half-past seven. And then there was that chapel and the kneeling. No, she couldn't stand it; and she wouldn't sleep. No, she wouldn't sleep...

  She was startled out of her wits by the clanging of a loud bell being rung over her head, and then somebody shouting in the dormitory: 'Up! Up! Up!'

  She was sitting in a daze on the edge of the bed when a head came round the partition, saying,

  'You had better put a move on else you'll get scalped.'

  'What?'

  'Hurry up! Get into your clothes, all except your dress. Put on the cloak.' The hand came round now and thumbed to a hook on the wall. 'You've got to wash.'

  She didn't hurry getting into her clothes, although she felt cold, and so she was last in the line of children to scramble down the stone stairs and into a room with a linoleum-covered floor. Along the length of one side there were also cubicles; along the opposite side were narrow benches, on each of which was a basin of cold water, also a piece of blue-mottled soap, with a rough towel hanging from a nail in the wall above the basin.

  Very intimate sounds were coming from the cubicles, but it wasn't until the girl who had beckoned her earlier on came out of one of them and pointed to another where the door was open, and whispered harshly, 'Don't you want to go?' that she realised, Yes; yes, she did want to go. But dear!

  dear! In front of all these girls? Yet each cubicle had a door, although she noticed there was no bolt on the inside.

  When she came out to the sound of splashing and spluttering, she made her way to the "end bowl, and there she washed her. face and hands; but again she was last in the line to run up the stairs and finish her dressing.

  When there came, in the distance, the sound of another bell ringing, the girl from the next cubicle actually came in and tugged her out into the room, whispering, 'You've got to line up!' Having got her into the line the girl glanced at her and whispered,

  'What's your name?'

  'Millie.'

  'Mine's Annabel, Annabel Kirkley. Stick with me; but watch out for Mabel Nostil, that's her at the end with the black hair. She sucks up.

  How old are you?' This question came out of the side of her mouth and Millie, quick to catch on, muttered, 'Ten.'

  'I'm nearly eleven.'

  'Quiet!'

  The command was bellowed. 'Get moving!' The voice was thick Irish. Millie remembered it from the previous evening. This nun had read passages of some sort to them but Millie had been unable to make out half of what she had said.

  The children marched down the stairs, the nun coming behind, and in the hall they met up with the older girls and, now forming two files, they walked, hands joined as if in prayer, slowly along a corridor, and into the chapel.

  The chapel was a large household room. At one end was an altar; and to the side a group of statuary of the Holy Family, on the other stood a plaster saint arrayed in a brown habit. He could have been anybody, one of the hundreds of saints; but, later, Annabel informed her that he was known among the girls as Mr Billy Brown.

  Millie thought that they would never cease praying.

  She didn't know what they were praying about.

  She was tired of kneeling, listening to their voices droning on: 'Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name', and 'Hail Mary, full of grace', which was all she could make out of the second bit, because what followed was just a mumble.

  She was ready to be lulled asleep by the monotonous chant when they all stood up and repeated,

  'God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.' She'd often wondered about the Holy Ghost, and now wondered further if Mr Dickens's stories had any connections with Him. She liked Mr Dickens's stories.

  She was surprised still further when more prayers had to be said before they could start their breakfast:

  'Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.'

  Ben knew a number of Grace before meals, and they were all funny. This one certainly wasn't.

  A large dollop of thick porridge was placed before her, and a nun came round and poured a minute amount of milk over it. There was no sugar on it, but it tasted of salt. Then followed a slice of bread with half a sausage lying across it. She rather enjoyed that. The hot drink was supposed to be tea but tasted awful. Then more prayers: 'Thank You, O Lord, for this Thy gift of precious food. May we be worthy of it this day. Amen.'

  Following breakfast, she stuck tight to Annabel.

  It was upstairs again, and now twenty-past eight, and she was informed by her apparent new. friend that they had to join a small team to clean the toilets, which meant bringing the buckets downstairs, emptying them in the larger-buckets arrayed along the wall by a side door; then wash out each utensil under a pump and return it to its particul
ar cubicle.

  Following this ritual, she was separated from Annabel while waiting for it to be decided which class she would attend first.

  So it was a short time later she found herself under the hard eyes of Sister Mary, the large nun she remembered from last night, and her very hard hand.

  She it was who took the reading, writing, and arithmetic, but, of course, not until after more prayers.

  Millie was two hours under Sister Mary, and during this time she learned that the nun did not always bother to use her hand, she also used a ruler that seemed as flexible as rubber, for when it hit knuckles it bounced back from them.

  When the ruler first came in contact with Millie's knuckles she actually cried back at the startled sister,

  'Don't do that! I have done nothing wrong. My sums are correct.'

  The nun's eyes seemed to be popping out of her head as she again wielded the ruler. This time it caught Millie across the wrist, and when she reacted by rising from her seat in an effort to leave the room, she found herself thrust back with such force that her head bobbed on her shoulders. Then the big face was brought down to hers and the words came between small misshapen teeth: 'Do we understand each other now? Eh, miss?' she demanded. 'No, your sum wasn't wrong, but you are writing instead of printing. Do you understand me? I want your work printed. There's plenty of time to show off your handwriting when you've doubled your age. You understand?'

  She didn't quite, but what she did understand was that she hated this woman, and the thought momentarily came to her that that man wouldn't surely have been as bad as this mean-faced nun.

  At ten-thirty, Sister Mary left the class and Sister Monica took her place. And now there was a new form of prayer. It was called Scripture and Bible stories.

  Millie did not care much for Sister Monica either.

  She was sarcastic: when she herself was first asked a question, and she answered it, the woman made game of how she spoke. But she did not retaliate: she was too upset, almost confused at her previous treatment to even pay attention.

  Sister Monica stayed with them for half an hour.

  Sister Aloysius followed. She was small. She, too, was Irish, but she had a soft voice and a kind face: her job was to teach sewing and singing. This was to be a singing lesson, and she wrote the words of a hymn, in print of course, on a blackboard. Then, taking a funny little instrument, she struck her desk with it.