Jill: A Flower Girl

Chapter Four

When Poll returned home and showed her empty basket, Jill could not help uttering an exclamation of surprise.

“Why, mother, you han’t brought in no flowers!” she said, “and I made sure you had gone to fetch ’em.”

“Let me set down, Jill. That pain in my side, it do seem to bite orful hard this morning.”

“Oh, poor mother! Set down and never mind the flowers. You shouldn’t have gone out so early, you know you shouldn’t. Here’s a cup of coffee. Drink it, do.”

The little kitchen was a picture of brightness and neatness; the small stove was polished like a looking-glass. Jill placed a coarse white cloth on the table, drew it up to her mother’s side, placed the breakfast cups and saucers in order, laid bread and a piece of salt butter on the board, and, sitting down herself, filled two large breakfast cups with coffee, which was really good and fragrant.

Mrs Robinson drank off a cupful thirstily. She laid it down with a sigh of relief.

“You’re a real good gel, Jill,” she said. “And now I’ll tell you what happened to me.”

“Never mind, mother. You take your breakfast, and set quiet; I’ll go and fetch some flowers myself, as soon as we ha’ done.”

“You can’t, child; there ain’t no money.”

“No money? But there was plenty in the drawer last night.”

“Look for yourself, Jill.”

Jill paused in her occupation of cutting thick bread and butter. The boys had already eaten their breakfasts, and gone away.

She gave a quick glance round the cosy little room. The sun shone in at the window. The influence of the pleasant summer day was reflected all over Jill’s young face.

“There’s time enough,” she said, with a slow, satisfied smile. “You eat your breakfast, mother, and I’ll fetch the flowers arter.”

“But you can’t, when there ain’t no money. I tell yer somebody crep’ in yere yesterday, most like when I wor – when I wor – ”

“Never mind about that, mother. You had the pain bad, and you were drowsy, and you left the door on the latch. That were how the thief got in, worn’t it, mother?”

“Ef you like to have it so, child. Seems to me – ”

“Yes, I like to have it that way,” repeated Jill. “You were drowsy, and some one come in and took the money out of the drawer. Give me yer cup, mother, and I’ll fill it again.”

Mrs Robinson pushed her cup away from her, and stood up.

“Do you know what it is?” she said. “That there are times over and over again when I’d a sight rayther you struck me than took things as you do.”

“But I couldn’t take ’em any other way, mother, you know I couldn’t. I – I love you too much.” Jill’s lips trembled. There was a fierce passion in the way she said “I love you too much.”

“And I put shame on you larst night, child. And now we are beggars. All our little savings is gone, and it’s owing to me.”

“No, we ain’t beggars – I ha’ a stocking put away in another drawer. It’s for Nat and me ’gainst we set up housekeeping. I never spoke of it ’cause I ’arned every cent of it arter hours; but I’ll take some to-day to stock our baskets, and then we’ll be off to work.”

Mrs Robinson strode noisily across the floor. She took Jill’s face between her two hands, and kissed her on each blooming cheek. Then she sat down with a profound sigh of relief.

“Ain’t you a good ’un?” she said. “Any mother ’ud be proud of yer. You hurry and buy the flowers, dawtie dear, and then we’ll be off.”

Breakfast was speedily finished, the breakfast things put away, and then Jill, drawing a ribbon from inside her dress, produced a small key. With this key she opened a small drawer, took some money out of an old stocking, locked the drawer again, slipped the key into its hiding-place, and went out.

After she was gone Poll sat very still. The bright colour which always flamed in her cheeks had somewhat faded; her big, dark eyes looked weary. After a time she gave utterance to a low moan.

“This pain’s orful,” she murmured. “I’d give the world for a nip of brandy. Coffee! What’s coffee when you ache as I ache? A sip or two of hot gin, or brandy and water, ’ud make me feel fine. Jill’s the best gel, but she don’t know what it is to have the thirst on her like me.”

Poll went into the little sleeping-room and flung herself across the bed. When Jill returned with the flowers she found her lying there, her face white and drawn, her eyes closed.

At the sound of the brisk step, Poll made a vigorous effort to sit up, but Jill’s young glance could not be deceived.

“You shall not stir to sell a flower to-day,” she exclaimed. “You lie where you are, and take a good rest. I ha’ got some beauties in the way of flowers, and I’ll sell ’em all, and we’ll have a jolly supper to-night. I met Nat when I were out, and he said he’d come in to supper. You stay where you are, mother, and I’ll ask Mrs Stanley to come and see arter you. I know she will, ef I ask her.”

“The pain’s werry bad this morning, Jill.”

“Mrs Stanley shall go and fetch a bottle of that soothing stuff from the chemist round the corner. That’ll put you to sleep, and then you’ll be a sight better. Now I must go.”

Jill kissed her mother, took up her flower-basket, stopped at the next landing to speak to Mrs Stanley, and finally tripped down-stairs with her basket of blooming flowers on her arm.

Outside the house she was met by a tall fair-haired young costermonger who took her basket from her, and turned to walk by her side.

“You shouldn’t do it, Nat,” she said. “It’s a sin to be wasting your time, and the morning’s late enough as it is.”

“Late?” echoed the young giant with a gay laugh. “Why, it ain’t nine yet, Jill, and anyhow I stole the time from my breakfast. I can just walk as far as your stand with you. And you’ll give me a posy for my pains, won’t you?”

“You choose it, Nat,” said Jill.

“No, no, you must do that. Ain’t you got a rose under all ’em flaring poppies, and a bit o’ mignonette? Them’s my style. You make ’em up for me, Jill, in a posy, and I’ll wear ’em in my button-hole all day, no matter who chaffs me.”

Jill replied by a gay little laugh. The summer in the day got more and more into her face. She gave Nat many shy and lovely glances.

“Look yere,” he said suddenly; “you ain’t answered my question.”

“What is it, lad?”

“When are we to be married, Jill? I’ll ha’ a holiday in three weeks, and I thought we might go before the registrar just then, and afterwards go away for a week into the country. What do you say?”

“Oh, I can’t say nothing. There’s mother, you know.”

“But your mother won’t keep us apart, Jill. That ’ud be cruel.”

“No, but I can’t leave her. You know that.”

“Well, look yere; I don’t want you to leave her. I’m doin’ well wid my barrer, and you and me, we might take the flat alongside of Mrs Stanley’s, just under where you now live. Surely your mother and the boys could manage for one another, and you’d be always close to see to ’em, ef they was in any fix. The rooms is to be let, I know, and ef you say the word, Jill, I’ll speak to the landlord this very night.”

“But that flat costs a heap o’ money; it don’t seem right nohow,” said Jill.

“Yes, it’s as right as anything, darlin’. I’m ’arning good money now, it’s all perfectly square. You leave it to me. You say yes, Jill; that’s all you ha’ got to do.”

“I’ll think it over, lad, and let you know to-night. Here we are at my stand now. Good-bye, Nat dear – oh, and here’s your posy.”

The young man took it with a smile.

“Pin it in for luck,” he said. “Now I’m off I’ll be sure and come round this evening.”

He blew a kiss to Jill, turned a corner, and disappeared.

Her stand was outside a large railway station. Six or seven other girls also sold flowers there, but not one of them could vie with Jill for picturesque arrangement.

She sat down now, and taking up her basket began hastily to divide her flowers into penny and twopenny bunches. This piece of work she generally did at home, but to-day she was late, and had to arrange her wares as quickly as she could while waiting for her customers.

The sun shone all over her as she worked. She made a gay bit of colour, and more than one person turned to look at her. Her black rippling hair was coiled round and round her shapely head. Her turban, too hot for this sultry day, was flung on the ground by her side. Her black dress fitted her slim figure to perfection, and her gay many-coloured apron gave a bizarre effect to her costume, which exactly suited the somewhat foreign type of her face.

The flower girl who eat next her, in her untidiness, her dirt, and almost rags, acted as a foil to Jill. She had bedizened her person in a cheap dress of faded crimson. Her hat, nearly a foot high, was perched on the back of her uncombed hair. It was trimmed with rusty crape and rendered gay with one or two ostrich feathers, and some bunches of artificial poppies.

This woman, between forty and fifty years of age, was, in her way, a favourite. She indulged in a brogue which declared her Irish origin, and whatever the weather, whatever the prospect of the flower-sellers, she always managed to keep the laugh and the ready jest going.

“Did you ask me what me name was, honey?” she would say to a customer attracted by the gleam of mischief in her eye. “Oh, then, glory be to heaven, it’s Molly Maloney, at your service, and where would you find a better or a swater? Do take a bunch of flowers, lady, do now, and I’ll pray for a good husband for you every time as I goes down on my bended knees.”

Sallies of this sort provoked smiles even from the refined people who wished to buy flowers, and secured roars of laughter from the other flower girls, who delighted in egging Molly on to “give sauce,” as they termed it, to the fine folks.

On this particular morning, however, Molly’s pleasantries were not so frequent as usual. She whispered to Jill that little Kathleen, that jewel of a girl, was down with a cowld, and she was moighty bothered with her, and didn’t know whether to send for the doctor or not.

“You might come and see her, Jill,” said Molly Maloney. “Kathleen she worships the very ground you treads on, and she’s down with a cowld or a faver, or something. I’ll have no doctor to see her, no that I won’t, for he’d be after ordhering her off to the hospital, and that ’ud kill her entirely. Oh, glory to heaven, what fine flowers you have this morning, Jill! I’m shamed to sit near you, that I am. Look at mine. They were under Kathie’s bed all night, and they seem to smell of the faver. Oh, I’ll get ’em off ef I sell ’em chape. You lend me a coil of wire, honey, and you’ll see how I’ll smarten ’em up.”

Jill handed the wire to her neighbour with scarcely a remark. Her thoughts were far away with Nat, and the home they might soon have together. She wondered if they might really dare to take that flat next to Mrs Stanley’s – if by any possible means they could justify for themselves the extravagance of paying seven shillings a week for their rooms. Then how would her mother do without her? Who would help her mother when she got those queer attacks of pain, those unsupportable hours of agony which had hitherto found relief only in the one way?

Jill knew that it was very wrong of her mother to drink. The girl’s own nature was so upright, so sweet, so high, that it was absolutely repulsive to her to see any one in the state in which she often now discovered her poor mother. The aim and object of her life was to hide the disgrace of her mother’s intemperate fits from the rest of the world; she called them by any name but the true one. She was ready to cover them with any amount of lies if necessary; she would have knocked down any one who accused her mother of getting drunk; even Mrs Robinson herself, in her repentant moments, did not dare to call a spade a spade – did not dare to speak of what she had done by its true name. Jill never blamed her, she put it all down to the pain and misery. It seemed to her there was no remedy left to her mother but to drown her sufferings in drink, and yet the fact cast a shadow over her own life, and caused her to sigh heavily, even though Nat was coming in the evening, and they could talk about their wedding-day, which was so soon to arrive.

As she arranged her flowers with deft fingers this morning she made up her mind that she would say yes to Nat. She would be in the same house with her mother, and could still look after her. As to the boys, they were both of them doing for themselves. Jill scarcely gave them a thought at all in making her arrangements.

Yes, she would marry Nat, and trust to his never discovering that ugly secret about her mother.

She had just finished the arrangement of her basket, picturesquely heaping her masses of pink, white, and yellow poppies at one side, and her roses and forget-me-nots at another, when a tall girl, dressed in the costume of the Flower Girls’ Guild, came up with a basket of flowers on her arm and spoke to her.

She was a handsome girl, and looked striking in her neat grey dress and scarlet apron. Her hair was of a pale gold, her eyes large and blue; the expression of her somewhat pale face a little austere. Her basket was full of lovely fresh flowers, but although they were superior to Jill’s in quality, they did not make nearly so fine a show.

“Is that you, Jill?” she called out. “Nat told me you were here. Why ain’t your mother with you? Ain’t she well?”

“No, she has a fit of that old pain over her,” responded Jill. “I left her lying down. The pain takes a deal out of her, and I thought she had best be quiet.”

“Don’t she see no doctor? We has a splendid one belonging to the Guild; ef you and your mother would only join, you’d get a heap o’ good out of it, Jill. But you’re that obstinate, and when the best thing in the world is offered to you, you won’t so much as open your eyes to see it. I wonder Nat holds on to you, that I do.”

Jill smiled, reddened, and was about to reply, when the Irishwoman called out in her brilliant tones:

“What I say of Nat Carter is this, that he’s the luckiest gossoon in all London to have got the purtiest bit of a colleen to say she’ll wed him. Why, you ain’t got looks lit to hold a candle to her, Susy Carter, even though you are Nat’s sister.”

“Well, well,” said Susan, in a slightly patronising manner, “we must each of us go our own gait. If Jill and her mother won’t join the Guild, I can’t force ’em. Maybe you’ll do it later on, if Nat wishes it, Jill. And, oh, what do you think, here’s a bit o’ luck; I has just got that stand I was waiting for so long near the Marble Arch. The girl wot had it died yesterday, and I’ve stepped into her shoes, and a right good think I’ll make of it. I must be off now, or I’ll lose customers. Good-bye, Jill. Oh, by-the-way, you might as well mass these colours for me. I can’t make my basket look like yourn, however hard I try.”

Susy Carter put her basket on the ground as she spoke. Jill bent over it, re-arranged the flowers without a word, and returned it to her.

“Thank you – thank you,” she cried delightedly. “Why, Jill, what fingers you has! Who but yourself would have thought of putting these pink peonies close to all them crimson poppies, and then throwing up the colour with this bunch of green. Oh, it’s daring, but it’s lovely; it’ll fetch like anything. Now I’m off You get your mother to see a doctor, Jill.”

“No, I won’t,” said Jill, shortly, “I don’t believe in ’em, neither does mother.”

“Right you are, honey,” exclaimed Molly Maloney, “I don’t hold by docthors, nayther. If my little Kathleen dies of the faver – bless her, the darlint! – why, I know as it’s the will of the Almighty. But ef the docthor came and gave her his pizens – what is it, miss – what now?”

“Do you say you have a child down in fever?” said Susy Carter, speaking in a quick, passionate voice.