Jill: A Flower Girl
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The Irishwoman was lounging with her back against the wall. She now started upright, and spoke defiantly.
“And why mayn’t I have my darlint child down with the faver?” she demanded, her eyes darkening with anger.
“Did you keep those flowers in the room with the sick child all night?”
“Yes, my purty, I did. Would you like a bunch? you shall have it chape. A ha’p’ny for this rose; it’ll look iligant pinned on the front of your dress. Now, then, only a ha’p’ny. Why, there ain’t no chaper flowers in the whole of London.”
“It’s very wicked of you to sell those flowers,” said Susy. “You may give the fever to a lot of other people by doing so. That’s the good of belonging to our Guild. We have a beautiful cool room to keep our flowers in at night, so that no one can be poisoned by them. They keep fresh, and they last, and they don’t carry horrid diseases about with them. It’s very wicked of you to sell those flowers. You ought to throw them away.”
She picked up her basket as she spoke and marched off.
Molly sat down, muttering angry words under her breath.
“I wonder you takes up with the likes of her, Jill,” she said, when she had cooled down sufficiently to address a few words to her companion.
Jill, who was in a day-dream, looked round with a start.
“Take up with whom?” she said.
“That consated bit of a colleen, Susy Carter. You’re goin’ to marry her brother. Seems to me you’re throwing yourself away. Why, honey, you’re illigant enough and handsome enough to be any man’s chice.”
“Yes, but I love Nat,” interrupted Jill. “I’m not marrying Susy – I don’t much care for Susy. Yes, ma’am? These bunches are twopence each, these a penny. I’ll give you this bunch of poppies for sixpence, ma’am, and put some green with it.”
A lady who had just come up from the Underground Railway had stopped, arrested by the beauty of Jill’s flowers. She was holding a prettily dressed little girl of about six years old by the hand.
The child was all in white. She had cloudy golden hair falling over her shoulders, her round pink and white face resembled a daisy in its freshness.
The lady was in deep mourning; the expression of her slightly worn face was sad.
“Shall I put the poppies up for you, ma’am?” repeated Jill.
“Yes. I will give you sixpence for that bunch, but be sure you let me have some green with it.”
“I want to spend my penny on flowers, mother,” said the child.
“Well, darling, choose. This nice flower girl will give you a pretty posy for a penny.”
“I want two posies,” said the child. “One for Dick, and one for Dolly. It’s Dick’s birthday, but if I give him a posy, and don’t give Dolly one, Dolly will cry.”
The pretty child’s little voice was full of anxious confidence. In making her statement she felt sure of sympathy, and she addressed not only her mother, but Jill and Molly Maloney.
Molly, who was squatting down on her knees, began to murmur an eager torrent of Irish blessings.
“Eh, glory! What a darlint it is!” she said. “For all the world like my little Kathleen! And so you want some flowers, my beauty? You let me sarve her, Jill. I has got rose-buds and mignonette all made up most enticing only a ha’p’ny a bunch.”
“I want two bunches,” repeated the child in her clear, precise voice, “one for Dick, because it’s his birthday, and one for Dolly. Dolly’s free years old, and she’ll cry if I don’t take her a flower. I’ve only got one penny.”
She opened the palm of her little hot hand, and showed Molly the coin.
“Now then, you shall choose, my pet,” said the Irishwoman. “These bee-u-tiful flowers was growin’ on the trees half-an-hour ago; why the jew is scarcely dried on ’em yet. You choose, my pretty, you choose. Oh, the smell of ’em, why they’ll nearly knock you down with the swateness. Thank you, lovey, thank you. May the Vargint bless you, me darlint, and that’s the prayer of poor old Molly Maloney.”
The child received the rather stale rose-buds and mignonette with silent rapture. Having received her prizes she scarcely gave another glance at Molly, but began chattering eagerly to her mother about the bliss which Dick and Dolly would feel when she presented the posies to them.
The lady having paid Jill for the flowers, took the child’s hand and walked away. Molly gave a laugh of satisfaction as they did so.
“I told you so,” she said, turning to Jill, “I said if I sold ’em chape I’d get rid of ’em, and they was under Kathleen’s bed all night. I called ’em fresh to the child, bless her. She is a beauty, but – why, what’s the matter, Jill?”
“Nothing,” said Jill, suddenly. “Look after my flowers, Molly, I’ll be back in a jiffey.”
With feverish haste she pulled some of her choicest button-holes out of a great heap in one corner of her basket, and leaving Molly open-mouthed with amazement, ran as fast as she could down the street after the lady and the child.
“Here, little missy,” she said, panting out her words, for her breath had failed her, “you give me them posies and take these. These are a sight fresher and better. Here, missy, here!”
She pushed some lovely Gloire-de-Dijon, red geranium, and mignonette into the child’s hand. The little one grasped them greedily, but held fast to her wired moss-rose-buds and forget-me-nots.
“I’ll keep them all,” she said. “Thank you, girl.”
“No, no, make her give ’em up, ma’am,” said Jill, turning to the lady. “I don’t think they’re wholesome. The woman’s child is ill, and them flowers was in the room all night.”
“Throw them away this moment, Ethel,” said the mother in alarm. “What a kind girl you are! How can I thank you? No, Ethel, you must not cry. These are much more beautiful posies. Thank you, thank you. But how shameful that one should be exposed to such risks!”
But the lady spoke to empty air, for Jill, having seen the roses and forget-me-nots flung into the middle of the road, had instantly turned on her heel. Molly was rather cross when she came back, but as Jill gave no explanation whatever with regard to her sudden rush down the road, she soon relapsed into gloomy silence and into many anxious thoughts with regard to her little sick Kathleen.
The brilliant sunshiny morning did not fulfil its promise. In the afternoon the wind veered round, the sky became overcast, and between two and three o’clock a steady downpour of rain began.
Such weather is always fatal to the selling of flowers; at such times the ladies who are out in their fine summer dresses are little inclined to stop and make purchases. Gentlemen don’t want button-holes when they are wrapped up in mackintoshes; in short, the wet weather makes the pleasure-seeking public selfish.
Jill had been rather late arriving at her stand, and in consequence the gentlemen who almost always stopped to buy a button-hole from the handsome young flower girl had carried their custom elsewhere.
With the exception of the lady who had bought a sixpenny bunch of poppies, Jill had only sold two or three pennyworth of flowers when the downpour of rain began. As to Molly, even her halfpenny button-holes, quite an anomaly in the trade, could scarcely attract under such depressing circumstances.
The volatile creature began to rock herself backwards and forwards, and bewail her hard lot. What should she do, if she did not sell her flowers? There was nothing at all in the house for little sick Kathleen.
“Not even money for the rint,” she moaned, “and that cruel baste of a landlord would think nothing of turning us both into the street.”
She poured her full tale of woe into Jill’s ears, who listened and made small attempts to comfort her.
“Look yere,” said Jill, suddenly, “I’ll tell yer a sort of a fairy tale, if you’ll listen.”
“Oh, glory!” exclaimed Molly, “and I loves them stories. But it’s moighty cowld I am. You spake on, honey, and I’ll listen. It’s comforting sometimes to picter things, but I’d rayther think of a right good dinner now than anything under the sun.”
“This isn’t a dinner,” said Jill, “but it’s lovely, and it’s true.”
“Fairy tales ain’t true,” interrupted Molly.
“Some are. This is – I see’d it with my own eyes last night. I went with the boys to Grosvenor Square, and I see’d the fine folks going into a ball. There was the madams in their satins, and laces, and feathers, and the men like princes every one of them. And the young gels in white as ef they were sort of angels. You could smell the flowers from the balconies right down in the street, and once I was pushed forrard, and I got a good sight right into the house. My word, Molly, it wor enough to dazzle yer! The soft look of it and the richness of it, and the dazzle of the white marble walls! Oh, my word, what a story I could make up of a princess living in a palace like that. What’s the matter, Molly.”
“Whisht,” said Molly, “howld your tongue. There’s some corpses coming down the road. If there’s one thing I love more than another it’s a corpse, and there are three of them coming down in hearses. Three together – glory! There’s a sight! ’Tis a damp day they has for their buryin’, poor critters!”
Molly stood up in her excitement, pushing her despised basket of withered flowers behind her. The wind had blown her tall hat crooked, and had disarranged her unkempt grey hair, which surrounded her weather-beaten countenance now in grisly locks.
Putting her arms akimbo, she came out from under the shelter of the railway portico to see the funeral processions go by. Three hearses, one following the other – such a sight was worth a wet afternoon to behold. Molly, in her excitement, rushed back to where Jill was standing, and caught her roughly by the arm.
“Come on,” she said. “They are the purtiest coffins I has seen for many a day. By the size of them they must howld full-grown men. Ah! what a wake the critters would have had in ould Ireland! Swate it would have been, and wouldn’t the whiskey have flown around! Ah, worra me, it’s a sorrowful day when they don’t wake the dead. There they go! there’s the first – six foot high if he was an inch – a powerful big coffin he takes. Well, he’ll find it damp getting under the earth on a day like this. My word, Jill! Look at the flowers! Why, they’re heaped up on that coffin, and chice ’uns too – roses and lilies, and them big white daisies. Oh, shame, they’ll all go underground, I expect. Here’s the second! Can you see it, Jill? He’s not so big, five foot seven or eight, I guess. Heaps of flowers, too. Simple waste, I call it, to give flowers to a corpse. It can nayther smell ’em, or look at ’em. Ah, and here’s the last – poor faller, poor faller!”
The Irishwoman’s ready tears sprang to her eyes. She turned and faced Jill.
“He ain’t got one single flower on him!” she said. “Poor faller! Where’s his wife, or his swate-heart? Poor faller, I do call it a negleckful shame of them.”
“But I thought you said – ”
“Never mind what I said, I forgits it meself. There’s the coffin, without a scrap of trimmin’ on it, and the poor corpse inside a-frettin’ and a-mourning. Oh, it’s moighty disrespec’ful. Suppose it was your Nat, Jill?”
“No, it should never be my Nat,” said Jill, with a little cry.
Her quick, eager sympathies were aroused beyond endurance. The plain deal coffin, lying bare on the shabbiest of hearses, appealed to her innermost heart.
“He shall have posies, too,” said the flower girl, with a cry.
She rushed back to the corner when her basket was placed out of reach of the rain, swung it up on her powerful young arm, and rushing out fearlessly into the street, flung the brilliant contents all over the deal coffin.
“Let him have them to be buried with!” she said, addressing her words to a few of the passers-by, who could not help cheering her.
Chapter Five
Soon after this Jill went home. She carried an empty basket, and what was far more unusual, a pocket destitute of the smallest coin. The few pence she had earned during this unlucky day she had given to Holly, to help her to meet her rent and to buy some necessaries for little sick Kathleen.
Jill went home, however, singing a low, glad song under her breath. Her temperament was very excitable, she had gone through times of great depression in her life, but she had also known her moments of ecstasy. Some of these blissful limes were visiting her to-day. She did not mind the rain nor her empty pocket. She was glad she had pound the flowers over that plain deal coffin. It gave her delight to think that the pauper should go down to the grave as gaily decked for the burial as his richer brothers.
She stepped along quickly and lightly, singing short snatches of the street melodies of the day. The fact of having an empty pocket did not trouble her to-night. She had only to draw on her secret store. She had only to take a little, a very little, from the money put carefully out of sight in the old stocking, and all would be well.
It seemed only right and proper to Jill that to-day should be the day of gifts, that she should pour her flowers over a dead man, and should give the few pence she had earned to comfort a sick child.
These things were only as they should be, for to-night the crowning gift of all would take place, when she put her hand in Nat’s and promised to wed him before the registrar in three weeks’ time.
Jill reached home at last and ran lightly up the stairs to the top of the house. She was in a hurry, for she wanted to take some money out of the stocking to buy a suitable supper for Nat. If she could, too, she would purchase a bunch of cheap flowers to decorate the room.
In her excitement and strong interest, she, for the first time, gave her mother the second place in her thoughts. But as she reached the roughly-painted door which was shut against her, a sudden pang of fear went through her heart, and she paused for a moment before raising her hand to raise the knocker. Suppose her mother should be ill again, as she was the night before! Suppose – a hot rush of colour spread all over Jill’s dark face.
Nat knew nothing of these illnesses of her mother’s. Nat had never seen Poll Robinson except gaily dressed, bright good-humour in her eyes, pleasant words on her lips, and a general look of comeliness radiating from her still-handsome person.
Nat had always looked at Jill’s mother with admiration in his open blue eyes. Jill had loved him for these glances. Nothing had ever drawn him nearer to her than his liking for the comely, pleasant-spoken woman, who was so dear and beloved to the girl herself. Suppose he saw Poll as Poll was sometimes to be seen! Jill clenched her well-formed brown hand at the thought. She sounded a long knock at the door, and waited with a fast-beating heart for the result.
To the girl’s relief a step was heard immediately within, and Poll, her face pale, her eyes heavy from long hours of suffering, opened the door.
“Oh, mother,” said Jill, with a little laugh, “oh, mother dear.”
She ran up to the woman and kissed her passionately, too relieved to find Poll in full possession of her senses to notice the white, drawn, aged expression of her face.
“Mother,” said Jill, “here’s an empty basket, and has nothing in my pocket, either.”
“You look bright enough about it, Jill,” said Poll. “No flowers and no money! What’s the meaning of this ill-luck?”
“No, no, mother, you ain’t to say the word ill-luck to-night. There ain’t no such thing, not this night leastways. I’ll tell you another time about the flowers and about having no money. Nat’s coming, mother, Nat Carter, him as I’m keeping company with. And I’m – I’m going to say ‘yea’ to his ‘yea’ at last, mother. That’s why there shouldn’t be no ill-luck on a night like this.”
Jill’s sparkling eyes were raised almost shyly to her mother’s. She was not a timid girl, but in acknowledging her love for the first time a sensation of shyness, new, strange, and sweet, crept over her.
She half expected her mother to fold her in a voluminous embrace, but Poll did nothing of the kind. She stood very upright, her back to the window, her massive figure flung out in strong relief against the background of evening light. But the pale, and even woe-begone expression of her face was lost in shadow.
“I must take some money out of the stocking to buy supper with,” said Jill. “Susy may be coming as well as Nat, there’s no saying; anyhow I’d like to have a good supper.”
She walked across the room to the place where the bureau stood.
“Don’t, Jill,” said Poll suddenly. “I thought may be you’d be coming in hungry, and I has supper.”
“You has got supper ready, mother?”
“Yes, child, yes. Don’t stare at me as if you were going to eat me. I thought may be you’d be coming in hungry, and that the boys would want their fill, and that – ”
“Mother, you didn’t think as Nat were coming?”
“How was I to tell? When gels keep company with young men there’s never no knowing when they’ll make up their minds to wed ’em. Anyhow I bought some supper this morning, and here it be. You come and look, Jill.”
Poll took her daughter’s hand with almost unnecessary force, and opening a cupboard in the wall, showed a fresh loaf of bread, a pat of butter, some radishes, a good-sized pork-pie, and a pound of uncooked sausages.
“There’s a few potatoes in a bag there,” said Poll. “We’ll put ’em down to boil, and set the sausages on to fry. Ain’t that a good enough supper even for Nat, Jill?”
“Oh, mother, it’s a feast fit for a wedding,” said Jill, laughing with pleasure. “And flowers, I do declare! Mother, there’s no one like you. You forgets nothing.”
“Don’t praise me to-night, child, I can’t quite abear it,” said Poll. “Go and smarten yourself up for that young man of yourn, and let your old mother cook the supper.”
Jill went into the other room, coiled her black hair freshly round her head, took off her gaily-coloured apron, and put on in its place a white one trimmed with embroidery. In her hair she stuck a crimson rose, and came back to the kitchen looking demure and sweet.
Nat arrived in good time, accompanied by his sister, Susy. The boys came in after their day’s work, and the whole party sat down to the excellent supper which Poll had prepared.
The meal was nearly drawing to a close when Susy, bending forward, said in her sharp voice to Jill —
“Nat tells me that you and he will most likely wed one another afore the next Bank Holiday.”
Jill coloured, glanced at Nat, who was watching her with all his heart in his eyes, and then nodded to Susy.
“And you and he mean to take the flat under this?”
Jill nodded again.
“It’s early days for you to speak of these things with Jill, Susy,” said her brother. “We hasn’t made up all our plans yet, Jill and me.”
“Oh yes, you has, Nat. And what I say is this, that seven shillings a week is a sight too much for you two to pay. It’s beginning extravagant, and what’s that but ending in ruin? Yes, I’m out-spoke,” continued Susy, raising her shrill, confident young voice, “and what I say is, ‘begin small, and you’ll end big!’ Ain’t I right, Mrs Robinson?”
“For sure, dearie,” said Poll, in an absent voice. She was scarcely attending.
“Be you a-going to get married, Jill?” exclaimed Tom in an ecstasy. “Oh, jiminy! Won’t we make the cakes and ale fly round on the day of the wedding! My stars, I’d like to go courting myself. Will you have me to go company with, miss?”
He pulled his forelock and gave Susy an impudent leer as he spoke. She did not take the least notice of him, but continued in a tone of solemn earnestness:
“You know, Jill, that you and Nat are goin’ to take the rooms under this. And what I say is they’re too dear and too many. What do you want with four rooms all to yourselves? You’ll be both out all day, Nat with his donkey-cart, and you with your flowers.”
“May be not,” interrupted Nat. “May be I can ’arn enough for both of us.”
“Oh, no, you can’t, Nat; and Jill ain’t the one to let you. You’ll both be out all day, and you can’t make no use of four rooms, let alone the furnishing on ’em. Now I ain’t talking all this for nothing. You are both set on the rooms, and it ain’t no use trying to turn obstinate folks from their own way. What I want to say is this, that I’m willing to take the best bedroom off you, ef you’ll let me have it, and pay you ’arf-a-crown a week for it. And Jill can let me cook my food by her fire, and use her oven when I want to. That will be a bargain as ’ull suit us both fine, and your rent ’ull be brought down to four-and-six. What do you say, Jill? I’m looking for fresh quarters, so I must have my answer soon.”
Jill looked at Nat, who rose suddenly, went up to his sister, and laid one hand suddenly on her shoulder.
“Look you here, my gel,” he said, “Jill and I can say nothing to-night. We’ll give you your answer in a day or so. And now, Jill, if you’ll put on your hat we’ll go out a bit, and have a talk all by ourselves and fix up matters.”
“It would be a right good thing for Jill to join the Guild,” said Susy. “You ought to persuade her, Nat. She’d be a credit to you in the uniform, instead of going about the outlandish guy she is, in that flashy apron and turban.”
“The prettiest bit of a wild flower in Lunnon for all that,” murmured Nat under his breath. His honest eyes glowed with admiration. Jill smiled up at him.
She went into the other room to fetch her despised turban, which she tied under her chin, instead of coiling it as usual round her head.
“You’ll wait till we come back, Susy,” said her brother. She nodded acquiescence, and proceeded to give enlarged editions of her views on various matters to poor Poll. The boys lounged about for a little, then went out.
Susy helped Poll to wash up the supper things, and then she drew in her chair close to the little stove, glad, warm as the evening was, to toast her toes, and quite inclined to pour some more of her wisdom over Poll’s devoted head.
Mrs Robinson, however, had a knack of shutting up her ears when she did not care to listen. She sat now well forward on her seat, her big hands folded on her knee, her large black eyes gazing through Susy at something else – at a picture which filled her soul with sullen pain.
Susy expatiated on the delights of the Flower Girls’ Guild, on the advantages of the neat uniform, on the money-profit which must surely arise by keeping flowers in the room provided by the Guild all night. Susy was intent on proselytising. If she could only get Mrs Robinson and Jill to join the Guild she felt that her evening’s work would not be in vain.
Poll sat mute as if she were taking in every word. Suddenly she spoke.
“What are you staying on for, Susy Carter?”
Susy, drawn up short, replied with almost hesitation —
“Nat told me to wait for him. But I can go,” she added a little stiffly, “ef I’m in the way. I ain’t one to stay loitering round in any room ef I’m not wanted.”
“You ain’t wanted here,” said Poll. “It’s weary waiting for folks as has gone lovering, and besides I must go out myself at once.”
Susy got up and said good-bye. Poll took her hand, looked into her bright blue eyes and spoke —
“You has given me a power of advice this night, my gel.”
“Yes; oh, if you would think it all over.”
“I’m obleeged to yer, but I must own that I didn’t catch on to many of yer words. I had a power of thinking to do on my own account. Still I’d like to pay yer back in yer own coin.”
“What do you mean, Mrs Robinson?”
“This is what I mean. Here’s a bit of advice for you. Leave that young man yer brother and that young gel my daughter to themselves when they are wedded. Don’t make nor meddle with them, or you’ll be doing a mischief. Now good-night.”
Susy went away, and Poll shut the door after her with a sort of vicious good-will.
“I can’t abear her,” she muttered. “Ef Nat were her sort he shouldn’t have Jill.”
Poll stood quiet for a moment, thinking hard. Then with a queer tremble about her full red lips she went into the little bedroom, took down a gaily-coloured shawl from its peg, wrapped it about her person, and went out, putting the key of the little flat into her pocket.
“I can’t abear it,” she murmured, as she went down the stairs. “I has stood up agen it all day long, and now, though it’s the night when the child gives herself to another, though it’s the night when my Jill – the best gel in Christendom – ought to be happy, and shall be happy, still, I must get something to dull the bitter pain. Jest twopenn’orth of gin ’ot, just twopenn’orth, and then I’ll be better.” Poll found herself in the street. She began to walk quickly along the gaily lighted pavement. Her pain, bad and terrible as it was, did not interfere with her free, almost grand movement. She would soon reach the public-house, and twopennyworth of gin, the money for which she held in her hand, would bring a certain deadness of sensation which was the unhappy woman’s only measure of relief. She walked on fast, her desire for the stimulant growing fiercer and fiercer, her wish to spare Jill’s feelings on this night of all nights less and less.