Chapter 5 Jill: A Flower Girl by L. T. Meade
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.
A little mob of people blocked up the pavement. They were standing in front of a chemist’s shop, and were looking eagerly into the shop through the brilliantly lighted windows.
“What is it?” said Poll, her attention arrested by the eager, excited looks of the crowd.
A woman came up and touched her on the arm.
“It’s me, Poll,” said Betsy Peters. “I has sold all the poppies. I had a power of luck with ’em. Yere’s your shilling back agen, and may the good Lord above reward you.”
“I don’t want the shilling. Keep it, neighbour,” said Poll. “Ef you had luck, it’s more nor I had; but you keep your luck, I don’t want it off yer.”
“There it is again,” said Betsy Peters. “Worn’t I prayin’ for money to buy some of the medicine for little Jeanie? And there, you has gone and give it to me.”
“Wot medicine?” asked Poll.
“Stuff they sells in yere. There’s a sort of a doctor keeps this shop, and he has made pints of some powerful stuff, and he sells it off in bottles. It’s warranted to cure colds and brownchitis and pains in the ’ead, and bad legs, and pains of all sorts whatever. Little Jeanie has turned that pettish after the brownchitis that I thought I’d get a bottle to brisk her up a bit. It’s powerful ’ot, strong stuff, and they say, folks as tried it, that it seems to go straight to the vitals, and lifts you up so as you don’t know yourself.”
“And stops pain? Do they say that?” asked Poll.
“Sartin sure. It’s a kind of an ease-all, that’s the right name for it.”
Poll looked into the palm of her hand, which contained the solitary twopence.
“How much do the stuff cost?” she asked.
“You get a big bottle for sixpence. It’s dirt cheap, dirt cheap.”
“You’re sure as it ain’t pizen?”
“Rayther. Didn’t Mary Ann Jones in the court take it, and Peter Samson, and a score more? It’s fine stuff, strengthening and good. What is it, neighbour? You look white. Ain’t you well?”
“I has a bit of a pain, Betsy. A bit of a grip just under my left breast. Oh, it ain’t nothing; but I has a mind to try the medicine as dulls pain. It don’t seem to take you off yer ’ead, like sperits, for instance?”
“No, no. You get a bit drowsy, and that’s about all.”
“Well, I have a mind to try it. I’m sorry, neighbour, but I must ask you to give me fourpence back out of that shilling; I’ll pay yer back to-morrow in the market.”
“Oh, neighbour, it’s all yourn,” said poor Betsy.
“No, it ain’t, not a bit on it. Come into the shop with me, and we’ll get a bottle each of the stuff.”
The two women pushed their way to the front, and soon entered the shop through the swinging glass doors. It was very hot inside, for the place was brilliantly lit with gas, and there was no proper ventilation. A mass of people were standing four deep round the counter, all waiting their turn to be supplied with the wonderful medicine.
The chemist, a pale man, with bright, wonderful keen eyes, was handing bottle after bottle of the comforting stuff across the counter. Many sixpences were passed across to him in return; he dropped them into the open till by his side.
The sudden heat and closeness of the shop, after the outside air, proved too much for Poll. She was weak after her day of suffering, and it suddenly seemed to her that the shop reeled, that the gas came down and blinded her, that the floor rose up to smite her in the face. Her black eyes looked vaguely across the world of confusion in which she found herself, then all consciousness left her.