Chapter 10 Jill: A Flower Girl by L. T. Meade
Jill never remembered afterwards how she spent that long day. She had no flowers to sell, for she had taken her basket empty from the market, leaving those that were over from the day before in a pail of water at home.
She was too restless, miserable, and anxious to sit doing nothing in Howard’s Buildings. So she wandered the streets quite indifferent to the gaze of the many flower girls who knew her, and quite oblivious to the feet that her picturesque dress and beautiful face called for loud admiration from more than one passer-by.
Tired out at last, she went home. She was glad that the long day had come to an end. Nat would soon be with her now, and the worst would be over. She sat down in the empty kitchen and waited; then was nothing whatever else for her to do. She had thought about the lost money, and about what she should say to Nat so often, that at last her tired brain refused to think any more about it. She held on now only to one instinct. She must shield her mother at any cost. If necessary, she must even go to the length of telling Nat that she had given her mother the money.
She had come to this resolve when a quick step was heard on the stairs outside. A gay whistle accompanied the step, and then a hand knocked with gentle insistence on one of the panels of the door.
Jill went at once to open it. Nat was standing outside. He had dressed himself with some care, and when Jill threw open the door and looked at him, he presented as fine a picture of a young English lad of the people as heart could desire. His curly hair was damp with exercise, his face was tanned with much exposure to the weather; his honest, well-opened eyes were as blue as the sky. He was a tall young fellow, too, with broad shoulders and a well-knit frame.
“Eh, Jill!” he exclaimed, “I thought you’d be in, and awaiting for me. I had no time to send yer word; but I guessed somehow as a little bird might whisper to yer as I’d be looking round.”
“Shall we go for a walk, Nat?” said Jill in a hasty voice. “I ain’t quite well. Shall we go and take a walk on the Embankment? It’s a fine evenin’, ain’t it?”
“Why in course; it’s a beautiful evenin’, sweet-heart. We’ll go out, ef you wish. But you has never given me a kiss, Jill. Don’t you want to?”
“Yes, Nat,” replied the poor girl. She took a sudden step forward, flung her arms round his neck, and placed her soft cheek against his. “I’d like to go out with yer,” she said then. “We can talk about kissin’ presently. I’m craving for the air.”
She wrapped a bright shawl round her head. Nat took her hand and they went down-stairs.
“Ef there’s anything as I must tell, it ’ud be easier out in the air,” she murmured to herself.
For some time, however, Nat avoided all painful subjects. The two wandered down to the Embankment, and, going into the gardens, sat on one of the benches. They sat close together, and Nat’s brown hand held Jill’s under the gay apron which she still wore. A good many people passed them, and looked at them, and murmured to one another that this silly young pair were in a fool’s paradise, and that they’d wish themselves out of it fast enough one day. It seemed to Jill afterwards, however, that they were all alone that evening, that no one looked at them as they sat on the bench together, that they had the gardens to themselves.
The sunset passed, and the stars shone in the dark blue of the sky, and Jill looked up at them and thought that, after all, it must be very easy to be good. She had forgotten her pain and anxiety for the present; the influence of the summer night was surrounding her, and the still more potent influence of young love was sending all fears to sleep.
“Nat,” she said suddenly, “it seems as if the folks must be right.”
“Wot folks, Jill?”
“Them folks as says there’s a God, Nat, and that He lives up there. Seems to me that there must be a God, and that He’s beautiful. I don’t believe we could love each other as we do, but for God.”
“Maybe,” said Nat. “I han’t thought much about it. I were allers too busy. Ef He made you love me, Jill, I’ll go in for believing in Him; that’s sartin. But, oh! my word, my word, there’s a sight of misery in the world!”
“That’s the devil’s doing,” said Jill in a frightened whisper. “I allers put the misery to the devil. But don’t let us think on it to-night, Nat. Don’t let’s think on one miserable thing this beautiful night. Let’s put all the pain out of sight. It’s there for sure; but let’s put it out of sight. Do, Nat; do, dear, darling Nat!”
“Why, my little love, you’re all of a tremble. Take my ’and, and let’s walk about a bit. We won’t talk of miserable things, Jill – at least not yet awhile. Come out and look at the moon shining on the river. Ain’t it prime? And how the water ripples. Why, you’re shivering still, Jill. Ain’t yer well?”
“Oh, yes, Nat; I’m as well as a gel can be.”
“Let’s walk up and down then. I have everything planned for our wedding. I thought, maybe, we’d take a third-class fare down to Yarmouth or somewhere, and have a look at the real sea. I have an aunt at Yarmouth, a Mrs Potter, and she’d give us a shake-down for nothink, I make sure. Wot does yer say, Jill?”
“I never looked at the sea,” said Jill.
“Nor have I; folks say as there is nought like it. I believe we might give ourselves a week’s holiday. I has put by a few pounds. Wot’s the matter, Jill? You’re shivering again.”
“I wor thinking,” said Jill, “that maybe I were wrong about God. Maybe He ain’t up there.”
“Why, Jill, what do you mean? And I do declare you have tears in your eyes. What is the matter, my little gel?”
“Ef God was there,” said Jill, “ef the beautiful God I picter were there, He’d give us one perfect happy evening – oh, I know He would, I know He would!”
“And ain’t this evening perfect and happy, Jill?”
“I can’t keep the pain out,” said Jill in a low voice. “I ha’ tried, but it won’t stay away. I’m thinking of mother, for one thing; she ain’t very well.”
“But we’ll both take care on her when I’m your mate: and ef pain do come, we’ll bear it together. There ain’t a doubt as there’s a heap of suffering in the world, and it seems to me as if it worn’t right for us, however happy we wor, to shut our eyes to it. Why, look at me, I wor fit to burst my heart wid misery this morning, and yet when I were running up them stairs at Howard’s Buildings and thought that with each step I were getting nearer to you, it seemed as ef I could have shouted for joy. I take it that I wor in one sense selfish – in another, no.” Nat looked at Jill as he spoke. For a moment she was silent, then she said in a husky voice —
“Why were you miserable this morning, Nat?”
“It wor about my mate, Joe Williams. You know I telled you about him. Him and me we shared the same barrer, and the same cart of flowers. Joe was as good a feller as breathed; but he worn’t lucky. He had a sickly wife, for one thing, and four little bits of kids. He turned over a tidy bit of money; but he couldn’t save, not ef he was to try ever so. It seemed as ef saving and prudence worn’t in him. Do you think he’d pay a shilling a week to a buryin’ club or a sick club, or aught of them clubs as is the stay of working men? No, no, that worn’t Joe. It wor all spend, spend with him. To be sure his wife was sickly, and he couldn’t deny her nothink, and she wor more to blame than he. That woman had a perfect crank for smelling out money. Ef Joe brought ’ome as much as ’arf-a-crown, meaning to save it for a rainy day, she’d unearth it. It were no use his trying to save, for Clara were more for spending even than hisself.
“Well, one day an uncle of his died, and left him five sovereigns in an old teapot. Joe gave the teapot to Clara, and said nothing about the windfall inside. But he gave them five sovereigns to me jest a week ago, wrapped up in the identical brown-paper as I handed to you two nights back, Jill. And he says, says poor Joe, with a sort of a wink of a tear in his eye, ‘Ef the worst comes, Nat, that’ll bury me,’ says he, ‘and I won’t be on the parish,’ says he. I can tell you, Jill, that money wor like a millstone round me, I were so feart of losing it. And I were fine and glad when I handed it on to you, lass.
“Well, poor Joe, he dropped down dead yesterday morning, jest when he was coming to help me fill up the barrer. It were orful sudden, and poor Clara’s nearly off her head.”
Nat spoke huskily; the sorrowful feelings of the morning were moving him again.
“He’s dead,” he continued; “the best feller living, the kindest heart as breathed. I’ll never meet his like, he wor that trusting and that companionable. We wor mates for close on three year, and never was there a word atween us. I can’t get over his dying off so sharp; but it is a good thing as you has the money safe, Jill.”
“Yes; that’s a werry good thing,” replied Jill. She paused again.
The moon was now riding in majesty across the dark blue heavens; the lovers had turned their steps towards Howard’s Buildings. Jill was trembling no longer; every nerve was on tension, each beat of her heart was warning her to be careful, to betray nothing. She wondered at her own sudden calm, at the power of brain with which she seemed endowed. She felt so still now, so capable of acting prudently in this terrible emergency, that she was even inclined to test Nat, to see for herself what he would do and how he would look if he really knew that his dead pal’s money was gone.
“It is a good thing as I has them five sovereigns,” she continued; “but s’pose as they wor lost?”
“What do yer mean, Jill?” Nat’s honest, open face clouded over, his blue eyes flashed a steely light of anger. “You oughtn’t even to say sech a thing in jest,” he continued.
“No, no, in course I oughtn’t; but it is a way with me to look at every side o’ a picter. You giv’d the money two nights ago to a gel as could be trusted. You loved that gel, you thought a sight on her; she had a mother the soberest o’ women, and she herself were honest as the day. You’re a lucky feller, Nat Carter, to have found a gel that lives up to yer creed. You’re rare and lucky, though I say it as shouldn’t, to marry a gel with sober, quiet, and honest relations. You wouldn’t like it no other sort, would you?”
“I should think not,” said Nat, quickening his steps. “But why do you talk in that queer fashion, Jill?”
“It seems to ease my heart like; it’s so nice to know as I’m jest what you want. Now, s’pose, jest s’pose for two minutes, dear Nat, that things worn’t the way they are. S’pose I wor Jill still, with a heart all trembling with love to you, and my face the same as it is, and everything looking jest as it do now, but the inside, Nat, the inside o’ your Jill quite different. S’pose, jest for the sake o’ the thing, that my mother worn’t a sober woman, that she’d take a drop too much sometimes, and sometimes go the length o’ singing songs in the street, with a mob round her, and s’pose your Jill had to go and fetch her home and cossit her up and make purtense as she wor a very sober, ’spectable sort o’ woman, and s’pose, still more, that when you giv’d me yer mate’s money I didn’t keep it safe, but I giv’d it to my por mother what worn’t sober. You trusted Jill, and Jill worn’t worthy, and your dead pal’s money wor all gone, every stiver of it. You look at that picter, Nat, and say what you’d do with sech a Jill as I ha’ drawed out. Would you take her to your heart and say, ‘Never mind, poor Jill, you loves me, and that makes up for all. Your mother ain’t sober and you ain’t true; but your love is true, and I’ll take you to be my wife.’ That wouldn’t be your way, would it, Nat?”
“How wildly you talk, Jill. I think you must be a-going to have fever.”
“No; I ain’t goin’ to have any fever, and I ain’t talking wildly. Answer me. Would you take the Jill as I have pictured to be your wife?”
“Take the child of a drunken mother,” said Nat; “take a false gel, what wor the werry worst kind of a thief, to be my wife! No, thank yer. Don’t talk on it, Jill; it pains me; it seems sort o’ cruel to yourself even to speak on such matters.”
“But,” said Jill, “one moment, Nat. You wouldn’t have her – you’re sartin sure, even ef she had my face; the face you loves, the face you think werry lovely.” Jill threw off her many-coloured shawl as she spoke; her dark eyes gloomy in their great depths, were raised to Nat’s; her little brown well-shaped hands were placed on his shoulders, her lips were parted in a faint smile, the gleam of her pearly teeth just showed. There was a passion of love and longing in her gaze which stirred the young man to the very depths of his being. Nevertheless, what a horrible picture she had drawn! A false Jill, a thief, the daughter of a drunkard!
“No, no,” he said, almost pushing her clinging hands away; “sech a Jill ’ud be nought, and worse than nought to me. Ef she had ten times your beauty I’d spurn her. I’d push her from me. Don’t talk on her no more – don’t think on her. Put your hand inside my arm, my little love, and let’s walk fast, for you’re beginning to shiver again. Why did you talk so strangely, Jill?”
“A fancy I had,” said Jill in a light tone. “It’s over now; let’s talk o’ pleasant things again. When’ll you want your mate’s money, Nat? Shall I give it to yer to-night?”
“No, not to-night; I’ll come round and fetch it to-morrow some time.”
“About what time, Nat?”
“Let me see; I ha’ a deal to do for poor Clara Williams in the morning. I’ll come in the arternoon, as early as I can.”
“Well, we’re back at Howard’s Buildings now,” said Jill, with a little sigh, “and I must go up home. Kiss me, Nat; put your arms tight round me and kiss me.”
“My little love!” said Nat Carter.
“Hold me a bit tighter, Nat, dear. I want to kiss yer werry, werry hard for a minute. Good-night, Nat.”
“Good-night, Jill, my own little love.”
Jill kissed her hand twice to her lover, who stood and watched her as she vanished up the steep stone stairs of Howard’s Buildings.