Chapter 11 Jill: A Flower Girl by L. T. Meade
Silas Lynn left Covent Garden at an early hour, and went home. He had a very neat little waggon for conveying his goods to town, and he sat in it now, in the pleasant sunshine and gave himself up to reverie.
He was very much startled and amazed at his own action that morning. He had not only made love to a very young and very pretty girl, but he had asked her to come down to the country god share his bit of a cottage with him.
He had asked her to take him for better, for worse. He had asked her to belong to him for ever and ever; it was really a tremendous thing to do, a rash, overwhelming sort of thing. Here was Silas, a grim, sour, gnarled old bachelor (he was not very far from forty years of age), asking a bit of a lass whom he knew little or nothing about to be his wife, Silas was known amongst the neighbours as a woman-hater – as a gruff, disagreeable, churlish sort of man, and yet now he was in love; absolutely in love with a pretty girl who possessed a pair of dark eyes for her dower, who was nothing whatever but a London flower girl, possessed of all the knowledge, and probably all the wickedness, that that name implied, and who owed somebody or other the large, the enormous sum of five pounds.
“It’s a good thing as she wouldn’t have me,” said Silas, as he sat in the front of the waggon, and “gee-upped” to his horses. “It’s a right good thing for me. She’d have been my undoing, sure as sure; a dainty bit of a thing with a purty way and a proud look; full of breedin’; and yet nothing but a London gel. Oncommon like the flowers all the same; painted up by the Almighty hisself – roses in her cheeks, fire in her eyes, and – my word! her lips, haven’t they a dash of colour in ’em! The Almighty made her very ’ticing – there’s no doubt on that pint. Worn’t she sweet just when she ’anded me that coffee; my word, it tasted like new honey. But all the same it’s well I’m rid on her. I’ll have forgotten her by Monday. There’s the new colt to be broken in, and that bed of dahlias wants thinnin’; I’ll say anything too that Jonathan’s coorting that wench Hepsibah, ’stead of looking arter the young sparrer-grass. Oh, my hand’s full, and I’m well quit of a bit o’ a girl like that ’un.”
Having reached home, Silas put up his tired horses, watered and groomed them, saw to their comforts in every particular, and then went into the little cottage which he had offered to share with Jill.
Silas was a very prosperous market-gardener. He had what might be called a certain knack with flowers and vegetables. Under his touch they throve. His blossoms were larger than those of any other market-gardener round. He did not go in so extensively for fruit, but even his fruit was better and more abundant than his neighbours’.
It was generally known that Silas was a man of substance. Every Monday he might have been seen trudging on foot to the nearest market town, entering the Bank, and going home again with a satisfied expression on his strong, rough face.
Everyone knew what Silas did in the Bank. He was storing his money there, putting away every week his hard-earned savings.
Notwithstanding his success, however, he was a very morose and churlish man. He never exchanged friendly words with his fellow creatures. He never invited his neighbours to partake of his hospitality. He was very good to his flowers, and scrupulously kind to his animals. But that he had any duties to perform to humanity at large, never entered into his calculations.
Although his small farm was so prosperous, and his horses so comfortably housed, the little cottage where he lived himself was of the most meagre description. It was very old, and in its best days was but a poor residence.
Silas said, however, that the two-roomed dwelling was good enough for him, and he would have been a brave man, and she a remarkable plucky woman, who had dared to suggest to Silas Lynn that he might with advantage enlarge his dwelling.
He entered his house now, put a match to some bits of sticks and some small lumps of coal, which had been left ready laid in the grate, and, sitting down on a hard wooden chair, which was much polished with age and service, glanced complacently around him.
When the fire blazed he would put the kettle on to boil, and make himself a dish of tea – he called it a dish because that had been his old mother’s way of expressing it. He would drink his tea strong and bitter, without the luxuries of milk and sugar, and take with it a slice from a quartern loaf which stood in the cupboard, and a thick cut from the cold bacon which he always kept in the house.
After this frugal meal he would be sufficiently rested to go out to thin the dahlias.
Silas had quite made up his mind to forget Jill; nevertheless, he found his thoughts running back to her in a way which both perplexed and irritated him. He said to himself:
“I has took too much notice of the gel. She’s nought but a common gel, when all’s said and done; and I has maybe turned my own head a comparing of her to the flowers made by the Lord God Almighty. It’s a good thing she wouldn’t have me; yes, it’s a right good thing. Praise the Lord for all His mercies, Silas Lynn. Drink yer tea and munch yer bacon, and forget the hussy.”
Lynn put the kettle on to boil as he spoke. Then he looked round the tiny kitchen.
“My certy, what a mess I wor near making of myself,” he muttered. “As ef she’d have been content with mother’s old room!”
The kitchen was very small; Lynn knew every inch and corner of it, but he found himself examining it now with new and critical eyes.
“A more comfortable room there can’t be,” he said to himself. “But it ain’t the place for a London gel. What ’ud she do with the old eight-day clock, and the bit of the dresser where mother kept the dishes? She’d come in with her fallals and her fashions, and afore a week wor out I wouldn’t know my own place. Mother’s arm-chair ’ud most like be moved from its corner, and the bunch of lavender that she sewed up herself in the muslin bag, and pinned over the mantelshelf, would be put behind the fire; and mother’s big Bible changed for a yeller-backed novel. Oh, lor, what an escape I has had! God be thanked again for all his mercies.”
The kettle boiled; Silas made his tea, ate his bread and bacon, and went out. He worked hard amongst his dahlias for two or three hours, scolded his servant Jonathan in round full terms, saw to the breaking in of the colt, and the comfort of his two patient waggon horses, and filially retired to his cottage when the stars were out and the moon shining. It was the very same moon that was looking down at this moment on Jill in her passion and anguish. But Silas knew nothing of this. He called the moon “My lady,” and bobbed his head to it after a fashion taught him by his mother. Then he went into his cottage, locked the door, lit a small paraffin lamp, and set himself to read his accustomed chapter out of the big Bible before going to bed.
Silas was a Wesleyan, and a very devout adherent of that religious body. He went twice every Sunday to the little Wesleyan chapel in the village close by, and on more than one occasion had himself been induced to deliver a prayer at the revival meetings.
Silas had a stentorian pair of lungs, and he could sing the old-fashioned Methodist hymns to the old tunes with immense effect. He was fond of giving way to his fancy on these occasions, and would supplement the tune with many additional twists and turns. He scorned to sing anything but a high and harsh treble, considering that the one and only quality necessary for rendering hearty praise to the Creator was noise.
Silas liked singing in the chapel, he liked praying aloud, he would not have at all objected to addressing his “fellow-worms,” as he called them, Sunday after Sunday. Above all things, he liked laboriously spelling out verse by verse a chapter of his mother’s Bible at night. He was not a fluent reader; perhaps because he only practised this art to the extent of that one chapter nightly. He liked to ponder over the words, and to move his big thumb slowly from word to word as he came to it. He never skipped a verse or a chapter, but read straight on, beginning the next night exactly where he had left off the night before. He was going through the Book of the Proverbs now, and he made shrewd comments as he read.
“Ha, ha,” he said to himself, “don’t never tell me as there’s a man living now wot beats the great King Solomon for wisdom. Take him on any subjec’, and he’s up on it, with all the newest lights too. Natrel history, for instance! hark to him on the conies and ants. Listen to him ’bout bees – why it’s quite wonderful. Then, again, take gardening – seems to me Solomon was a born gardener. Don’t Holy Writ say of him that he knew the names of all the flowers, and could he do that if he worn’t about among ’em – a-tying of ’em up, and digging at their roots, and watering ’em, and taking cuttin’s from the choicest of ’em? Folks tell of King Solomon in all his glory, but I seem to see him most often out among the flowers, a-petting and a-tending of ’em, and learning all those store of names by heart. But take Solomon all round, and his knowledge of the ways of women beats everything. Hark to the verse in this chapter: ‘Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.’ That were my mother’s sort – no beauty in her, and no favour – a downright woman, plain in her way, and a bit primity in her notions; but, oh, the goodness of her, and the fear o’ God that shone round about her, making a sort of savour all round her like a sweet-smelling flower! Jill minded me o’ her, but not in looks, for the poor gel has them things spoken so strongly agin by King Solomon. But for all that there was a sweetness in her that seemed to me this morning when I looked into her eyes to be more’n skin-deep. Most like I’m wrong. I’ve the Bible agin me, anyhow, and I ought to be thankin’ the Lord on my knees for having saved me from the enticing wiles of that poor gel.”
As a rule, Silas spent his short night without a dream, but the events of the past day had disturbed his somewhat slow nature. His brain had received an impression of a girl’s grace, freshness and beauty, which had penetrated straight from the brain to the heart.
Silas fully believed that by Monday morning he should have forgotten Jill; that her image would fade from his mental sight, her voice cease to sound on his mental ears. He did not know that he was never to forget her – that from henceforth to his dying day he would carry her image tenderly, sacredly in the inner shrine of his heart.
The little rosy god of love had come and touched Silas, and he could no more resist his influence than the flowers in his own garden could refrain from growing and expanding in the sunshine. So, quite contrary to his wont, Silas Lynn spent his night in dreams. Jill figured in each of these visions. Sometimes she was angry with him, sometimes appealing, sometimes indifferent. She was in danger, and he was the one to save her. She was surrounded by prosperity, and he was the benefactor who brought these good things to her feet.
All the time, however, through all the happenings of these queer distorted dreams, he and Jill were together. It did not surprise Silas, therefore, when early on that Sunday morning he awoke, to hear some one knocking at his door.
“Yes, I’m coming,” he said, still believing that he was in a dream.
“I want you very badly, Silas Lynn,” called Jill from the other side of the door.
Then he knew that he was awake, and that she had come to him. All the prudent thoughts of yesterday had flown to the winds. He found himself absolutely trembling with eagerness, joy, ecstasy.
“Yes, I’m a-coming; I’ll be with yer in a minute, Jill,” he called out. “For,” he said to himself as he tumbled into his clothes, “it’s too wonderful for anything. Who’d ha’ thought – who would have thought that a dainty bit of a cuttin’ like that ’ud go and take root in a rough soil like this here? It’s a fact nevertheless. Nothing less ’ud bring her here at this time o’ the morning. ‘Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain’ – not a bit on it – you’re wrong for once, King Solomon.”
Having dressed himself, Silas quickly unlocked the cottage-door.
Jill was standing outside, leaning wearily against the post of the door. Her neat black dress was covered with dust, her apron was unpinned, her gay-coloured shawl had fallen back from her shapely head, and her black hair, in some disorder, was tumbled about her face. Jill’s face was very white. Silas felt himself absolutely colouring crimson as he came out to her, but not a tinge of shyness or embarrassment were in the wide-open eyes she raised to his.
“I ha’ come,” she said, speaking in a choking, husky voice, “for the loan of the money. I know wot it means, Silas, but I ha’ come all the same.”
“You know what it means?” said Silas Lynn, clasping both her small, cold hands in one enormous palm. “Do you mean to tell me that we are to wed each other, Jill Robinson? Are we to go afore the pa’son, and take each other for better and for worse?”
“Ef you like,” said Jill wearily. “I ha’ come for the money first. That’s the first thing. We can talk of t’other later on. The money’s the first thing.”
“Yes, yes. Why, you are all in a tremble! You must want that ere money bitter bad, Jill Robinson. Look me in the eyes, gel, and say as you’ll play me no tricks arter I have gived it to yer.”
“I’ll be quite true to you, Mr Lynn.”
“Now, don’t you speak in them stiff tones. Say ‘Silas,’ my pretty. Say ‘I’ll be quite true to you, Silas.’”
“I’ll be quite true to you, Silas,” repeated Jill.
“And you love me?”
“I – I’ll try.”
“Look you yere, Jill – ” Silas was getting command of the situation now. His heart was opening out under these full beams of love and rapture. “Look you yere,” he said, “ef you’re true to me, Jill Robinson, and ef you love me even a little, and think nothink of no other feller – why, now I swear as there ain’t gel in the land as ’ull have a better husband. There’ll be love all round you, Jill; and what can’t that do? And ef I’m rough to outsiders you’ll never see nothink o’ it, my little gel; your wishes ’ull be mine, and your friends ’ull be mine, and your fancies will be my fancies. Day and night I’ll serve yer; and there ain’t any gel, no, not even if she’s a princess, ’ull have a truer mate. I wor a good son to my mother wots in ’eaven, and I’ll be a good husband to you, you pretty bit of a dainty flower – ef you’ll do your part. Faithful and true, that’s all I arsk. Is it a bargain, Jill? As to the money part, I could give yer ten times five pounds, ef yer wanted it – that’s neither here nor there; but the other part of the bond I must ha’ your promise on. Faithful and true – you’ll be that. D’ye hear me, Jill?”
“Yes,” said Jill, “I’ll do my part. I’ll think o’ none but you; I’ll be true to you in word and deed.”
“Then that’s right. I’ll ask no more questions. There’s a home for yer mother in my ’ouse, Jill, and full and plenty for you from this moment forward; and we’ll get spliced up as soon as may be, gel.”
“But the money,” said Jill. “It’s part of the bond between us, that I should ha’ the money and no questions asked.”
“You shall ha’ the money, and I’ll ask no questions, ef you don’t want to tell me.”
“I can’t tell you, Mr Lynn. The money were give to me in trust, and it got lost, although no one stole it. I must give it back to the one wot’s lent it to me this werry arternoon.”
“You shall have it, my gel. Now come into the house, and I’ll get yer a cup of tea. ’Ow did yer come to me, Jill? And how did you find my bit of a shanty?”
“It were this way,” said Jill. “I found last night, quite late last night, that the lost money must be gived back to – And I thought of you, and I ’membered how real kind you were. It worn’t that I loved you, Silas Lynn. I’ll try to in future, but it wornt with any thought of love that I ’membered you last night. But as I sat all in desolation, I see your face, kind and smiling, and tender-like, a-looking at me, and I said I’ll go to Silas, and he’ll save me fro’ my misery.”
“That wor right – that wor a good thought,” interposed the man.
“I went out then, and I came to a shop just close to the market, where I guessed as they’d know ’bout you. It wor a flower-shop; the man’s name is Thomson. And Thomson said, as good luck ’ud have it, he were just starting an empty waggon back into Kent, to be ready for a load of strawberries for Monday’s market. And ef I liked, he said, I could have a lift in it.
“So I spent the night in the waggon, Silas, and in the morning the waggon set me down nigh upon four miles off, and I walked the rest of the way.
“That’s all,” continued Jill, heaving a sigh, and sinking down into the old straw chair which had remained empty in Silas’s house since his mother’s death.
“There you be,” said Silas, clasping his hands in ecstasy. “You mind me o’ the lavender, as well as t’other and gayer flowers. There’s something wondrous subtle and sweet about yer – mignonette, too, you take arter, and I shouldn’t be a bit surprised ef I found cherry-pie flavour in yer before long. Verbeny and sweet-briar you air, and no mistake. But there, I must see and get yer a cup o’ tea, for you’re sore spent, my poor little cuttin’, and you won’t strike into this yere honest breast, ef I don’t see arter the watering.”
The members of the Wesleyan chapel to which Silas belonged would scarcely have known him this morning. The fact that he was expected to lead their choir was absolutely obliterated from his mind. It is very much to be doubted if he even remembered that the day on which Jill came to him was Sunday.
Jonathan, his factotum, and one servant, appeared presently on the scene, and nearly jumped when he saw his rough, fierce-looking master tenderly offering tea, minus milk and sugar, to the prettiest picture of a girl Jonathan’s eyes had ever rested on.
“You there!” shouted the master, “make yerself useful. Go round to Farmer Ladd’s, and bring in a pint o’ cream and a slab o’ butter, and ask ef the missis has a plump spring chicken ready plucked for roasting. And go on to Dawson’s in the village, and get a loaf of white bread. Quick! D’ye hear! Wot are ye staring at?”
“But it’s the Sawbath,” said Jonathan, dropping his jaws.
“Ef it’s fifty Sawbaths, go and do my biddin’. D’ye hear!”
Jonathan flew off, and strange whispers soon after began to circulate in the village with regard to that soberest and soundest of men, Silas Lynn.
But all the time Silas himself was in the Garden of Eden, for surely no Sunday like this had ever dawned before in his austere life.
“Ain’t the flowers purtty?” he said to Jill. “Never did I see anythink like ’em. Seems as if they knowed. Do look at the perky airs o’ them pansies! Sauce is no name for ’em – staring up at us two in that unblushing fashion. Eh, Jill, did you speak, my gel?”
“The flowers are like picters, Silas. I never see flowers like this all a-growin’ before. It’s very soothin’ to look on. They seem to still the ’eart.”
“Well, my ’eart’s a-bobbing and a-banging,” said Silas. “There’s no stilling o’ it to-day, nor for many another day, I guess. My word, wen you speak of yer ’eart being stilled, sounds as ef you were in pain of some sort.”
“No, Silas, I’m werry ’appy. But there’s a deal of pain in the world, you knows; and it’s comfortin’ to think as the flowers is meant for them as suffers. I must be asking yer for the money now, Silas, for I ha’ got to take the next train back to Lunnon.”
“I’ll come with yer, my gel.”
“No, please don’t. It’s a bargain that I am to give the money back to the one what gi’ it to me to keep, and no questions arsked. That’s a bargain, ain’t it, Silas Lynn?”
“To be sure, Jill. You don’t suppose as I doubts yer, my pretty little cuttin’? You come along to the ’ouse, and I’ll get the money out. ’Ow’ll yer take it? In silver or gowld?”
“I’d like five sovereigns best, Silas, ef you had ’em.”
“Well, we’ll see. You set there in the porch, and I’ll go and look.”
Silas presently returned with five new sovereigns, which he placed in Jill’s open palm. It was delightful to him to give. He had no idea that this gold was the price of freedom and of a girl’s first love.
“My word, how still she sets,” he muttered. “Breeding through and through. Wot flower is she most like now? The lavender, I’m thinking – so primily and shut-up like in its ways. She’ll make a wife in a thousand. I’m ’bout the luckiest feller in Christendom.”