Chapter 15 Jill: A Flower Girl by L. T. Meade
Jill was quite willing to accompany Silas home for the tea-drinking. He told her about it on Sunday when he went to see her in her little flat.
“Yer to come down looking as peart as you can. Jill,” he said to her. “The folks in Newbridge beats all folks livin’ for contrariness. They think that God Almighty did right when He made a lovely flower, and mortal wrong when He made a lovely woman. They think as sweetness and beauty can go together in flowers but not in gels, so I want you to look your werry beat, my dainty little cuttin’, and show ’em as they are all hout for once in their reckonin’s. I’m thinkin’ as maybe yer would like a new bit of a gownd; what do yer say to a yaller cotton now, made werry stylish? I don’t mind paying a real good dressmaker to put it together. Come, now, would you like it, ah?”
“No, thank you, Silas,” said Jill. “I’ll feel more at home like in my old black gownd, which has in a sort of a way growed to me. I’d like best to wear that with a bit of a posy that you’ll pick out of the garden fresh for me when I get down.”
“You’re to stay for the night, mind, when you do come,” said Silas. “An aunt o’ mine, a Mrs Royal, a werry decent body, can share my bed with yer, and I’ll go and have a shake-down at Peters’s. You’ll be sure to come in good time, and a-lookin’ yer best; Jill.”
“Yes, Silas,” she replied, with a meekness which would have puzzled him very much had he known her better. He was too happy and content, however, for even the faintest suspicion of anything not being quite right to enter his mind.
Jill Robinson was like the mignonette and the lavender and the cherry-pie for sweetness of character, while she resembled the crimson rose-bud in the richness of her beauty.
Yes, surely the Lord had given up chastening Silas when so great a prize as Jill was to be his.
The invited guests were only too eager to come to the tea-drinking. Notwithstanding the disapproval of the congregation at Silas’s choice, those of them who were favoured with an invitation to see his bride were by no means slow of availing themselves of it.
Mrs Hibberty Jones and Miss Mary Ann Hatton went, it is true, under a protest, but Hibberty Jones himself and Peters owned that they did not object to seeing beauty when they could do so in a good cause. It was distinctly to Silas’s advantage that the foremost members of the congregation should support him at this critical juncture, and if possible take early steps to convert Jill to her future husband’s faith. So, dressed in their best, the homely village folk walked across the fields, on this lovely summer’s evening, to Silas Lynn’s tea-drinking.
Silas had ordered a new suit of strong rough frieze for his wedding. The suit had been made in a great hurry by the village tailor, and was sombre both in its cut and its colour. But the gloomy effect of coat and trousers was much relieved by a gay waistcoat of white with a coloured sprig bedecking it all over. This waistcoat had belonged to Silas’s father, and was regarded in the family as a very precious heirloom. He wore in his button-hole three large crimson carnations, and altogether made an imposing spectacle as he stood in the porch of the little cottage to receive his visitors.
Aunt Hannah was busy inside the house. She wore a dark plum-coloured dress, and a little tight black net cap, tied under her chin with a bow of yellow ribbon.
Jill had not yet arrived, and Silas, while he held out his great hands in hearty greeting to his visitors, could not help letting his eyes wander anxiously up the path which led from the railway station direct to the cottage.
“How do you do, Mr Lynn?” said Miss Mary Ann Hatton in an acrid voice. “Allow me to congratulate you. Oh, pray don’t let us keep your hattention. Where the heyes stray is where the ’eart is to be found. Ain’t that so, Mrs Jones?”
“It ain’t modest to speak o’ them sort of things aloud,” said Mrs Jones, in a hushed voice to the spinster. “Don’t let yer feelin’s get the better of yer, Mary Ann – you’re disappointed, but keep it dark, for the sake of feminine modesty. Well, Mr Lynn, we’re proud to come and meet this young gel what is soon to be yer wife. Have she come yet? Or are you looking for ’er over the brow of the ’ill, that you keep your eye fixed on that one pint so constant?”
“She ain’t come, but I’m expectin’ of her every minute,” said Silas. “I’m real proud to welcome yer, neighbours. Come in, come in. My aunt, Mrs Royal, is in the house a-brewing the tea. Come in, neighbours, and make yerselves at home.”
Mr and Mrs Hibberty Jones and Miss Hatton stepped immediately across the threshold, but old Mr Peters stood still, and put one of his wrinkled hands, with marked solemnity, on Silas Lynn’s shoulder.
“Wanity of wanity, Silas,” he said in a mournful tone. “I didn’t think as you’d have been tuk in by a bit of a gel to the extent of wearin’ a flowered waistcoat. You has had a sudden fall, Silas.”
“Go right into the house, Mr Peters,” said Silas. “There Jill a-coming down the field. You look at her, and tell me arterwards ef you think she wor worthy of a sprigged waistcoat or not.”
When Jill and Silas entered the little cottage side by side, the rest of the visitors were seated in some impatience round the tea-table. The board was well supplied with a large brown cake in the centre, a freshly cooked ham at one end, and the tea equipage, containing the delicate white and gold tea-service, at the other. Bread in great junks, hot cake, butter in several fancy devices, and a large dish of honey completed the repast.
Hibberty Jones had placed himself as near that end of the table where the ham stood as possible. Miss Hatton sat pensively where she could keep control of the honey, and Mrs Hibberty Jones made up her mind that she would act as cutler of the cake.
When Silas and Jill entered the whole company arose, and each in turn offered a cold handshake to the London flower girl. Room was made for her to sit down beside Silas at the end of the board, and Aunt Hannah, with a loud “a-hem,” lifted the teapot to dispense the tea.
“May I ask, Mrs Jones,” she inquired, “’ow you like your tea sarved, or ef you has no wishes on the subjec’? Some folk ain’t particular, but it’s best to know.”
“I ain’t what’s called particular,” said Mrs Jones.
“No honey, I thank you, Miss Hatton – but I likes my tea to lay for a good eight or ten minutes arter it is made. I will own that I likes it bitter; flavoured with one spoonful of thick rich cream and three good lumps of castor sugar. Jones goes in for four lumps, but I say so much sugar is apt to lay heavy, so three’s my quantity. I’ll trouble you not to give me more than one teaspoonful of cream, Mrs Royal.”
“Sech strong tea is wonderful bad for the narves,” said Miss Hatton. “May I ask, miss,” turning to Jill, “’ow you takes it in the City? I’m told, but I don’t know ef it’s true, that you mostly uses our tea-leaves over agen.”
“I don’t think it’s true,” replied Jill, “though maybe there air some folks poor enough even for that.” She raised her great dark eyes as she spoke, and looked sadly at Miss Hatton.
The spinster turned away with a toss of her head. “Why, she’s foreign,” she muttered. “It’s worse even than I feared.”
“I have no doubt, miss, whatever, that you always drinks the best o’ tea,” said Hibberty Jones with a gallant bow. “So purty a bit of a young gel couldn’t but have the werry best.”
“Quite so – I agrees with you, Mr Jones,” said Mr Peters.
The women could not forbear snorting audibly, and Miss Hatton in her agitation dropped a spoonful of honey on the white cloth, and the next moment one of the delicate white saucers with the convolvulus lying across its smooth surface had been pushed by her awkward elbow on to the floor. It lay there in shivers. Aunt Hannah gave an unearthly groan, and Silas felt the purple colour of rage dyeing his face.
“Don’t say a word, Silas,” said Jill in a soft tone.
She sprang lightly to her feet, ran round to Miss Hatton’s side, picked up the broken crockery, which she put out of sight, placed another saucer beside Miss Hatton’s plate, and returned to her place by Silas.
Her little action was so swift and graceful, and the lovely colour which mantled her cheeks was so becoming, that the three men could not help expressing their approval by a low sort of underground cheer.
“You have a kind heart, I see, my lass,” said old Peters; “a kind heart as well as a purty face. I never knew ’em go together afore. I divided the world o’ women afore into two lots. There was the illigant faymales, with their fine faces, and their fine walk, and their fine bits o’ ways; and there was the plain, downright women, like my old missis, wot died, and like our good friend, Mrs Hibberty Jones” (Mrs Hibberty Jones turned white with suppressed anger at this marked allusion to her present appearance), “and like Miss Hatton,” continued Peters, “sterling bodies both o’ them, but awk’ard outside. We must own as plain women is awk’ard outside. Well, I thought as the plain ’uns were the good ’uns, and the purty ’uns the bad ’uns. Never thought as they’d get mixed; never did, never. But the ways of the Lord are wonderful, and I can’t but b’lieve that there’s a purty nature inside that bonny face o’ yourn, my gel.”
Jill received old Mr Peters’s rather embarrassing compliments with a calm indifference that greatly amazed the three other women present.
“I don’t think nobody ought to think o’ looks one way or t’other,” she said, after a pause. “We’re as we’re made – it’s the inside as is everything. I never know’d kind, rich, grand sort of folks like these here afore. I wor brought up rough, although I don’t like roughness; and some o’ the people I has met were real ugly in feature, but oh, the ’earts in ’em – the kindness o’ ’em – the beautiful look as love had put in their eyes. I don’t think the looks matters at all, it’s the ’earts as is everything.”
Jill looked so sweet when she said this that even the angry women were appeased, and Miss Hatton, suddenly moving her chair, made room for Jill to sit opposite the honey.
“You come nigh to me,” she said; “I own as I’m awk’ard, and I’m sorry I broke a bit of your chaney.”
“Go and set near her, Jill,” whispered Silas; “your winnin’ of ’em all, my little cuttin’; I knew as yer would.”
“Jill,” said Aunt Hannah, “I ’ope as you’re a gel as is willin’ to hact up to your own words. I will say as you looks well-meaning. It worn’t your fault as you were made handsome – it’s a trial, I will own; but you must try and take it patient. But what I wants to know is this – ’ave you or ’ave you not got a light hand with chaney? Chaney is more delicate nor a woman; it has, so to speak, no constitootion. Any minute, by a rough knock or a push, or the awkardness jest now shown by Mary Ann Hatton, and there – it’ll go, shivered. The gel what can manage chaney has something to be proud on. When I was married I got a tea-sarvice of white chaney with a gold rim, and a scalloped edge round the saucer. It wor werry neat, but not a patch on this, for this blue convolvuly is too cunnin’ for anything. Well, when you come to see me, Jill, I’ll show you my chaney, every piece complete, not a crack in it, nor a chip; all the little cups, and the scalloped saucers and the plates, jest as I got ’em when I wor married. Why wor this? I’ll tell you why. I put ’em in a glass cupboard, and I never used ’em ’cept at christenings. Ef you keep this chaney for christenings why it’ll last, Jill, but ef you uses it every day, it stands to reason as the constitootions of these cups and saucers’ll give way. I ask yer now, in the presence of yer future husband, Mr Peters, Mr Hibberty Jones, the good wife of the latter, and Miss Mary Ann Hatton, what is yer intentions with regard to this beautiful chaney?”
“How can she tell jest now, Aunt Hannah?” said Silas.
“In the matter of wedding the gel I leave everything to you, Silas,” remarked his aunt, “but in the cause of the chaney I must speak my mind. Consider this question, my gel, and hanswer me true.”
There was a dead pause when Aunt Hannah came to the end of her oration. The other women, and even the men, looked at Jill with some small anxiety. She was quite silent for a moment, looking down at the delicate little cup and saucer which stood by her plate.
“I think,” she said, after a minute’s silence, “that we might have a little cupboard made for this yere chaney, Silas. The cupboard could face the door and the two windows, and when the sun come in it ’ud shine on the cups and saucers and make ’em look real fine, and when Aunt Hannah came to see us we could use the chaney. I has got some cups and saucers at home as ’ud do for you and me every day, Silas.”
“My gel,” said Aunt Hannah, “come here and kiss me. Silas, I withdraw all my hopposition to yer wedding this gel; the Lord has seen fit to give her a mind to match her face. She spoke now with rare wisdom, and my own three delf cups as I spoke on to yer last week, I’ll give to this gel as a wedding present.”