L. Meade - Jill - A Flower Girl

She quickly passed the buildings where their little flat was, and entered the low neighbourhood of Drury Lane. Drury Lane was a great haunt for flower girls. Poll had lived there herself for years. A memory of the old free life came back to her as she walked, and she could not help breathing a hearty sigh. The old life seemed attractive to her this morning; she forgot the blows her cruel husband had given her; she forgot the dirt, and the sickness, and the misery. She only remembered the absolute freedom from restraint, the jolly, never-may-care sort of existence. Everything was altered now; for Jill had taken the reins into her own hands. She and her mother belonged to the respectable class of flower girls. They bought good flowers straight from the market, and sold them to regular customers, and had their own acknowledged corner where they could show their wares in tempting and picturesque array. They were clean, decent sort of people now. Poll knew this, but she could not take pride in the fact this morning.

She walked quickly along, with her usual swinging, free sort of motion. Some of her old cronies nodded and smiled to her. Poll was so good-tempered and good-natured that the flower girls who were still low down, very low down in the world, could not look on her with envy. She would have shared her last crust with the worst of them.

Jill was not nearly so popular as her mother, far Jill was proud, and did not want to know the girls who had been the friends of Mrs Robinson’s youth.

A red-eyed woman, with a bent figure, a white face, and a constant cough, came up and joined Poll as she approached the neighbourhood of the great market.

“And how are you, Betsy?” asked Poll. “Does your cough hack you as bad as ever?”

“No, it’s better,” replied the poor creature. “I bought some of them cough-no-mores, and they seem to still it wonderful. I’m glad I met you, Poll; I think it wor the good Lord sent you in my way this morning.” The woman gasped painfully as she spoke.

“Here, lean on me, Betsy Peters,” said Poll, stopping, and offering her strong arm. “Don’t press me, like a good soul, for my side aches orful. Now then, wot is it, Betsy?”

“It certain sure wor the good Lord let me meet yer,” repeated Mrs Peters. “I cried to Him for near an hour last night, and yere’s the answer. It’s wonderful, that it is.”

“Only me and Jill we don’t believe in the pious sort,” answered Poll. “Not that it matters, ef I can help you, Betsy.”

“Yes, but it do matter,” replied Mrs Peters. “It seems a pity, for that sort of belief is a real comfort to poor folk. My word, ain’t I held on to it many and many a time? It wor only last night, and I were praying fit to burst my heart, and at larst it seemed to me as ef I see’d Him, His face wondrous pitiful-like, and his smile that encouraging. And I seemed to hear Him a-saying, ‘You hold on, Betsy Peters, for you’re a’most in Paradise now. You give a good grip o’ Me, and I’ll land you safe.’ My word! it did comfort me. It seemed to lift me out o’ myself. It’s a pity as you don’t hold on to that sort of thing, neighbour.”

Poll gave a quick, impulsive sort of sigh.

“Well, I’m glad as you finds the comfort o’ it, Betsy,” she said. “But what can I do for you? We’re most at the market now.”

“Ef you could lend me a shilling to buy flowers, neighbour? My man came in drunk last night, and he carried away every penny as I put by in the tin box. There’s little Jeanie, she is low and wake, and I’ve nothing for her breakfast but some tea-leaves that I’ve watered twice afore. Ef you lend me a shilling, Poll, jest to see me over to-day, I’ll pay you back sure and faithful to-morrow morning, so I will.”

Poll’s handsome face grew dark.

“In course I’d lend it to you, you poor critter,” she said, “but I han’t got it. You’ll scarce believe me when I say that I come out without a penny piece in my pocket. Jill and me, we are well-to-do, as flower girls go, but yesterday some villain of a thief came in and stole our bits of savings. I ha’ come out now to ask Dan Murphy to give me flowers on tick. I can’t help you, neighbour, however willin’ I am.”

Mrs Peters’s face turned deadly pale. She pulled her feeble arm away from Poll’s and looked at her with trembling lips and eyes that shone through a dim veil of tears.

“Oh, it seems orful,” she gasped. “And I made so positive as the Lord wor there, and that He heard me, and sent you as a hanswer. It seems – it seems as ef – ”

“As ef there weren’t no Lord,” repeated Poll.

“No, no; ef I thought that – ” Mrs Peters turned ghastly, and pressed her hand to her heaving heart.

“And you shan’t, neighbour,” exclaimed Poll, a great wave of crimson spreading over her face. “You shan’t lose your last drop of comfort, not ef I know why. You go and stand round there, neighbour, and I’ll come and share my flowers with you, see ef I don’t. I’ll go on tick for enough for us both. You stand there, Betsy, and wait, I’ll be safe to come back to you.”

Poll vanished almost as she spoke into the crowd of people who were already pressing towards the flower merchants and vendors of vegetables, roots, seeds, fruit, and the other articles sold in the market.

The scene was an intensely busy and lively one. The farmers, who had come up from the country in the quiet hours of the night, had unpacked their wares, and spread them out to the best advantage.

The costermongers and flower girls were eagerly buying, wrangling, chaffering, nudging, and jostling one another. Now and then a high coarse laugh rose on the air, now and then an oath; sometimes a cry of anger or disappointment.

Poll, threading her way through the thickest of the crowd, approached a stall which belonged to a flower merchant from whom she and Jill constantly bought their goods. She had little doubt that he would allow her to replenish her own basket and Jill’s, and to get a bunch of flowers over and above the quantity she required, for poor Mrs Peters.

Poll came up confidently.

“Is Dan Murphy here?” she asked of a small boy who stood by the stall, and who looked around him.

“Dan Murphy? Don’t yer know?” he exclaimed.

“Don’t I know what, you little beggar? Get out of my way, and I’ll speak to him myself.”

The boy responded to this sally by standing on his head. Then resuming his former upright position, he stuck his tongue in his cheek and winked at Poll.

She raised one vigorous arm to give him a blow across his face, but he dodged her, and vanished.

Her coast was now clear, however. She went up to the stall, which was well stocked with both fruit and flowers, and repeated her question.

“Is Dan Murphy here? I wish to speak to him.” When she asked her question a man with a Jewish type of face stepped forward and replied civilly:

“Can I serve you, ma’am?”

Poll bestowed a withering glance upon this individual.

“No, lad, you can’t serve me,” she replied. “I want the owner of this stall, Dan Murphy. He’s an old crony o’ mine.”

“You haven’t heard then, ma’am, that Murphy has sold his business to me. This stall is mine now.”

“My word, but that’s a blow.” Poll was turning away.

“Can’t I serve you, ma’am?” called the new owner of the stall after her.

“No, lad, no; that you can’t.”

She walked across the market, stepping daintily between long rows of flowering plants and great piles of strawberries, currants, raspberries, and other summer fruits. The air was redolent with the sweet, fresh smell of fruit and flowers; the hawkers were pressing their wares, and customers were rapidly filling their baskets.