L. Meade - Jill - A Flower Girl

With feverish haste she pulled some of her choicest button-holes out of a great heap in one corner of her basket, and leaving Molly open-mouthed with amazement, ran as fast as she could down the street after the lady and the child.

“Here, little missy,” she said, panting out her words, for her breath had failed her, “you give me them posies and take these. These are a sight fresher and better. Here, missy, here!”

She pushed some lovely Gloire-de-Dijon, red geranium, and mignonette into the child’s hand. The little one grasped them greedily, but held fast to her wired moss-rose-buds and forget-me-nots.

“I’ll keep them all,” she said. “Thank you, girl.”

“No, no, make her give ’em up, ma’am,” said Jill, turning to the lady. “I don’t think they’re wholesome. The woman’s child is ill, and them flowers was in the room all night.”

“Throw them away this moment, Ethel,” said the mother in alarm. “What a kind girl you are! How can I thank you? No, Ethel, you must not cry. These are much more beautiful posies. Thank you, thank you. But how shameful that one should be exposed to such risks!”

But the lady spoke to empty air, for Jill, having seen the roses and forget-me-nots flung into the middle of the road, had instantly turned on her heel. Molly was rather cross when she came back, but as Jill gave no explanation whatever with regard to her sudden rush down the road, she soon relapsed into gloomy silence and into many anxious thoughts with regard to her little sick Kathleen.

The brilliant sunshiny morning did not fulfil its promise. In the afternoon the wind veered round, the sky became overcast, and between two and three o’clock a steady downpour of rain began.

Such weather is always fatal to the selling of flowers; at such times the ladies who are out in their fine summer dresses are little inclined to stop and make purchases. Gentlemen don’t want button-holes when they are wrapped up in mackintoshes; in short, the wet weather makes the pleasure-seeking public selfish.

Jill had been rather late arriving at her stand, and in consequence the gentlemen who almost always stopped to buy a button-hole from the handsome young flower girl had carried their custom elsewhere.

With the exception of the lady who had bought a sixpenny bunch of poppies, Jill had only sold two or three pennyworth of flowers when the downpour of rain began. As to Molly, even her halfpenny button-holes, quite an anomaly in the trade, could scarcely attract under such depressing circumstances.

The volatile creature began to rock herself backwards and forwards, and bewail her hard lot. What should she do, if she did not sell her flowers? There was nothing at all in the house for little sick Kathleen.

“Not even money for the rint,” she moaned, “and that cruel baste of a landlord would think nothing of turning us both into the street.”

She poured her full tale of woe into Jill’s ears, who listened and made small attempts to comfort her.

“Look yere,” said Jill, suddenly, “I’ll tell yer a sort of a fairy tale, if you’ll listen.”

“Oh, glory!” exclaimed Molly, “and I loves them stories. But it’s moighty cowld I am. You spake on, honey, and I’ll listen. It’s comforting sometimes to picter things, but I’d rayther think of a right good dinner now than anything under the sun.”

“This isn’t a dinner,” said Jill, “but it’s lovely, and it’s true.”

“Fairy tales ain’t true,” interrupted Molly.

“Some are. This is – I see’d it with my own eyes last night. I went with the boys to Grosvenor Square, and I see’d the fine folks going into a ball. There was the madams in their satins, and laces, and feathers, and the men like princes every one of them. And the young gels in white as ef they were sort of angels. You could smell the flowers from the balconies right down in the street, and once I was pushed forrard, and I got a good sight right into the house. My word, Molly, it wor enough to dazzle yer! The soft look of it and the richness of it, and the dazzle of the white marble walls! Oh, my word, what a story I could make up of a princess living in a palace like that. What’s the matter, Molly.”

“Whisht,” said Molly, “howld your tongue. There’s some corpses coming down the road. If there’s one thing I love more than another it’s a corpse, and there are three of them coming down in hearses. Three together – glory! There’s a sight! ’Tis a damp day they has for their buryin’, poor critters!”

Molly stood up in her excitement, pushing her despised basket of withered flowers behind her. The wind had blown her tall hat crooked, and had disarranged her unkempt grey hair, which surrounded her weather-beaten countenance now in grisly locks.

Putting her arms akimbo, she came out from under the shelter of the railway portico to see the funeral processions go by. Three hearses, one following the other – such a sight was worth a wet afternoon to behold. Molly, in her excitement, rushed back to where Jill was standing, and caught her roughly by the arm.

“Come on,” she said. “They are the purtiest coffins I has seen for many a day. By the size of them they must howld full-grown men. Ah! what a wake the critters would have had in ould Ireland! Swate it would have been, and wouldn’t the whiskey have flown around! Ah, worra me, it’s a sorrowful day when they don’t wake the dead. There they go! there’s the first – six foot high if he was an inch – a powerful big coffin he takes. Well, he’ll find it damp getting under the earth on a day like this. My word, Jill! Look at the flowers! Why, they’re heaped up on that coffin, and chice ’uns too – roses and lilies, and them big white daisies. Oh, shame, they’ll all go underground, I expect. Here’s the second! Can you see it, Jill? He’s not so big, five foot seven or eight, I guess. Heaps of flowers, too. Simple waste, I call it, to give flowers to a corpse. It can nayther smell ’em, or look at ’em. Ah, and here’s the last – poor faller, poor faller!”

The Irishwoman’s ready tears sprang to her eyes. She turned and faced Jill.

“He ain’t got one single flower on him!” she said. “Poor faller! Where’s his wife, or his swate-heart? Poor faller, I do call it a negleckful shame of them.”

“But I thought you said – ”

“Never mind what I said, I forgits it meself. There’s the coffin, without a scrap of trimmin’ on it, and the poor corpse inside a-frettin’ and a-mourning. Oh, it’s moighty disrespec’ful. Suppose it was your Nat, Jill?”

“No, it should never be my Nat,” said Jill, with a little cry.

Her quick, eager sympathies were aroused beyond endurance. The plain deal coffin, lying bare on the shabbiest of hearses, appealed to her innermost heart.

“He shall have posies, too,” said the flower girl, with a cry.

She rushed back to the corner when her basket was placed out of reach of the rain, swung it up on her powerful young arm, and rushing out fearlessly into the street, flung the brilliant contents all over the deal coffin.

“Let him have them to be buried with!” she said, addressing her words to a few of the passers-by, who could not help cheering her.

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.