Jill: A Flower Girl

“That’s settled then,” said Silas. “I’ll speak to Jill to-morrow, and we’ll ask Mr Hibberty Jones and his wife, and Mary Ann Hatton to come to tea, and ef Mr Peters ’ud honour us as well we’d be proud to see him. You’ll see to the victuals, won’t you, Aunt Hannah?”

“Yes, you leave that to me,” said Aunt Hannah. “That girl ’ull eat a cake worth eating for the first time in her life – and now I must be goin’ ’ome.”

Chapter Fifteen

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.”

Chapter Sixteen

The tea-drinking having turned out such a success, Silas went down to the village to spend the night with old Peters in a state of rare exultation.

“I wor right, yer see,” he said. “I know’d what I were about when I asked that yere little cutting to come and strike root in my garden.”

“She’s a werry purty creter,” said old Peters. “I don’t go for to deny it, Silas, she’s rare and purty. But what ails her, man? Do yer think as she has given yer her young affection; you ain’t so young, Silas, and you ain’t to say ’ansome; do yer think that gracious, purty girl gives back love for your love, Silas?”

Silas felt as if a dash of ice-cold water had been thrown over his warm, glowing, happy heart.

“What can a gel do more nor say ‘yes?’” he remarked after a pause.

“I’m not so sure on that,” replied Peters. “Gels say ‘yes’ for lots o’ motives – the wish for a home, maybe; oh, lots o’ motives. I’d have said that a young thing like Jill ’ud choose for her mate a lad with good looks hisself, and youth; that’s what I’d have said from my experience of the faymale ’eart; but there, Silas, don’t take on, man, I wor wrong about beauty and goodness goin’ together, so maybe I’m wrong ’bout the t’other also. I can see that the gel has a great kindness for yer, Silas; but love, that’s quite another matter. What ails her eyes for instance? what’s back o’ them looking out at us all so gloomy-like? My word, them eyes haunts me; seems as ef a sperit was looking through ’em, werry patient, werry sad. I could cry when I thinks on ’em. What’s the matter, Silas? What ails yer, man?”

“You don’t s’pose as talk like yourn is pleasant to listen to,” replied Silas; “and you’re all wrong ’bout Jill not wanting to have me. Why, I’ll prove it to yer now as yer wrong. I asked her to be my wife one morning at the market, and I suppose she felt skir’t like, for she looked at me with her face as rosy as the day, and her eyes like great, deep wells, with the wonder that filled ’em, and she said, ‘No, no, Mr Lynn, it can’t be’; and she up with her basket and away she runned. Well, of course I said to myself, there’s an end o’ this; but, what do yer think, neighbour? The next morning early, soon arter daybreak, who should come down all the way from Lunnon to see me but this same little gel; she knocked at my door and called out to me to open to her; and when I come it wor, ‘Yes, yes, Mr Lynn, I will marry yer ef you’ll have me.’ Worn’t that pretty good proof of her loving me, eh, Peters?”

“I don’t deny as it wor,” said Peters.

Silas and Peters entered the small cottage of the latter, and, as Silas had to go to town in a couple of hours, they immediately parted for the night, Silas declining to go to bed, but declaring he could take a good sleep in Peters’s deep arm-chair.

Just before they said good-night the old man made a request.

“Ef yer has time, Silas,” he said, “I’d be much obleeged to yer if yer could call round to Saint Bartholomy’s Hospital and leave this little parcel for my sister, Rachel Riggs. It’s a wool shawl of hers, as she allers sets store on, and I had a card from her to say as she wor better, and wanted her shawl. You’d obleege me greatly, Silas, ef you could leave it.”

“Put it on the table there,” said Silas, “and I won’t forget.”

The old man went off to his own room, and Silas sat in the deep arm-chair and looked out at the summer night. There was nothing really to trouble him in the words that Peters had said, nevertheless they kept coming back in a teasing and irritating fashion.

It was Peters’s opinion that Jill did not love him. What folly! If ever a girl had gone out of her way to show that she loved a man, it was Jill. As to her face being somewhat pale, and as to the fact that her dark eyes were sad in their expression, was not that always the case? Had not Silas, who knew her so much better than Peters, always noticed that latent sadness in her charming face. He loved her all the better for it.

“It’s jest her kind heart,” he murmured; “it’s jest as there is trouble in the world, and she can’t help noticin’ of it. Why, see her to-night, when Mary Ann Hatton dropped the chaney saucer. Even that were too much for my Jill. Oh, yes, Peters is quite mistook. Jill loves me, for sure, and I’m jest the werry happiest feller in the wide world.”

Silas, however, notwithstanding these soothing reflections, felt too excited to sleep. He was glad when the first faint brightness in the east told him that the time had come for him to rise and begin his long day’s work.

He softly left the cottage, and, going across the fields to his own small homestead, put the horses to the already carefully-packed waggon. Then going round to the cottage-door, he tapped with his knuckles at the window of the little bedroom where Aunt Hannah and Jill were sleeping. Jill was to accompany Silas back to town. She was dressed, and came out to him at once. Her face looked almost bright this morning; she had a faint colour in her cheeks, which was further deepened by the bright shawl which she wore round her head. When she came up to Silas and slipped her little brown hand into his, he instantly felt through his whole being that a glorious sun had arisen over the earth, and that old Timothy Peters must be fast approaching idiotcy.

“Come, Jill,” he exclaimed, “we’ll have a jolly ride into town. Why, yer ain’t cold, be yer my dear?”

“No, Silas.”

“Only I thought I see’d yer shiver. It’ll be werry hot by-and-by, but ef yer finds this hour of the morning chill, I’ll fetch out my sheep’s-skin rug to wrap yer up in.”

“No, no, Silas, I ain’t really cold. Let’s start at once, and maybe when we gets to the brow of the hill we’ll see the sun rise. I has been up early enough most days o’ my life, but I never seed the sun rise for all that.”

“It’s a sight to remember,” said Lynn. “Come along then, my choice little cuttin’, and we’ll get under weigh.”

As a rule, Silas was a very taciturn man; but on this particular morning it was he who did most of the talking.

“Eh, Jill,” he said once, as they approached London, “to think as you and me ’ull be husband and wife to-morrow. The delight o’ it is a’most past belief. When I thinks on you as keeping the cottage, bright, and cooking my meals for me, and watching as nobody comes and picks off the best blooms when I’m away at the market, I can scarce contain myself, I don’t believe in all the wide world there’ll be a happier pair nor you and me, Jill, for all that I am eight-and-thirty and you not seventeen yet.”

“I hope as I’ll make yer a good wife, Silas,” replied Jill.

“Oh, there ain’t no doubt on that, my little cuttin’. There’s that in you, Jill, that can’t help being good to folk. Lor’, I could shout with larfin’ when I think how you twisted all them crabbed folk round yer little finger last night. Jest a glint o’ your eyes and a soft word or two and ’twor done. Even Mary Ann Hatton couldn’t stan’ out agen yer. But, Jill, I’m a-thinking that yer mother and yer two brothers ought to be asked proper to our wedding. Yer mother is as fine a figure of a woman as I know; and, though I don’t know what yer brothers are like, and I make no doubt they’re mischeevous little varmints as is to be found in the world, yet still wot’s yours is mine, Jill, and I’ll make them all free and welcome to come to the wedding to-morrow. Wot’s the matter, my dear? Why don’t yer speak?”

“There ain’t nothing the matter, Silas. Seems to me lately as ef I had very few words of any sort to say. I’m obleeged to yer, Silas, for your kind thought about my folk, and I’d be right glad to have them with me when I’m wed; but I han’t seen the boys for nearly three weeks. I’m thinking maybe they has run off to sea. Tom were always minded that way.”

“Well,” said Silas, “they might do worse. The sea is not so bad a life ef a lad is strong, and ef he don’t take up with bad ways. But ’bout yer mother, Jill? It’s werry odd as I han’t laid eyes on her sence you and me made up our minds to get spliced.”

“Mother ain’t werry well,” said Jill, “and – ” but here her voice failed her; she covered her face with her trembling hand, and burst into an agony of tears.

Silas, in his absolute amazement, pulled up the horses, and, looking round at the weeping girl, surveyed her from head to foot with a sudden shy terror, which gave a ludicrous expression to his plain face.

“Wot is it, Jill? Wot is it?” at last he gasped.

“Nothing, Silas, nothing,” she replied, checking her tears with a violent effort. “It were real wrong of me to give way, and you so good. But I’m troubled ’bout mother, orful, bitter troubled. She ain’t well, and I’m troubled ’bout her. Seems as ef I couldn’t speak on her lately. She won’t come to the weddin’, Silas, and you mustn’t ask me no questions ’bout the why and the wherefore. Maybe, arter we’re wed I’ll tell yer, but not now, dear Silas.”

“Well, it’s you I’m goin’ to wed,” said Silas, “and ef you’re there, no matter about t’other folks, say I. Only I’m sorry you’re in trouble ’bout anything, my own little gel, and I only wish I could, comfort you.”

“You do, Silas, you do.”

“Well, them’s good words to hear. We’re at the market now, Jill; but as you ain’t going to sell flowers to-day, maybe you’d like to be gwine home. Next time we meets it’ll be till death us do part.”

When Silas said these words Jill felt a sick agony creeping over her. They were the words she had longed to hear said over her and Nat. She turned her white face away, and, quickly leaving the market, ran home to Howard’s Buildings as fast as her feet could carry her. Silas, in excellent spirits, began to attend to his plants, flowers, and fruit. Any slight remaining uneasiness which might have lingered in his mind after old Peters’s words was now removed. Of course Jill loved him, but her pallor and the sad expression in her eyes were both accounted for by some secret sorrow in connection with her mother. Silas determined to get at this grief, and if possible to remove it after he and Jill were married. He was too busy to-day, however, to give it any further thought; he had not only to attend to his many customers, but he had to make arrangements for the two or three days’ holiday he meant to give himself after his wedding. He had to attend to a list of orders which Aunt Hannah had provided him with for the wedding-feast; and last, but not least, he must manage to call at Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital with the little shawl for old Peters’s sister, Rachel Riggs. Silas knew Mrs Riggs, and with all those new qualities which the sunshine of prosperity had awakened into being, it occurred to him that it would give her pleasure if a bunch of flowers accompanied the shawl. Silas would never have thought of giving Mrs Riggs flowers in the old days, but he did many things now which astonished himself.

When his business at Covent Garden was ended, he selected a large bunch of some of his commoner flowers, and started off to walk to the hospital. He had gone nearly half-way when it suddenly entered into his head that it would largely add to Peters’s happiness, if he, Silas, could contrive to see Mrs Riggs for a moment or two. He knew enough about hospitals to be aware that he would not be admitted until the afternoon, so, leaving his flowers at the shop of a friend, he got through his other work, and finally arrived at Saint Bartholomew’s on the stroke of two o’clock, the earliest hour when visitors are admitted.