The London season was at its height. The weather was warm and sultry,
the days were at their longest. The shops were gay with beautiful
dresses, richly trimmed bonnets, gloves, parasols, hats--the thousand
and one pretty articles of usefulness and beauty which are considered
indispensable by the people who drive about in carriages and live in the
large houses in the West End of London.
The time was night, and the more important shops were shut, but the
great houses in Grosvenor Square revealed at this moment their fullest
and most brilliant life, for this was the time when the great receptions
of the season were given.
Before one of the largest and most important of these mansions a small
crowd had collected. It was the sort of crowd who are fond of getting
peeps inside the lovely palaces which they must not enter.
Rough-looking boys, eager, pinched women, a few men, and even some
babies were present. They jostled one another, and each in turn tried
to force his or her way to the front rank. They made remarks freely
with regard to the people who were going inside the house. The
beautiful girls and richly dressed matrons called for their outspoken
admiration. The men of princely mien and irreproachable attire caused
the ragged girls and thin women to think timidly that fairy tales were
true, and that real princes did live on the earth. The guests went up
the carpeted steps, and disappeared one by one into the mansion. The
people in the crowd scarcely breathed as they watched them. How the
ladies did trail their long and exquisite robes! How like angels the
girls in white looked, how like queens and princesses the older women
appeared, how kingly were the gentlemen who accompanied them! Yes, the
spectacle was a fairy one; it was delightful to enjoy it all for
nothing.
The crowd were in an excellent humour, and did not mind when the
policeman somewhat roughly pushed them back. All things considered,
they enjoyed themselves quite as well as the people who went into the
house, they were not jealous or envious in the least. Standing in front
of this motley crowd, so much in front that the brilliant gaslight fell
full upon their eager upturned faces, might have been seen a tall girl
of about sixteen, and two boys a little younger. The girl was very
upright, quite clean in her person, and not only neat, but picturesque
in her dress. A many-coloured cotton scarf was twisted in the form of a
turban round her head; a large apron of the same material nearly covered
her black dress. On her arm she carried a large flat basket filled with
roses, narcissus, forget-me-nots, and other summer flowers. Her eyes
were very dark and bright, her hair black, her complexion a pure olive.
She was not only a handsome girl, but her whole effect was intensely
foreign and picturesque. Her carriage was so upright, her simple pose
so stately, that one or two ladies and some of the men who were going
into the mansion were attracted by her appearance, and remarked her to
one another.
The girl gazed after them, her black eyes wide-open, her lips slightly
parted, an eager, hungry expression all over her face. The two boys who
stood with her kept nudging each other, and whispering together, and
making remarks, some under their breath, some out loud, with regard to
the gay company who were going into the house.
The girl never spoke. Even when her brothers pushed her roughly, she
only moved a little away from them in absolute silence.
"I say, Jill,"--the elder of the lads gave the young flower girl a more
violent shove than usual--"be yer goin' to stay here all night? Most of
the folks have come by now, I reckon, and we'd best be moving on;
there's going to be no end of fun presently at that big house over there
by the corner."
Jill shook herself, stared eagerly at the speaker, and then said, in a
quick, impassioned voice, "I never see'd nothing like this afore, Bob.
Sech dresses, sech faces. Oh, the light and grandeur of it all! I've
pictured it of course lots and lots o' times, but I never see'd it
afore."
"I told yer it 'ud be fine," replied Bob; "come on, you'll see more of
the same sort at the big house at the corner. You take my 'and, Jill,
and let us run. We'll get in front of the crowd ef we are quick."
"No," said Jill, "I don't want to see no other crowd. There were angels
and princes and princesses going into that 'ere house. I don't want to
see nothink more--my head's full o' the sight, and my eyes sort o'
dazzled. I'm goin' 'ome now to mother; I ha' a power o' news to tell
her."
She turned away as she spoke, moving quickly through the crowd with her
free, stately step.
Many people turned to look at her, but she did not appear to see them.
Even when one or two called to her to stop and sell some of her flowers,
she did not pay the least attention.
The gay streets where the grand folks lived were quickly passed, and
Jill found herself in a poor and squalid neighbourhood. The hour was
late, but these streets were all alive as if it were noon. Children
quarrelled and played in them, women gossiped, men lounged out of the
public-houses, stared at Jill and called after her as she walked quickly
by.
A child tumbled down in front of her path and lay screaming and rubbing
its dirty little face in a puddle. This sight caused her to stop; she
stooped, picked up the little creature, gave it a fully blown rose from
her basket and walked on again.
At last she reached a large corner building which was let out in flats
to poor people. She turned in here, ran up the stairs lightly and
quickly, until she reached the top landing, there she stopped before a
rudely-painted door.
The door had a knocker, which Jill sounded loudly. There was no
response whatever from within. She turned a little pale at this, put
down her ear to the keyhole, and listened eagerly. Not a sound reached
her from the other side of the closed door. She knocked once again,
then putting her lips to the keyhole, she called through it in a high,
sweet voice:
"It's me, mother; it's Jill! Open the door, please, mother, I ha' lots
of news."
No response came to this petition. The same absolute, unbroken silence
reigned inside the room. Jill paused to consider for a moment. The
exalted dreamy look left her face; a certain sharpness, mingled with
anxiety, filled her black eyes. After a very brief pause, during which
she watched the closed door with a kind of sad patience, she picked up
her basket and ran down to the next landing. The door here had a neat
little knocker, which was polished and shining. Jill gave a single
knock, and then waited for a reply. It came almost immediately. A
woman with a night-cap on opened the door, uttered an exclamation at
sight of the girl, put out her hand to draw her into the room, and spoke
in a voice of agitation:
"You don't mean to tell me, Jill Robinson, that yer mother ain't 'ome
yet? Why the--"
"Don't say any more!" exclaimed Jill, eagerly. "I'm goin' out to look
for mother. She's maybe took faint, or something o' that sort. Will
you take care of my flowers till I come back, Mrs Stanley?"
"Need you ask, honey? You lay 'em in there in the cool. You 'asn't
sold too many to-day, Jill. What a full basket!"
"Yes, but they're mostly buds. They'll look lovely to-morrow when I
freshens 'em up. Now I must go to look for mother."
"This ain't a fit hour for a girl like you to be out, Jill."
"Any hour's fit when a girl can take care on herself," responded Jill,
proudly.
She ran quickly down-stairs, leaving her flowers in the passage of Mrs
Stanley's little flat. Just outside the door of the big building she
came upon a motley crowd of men and women. They were eagerly gazing at
something which excited at once their amusement and derision.
The crowd was too thick for Jill to see what attracted them, but a
sound, full, strong, and sweet, drew her attention. She was walking
quickly past the people, but this sound arrested her steps. It caused
the colour to flame into her cheeks, and an angry light to leap out of
her eyes. With a rapid, deft movement she pushed her way through the
people. She guessed, even before her eyes assured her of the fact, what
was the matter.
"Go it again, Poll Robinson!" shouted the men. "Oh! you took that note
prime. You never wor in better voice. Go it again, my beauty! Now
then, let's listen, all of us, to handsome Poll Robinson. You give us
another song, Poll, now then."
A tall, powerfully-built woman of about five-and-thirty was standing in
the middle of the street; her bonnet was pushed on one side of her head,
her dress was slovenly, her steps sadly unsteady. She was trying to
dance for the benefit of the assembled company, and at the same time was
sending up full rich notes, from a throat of vast compass, into the
summer night.
The song she sang was "Cherry Ripe." The crowd jostled one another, and
applauded her loudly. When Jill burst like a young Fury into their
midst, one or two of the men, and some of the women, were joining with
hearty abandon in the chorus:
"Cherry ripe, cherry ripe,
Ripe, I cry--
Full and fair ones,
Come and buy!"
"Go it, Poll, go it!" they shouted again. "That's better! that's prime!
Wish I could buy 'em, makes my mouth water to hear on 'em. Oh! you are
in fine voice to-night, Poll Robinson."
"You let her be," said Jill. "Oh! for shame ain't you cowards? Don't
you see as she don't know rightly what she's doing? Oh! I _'ate_ you--
I 'ate you all. Don't you see for yourselves she's took mor'n she
ought? Do you think she would sing to you like that ef she knew the
reason why? No one ever tried harder to be good than poor mother. She
never takes a drop except when the pain's too bad to be borne. Oh!
ain't you cowards, every single one on yer? Here, mother, come home
with me at once. You make way, you bad, cowardly men and women. Go
home to your own beds, and let mother and me go to ours. Come along,
mother, it's Jill! Come home with me at once. No, you ain't to sing
any more. I'll pay you all out for this, neighbours, see ef I don't."
She took the woman under her wing, and, going quickly through the
astonished, half-cowed, half-amused people, entered the house.