Susy Carter was one of those self-reliant people who are not
over-troubled with conscience. Her nerves were in excellent order. She
did not consider herself _vain_, but she was thoroughly satisfied with
her life, with her ways, with her ideas. She utterly scorned the flower
girls who did not live up to the high standard which she had set
herself. Had Susy been born in a different station of life, she would
have gone in for the education craze, for the women's suffrage question,
and for all those extreme ideas of so-called emancipation which agitated
the breasts of the sterner members of her sex.
Susy was not lovable, nor did she greatly love anyone but herself. She
was ambitious and intended to rise in the world. Even a London flower
girl can have ambition. As in all other callings, that of the flower
girl has many grades. Between the poor, little, sloppy, ragged victim,
who hawks miserable, withered flowers, reeking with stale vegetation and
the infection of badly ventilated rooms, and such a flower girl as Susy
Carter, there is a very vast gulf fixed.
Susy heard of the Flower Girls' Guild, she was one of the first to join
this admirable band, she delighted in the sanitary conditions imposed
upon her. She paid her shilling a week regularly, and enjoyed all the
advantages of the room where the flowers were kept at night, and the
nice wash which she could give herself there in the morning.
Nature had made Susy fair and pretty, and the becoming uniform of the
Guild suited her to perfection. Since she had joined it she had become
more popular as a flower girl than ever. Her flowers were better in
quality, and the ladies who bought from her, finding this fact out, were
only too glad to come to her again; week after week she was steadily
putting away money. If this state of things went on Susy hoped that in
a few years she might have saved enough either to marry a respectable
costermonger or to start a barrow, or even a shop for herself. Susy had
not the least idea of marrying for love, she was thoroughly satisfied
with her present life, which had a certain amount of excitement without
undue hardship.
Nat and Susy Carter had neither father nor mother, they were somewhat
alike in appearance, and had certain traits of character in common.
They were both ambitious, hard-working, honest, respectable, but where
Susy's soul was small and crabbed, shrinking indeed from its normal size
from want of any due care or attention, Nat's was strong and brave, for
Nat's soul was saved by the intense love which he had felt for some
years now for Jill. Nat and Susy shared the same rooms, and these rooms
were by no means to their taste. They were in a low part of the town,
not exactly in Drury Lane, but in that poor neighbourhood. The
situation was most convenient, not far from the market and in the very
thick of the life which they were obliged to lead, but the rooms
occupied by the brother and sister, though fairly clean in themselves,
were by no means to the taste of either. Nat would not have stayed
there but for the hope that he and Jill would soon set up housekeeping
together, and Susy quite made her mind to share Nat's home whenever he
made it. She was sitting on this particular Sunday afternoon in their
little kitchen, leaning somewhat discontentedly out of the window, and
wishing that the long dull Sabbath would come to an end, when to her
surprise the door of the room was suddenly opened and Nat came in. Susy
could not help giving a start of astonishment. Nat had left her some
hours ago with a distinct understanding that he would not return until
night. Susy had given him a slightly contemptuous look when he had told
her what his day's work would be.
"Yes, yes," she muttered, "don't tell me no more; you'll be a good
Samaritan all the morning, and a lover all the arternoon. Each one to
their taste, don't tell me no more."
"It 'ud do you good, Susy, to have a lover of your own," said Nat, in
reply to these bitter words; "a right good 'ansome feller as 'ud draw
the 'eart out of yer, and make yer feel."
"'Ow?" said Susy, looking at him with mocking eyes.
Nat reddened. A vision of Jill as she had looked the night before with
the moonlight shining all over her passionate, tender face flashed
before him.
"I can't say," he replied. "You wait and see."
"No, I'll never see that sight," said Susy; "there ain't a man living as
'ud make a fool on me. Give me a tidy bit of money, and I don't mind
what the _man_ is like."
Nat closed the door behind him with a faint sigh. It was the first
touch of that depression which was to seize him in such a mighty clutch
later in the day. Susy, in spite of herself, felt dull after he had
left her. She wondered if she should go to church, but decided against
this effort, and seating herself in the window began to unpick the
trimming off an old hat, and to put it on again in a fresher style. She
then warmed some tea for her dinner, and boiled an egg to eat with her
stale bread and butter. Afterwards she took up a penny novelette which
she had borrowed from her landlady, and tried to interest herself in the
impossible story which it contained. The hero of the tale was of course
a duke, and the heroine was in a very slightly more exalted position
than Susy herself. The duke loved the maiden, and the romance ended in
a brilliant wedding, in a shower of rice, and old satin slippers. Susy
threw down the novelette with an impatient sigh. With all her faults
she had plenty of sense, and the mawkish, impossible tale sickened her.
"I call it stuff," she said to herself. "Dooks don't marry gels like
me. I'd a sight rayther read about a costermonger. A costermonger's
flesh and blood to me, a dook ain't nothing but a sort of a sperit. Oh,
my word, is that you, Nat? 'Ow you did startle me!"
"I come in quietly enough," said Nat. "I suppose I needn't come into my
own room on tiptoe, need I?"
Susy gave her brother a long attentive stare.
"My, how crusty you've turned!" she exclaimed in her mocking voice.
"Wot's up with yer? 'As Jill been giving yer a spice of her mind? I
allers said that gel 'ad the 'eart of a tiger."
"Look here, Susy," said Nat, "you stop that!" He came over and took the
slim girl by her shoulders, and whirled her suddenly out into the centre
of the room. "You and me," continued Nat, "are brother and sister,
ain't we?"
"Yes, Nat, yes. Oh, my word; 'ow you sets my 'eart a-thumping."
"Stop talking, and listen to me. I want to say something."
"Well, well."
"_Will_ yer stop talking? I'll shake the breath out of yer if yer
don't. Now, then, you listen. Oh, you poor good-for-nothing, you poor
small good-for-nothing bit of a _thin_ soul, you belong to me, I s'pose,
and I must stick to yer. I'm yer brother, and I must hold on to yer
till you gets a husband of some sort. But look yere, Susy, ef yer
mentions Jill Robinson's name agen to me, whether you speaks for Jill,
or agen Jill, it's all the same, _I'll leave yer_. I'll leave Lunnon
and I'll go where you can't find me. I'll tell you a thing about Jill
now, and then she'll be atween us not as ef she were dead, for we can
speak of our dead, but as if she had never lived, and never died.
That's how Jill is to be atween you and me, in all the days that are to
come. There never _wor a Jill_. That's how things are to be. Do you
understand?"
"Yes, Nat; you--you frighten me, Nat."
"Wot's a little fright to you? I'm nigh to hell with torture. Jill's
broke with me. We'll never be wed, never. But that ain't the worst.
The worst is there never wor a Jill, 'twas but a dream I 'ad. I dreamt
it all the time I were a-growing up, and all the years sence I come to
manhood. And to-day I woke. There's no Jill. Do you hear me, Susy?
Do you understand?"
"Yes, Nat, I try to. And there'll be no wedding, and no nice little
flat, and no room for me at 'arf a crown a week, and the run of the
kitchen thrown in? My word, the ways of some gels is past bearing."
"Not another word, Susy. You know our bargain. Ef you breathe Jill's
name even once again, we part, and you may take care on yourself for all
I care."
"No, I'll not speak on her no more," said Susy. "You needn't pinch me
so 'ard, Nat, and you needn't glare at me. I can't help it ef I don't
go into big passions like other folk. I'm made quiet, and with control
of my feelin's, and I don't see as I'm to be spurned for it. I'm quite
willin' to drop that gel; she worn't never a mate for you, 'cordin' to
my way of thinkin'. Oh, for mercy's sake don't shake me agen, I expect
my shoulders are black and blue as it is, from your pinches. Wot I want
to know now is this. Are we to stay on in these loathsome rooms, or are
we to move somewhere else? You and me could take that flat in Howard's
Buildings, and live there by ourselves--why not? Oh, good gracious, wot
is the matter now, Nat?"
"I'm goin' out," said Nat. "You may expect me back when you see me, not
afore."
"Ain't you coming back to-night?"
"_No_!"
The door of the room was banged to with a loud report. Susy waited
until Nat's footsteps ceased to sound. Then she threw herself into the
nearest chair, and gave vent to a gentle sigh.
"Talk of tigresses! Why, Nat's turned into a tiger," she moaned. "Oh,
my poor shoulders, how they does ache!"
The next morning Susy arrived in good time at the neat room in
Westbourne Grove, where the flower girls who belonged to the Guild had
the privilege of keeping their unsold flowers.
The room was arranged on the plan of a dairy, and was so thoroughly
ventilated that even the flowers which were over from Saturday night
were many of them still fresh and fit for sale.
Susy had bought a small supply of quite fresh flowers at Covent Garden,
and she was not long in trimming up her basket and giving it a very
presentable and tidy appearance. She did not possess Jill's eye for
colour nor her delicate touch. Everything Susy did was commonplace, but
nevertheless when she started forth on her day's work, refreshed by her
good wash in the nice lavatory which adjoined the room where the flowers
were stored, there was not a more presentable or trimmer-looking flower
girl in London. Her fair hair was plaited up smooth and tight; the
front portion of it being of course curled into a tight fringe. She
wore the neat and serviceable costume of the Guild, having left her own
clothes behind her at the rooms of the Institution.
A flower girl's profits largely depend on the position where she can
place her stand. These positions vary immensely in excellence, and the
good ones, in the neighbourhood of railway stations, and certain street
corners where the thoroughfare is large, are much prized and eagerly
sought after.
Susy's stand now, close to the Marble Arch, was one of the best in
London. She had her regular customers, and it was not long before her
basket was cleared of its contents, and her pockets were filled with
substantial coins. Having nothing further to do in the way of business,
she strolled quietly home, intending to go back to Westbourne Grove
later in the day to change her costume, and get possession of her
clothes.
She had nearly reached the low street where she and Nat lived, when a
woman sprang suddenly from the shelter of a doorway where she was
leaning, and clutched her by the arm. The woman was Poll Robinson.
So marked was the change in Poll since Susy had last seen her; so strong
were the marks of suffering on her face, so untidy her dress, so unkempt
her black hair, that the girl did not at first recognise her.
When she did, a sensation of repulsion came over her, and she shook
Poll's big hand from her shoulder.
"Well," she said, "wot is it? I 'as got my orders to have nought to do
with you and yourn. Oh, Mrs Robinson, you 'as been drinking; I can
smell the gin on your breath."
"Only a little drop, honey; the least drop--not more than two penn'orth.
I 'ad a bad bout of pain, and the gin makes it easier. Susy, don't
walk so fast, for the love of heaven. My breath's bitter short lately,
and I can't keep up with you."
"But I said I were to have nought to do with yer; them were Nat's
orders, and I s'pose I has got to obey 'em."
"Nat said you were to have nought to do with me?" said Poll. "Did Jill
say that? Did she? You tell me that true."
"I can't, Mrs Robinson. I has nothing to do with Jill, nor with you,
neither. _Do_ let me go. It's disgusting to smell sperits on a woman
at this hour of the day."
"It's the pain, my dear; you'd take to sperits yourself ef you had my
pain. And so Nat has found out! Oh, my God, and I thought to hide it
from him! Oh, my God, this is bitter, bitter--this is cruel--this is
too much! Oh, to think that arter all Nat has found out!"
"It's a good thing he has," said Susy, speaking at random, for she had
not the least idea what Mrs Robinson meant. She liked, however, to
show that she was quite mistress of the situation. "It's a right good
thing as Nat _has_ found out," she continued, "and a fine pepper he's
in, I can tell yer. I never in all my days seed him in sech a taking.
I shouldn't be a bit surprised ef Nat turned wicked, and he such a
pattern as he allers were! There now, Mrs Robinson, I can't be seen
talking to yer any more. It's as much as my life is worth. Good
arternoon to you."
Susy walked quickly away, and Poll turned down a side alley. Her
sufferings and the irregular life she was now leading had weakened her,
and she felt a queer trembling sensation running all over her frame.
She was accustomed to gin now, and the twopenn'orth she had indulged in
this morning had little or no effect in disturbing her equilibrium. The
gin warmed her, and eased the ceaseless, gnawing pain. It was not from
the effects of the gin that Mrs Robinson was now shaking from head to
foot. It was from the awful knowledge that her great sacrifice had been
in vain; that she had given up Jill, and in giving her up had parted
with all the sunshine, and all the love which life could offer, and yet
had done it in vain.
Poll had gone away from the girl in order to save her from disgrace.
She felt certain that Jill would fret for a little, that she would mourn
for her and long to have her back again; but by-and-by Nat's love would
comfort her. She would marry Nat, and they would settle down in their
comfortable and respectable home together. No need to tell Nat, who was
so particular and so strict in his notions, that he had married the
daughter of a woman who drank. He need never know that, for Jill would
not tell. The secret, the dark, terrible secret would be safely buried
and Jill would have a happy life. Poll. had gone away quite sure that
this would be the case.
The knowledge had stayed with her during the two or three miserable days
which had passed since she had left Howard's Buildings. Poll was a
great deal more ill than she had any idea of. Her constant pain was
caused by a terrible malady; her fine constitution was being secretly
undermined, and she was not at all fit for the hard, roaming,
comfortless life to which she had voluntarily sacrificed herself.
She was in the state when she needed the tenderest care and the most
loving nursing. Jill had done everything that a daughter could do for
her mother's comfort; she had given her good and nourishing meals; she
had seen that she clothed herself well and rested well; in short, she
had surrounded her with a life of comparative refinement and comfort.
Even in that life Poll could scarcely endure her own sufferings; how
much greater were they now, when she was going through all the hardships
which a roaming existence to a woman in her class meant!
She slept in a common lodging-house at night; she ate when she was
hungry; and whenever the terrible thirst seized her she gratified it
without a moment's thought of self-control.
Therefore the three days which had passed had made sad havoc in Poll;
she looked years older, her dark face had lost all its comeliness, it
was drawn and haggard, and there were many white streaks in her thick
raven-black hair. She was going down the hill very fast, both
physically and mentally. She knew it, poor soul, and yet until this
moment she had never repented of the step she had taken. She had done
it with her eyes open, and she said to herself morning, noon, and night:
"I ain't sorry, for I'm giving my Jill, the best gel as ever breathed, a
happy life."
But now Poll's head did reel, and Poll's limbs almost refused to keep
her suffering body upright. She had made her sacrifice in vain, for in
some way, some extraordinary, unaccountable way, Nat had found out her
secret.
Nat knew that Jill was the daughter of a woman who debased herself by
drink. The knowledge had come to him, and it had all the worst effects
which Poll had dreaded; he was very angry, he was reckless in his anger.
Susy said that Nat himself would now go to the bad. Notwithstanding,
therefore, Poll's sacrifice, Jill's life would be wrecked.
For some little time Mrs Robinson staggered down the ugly slum into
which she had entered, then she ran against a wall, too dull and dazed
to proceed another step. A child came up and touched her on the arm--a
pinched gutter child, who looked up at her with big eyes partly of
affright, partly of indifference.
"Shall I take yer to the nearest public?" she said; "do you want another
drop? You're half seas over now; mother's orful when she's only half
seas over. You come along to the public and have another drop, and then
you won't know nothink; you'll be all right then."
"So you think I'm drunk?" said Poll; "no, I ain't drunk, there's a pain
here," panting to her breast, "and a swimming here," clasping her hand
to her forehead; "but I ain't took enough to make me even half seas
over. You seem a good-natured sort of a gel, and maybe ef you lend me
your shoulder to lean on, I'd find a copper in my pocket for yer
by-and-by."
The child's eyes glittered when Poll spoke of a copper.
"Yer may lean on me if yer, like, missis," she said.
"I want yer to take me to a place called Howard's Buildings, in Nettle
Street," said Poll. "I can't see werry well for the giddiness in my
head; and I can't walk werry well, because I has a sort of a trembling
all over me; but ef I may use your eyes, little gel, and ef you'll be a
crutch to me, why I'll give yer thruppence, so there."
"Howard's Buildings," said the child, "I never yered tell on 'em, nor of
Nettle Street neither."
"I can guide yer a bit, honey. Ef you'll tell me the names of the
streets as we pass, I'm most sure to know 'em, and I can tell yer ef
we're going right or wrong. You come close up to me, little gel, and
let me lean on yer shoulder."
The child came up as she was told, and Poll and she began a slow
pilgrimage through the slums.
Poll's head felt as giddy as ever; the pain which seemed to eat into her
very life never ceased, the trembling in her legs grew greater, but
still she struggled forward. As the sacrifice was in vain, and Jill was
miserable without her, why she might at least go back to Howard's
Buildings. This was the only coherent thought she had. She would go
back to Jill; she would kiss Jill once again.
Beyond this desire she was incapable of going. If she only kept on
walking, putting one trembling foot before the other, she would at last
reach the Buildings, and Jill and she would meet again. It seemed to
Poll that a whole lifetime had already divided her from the girl; but
now if only she could walk, the dreadful separation would come to an
end.
"Can't yer step out a bit faster, missis?" said the little gutter child.
"You lean hard on me, and step out, missis; we won't get to them
Buildings--whatever you call 'em--to-night, ef you don't step out."
"I'll try to, dearie," said Poll; "I'm werry cold though. It's late,
ain't it, honey? Seems as ef the place was werry dark."
"Dark," said the child, "it's broad day; why, the sun's shining all over
us. Oh, my word, I'm melting up with the heat; and you're no light
weight, missis, I can tell yer."
"Let me grip hold on yer 'and," said Poll. "What street are we in now?"
"What street?" laughed the child; "why we're in the street as we started
in; we ain't gone the length of Sulphur Row."
"Oh, my God!" said Poll, "I thought as we were hours walking, and that
the night had come; you must let me lean up against somethink, for I
can't see."
"My thruppence first," said the child.
Poll tried to fumble in her pocket; a waggon was heard lumbering down
the street behind them. The driver shouted to the child and woman to
get out of the way.
"Oh, missis, come, come!" screamed the little girl; "you're standing in
the road--you'll be run over--let me pull yer on the path leastways."
Poll with a great effort staggered forward. The waggon rushed by,
almost grazing her feet.
The next instant the poor creature lay prone on the pavement, all
consciousness having left her. The child uttered a cry and the usual
crowd collected round the prostrate woman.
Two or three policemen came up and examined her.
"Drank," said one of them impressively.
"No, she ain't," said the child; "I asked her that and she said no, she
worn't a bit drank; she had an orful pain and wor werry giddy, and werry
trembling in the limbs, but it won't drink, I tell yer. She spoke real
sensible. I know 'em when they drinks, and thet worn't what ailed her.
She wanted me to take her to some Buildings or t'other, and she promised
me thruppence. Do you think as I might take it out of her pocket?"
"No, no; get out of this, you little varmint," said the police. They
examined Poll more critically, and finally decided to take her on a
shutter to the Bearcat hospital: this happened to be Saint
Bartholomew's.