I put the poppies up for you, ma’am?” repeated Jill.
“Yes. I will give you sixpence for that bunch, but be sure you let me have some green with it.”
“I want to spend my penny on flowers, mother,” said the child.
“Well, darling, choose. This nice flower girl will give you a pretty posy for a penny.”
“I want two posies,” said the child. “One for Dick, and one for Dolly. It’s Dick’s birthday, but if I give him a posy, and don’t give Dolly one, Dolly will cry.”
The pretty child’s little voice was full of anxious confidence. In making her statement she felt sure of sympathy, and she addressed not only her mother, but Jill and Molly Maloney.
Molly, who was squatting down on her knees, began to murmur an eager torrent of Irish blessings.
“Eh, glory! What a darlint it is!” she said. “For all the world like my little Kathleen! And so you want some flowers, my beauty? You let me sarve her, Jill. I has got rose-buds and mignonette all made up most enticing only a ha’p’ny a bunch.”
“I want two bunches,” repeated the child in her clear, precise voice, “one for Dick, because it’s his birthday, and one for Dolly. Dolly’s free years old, and she’ll cry if I don’t take her a flower. I’ve only got one penny.”
She opened the palm of her little hot hand, and showed Molly the coin.
“Now then, you shall choose, my pet,” said the Irishwoman. “These bee-u-tiful flowers was growin’ on the trees half-an-hour ago; why the jew is scarcely dried on ’em yet. You choose, my pretty, you choose. Oh, the smell of ’em, why they’ll nearly knock you down with the swateness. Thank you, lovey, thank you. May the Vargint bless you, me darlint, and that’s the prayer of poor old Molly Maloney.”
The child received the rather stale rose-buds and mignonette with silent rapture. Having received her prizes she scarcely gave another glance at Molly, but began chattering eagerly to her mother about the bliss which Dick and Dolly would feel when she presented the posies to them.
The lady having paid Jill for the flowers, took the child’s hand and walked away. Molly gave a laugh of satisfaction as they did so.
“I told you so,” she said, turning to Jill, “I said if I sold ’em chape I’d get rid of ’em, and they was under Kathleen’s bed all night. I called ’em fresh to the child, bless her. She is a beauty, but – why, what’s the matter, Jill?”
“Nothing,” said Jill, suddenly. “Look after my flowers, Molly, I’ll be back in a jiffey.”
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
