Jill’s sparkling eyes were raised almost shyly to her mother’s. She was not a timid girl, but in acknowledging her love for the first time a sensation of shyness, new, strange, and sweet, crept over her.
She half expected her mother to fold her in a voluminous embrace, but Poll did nothing of the kind. She stood very upright, her back to the window, her massive figure flung out in strong relief against the background of evening light. But the pale, and even woe-begone expression of her face was lost in shadow.
“I must take some money out of the stocking to buy supper with,” said Jill. “Susy may be coming as well as Nat, there’s no saying; anyhow I’d like to have a good supper.”
She walked across the room to the place where the bureau stood.
“Don’t, Jill,” said Poll suddenly. “I thought may be you’d be coming in hungry, and I has supper.”
“You has got supper ready, mother?”
“Yes, child, yes. Don’t stare at me as if you were going to eat me. I thought may be you’d be coming in hungry, and that the boys would want their fill, and that – ”
“Mother, you didn’t think as Nat were coming?”
“How was I to tell? When gels keep company with young men there’s never no knowing when they’ll make up their minds to wed ’em. Anyhow I bought some supper this morning, and here it be. You come and look, Jill.”
Poll took her daughter’s hand with almost unnecessary force, and opening a cupboard in the wall, showed a fresh loaf of bread, a pat of butter, some radishes, a good-sized pork-pie, and a pound of uncooked sausages.
“There’s a few potatoes in a bag there,” said Poll. “We’ll put ’em down to boil, and set the sausages on to fry. Ain’t that a good enough supper even for Nat, Jill?”
“Oh, mother, it’s a feast fit for a wedding,” said Jill, laughing with pleasure. “And flowers, I do declare! Mother, there’s no one like you. You forgets nothing.”
“Don’t praise me to-night, child, I can’t quite abear it,” said Poll. “Go and smarten yourself up for that young man of yourn, and let your old mother cook the supper.”
Jill went into the other room, coiled her black hair freshly round her head, took off her gaily-coloured apron, and put on in its place a white one trimmed with embroidery. In her hair she stuck a crimson rose, and came back to the kitchen looking demure and sweet.
Nat arrived in good time, accompanied by his sister, Susy. The boys came in after their day’s work, and the whole party sat down to the excellent supper which Poll had prepared.
The meal was nearly drawing to a close when Susy, bending forward, said in her sharp voice to Jill —
“Nat tells me that you and he will most likely wed one another afore the next Bank Holiday.”
Jill coloured, glanced at Nat, who was watching her with all his heart in his eyes, and then nodded to Susy.
“And you and he mean to take the flat under this?”
Jill nodded again.
“It’s early days for you to speak of these things with Jill, Susy,” said her brother. “We hasn’t made up all our plans yet, Jill and me.”
“Oh yes, you has, Nat. And what I say is this, that seven shillings a week is a sight too much for you two to pay. It’s beginning extravagant, and what’s that but ending in ruin? Yes, I’m out-spoke,” continued Susy, raising her shrill, confident young voice, “and what I say is, ‘begin small, and you’ll end big!’ Ain’t I right, Mrs Robinson?”
“For sure, dearie,” said Poll, in an absent voice. She was scarcely attending.
“Be you a-going to get married, Jill?” exclaimed Tom in an ecstasy. “Oh, jiminy! Won’t we make the cakes and ale fly round on the day of the wedding! My stars, I’d like to go courting myself. Will you have me to go company with, miss?”
He pulled his forelock and gave Susy an impudent leer as he spoke. She did not take the least notice of him, but continued in a tone of solemn earnestness:
“You know, Jill, that you and Nat are goin’ to take the rooms under this. And what I say is they’re too dear and too many. What do you want with four rooms all to yourselves? You’ll be both out all day, Nat with his donkey-cart, and you with your flowers.”
“May be not,” interrupted Nat. “May be I can ’arn enough for both of us.”
“Oh, no, you can’t, Nat; and Jill ain’t the one to let you. You’ll both be out all day, and you can’t make no use of four rooms, let alone the furnishing on ’em. Now I ain’t talking all this for nothing. You are both set on the rooms, and it ain’t no use trying to turn obstinate folks from their own way. What I want to say is this, that I’m willing to take the best bedroom off you, ef you’ll let me have it, and pay you ’arf-a-crown a week for it. And Jill can let me cook my food by her fire, and use her oven when I want to. That will be a bargain as ’ull suit us both fine, and your rent ’ull be brought down to four-and-six. What do you say, Jill? I’m looking for fresh quarters, so I must have my answer soon.”
Jill looked at Nat, who rose suddenly, went up to his sister, and laid one hand suddenly on her shoulder.
“Look you here, my gel,” he said, “Jill and I can say nothing to-night. We’ll give you your answer in a day or so. And now, Jill, if you’ll put on your hat we’ll go out a bit, and have a talk all by ourselves and fix up matters.”
“It would be a right good thing for Jill to join the Guild,” said Susy. “You ought to persuade her, Nat. She’d be a credit to you in the uniform, instead of going about the outlandish guy she is, in that flashy apron and turban.”
“The prettiest bit of a wild flower in Lunnon for all that,” murmured Nat under his breath. His honest eyes glowed with admiration. Jill smiled up at him.
She went into the other room to fetch her despised turban, which she tied under her chin, instead of coiling it as usual round her head.
“You’ll wait till we come back, Susy,” said her brother. She nodded acquiescence, and proceeded to give enlarged editions of her views on various matters to poor Poll. The boys lounged about for a little, then went out.
Susy helped Poll to wash up the supper things, and then she drew in her chair close to the little stove, glad, warm as the evening was, to toast her toes, and quite inclined to pour some more of her wisdom over Poll’s devoted head.
Mrs Robinson, however, had a knack of shutting up her ears when she did not care to listen. She sat now well forward on her seat, her big hands folded on her knee, her large black eyes gazing through Susy at something else – at a picture which filled her soul with sullen pain.
Susy expatiated on the delights of the Flower Girls’ Guild, on the advantages of the neat uniform, on the money-profit which must surely arise by keeping flowers in the room provided by the Guild all night. Susy was intent on proselytising. If she could only get Mrs Robinson and Jill to join the Guild she felt that her evening’s work would not be in vain.
Poll sat mute as if she were taking in every word. Suddenly she spoke.
“What are you staying on for, Susy Carter?”
Susy, drawn up short, replied with almost hesitation —
“Nat told me to wait for him. But I can go,” she added a little stiffly, “ef I’m in the way. I ain’t one to stay loitering round in any room ef I’m not wanted.”
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