She quickly passed the buildings where their little flat was, and entered the low neighbourhood of Drury Lane. Drury Lane was a great haunt for flower girls. Poll had lived there herself for years. A memory of the old free life came back to her as she walked, and she could not help breathing a hearty sigh. The old life seemed attractive to her this morning; she forgot the blows her cruel husband had given her; she forgot the dirt, and the sickness, and the misery. She only remembered the absolute freedom from restraint, the jolly, never-may-care sort of existence. Everything was altered now; for Jill had taken the reins into her own hands. She and her mother belonged to the respectable class of flower girls. They bought good flowers straight from the market, and sold them to regular customers, and had their own acknowledged corner where they could show their wares in tempting and picturesque array. They were clean, decent sort of people now. Poll knew this, but she could not take pride in the fact this morning.
She walked quickly along, with her usual swinging, free sort of motion. Some of her old cronies nodded and smiled to her. Poll was so good-tempered and good-natured that the flower girls who were still low down, very low down in the world, could not look on her with envy. She would have shared her last crust with the worst of them.
Jill was not nearly so popular as her mother, far Jill was proud, and did not want to know the girls who had been the friends of Mrs Robinson’s youth.
A red-eyed woman, with a bent figure, a white face, and a constant cough, came up and joined Poll as she approached the neighbourhood of the great market.
“And how are you, Betsy?” asked Poll. “Does your cough hack you as bad as ever?”
“No, it’s better,” replied the poor creature. “I bought some of them cough-no-mores, and they seem to still it wonderful. I’m glad I met you, Poll; I think it wor the good Lord sent you in my way this morning.” The woman gasped painfully as she spoke.
“Here, lean on me, Betsy Peters,” said Poll, stopping, and offering her strong arm. “Don’t press me, like a good soul, for my side aches orful. Now then, wot is it, Betsy?”
“It certain sure wor the good Lord let me meet yer,” repeated Mrs Peters. “I cried to Him for near an hour last night, and yere’s the answer. It’s wonderful, that it is.”
“Only me and Jill we don’t believe in the pious sort,” answered Poll. “Not that it matters, ef I can help you, Betsy.”
“Yes, but it do matter,” replied Mrs Peters. “It seems a pity, for that sort of belief is a real comfort to poor folk. My word, ain’t I held on to it many and many a time? It wor only last night, and I were praying fit to burst my heart, and at larst it seemed to me as ef I see’d Him, His face wondrous pitiful-like, and his smile that encouraging. And I seemed to hear Him a-saying, ‘You hold on, Betsy Peters, for you’re a’most in Paradise now. You give a good grip o’ Me, and I’ll land you safe.’ My word! it did comfort me. It seemed to lift me out o’ myself. It’s a pity as you don’t hold on to that sort of thing, neighbour.”