Susy went away, and Poll shut the door after her with a sort of vicious good-will.
“I can’t abear her,” she muttered. “Ef Nat were her sort he shouldn’t have Jill.”
Poll stood quiet for a moment, thinking hard. Then with a queer tremble about her full red lips she went into the little bedroom, took down a gaily-coloured shawl from its peg, wrapped it about her person, and went out, putting the key of the little flat into her pocket.
“I can’t abear it,” she murmured, as she went down the stairs. “I has stood up agen it all day long, and now, though it’s the night when the child gives herself to another, though it’s the night when my Jill—the best gel in Christendom—ought to be happy, and shall be happy, still, I must get something to dull the bitter pain. Jest twopenn’orth of gin ’ot, just twopenn’orth, and then I’ll be better.” Poll found herself in the street. She began to walk quickly along the gaily lighted pavement. Her pain, bad and terrible as it was, did not interfere with her free, almost grand movement. She would soon reach the public-house, and twopennyworth of gin, the money for which she held in her hand, would bring a certain deadness of sensation which was the unhappy woman’s only measure of relief. She walked on fast, her desire for the stimulant growing fiercer and fiercer, her wish to spare Jill’s feelings on this night of all nights less and less.
A little mob of people blocked up the pavement. They were standing in front of a chemist’s shop, and were looking eagerly into the shop through the brilliantly lighted windows.
“What is it?” said Poll, her attention arrested by the eager, excited looks of the crowd.
A woman came up and touched her on the arm.
“It’s me, Poll,” said Betsy Peters. “I has sold all the poppies. I had a power of luck with ’em. Yere’s your shilling back agen, and may the good Lord above reward you.”
“I don’t want the shilling. Keep it, neighbour,” said Poll. “Ef you had luck, it’s more nor I had; but you keep your luck, I don’t want it off yer.”
“There it is again,” said Betsy Peters. “Worn’t I prayin’ for money to buy some of the medicine for little Jeanie? And there, you has gone and give it to me.”