“Don’t take on, lovey,” said the woman. “It’s the will o’ the Lord. There’s no goin’ agen’ Him, Jill.”
”‘His purposes will ripen last,
Unfolding every hour:
The bud will have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.’”
“Don’t talk cant,” said Jill. “Mother’s bad, ef what you say is true. She has got something orful the matter, and you tell me it’s the will of God, and you folks wot b’lieve in God talk o’ Him as good and kind. Ef God is good and kind, then it ain’t His will as mother should suffer orful things sech as you tell on. I b’lieve there’s a devil somewhere, and he does the bad things. It ain’t God. I’d scorn to think it o’ any one so beautiful as He.”
The girl’s indignant words rang out on the evening air. Mrs Peters thought them blasphemy, and clasped her thin hands in horror. Jill turned to leave her. She went back to the empty flat, and sat down in the old arm-chair where her mother had so often tried to rest.
It seemed to Jill that at last she had got at the meaning of her mother’s sudden departure. Poll had gone away because Jill must not see her pains. Jill must not see them—Jill, who loved her with that passion which comes now and then to a daughter for a mother, which now and then is almost the strongest passion of life!
In that moment of agony Jill thought far more of her mother than she did of Nat. She loved Nat intensely, but just then the aching emptiness within her was caused entirely by Poll’s absence.
She had never been angry with her mother for taking, as she supposed, all the savings out of the old stocking. Her one desire now was to shelter her mother. Jill had always stood between Poll and the censorious world. Jill had always understood why Poll must drink now and then; now it seemed to her that she also understood why the savings must go.
“I must find mother again,” she said to herself, after a pause. “I must, and I will; but, first of all, I ha’ got to give Nat back the five sovereigns as he gave me to take care on for his pal. There can be no marrying a’tween us until mother’s found, and the money given back to Nat.”
Jill spread her day’s earnings on her lap. She found that she had fifteen shillings, and had still a sufficient number of unsold flowers in her basket to give her, with a very few additions, sufficient material for to-morrow’s work. She had spent the greater part of an hour in the empty kitchen when there came a brisk knock at the door. She started at the sound, and went with some slight hesitation to open it. Nat might possibly be waiting outside. She longed to throw herself into his arms, and yet she dreaded seeing him. The knock was repeated. She opened the door, to see Susy Carter standing outside.
“It’s me,” she said, in her brisk way. “May I come in? My word, ain’t it hot!”