A LONDON FLOWER GIRL

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 33, 8 February 1913, Page 10

A LONDON FLOWER GIRL

She knew no kingdom but a piece of kerbstone, no home but such a place as made a shelter for her tired aching body; a roof, four walls, a trroken -window, and sorrie tumbled dirty blankets on a mattress made of straw. Towering above her in the social scale-— a policeman, at once her terror and her guardian, i And by' her, in a basket, the spoil of j France : Mimosa, roses pink and red, and J violets with dewy eyes. Year in, x dar oll V s\ie offered the choice of seasons to the- passer-by; so much a bunch mimosa, so much a i bunch roses pink and red ; violets, I purple knots of joy, a penny. "Vi'lets, vi'lete, sweet smellin' vi'lets, a penny a bunch." The spring for a penny. English country lanes and woods for a penny. All the poetry of*liature for a fienny. She did not know that, nor did she 'dream Japan out of the chrysanthemums she held, their 6haggy locks shaking in the wind. Nor did she know that anemones held the secret of the South ; nor did she see white walls and lizards playing in Italian sun when the nijmosa shook golden pollen on her shawl. And she had a kind of Italian beauty, a something wistful of her own ; the eyes of a child, clear and -'lean for all she lived itl the gutter, for all that foul language flew to her lips if she were' annoyed. There was some essence in this Princess of the Gutter that kept her unstained. Her body was starved, but in her mind wa«s a rich feast. All her small penny savings, when had them, went to benefit the drama. If you had seen her in the twopenny seats you would have seen a differentperson; flushed cheeks, eyes sparkling, every fibre of her body strung taut, every particle of her intelligence alive, alert, awake. And no one more moral in her tastes than she. Gone the kerbstone.' gone the mud, the rain, the hunger gnawed ho more. She who had .dined on a glass, of beer and loot of. the tropics in the alluring shape of a> banana now filled herself with the pageantry of life. And always in the plays she loved innocence in white overthrow villainy in black and defied evil in scarlet. She followed every word the players spoke with breathless interest.' They were not actora and. actresses but live men and women engaged in the business of life. --This was ncr colour, her only salvation, the background of her dreams. A man's dress clothes were to her a symbol of unutterable evil. A girl in white with golden hair was to her beyond the angels. And the red-h&ired comic man one who held fhe power of nations in his hand. Most she loved death scenes, where small children said prayers or played for a last time on the violin (accompanied by the orchestra), and whose dying words gave either hope to despairing heroines or; in some unaccountable way, foiled a cursing villain. "That," they would cry before expiring, "is the m«m who did it. The unrealities never seemed unreal to her ; that the aged father of the first act should be perfectly recognisable as a; detective in the last seemed to her as it should be, right and proper. She'questioned nothing. When the comic man appeared out of the villain's luggage at the right moment-^thafc is, in time to say : "Thought you had them there, did yer?"'-*and snatched the pistol from Sir Jasper's hand, she applauded with her «Otil in. her hands. Just so^ would she care to be delivered in the nick of time. And while she breathed'in the .wonderful atmosphere of the"' theatre, tlnd' loved the lights and the itatell,' <tntt looked hungrily at .the 1 curtaih ,when it Was, down-) and read the acferijisements on it until it went; up, so, in her 1 rooiri^ standing in tins of water., did, her flow-! era waste their sweetness. Here mimosa, torn from her land of sun, withered and gtew pinched; here- roses, pink and red drooped their heads; ahd violets faded, mourning the dews of night- " 'Ere you are, lady, lovely roses. All fresh. All a-blowing and a-growing, primroses. Sweet vi'lets, penny a bunch. Chrysante, market bunch. 'Ere you aTe, lady, leaves all colours." So she sold the seasons and held the World's 'garden in her Ted, dirty hands. But though you could buy her flowers you '«ould not even ateal her dreams. They, at least, were her own, and they were her only property. And she was very rich. She was absolutely alone in the world, this Dreamer of the Kerbstone; her father dead, her mother vanished—vanished, luckily leavihg her basketpf flow* ers behind. All the romancfe in the world nodded at her across the. dirty room, and the. intensely practical side of her nature, valued the flowers at just 6o much. She knew her trade, and with indomitable pluck made her way. The day after her mother left she took her place on her mother's beat. "Hello, Polly," said the policeman. "Where's the old'woman?' 1 \ "Skipped." "Gone into business. on your own?" "Yus." He had walked on, sixteen stone of law and order. Very soon he was holding back millions of money with one hand and waving on million® of money with tlia othei 1 . It seemed a monotonous job to him. But his burly figure 6tood there for peace and safety, and nervous people hung round him waiting^ to be secured of their daily peril : crossing the road. She had seen marriage, and wanted none of it. It spelt to her, black eyes, drink, and tears. Sa she hugged her solitudo, paid her rent, and owed allegiance to no man. To a few she* was a figure' in the street; a figure in a brown shawl with a battered black straw hat, and a blouse whoso colour was beyond all guessing; once it had .been red,, but now it t was orange and green and blaek^and stained. She had a straight fringe and a twist of dark hair at the back of her head, and she wore a pair of man's cast.tway boots and her feet were frozen all the winter. Her possible future waa to become one of tho&ft stout, blowsy old women, with thick, husky voices, who said, "Good morning, my dear!" t» strangers; and < offered flowers five days old as being "fresh from the market this morning." But her dream was of the 'perfect lover : tall, broad, with curly, chestnut hair and a very artificial voice, and an air of amazed innocence at the wrongs done around him. Fate was waiting for her. Her thread, of life came to the third sister with the shears. A motor-omnibtis plunging ite horrible way along slimy streets lurched towards her. She heard someone cry out to her, and instead of stepping forward, stepped back. They took her to the police station, which was close by, and a doctor who had followed the melancholy procession shook his head. Faces passed before her in a blurred mist. "I've come over diazy." she said. They gave her something in a glass which Bhe swallowed. Then she smiled*. It iteemed to her that a wonderful being bent over her and looked into her eyeh. He was tall, broad, with' curly, chestnut hair, and he seemed to be in the light of another world. Death takes kindly ahapes sometimes. And as he bent forward so she leaned to him. The group of policemen and the doctor stood round her; they saw' her smile. The penny bunch of violets she had held tightly grasped in her red. 'dirty hand dropped. Then she pub up her l»ps to meet the flret kina of her. lovgrt • '

The policeman who knew hot epoke her epitaph. "Poor little kid. She had a good pluck." "She might have been pretty," said the doctor. — Dion Clayton Calthrop, in London Daily Mail,