“In Derbyshire!” exclaimed Mrs. Mawson. “Is there no work nearer than that? You’ll have got it through them Home folk, eh? I wouldn’t go . . . I wouldn’t let any girl of mine go. What for do they want to send you so far off?” she demanded energetically. “Eh now!” This, however, was not for Flo but for a woman in a tight-fitting blue Harris costume. “Twopence a bunch; morning picked,” went on Mrs. Mawson in the same matter-of-fact energetic way.
“Twopence! Why, they’re only wild; a penny is ample . . . you get them for nothing.”
“But I don’t live on nothing; an’ I’ve a husband as can’t, either, though he can’t do anything,” retorted Mrs. Mawson.
“I’m afraid you all tell tales like that,” said the woman with a mechanical unfriendly smile. “If you’ll let me have them at a penny I’ll take twelve bunches.” She lifted her handbag as if to undo the clip.
“Nothing doing,” said Mrs. Mawson in her husky man-like voice. “Twopence a bunch.”
The woman went on.
“You’ve got to stick up to those sort,” said Mrs. Mawson. “If I gave way once she’d be back barging me down every week. You’ve got to keep straight against them folks . . . when you’re like me with a chap as is useless dependin’ on you.”
“I wish I could stick up for myself like you do,” said Flo. “I’d have . . .”
“You’ve
“Don’t they tell you anything about them?” she asked, turning back again. “Sending you all that way and you don’t know a thing! I shouldn’t wonder it’ll be someone like her as wanted ’em twelve a penny: them are the sort as takes on through Homes and Help-you schemes and all that . . .”
“I don’t know,” said Flo. “I’m fed up doing nothin’. And I get a dress an’ . . .”
“I bet you do,” interrupted her friend, “pay out of your wage.
“Monday.”
“Eh, then I shan’t be seeing you again,” said Mrs. Mawson, her tone quite altered. “Perhaps they’ll turn out all right, you know. There’s good folk as well as bad. . . . Here, I mustn’t let you go without something; which d’you like?”
She held up two bunches taken from different places.
“I’ve no . . . no money,” said Flo.
“Money . . . who mentioned money?”
“Oh, those then,” said Flo, indicating the right-hand bunch. “They look so . . . so lovely.” The word she was searching for was “dainty”, but it didn’t come into her mind till too late. “I like these whitey petals round them,” she added, touching them gently.
“Yes, you’d wonder how they’d come out in the cold and the wind. But these are dearest; you should have these,” said Mrs. Mawson. “These are out of the garden . . . double ones. Most folk prefer ’em.”
“I don’t,” said Flo, raising the tight little boss of wild flowers to her nose. They had a very slight cool-leaves smell, which she wouldn’t have said was nice, but which somehow excited her. “Oh, if only I could see them all,” she exclaimed.
“Here, take these as well,” said Mrs. Mawson, abruptly holding the garden bunch out. “I’ve plenty, and they’re not sellin’.”
“Oh, but you know they will; it’s early,” protested Flo, though strangely tempted.
“Early, nothing; take them,” ordered Mrs. Mawson. “I know what I can give better than you, don’t I? You’ll be telling me my own business next. Here’s a customer; I can tell by the looks of ’em. Watch me sell . . .”
Flo stood at the stall corner and toyed with the flowers. In the wild bunch there were thirty or forty all tied tightly together as if for companionship; but of the double daffs there were only a dozen with a piece of spruce fir and a piece of wild ivy. These flowers were deeper, egg-yolk, and the dark evergreens set them off, so that for a moment she wondered whether, after all, they weren’t the prettier.
“See,” said Mrs. Mawson, jingling coins in the pocket of her black apron. “What did I tell you? Three bunches, and no grousing, either. Them’s the sort. If I’d known you’d wanted a job, I wouldn’t have minded asking someone like her. You should ’a told me.”
“I wish I had,” said Flo. “It’s very good of you. I’ll write, if I can, sometime, if you’d like . . .”
“Yes, do. Good-bye.”