So Long At the Fair (2 page)

Abbie did so.

‘What were you doing up?’ Her mother’s voice held a note of barely contained suspicion and anger. ‘And don’t say you weren’t. I saw you at the window.’

‘I was waiting for you. I wondered where you were.’

‘What were you doing – spying on me?’

‘Oh, Mam,
no
. I – I heard you go out and you didn’t come back. I began to get worried.’ She noticed that her mother was wearing her best blouse beneath her coat. ‘Mam, please,’ she said, ‘don’t be angry with me.’

Her mother glared at her. She was a woman of middle height, with small, delicate features, still pretty for her thirty-eight years. Her cheeks, Abbie noticed, were unusually flushed, while her dark hair, usually neatly braided and pinned to her crown, hung loose about her shoulders. Her brown eyes were cold.

‘Does anyone else know I’ve been out? Does Eddie know?’

Abbie nodded. ‘Yes – I’m afraid I woke him up.’

‘You would. What did he say?’

‘Nothing. He wondered where you’d gone.’

Her mother sat down on the bed, rested her chin in her hand and sighed.

Abbie sat down beside her. ‘Mam,’ she said, ‘what’s happening?’

‘What?’ Her mother turned to her, dark eyes widening slightly as if coming out of a dream. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Something’s happening. I don’t know what it is.’ In the light of the candle Abbie saw that her mother’s mouth appeared a little reddened, as if her lips were slightly inflamed.

Her mother gave a melancholy little smile. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

The thought went through Abbie’s mind that so often lately her mother appeared unhappy. Not that she had ever been a woman who laughed a great deal, not like Jane’s mother. Ever since Abbie had been old enough to be aware, she had sensed a certain reserve about her mother – as if for some reason she had kept around her some fine, invisible shield. Out of fear? Out of contempt?

Abbie said, ‘If there’s something worrying you, Mam, per’aps you ought to tell Father about it.’

Her mother raised an eyebrow. ‘Tell your father? Oh, yes, you think your father can solve every problem, don’t you? One day you’ll learn.’ With a faint snort of scorn she turned away. ‘God, how I hate this place.’

‘Oh, Mam, don’t say that!’ Abbie moved closer to her, putting her arms around her. Not that she expected the gesture to bring any closeness, and she was not surprised when her mother gently extricated herself from the embrace. She had never been at ease with displays of affection – which was odd, Abbie sometimes thought, considering her appetite for romantic novels.

‘Do you really hate it?’ Abbie asked. It had never occurred to her that life in Flaxdown could be loved or hated. It was the way it was, and that was that.

‘Sometimes, yes,’ her mother said.

‘Do you miss London?’

‘London . . .’ Her mother said the word as if she were examining some unusual, prized object. ‘Oh, London is the place. No question of that.’

In earlier years it had been a matter of some pride to Abbie that her mother had been born in London. At school it had given her a touch of specialness, as almost without exception the parents of the other children had been born in and around the village. That Abbie’s mother had come from Highgate in London before her marriage and had a different accent from the rest of the village women had set Abbie a little apart and made her – quite unwarrantedly, of course – something of an authority where London was concerned.

Abbie’s mother – Elizabeth Porter as she then was – had come to Wiltshire in her employment as governess to the child of a wealthy family who owned a house in London’s Kensington and a country home near Hallowford. While at the country retreat in the summer of 1843, she had met there Frank Morris, a handsome young bricklayer who had come to work on the building of an extension to the house. Elizabeth had been nineteen and Frank twenty-three. They had married the following April, and Beatrice, their first child, had been born eleven months later.

‘Would you like to go back there,’ Abbie asked, ‘to London?’

‘Go back?’ her mother said. ‘No, I shall stay here till I die, I don’t doubt.’ She was quiet for a while, then turned to Abbie sitting beside her. ‘Go on to bed now.’

Abbie nodded, got up and silently on her bare feet moved to the door. As she reached it her mother’s voice came from behind her: ‘Don’t say anything to your father when he gets back. About my going out, I mean. Nor Beatie when she comes on Sunday.’

‘All right.’

A little silence, then her mother said, ‘If you want to know where I was tonight, I went to see Mrs Marling.’

‘Has she had her baby?’

‘Not yet. It’s due any day. I just . . . went to sit with her for a while. She needs somebody, and that husband of hers is as useless as a collander in a rainstorm.’

Abbie nodded, relieved. She had known all along that there would be a reasonable answer to the mystery of her mother’s absence. Also, she welcomed the revelation as it showed a new side to her mother’s character – a side Abbie had not seen before. Usually her mother was not one to associate much with the other women in the village – at least not to the point where she could actually be said to be a friend of any of them. The other women were always popping in and out of each other’s houses, breaking up their days with little gossips. Not Abbie’s mother. She had always frowned upon such a practice and kept herself aloof from such needs.

‘Still,’ Mrs Morris was saying, ‘there’s no need for your father to know. He’d get mad to think of you all left alone. You were all right, though, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, of course.’

In the bedroom across the landing Abbie climbed into bed and closed her eyes. Although she now knew the reason for her mother’s absence from the cottage a sense of unease still nagged at her. On the Sunday night before her father had left for Trowbridge she had heard her parents quarrelling again, the bitter sounds of her mother’s voice coming from their bedroom, and then the more subdued tones of her father. She had not been able to distinguish their words, so she’d had no idea what they had been quarrelling about. Could it have been about her schooling ending and her going away into service? This had been a subject of altercation between them recently. Though it was not the only one. And anyway, quarrels were not a new phenomenon. Not like her mother’s tears. And she saw her mother again as she had been tonight, sitting despondently with her red lips and her hair loose. And then her words: ‘God, how I hate this place.’ With an effort Abbie tried to thrust the thoughts from her mind. It didn’t do to dwell on such things. Whatever it was, in time it would all come right.

Chapter Two

The next morning, Friday, Abbie spent helping her mother around the cottage. School had been over for almost a week now, and whereas Lizzie and Iris would be returning to their classes in September, Abbie had finished for good and would soon be out at work, earning her own living – a fact of which she was now reminded again.

‘What time are you going to Eversleigh tomorrow?’ her mother asked as she stood at the scrubbed pine table, peeling potatoes.

Abbie was sitting at the window, darning the elbow of one of Eddie’s shirts. ‘In the morning.’ She paused. ‘Jane and I are going together.’

‘Jane.’ Mrs Morris gave a little snort. ‘I don’t know why you have to live in each other’s pockets. Still, at least she’ll be company for you on the road, I suppose.’

‘Well,’ Abbie said, ‘she’s looking for a position too.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything? You can’t
both
go there.’

‘We might be able to. Jane’s mother says she heard that Mrs Curren’s looking for two girls to oblige.’

‘I’d believe that when it happens. But if there’s only one position going just remember that you heard about it first.’ Mrs Morris finished peeling the last potato and dropped it into the pot. ‘Here’ – she tapped the pan holding the peelings – ‘these can go out for the pig. Then call the girls to come and get their dinners.’

Abbie put her mending aside, took up the pan of peelings and went out into the backyard. In his sty the pig lay sleeping, but as soon as she tipped the scraps into the trough he awoke and came grunting and snuffling towards her. She idly scratched his back for a few moments as he ate, then set down the empty bowl on the old trestle table and went around the cottage to the front where in the little flower garden stocks and wallflowers and nasturtiums grew – planted and tended by her father, who also grew vegetables on the allotment nearby. He was, Abbie reflected, probably the only man in the village who grew flowers. Although the other cottages had little flower gardens, they were invariably the dominions of the women. Abbie’s mother had never bothered, though; it was always her father who had done the work.

At the front gate she stood looking from left to right along the lane. The Wiltshire village of Flaxdown was situated in a valley between wide, rolling hills, midway between Frome to the west and Warminster to the east, two of the few towns Abbie had seen during her twelve years – and then only very infrequently, so they still retained some of the magic of mystery. There was no mystery about Flaxdown, however. She knew it like the back of her hand, from the newly opened post office to the old church of St Peter’s. And in truth there was not much to get to know, for a walk in any direction would, after just a few minutes, bring her to its outskirts.

Now as she stood at the gate there came again the realization that in a very short time it would cease to be the place of her abode. It would still be her home, but she would be living elsewhere, and except for high days and holidays she would, in all likelihood, rarely return. She thought of all the other girls from the village who had left to go into service. They came back only infrequently – particularly if they now lived any great distance away. In those circumstances their visits were generally just annual affairs when, dressed in as much finery as they could muster, they would come to spend their two weeks’ summer holiday with their families. And would that, Abbie wondered, be the same with herself? Perhaps. Once she had found a situation there was no telling where she might travel.

‘Abbie?’

At the sound of her mother’s voice she started slightly and turned and saw her standing at the now open window. ‘Yes?’

‘Yes!’ Mrs Morris said in an exasperated tone. ‘And I’m wondering how long you’re going to stand there. Call the girls. I want to get dinner over with.’

Lizzie and Iris were at the foot of the back garden, playing with their dolls. She called them and they came running. As she looked down at their bright, upturned faces she reflected how very different they were. Lizzie, at nine, was little more than a year older than Iris, but although they were so close in age they were very dissimilar in appearance. Lizzie’s rich, dark hair and pretty, near-perfect features already gave a promise of beauty, unlike Iris with her fine, mouse-coloured hair and plain, freckled little face.

Back in the cottage Abbie resumed her mending of Eddie’s shirt while her mother made tea and spread thick slices of bread with lard. As soon as the younger girls’ plates and mugs were empty they got up from the table to go and play again.

Mrs Morris watched them go then said to Abbie, ‘Have you got everything ready for tomorrow when you go over to Eversleigh?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t know why you and Jane are set on going into service together.’

Abbie shrugged. ‘She’s my friend.’ Then she added, ‘When I told Father we were going to look for a place together he said it was a good idea.’

‘Your father. Well, if
he
said it then it must be so, mustn’t it?’ Abbie said nothing to this. After a moment her mother went on: ‘How do you think you’ll like it – being in service, away from home?’

‘I don’t know. I’m sure there’ll be a lot of work to do.’

‘Yes, and
hard
work. For a start there won’t be any staying in bed till seven.’

‘Oh, I know that,’ Abbie said. Her mother’s words were disturbing; she was already uneasy at the thought of leaving home. ‘Still,’ she said, ‘I’ll get on all right. And perhaps we’ll go away. Travel, I mean. Like Beatie, when she went with Mr and Mrs Callardine to France last year.’

‘I wouldn’t bank on it.’

‘But
you
did, didn’t you? When you were a governess you came down from London.
You
travelled.’

‘Yes – and look where it got me. Well, just don’t make the mistakes that I did. See a bit of life. Take your time before you think about marrying and settling down.’

‘Mam,’ Abbie said, ‘I’m only twelve.’

‘Only twelve. Don’t worry, the time will soon pass.’

The next morning Abbie did her hair as neatly as she could and put on her best dress. Standing before the little glass that hung beside the range she made a final adjustment to her bonnet, then turned to her mother. It was just after ten o’clock. ‘Oh, Mam, I’m going to be that nervous.’

‘There’s no reason you should be. Mrs Curren’s no different from you – except that she’s got money – which, I suppose, is all that matters in the end. Anyway – just be polite. But if she asks you to bring your own caps and aprons tell her you can’t.
She’ll
have to provide them. We can’t run to it.’

Abbie had no idea how she could be so forthright with a prospective employer, but she nodded and said, ‘Yes, all right.’

Crossing to the door, she hovered there, moving from one foot to the other, suddenly uncertain about taking the first step into the outside world. Her mother looked at her for a moment, then said: ‘Well, don’t just stand there. At this rate you won’t get there till tomorrow.’

‘I’m going.’ A pause. ‘Father
will
be back later on today, won’t he?’

‘Of course he will; it’s Saturday.’

Abbie nodded and went out.

Jane Carroll and her mother lived in a cottage in Tomkins Row on the west side of the village. As Abbie crossed the green she looked over to where Lizzie and Iris were playing with their friends. There were six of them, skipping with an old length of clothesline. Lizzie and another girl were twirling the rope while the others lined up, each waiting to take her turn, leaping into the arc of the looping rope and out on the other side to allow the next one to jump in. As they skipped they chanted an old skipping song.