So Long At the Fair by Jess Foley Page A

Abbie wondered, could her mother leave them? It was understandable for a wife to want to escape from a husband who ill-used her and gave no thought to her happiness, but her father was a kind, considerate man. In any case, the relationship between husband and wife apart, how could a woman desert her children?
    It was their father who broke the news to Lizzie and Iris. Their mother had had to go away, he told them, and might not be back for a time. They had wept till their eyes were red and swollen, always asking the same questions: Where did she go? When would she come back? Abbie and her father and brother had no answers for them.
    Beatie heard the news from her father who wrote to her that weekend. Abbie wrote a couple of days later. From her mother Beatie heard nothing. Much distressed, she tearfully confided in her mistress, who did what she could to comfort her and told her that she should go home to see her family. She could go in the trap on Saturday with the groom and he would call for her the following day.
    Beatie arrived in Flaxdown early that Saturday afternoon, and was met outside by Lizzie and Iiris. ‘Mam’s gone away,’ Lizzie said dolefully, to which Beatie replied that she knew. Then, while the trap driver set off for the Harp and Horses, she followed the two girls indoors where Abbie was awaiting her arrival. A few minutes later, when the girls had gone out to play again, she and Abbie sat at the table drinking tea.
    ‘What about the people in the village?’ Beatie asked. ‘Do they know about it?’
    ‘They must do,’ Abbie replied. ‘And what they don’t know for certain they’ll get by putting two and two together. Everybody must know she’s gone – and that Mr Pattison’s gone too. It won’t be hard for people to work it out.’
    ‘Have you seen Mrs Pattison?’
    ‘No – and I feel right sorry for her too. She’s a funny, pathetic little woman, but well-meaning enough. Still, she must be managing. At least the post office is still open.’
    Later their father arrived from Bath, then Eddie came in from the farm. Beatie and Abbie had prepared supper, and afterwards they spent the evening together, all six of them.
    Abbie knew that her father was crushed by their mother’s departure, while her brother, she quickly realized, nursed a bitterness towards her; she could see it in his set mouth and in his reluctance to speak of her. As he had never been one for staying about the house, but was usually off with his friends, Abbie had thought that he might be less affected by their mother’s going. But she was wrong; he was clearly very affected by her desertion.
    That night, Abbie and Beatie lay together in bed. In the other bed, Lizzie and Iris were already asleep.
    ‘What about your Tom?’ Abbie whispered into the dark. ‘Does he know you’ve come here?’
    ‘Yes, I sent him a note. I told him I had to come.’
    ‘Did you say why?’
    ‘No.’ There was silence for a moment, then Beatie added, ‘I’m afraid of what’ll happen when he finds out about Mam. More particularly when his parents find out. What will they think?’
    ‘What can they think? What are you talking about?’
    Beatie sighed. ‘Everything’s been going so well lately with Tom and me. I know his folks don’t think I’m good enough for him, but now that I’ve met them a couple of times things have been getting better. But now this has happened – our mam going off with some man from the village. They won’t want him courting a girl whose mother’s done that. They won’t want scandal brought into the family.’
    ‘Perhaps they won’t find out about it.’
    ‘Oh, they will. Scandal like that. They probably know about it already.’
    ‘But they’ll know it don’t make any difference to what you are. It don’t change you . Whatever our mam’s done it don’t make you into a different person.’
    ‘Well, I know that and you know that – but I’m afraid they won’t see it that way.’
    ‘I’m sure