So Long At the Fair Read Online Free PDF

Abbie would have to vacate the kitchen so that the visitor might have privacy. Her mother, who usually remained in the room, regarded such visits with concealed disdain, frequently speaking of the visitors, after their departure, with contempt.
    Now as Abbie and her father entered the cottage Abbie’s mother called out to them, ‘Make sure you don’t bring mud indoors. I haven’t long done the floor.’
    Abbie and her father wiped their boots, then Frank Morris gave hugs to Lizzie and Iris, and kissed his wife on the cheek. Abbie noticed that her mother did not react to the gesture but carried on stirring the pot on the range.
    ‘Sit down and rest,’ Mrs Morris said. ‘I’ll heat some water for you to wash.’ As he sank into his chair, she asked, ‘How did you get back from Bath?’
    ‘I got a ride as far as Road and walked from there. I would have been back sooner but I had to shelter from the rain.’
    He sounded weary. Abbie bent, untied his bootlaces and pulled off his boots.
    A few minutes later Eddie came in from White’s farm, and when he and his father had washed they all sat down to eat.
    Sunday tomorrow, Abbie thought as she got ready for bed that night. In their bed against the opposite wall Lizzie and Iris were sound asleep. In the faint light from the window Abbie pulled on her nightgown and climbed into bed. After a while she heard the sounds of her mother and father coming up the stairs. They never stayed very late downstairs, even on a Saturday, for they would have kept Eddie from his bed and he needed his sleep. There came the soft sound of the door to her parents’ room closing and then all was silent again. Abbie thought her father had seemed especially tired this evening. And she had also seen the look of unhappiness in his face. The look was not new. And it was disturbing. He had always seemed so much in control, unaffected by the rigours of his routine, the shortness of money and the continuous grind to make ends meet. She had only ever been touched by her mother’s discontent – which had lately seemed such a constant thing. With her father, though, there was something different.
    As if in support of her realization, there came to her from across the landing the sound of her mother’s voice – raised in angry exasperation – then her father’s – quieter, controlled. Turning on her side, Abbie pulled up the bedcovers to shut out the noise. When she surfaced after a few minutes the voices were silent. Relieved, she settled again. Tomorrow afternoon, she reminded herself, Beatie would come visiting – and not alone. She would be accompanied by her young man, her Mr Thomas Greening, from Lullington. The Morrises knew about him from the letters Beatie wrote, but this would be the first time they would meet him face to face.
    With Lizzie and Iris out playing on the green, Eddie visiting friends nearby and her father working on the allotment, Abbie spent the morning helping her mother make the kitchen as clean and neat as possible.
    After midday dinner, with Eddie immediately off again to rejoin his friends and the two younger girls sent off to Sunday school, Abbie and her mother and father got ready for Beatie’s arrival.
    She appeared just before three o’clock, having journeyed from Lullington where she worked as nursemaid to the two small children of a mill owner and his wife, Mr and Mrs Callardine. Getting a free half-day every other week, she usually returned to Flaxdown about once a month, on which occasion she would spend a few precious hours on a Sunday afternoon with her family. Usually she walked the five-odd miles, or if she was lucky she would get a ride from some thoughtful cart- or carriage-driver. On this Sunday in late July she had walked from Lullington accompanied by her Mr Greening, a good-looking, tallish, dark-haired, dark-eyed young man.
    After their arrival, Beatie and Tom sat in the kitchen drinking tea and eating the scones Mrs Morris had baked that morning. As