So Long At the Fair Read Online Free Page A

pointing the prows downstream.
    ‘Ready . . . steady . . . go!’
    With Abbie’s final word they let go. At once the little vessels were taken by the current and the two girls watched as they sailed smoothly along, Abbie’s on the right bearing the flag of the golden buttercup, Jane’s with the little red flower of the ragged robin.
    Taking up their bonnets, the girls moved along the bank, following the progress of the vessels. On the current of the stream the boats bobbed up and down, keeping more or less abreast, first one nosing slightly ahead and then the other. But then, slowly, the boat with the buttercup began to draw ahead.
    ‘It’s going to be you!’ Jane said, then added, giving a little wail, ‘Oh, look – my boat is losing her flag!’
    The ragged robin in Jane’s boat was now trailing its blossom in the water. As the girls watched, it fell free and began to drift along in the boat’s wake. Hurrying to keep up, the girls found their way blocked by a mass of brambles that grew to the water’s edge, forcing them to find a circuitous route around it. They returned to the bank close to where the willow stood. Nearby, the two boats had been halted, caught up in the reeds. Now neither bore its flower flag, for Abbie’s buttercup also had gone. Further, one of the boats had fallen apart, the folds of its waterlogged paper collapsed. Even as they gazed it began to sink beneath the surface.
    ‘Was that yourn or mine?’ Jane asked. ‘You can’t tell without the flowers.’
    ‘We’ll never know.’ Abbie shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter, anyway – neither one of ’em got there.’
    They turned and began to walk back through the copse towards the road. ‘We’d better get a move on,’ Jane said. ‘At this rate Mrs Curren’ll be having her supper before we get there.’

Chapter Three
    Marylea House stood on the far side of the village, a large building on three floors, at the front a lawn with colourful herbaceous borders. Approaching by the side gate, Abbie and Jane entered a paved yard beside stables where a young man grooming a mare directed them to the rear door. They rang the bell and a minute later the door was opened to them by a young maid who at once went away to fetch her mistress.
    Mrs Curren was a slightly built woman in her thirties with a thin face and prominent teeth. After dismissing the maid, she ushered Abbie and Jane into the kitchen.
    ‘So,’ she said, smiling, ‘which of you is looking for a position?’
    ‘Please, mum,’ Jane said, ‘both of us. We heard as you wanted two maids.’
    The woman shook her head. ‘Oh, no, there isn’t the work to warrant two. There’s only my husband and myself, and not all the rooms are used, and I do most of the cooking. No, dear, I only need the one.’
    She then asked how old the girls were. Twelve, they replied in subdued chorus, and she nodded and began to outline the daily duties that would be required, the work starting at six in the morning and going on until nine at night. She would need her new maid to begin in two weeks, she said, adding that she would supply caps and aprons. To everything she said the two girls nodded and said, ‘Yes, mum.’
    ‘Now,’ she said, ‘that leaves us with a little problem, doesn’t it? Which one of you should we have . . . ?’ She gave her rather horsy, warm smile. ‘As far as I can see you both seem like capable girls. I don’t want to be the cause of any friction between you. Perhaps you’d like to decide which it will be.’
    ‘Yes, mum,’ they said in uncertain unison. Then there was silence. Mrs Curren looked from one to the other, then Abbie turned to Jane. ‘You, Jane,’ she said, in spite of her knowledge that her mother would be furious. ‘You take it.’
    ‘No, Abbie,’ Jane said. ‘You take it. You heard about the position first.’
    ‘Perhaps’, Mrs Curren suggested, ‘we should toss a coin. Shall we do that?’
    The girls nodded and waited, for they carried