Lottie’s face lit up. ‘This is Dave,’ she said proudly. ‘He’s my fella.’

For some reason she couldn’t explain, Molly wasn’t all that surprised. After all, Lottie had stayed out a couple of times lately, and had been more restless than usual.

But Molly was angry and fearful. Her voice shaking with emotion she told the young man, ‘I don’t know you, and I don’t want to. But I’ll tell you this: my sister is going nowhere with you! You should be locked up. Have you any idea how—’ She had been about to remind him of Lottie’s age, when her sister quickly intervened.

‘Leave him out of this, our Molly.’ Before Molly could answer, Lottie addressed the young man. ‘Go away, Dave. Please. Go back to your wagon and go to bed. I’ll see you later.’

He studied Molly, then Lottie, and then he was smiling, silently congratulating himself. Once he took a woman, they stayed until he told them to go. Lottie was no different. When he left here tomorrow, she would be with him, no matter what her sister wanted.

‘Be seeing you,’ he said, giving Molly an insolent smile, and returned to his wagon.

When he was far enough out of earshot, Lottie took her sister to task. ‘You were gonna tell him how old I am, weren’t you?’

Molly was shocked. ‘Are you saying he doesn’t already know?’

‘He won’t neither, not if I have owt to do with it.’

Molly tried again. ‘Come home, love, that’s all I want.’

Lottie looked around her, recalling the fair in working hours, when the air was filled with merry music, and the delighted screams of people on the rides echoed through the night. Lost in a world of fantasy, lovers walked arm-in-arm with eyes for only each other, and everywhere myriads of folk strolled about laughing and chatting. ‘I am home,’ she said, and to Molly’s amazement, there was a sense of peace and contentment in her sister’s voice. ‘I belong here.’

Strangely humbled, Molly looked into Lottie’s young eyes and saw something there she had not reckoned for; Lottie was no longer a young girl but a woman, grown up and ready for the world. And yet she was still only fifteen, too young to leave home. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said painfully, ‘I can’t let you go like this.’

Tossing her head defiantly, Lottie retorted, ‘How will you stop me? Will you drag me home by the hair of my head? Maybe you’ll tell Dave my real age and hope he throws me out as well. Or one day, when he comes home drunk and looking for a fight, Dad might really kill me.’ A look of desperation hardened her face. ‘If you take me back there, I might even kill myself. Is that what you want, Molly? To bury me in the churchyard? Because that’s where I might as well be, without Mam and my Dave.’

‘Don’t talk like that, Lottie,’ Molly said in a choked voice. ‘It won’t happen. I won’t let it.’