The River Folk by Margaret Dickinson

lost, you mean?’
    ‘I don’t think she knows the town very well. She’s been into Pottergate and the Market Place with me a couple of times, but if she took a wrong turning . . .’
    ‘Come on, we’ll go and see if we can find her.’
    Together Bessie and Dan wound their way through the narrow streets where the houses were so tall on either side that the alleyways were dark even on the brightest day. Now, they would have been pitch black if Phyllis’s husband, Tom Horberry, hadn’t been round already to light the lamps on the brackets set high on the wall. Twisting and turning, they came to one of the town’s main streets. Pottergate ran down to the river ending in the Packet Landing, where boats and the steam packet to Hull moored. Rounding the corner by the Woolpack Hotel, which stood close to the Packet Landing, its clientele travellers on the early boats to Hull, Bessie suggested, ‘We’ll walk up towards the Market Place. That’s where she might be.’
    Now they were passing shops which, tonight, were all keeping late hours to catch the Christmas shoppers. A baker’s where mince pies, Christmas cakes and chocolate Yule logs filled the window. Then a flower shop where Christmas trees stood on the pavement outside, leaning drunkenly against the windows, whilst holly wreathes and bunches of mistletoe adorned the inside.
    Past the shoemaker’s, the grocer’s and a china shop they walked without even glancing in the windows. Usually, Bessie loved ambling down Pottergate and would dawdle to look in every shop, but tonight she was anxious and hurried on, panting a little, as fast as she could. Dan, with long, easy strides, kept his pace to match his mother’s. He too ignored the shops, his worried glance scanning the milling crowd.
    ‘Happy Christmas to you, Bessie.’ A voice came out of the shadows and she turned to see Tom Horberry wobbling down the middle of the street on his bicycle.
    ‘And to you, Tom,’ Bessie replied automatically and then added swiftly, ‘have you seen Mary Ann?’
    Tom dismounted and wheeled his bicycle towards them, and in the glow from the lighted shop windows, Bessie could see the puzzlement on his face.
    ‘You know,’ she said, unable to keep the impatience from her tone, ‘the lass who’s come to live in the yard. Next door to us.’
    Tom’s expression cleared. ‘Oh aye, I know who you mean now.’ Then he shook his head. ‘No, sorry, I haven’t. Lost, is she?’
    ‘I hope not,’ Bessie muttered. Already she was moving on.
    ‘I’ll keep a look out on me way home, Bessie,’ Tom called after them. ‘If I see her, I’ll take her home with me.’
    Bessie waved her hand in acknowledgement and called back over her shoulder. ‘Right you are.’ Then in a lower voice she murmured to Dan, ‘But I doubt she’ll go with him. I don’t think she even knows him. And she’s funny with men, isn’t she?’
    ‘I think she’s getting better. She was laughing with our Duggie the other day.’
    Despite her anxiety, Bessie grinned. ‘Well, who wouldn’t?’
    On they went again until they reached the jewellers’ on the corner where the street opened out in the Market Place.
    ‘There she is,’ Dan said suddenly.
    ‘Where? Where?’
    He pointed. ‘Over there. Just coming out of that draper’s shop.’
    ‘That’s where Phyllis works. Mebbe she’s been talking to her. And just look at her,’ Bessie said, ‘skipping along as if she hasn’t a care in the world and us worried half to death.’
    She felt Dan’s hand on her arm. ‘Now, Mam, don’t have a go at her. That little lass doesn’t get a lot of fun in her life and you’re only mad at her ’cos you’ve been worried. After all, she’s old enough to go into the town by herself now, isn’t she?’
    Bessie’s anger subsided in a second. ‘Yes, you’re right, lad. But even so, she ought to know just to tell one of us where she’s going. Even if her mam wasn’t at home, I was. Or one of the other