Among the flower tents

An original fiction passage set in the nineteenth century.

Clara’s aunt paused at the entrance to the flower show and looked doubtfully at the crowds moving between the striped tents.

‘You will keep hold of Thomas?’ she asked.

Clara laughed. ‘Of course. I am seventeen, Aunt. I can look after one small boy for half an hour.’

She took Thomas by the hand and led him towards the largest tent. His straw hat, which had a bright blue ribbon around it, made him easy to notice among the dark coats and bonnets. Whenever he stopped to examine a basket of fruit or a painted toy, Clara pulled him onwards. She wanted to see the prize roses before the judges carried them away.

Inside the tent, the air was warm and sweet. Visitors pressed close to a table on which the winning flowers stood in silver vases. Clara raised herself on her toes. For a moment, she released Thomas’s hand so that she could move between two ladies and read the card beside the largest rose.

A band began to play outside. The crowd shifted towards the entrance, carrying Clara with it. She reached behind her without looking.

Her hand closed on empty air.

‘Thomas?’ she called, more impatiently than anxiously. She looked beside the flower table and then behind the two ladies. There was no straw hat and no blue ribbon.

Clara pushed out of the tent. The paths that had seemed cheerful and busy now appeared hopelessly crowded. Parasols hid children from view. Laughter, music and the calls of the stallholders joined into one confusing noise. Had Thomas followed the band? Had he gone to find their aunt? Had he wandered through the open gate towards the road?

She began to run, apologising as she struck shoulders and stepped on trailing skirts. At the gate, a steward asked her to describe the missing boy. Clara could say only that he was six years old and wore a hat with a blue ribbon. The ribbon had seemed absurdly bright that morning. Now she searched for its colour as if nothing else in the show existed.

Then, beneath the noise of the band, she heard a familiar voice calling her name.

Thomas stood beside the rose tent, holding Clara’s glove. He explained that she had dropped it and that he had stopped to pick it up. Clara knelt and held him so tightly that his hat fell to the ground. When they set off to find their aunt, she put the glove into her pocket and took Thomas’s whole hand in both of hers.

Evaluate the view that Clara’s early confidence makes her later panic more powerful. Support your judgement with detailed references to the passage.