Meridon Read online

  Robert came out at once and shook his hand like an equal. William was told to take the little bag into the house.

  ‘He gets to sleep inside,’ Dandy whispered to me.

  ‘But where will he eat?’ I replied, guessing that it was the entry to the dining room which was the significant threshold.

  Jack came out at once and was introduced to the visitor.

  ‘My son Jack,’ Robert said. ‘Jack, this is Signor Julio.’

  ‘Foreign,’ whispered Dandy, awed.

  ‘Call me David,’ the man said with a beaming smile. ‘Signor Julio is just a working name. We thought it sounded better.’

  Robert turned so quickly that he caught sight of us as we ducked back from the window.

  ‘Come down you two,’ he called.

  We clattered down the stairs. Dandy pushed me before her. I was wearing my working breeches and a white cut-down shirt which once belonged to Jack. I flushed as I saw him look me over. But when I raised my eyes I saw that he was measuring my strength, as I would look at a new colt and wonder what it could do. He nodded at Robert as if he were pleased.

  ‘This is Meridon,’ Robert said. ‘She’s horse-mad. But if you could get her up high I’d be obliged. She’s the one who doesn’t fancy it, and I’ve given my word she won’t be forced. She’s scared of heights.’

  ‘There’s many like that,’ David said gently. ‘And sometimes they are the best in the end.’ His voice had a singing lilt I’d heard only once before, from a Welsh horse-trader who sold Da the smallest toughest pony I had ever seen.

  ‘And this is Dandy, her sister,’ Robert said.

  Dandy walked slowly forward, her eyes on David’s face, a hint of a smile around her lips as she watched him scan her from the top of her dark head to the glide of her feet.

  ‘They’ll pay just to see you,’ David said to her, very softly.

  Dandy beamed up at him.

  ‘Right,’ Robert said briskly. ‘Let’s go to the barn. My lad said he’d set the rigging as you ordered but if there’s anything amiss we can set it right at once. If it is all to your liking then the girls and Jack are ready to start the training at once.’

  David nodded and Robert led the way through the stable gate into the garden and then down to the paddock at the end of the garden. David looked around him as he followed Robert and I guessed he was thinking, as I had done, that this was a man who had come very far with very little except his own hard work and brains.

  Robert threw open the door of the barn with something of a flourish and the Welshman stepped inside and looked all around. His shoulders squared, his head came up. I watched him narrowly and saw him change from the new employee in the stable yard to a performer at home in his element.

  ‘It’s good,’ he said nodding. ‘You understood my drawings then?’

  ‘I had them followed to the letter,’ Robert said proudly. ‘But the carpenter had no idea what was wanted so part of it was done by guess.’ He took his pipe from his pocket and tamped down the tobacco.

  ‘Good guesses,’ David said. He went over to the rope-ladder and swung it gently. It quivered up its length like a snake. He cast his eye over the ring.

  ‘Good and level,’ he said approvingly.

  He went over to the practice trapeze and his walk was not like that of an ordinary man. He was muscled so hard and he walked so tight that he looked as lean and as fit as a stable cat ready to pounce. I glanced at Dandy; she met my eyes with a wink.

  David the Welshman made a little spring with his hands above his head and I saw his knuckles turn white as he gripped on the bar. For a second he hung there, motionless, and then he brought his straight legs up before him and then beat them back with a smooth fluid force which sent the swing flying forward. Three times he swung and the third time he let go and spun himself head over heels towards us, and landed smack on his feet, solid as a rock, his blue eyes gleaming, his white smile bright.

  ‘No smoking in here,’ he said pleasantly to Robert.

  Robert had just got his pipe going and took it from his mouth in surprise.

  ‘What?’ he demanded.

  ‘No smoking,’ David replied. He turned to Jack and Dandy and me. ‘No smoking in here, no eating, no drinking, no fooling around. Never play tricks on each other in here. Never show off on the ropes or the swings. Never bring your temper in here, never come in here courting. This place is where you are going to learn to be artistes. Think of it as a church, think of it as a royal court. But never think of it as an ordinary place. It has to be magic.’

  Robert went quietly outside and knocked the hot ember out of his pipe into the wet grass. He said nothing. I remembered the time he had told Jack and me that we were never never to fight inside the ring. Now the barn was to be half sacred! I shrugged. It was Robert’s money. If he wanted to build a barn where he was not allowed to smoke his pipe and pay a man to give him orders it was his affair. He saw my eyes on him and gave me a rueful smile.

  Dandy and Jack were spellbound. They were awed by the idea of the practice barn becoming a special place where they would become special people.

  ‘It is magic,’ David went on, the lilt in his voice more pronounced. ‘Because here you are going to become artists – people who can make beauty, like poets or painters or musicians.’

  He turned abruptly to Robert. ‘Is there no heating?’ he asked.

  Robert looked surprised. No,’ he said. ‘I know you had a stove on your drawing but I thought you’d all be warm enough, working in here.’

  David shook his head. ‘You can’t keep the sinews of the body warm by working them,’ he said. ‘They get cold and then they strain and even snap. Then you can’t work for weeks while they heal. It’s a false economy not to heat the building. I won’t work without a stove.’

  Robert nodded. ‘I was thinking of how we work with the horses,’ he said. ‘I always get hot enough working with them. But I’ll have one put in this afternoon. Can you use the building until then?’

  ‘We can make a start,’ David said grandly. He looked at Dandy. ‘Do you have some breeches like your sister?’ he asked.

  Dandy’s face was appalled. ‘I’m to wear a short skirt!’ she said. ‘Robert promised! I’m not to be in breeches!’

  David turned to Robert, smiling. ‘A short skirt?’ he asked.

  Robert nodded. ‘In pink,’ he said. ‘A little ruffled skirt with shiny buttons, and a loose matching shirt at the top.’

  ‘She’d be safer with bare arms,’ David said. ‘Easier to catch.’

  Robert puffed on the cold stem of his pipe. ‘Bare arms and a naked neck with a little stomacher top, and a skirt above her knees?’ he asked. ‘They’d have the Justices on me!’

  David laughed. ‘You’d make your fortune first!’ he said. ‘If the lass would do it!’

  Robert pointed the stem of his pipe at Dandy. ‘She’d do it stark naked given half a chance, wouldn’t you Dandy?’

  Dandy lowered her black eyes so that all one could see was the sweep of dark eyelashes on her pink cheek. ‘I don’t mind wearing a skirt and a little bodice top,’ she said demurely.

  ‘Good,’ David said. ‘But you must practise in breeches and a warm smock with short sleeves.’

  ‘Go to the house, Dandy,’ Robert ordered. ‘Mrs Greaves will fit you with something from Jack or William. Make haste now.’ He looked at Jack and me wearing our riding breeches and our stable smocks. ‘These two all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ David said.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ Robert Gower said reluctantly. ‘You’ll remember our agreement is that they can spring to the trapeze and swing out to Jack and back to their platform inside two months.’

  ‘I remember,’ David said steadily. ‘And you will remember my terms.’

  ‘Daily payments in coin,’ Robert concurred. ‘If you work till eleven you can all take breakfast in the kitchen. Then an afternoon session until dinner in the kitchen at four.’

  ‘Then they