Meridon Read online

  He showed them how to climb the ladder, toe-heel, toe-heel, all up the shaking length of it. And he laughed gently when Dandy called down that she was out of breath just from climbing the twenty-five steps.

  ‘You must practise then!’ he said. ‘If you are going to be Mademoiselle Dandy, the Angel without Wings, then you must seem to soar up the ladder. Not waddle up like a pinioned duck!’

  He went up the ladder behind Jack, with no one to hold it still for him, and he looked as if he were running upstairs he took it so swiftly. I peeped through my fingers at them, sickeningly high, and I caught parts of his low-voiced instructions. He was thoughtful for me, because he called down to warn me.

  ‘Meridon, I am teaching them to fall into the net, so you will see us all falling, but we shall all be quite safe.’

  I uncovered my face at that so that he could see me nod to show I understood. I even watched as he took hold of the trapeze firmly in his hands and stepped off the little platform, swinging gently out, letting its swing die down of its own accord until it was still – then he dropped from it. As he fell he turned his legs up so that he landed on his back and on his shoulders. He sprang to his feet and walked with an odd, bouncy, graceless stride to the edge of the net and vaulted down.

  ‘Like that!’ he called. ‘Keep your legs up, your chin tucked on your chest and you cannot be hurt.’

  Jack’s distant white face nodded and he reached out a shepherd’s crook and hooked the swinging trapeze and drew it towards him. I watched as he took a grip of it and then I had to shut my eyes as I saw his expression harden and knew he was nerving himself to step off the platform clinging to it.

  The twang of the net told me he had landed safely, and his yell of elation up to Dandy. ‘Come on, Dandy! It is fine! It is a wonderful feeling. Better than riding even! And the fall is scary, but it is so good to feel yourself safe! Come on, Dandy!’

  That broke something in me. ‘Don’t make her! Don’t make her!’ I screamed and whirled up from the wood shavings on the floor of the barn. Jack had sprung down from the net and turned and fairly caught me as I launched myself at him. ‘You shouldn’t! You shouldn’t!’ I said. I was beyond myself, not knowing what I was saying. My hands were in fists and I went to thump Jack hard in the face, but he parried the blow. ‘Don’t make her!’ I shrieked again. ‘It ain’t safe!’

  Jack could not manage me, but David, a clear foot taller than him and much heavier, grabbed my arms and hugged me tight, pinning my arms to my sides.

  ‘It is safe,’ he said, his voice a low rumble in my ear. ‘I would not let your sister come to harm. I would not let her up there if I thought her in danger. I want her to do well, and so do you. She wants to learn this trick. You must not be selfish and stop her going her way.’

  ‘It’s not safe for her,’ I said. I was weeping in the hopeless effort to make him understand me. ‘It’s not safe for her! I know! I am a gypsy! I have the Sight! It’s not safe for her!’

  He turned me in his arms, turned me to face him and scanned my frantic wet face. ‘What is safe for her?’ he asked gently. ‘This is the way she chooses now. She could choose worse.’

  That made me pause. If Dandy could delight in the applause from hundreds of people and earn a fair share of the profits then she would not go running after strangers and let them put their hands up her ragged skirts for a penny. If I knew Dandy, she would learn airs and graces as soon as she became Mademoiselle Dandy. I could trust Robert Gower to keep his investment away from men who would hurt her. I could trust him not to leave her on the road once she was a trained act in her own right and any showman in the world would give his eye-teeth for her.

  I gave a little sob. ‘She’ll fall,’ I said uncertainly. ‘I’m sure she will.’

  His grip tightened on me. ‘You can will her into falling,’ he said ominously. ‘If you carry on like this you will have wished her into a fall. You are frightening yourself and you are frightening her. You are robbing both of you of the confidence you need, and you are wrecking my training. And you’re a fool if you do that, Meridon. You and I both know that Robert Gower won’t keep her if she’s idle.’

  I shrugged off David’s restraining arms and looked up into his face. I knew my eyes were blank with despair. ‘We keep on travelling,’ I said. ‘But there is nowhere to go.’

  His blue eyes were sympathetic. ‘You’re no gypsy,’ he said. ‘You want a home.’

  I nodded, the familiar longing for Wide rising up inside me so strongly that I thought it would choke me like swallowed grief. ‘I want to take Dandy somewhere safe,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘You keep the pennies,’ he said softly. ‘She’ll earn well with this act when I’ve finished training her. You watch how Robert Gower did it. You keep the pennies and the gold and within a season or two you could buy your own home for her. Then you can take her away.’

  I nodded. Dandy was still waiting on the little board, I could see it swaying in the air currents at the roof of the barn.

  ‘She’ll need to hear you,’ he said. ‘You’d better tell her you’re all right.’

  ‘Very well,’ I said, surly. ‘I’ll tell her.’

  Dandy’s pale distant face peered at me from the side of the platform, looking down to where I stood far, far below her.

  ‘All right, Dandy,’ I called up. ‘I’m all right now. I’m sorry. You jump if you want to. Or come down the ladder if that’s all you want to do today. You’ll never hear me try to stop you again.’

  She nodded and I saw her hook the trapeze towards her.

  ‘I’ve never seen you cry before,’ Jack said wonderingly. He put a hand up to touch the tears on my cheek but I jerked my head away.

  It didn’t stop him. ‘I didn’t think you were girl enough for tears, Meridon,’ he said. His tone was as soft as a lover.

  I shot him a hard sideways look. ‘She’ll never hear me call her down again,’ I promised. ‘And you’ll never see me cry again. There’s only one person in the whole world I care for, Jack Gower, and that’s my sister Dandy. If she wants to swing on the trapeze then she shall. She won’t hear me scream. And you’ll never see me cry again.’

  I turned my shoulder on him and looked up to the roof of the barn. I could not see Dandy’s face. I did not know what she was thinking as she stood there on that rickety little platform and looked down at us: at the fretwork of the brown rope catch-net, the white wood shaving floor, and our three pale faces staring up at her. Then she snatched the bar with a sudden decision and swooped out on it like a swallow. At precisely the centre of its return, at the very best and safest place, she let go and dropped like a stone, falling on to her back into the very plumb centre of the net.

  There were hugs all around at that, but I stood aloof, even fending Dandy off when she turned to me with her face alight with her triumph.

  ‘Back to work,’ David called, and set us to exercises again.

  Jack was ordered to hook his legs over the bar on the wall and practise trying to haul his body up so that it was parallel with the ground. I worked beside him, hanging from my arms and pulling myself up so that my eyes were level with the bar and then dropping down again in one fluid motion.

  Dandy he lifted up to the trapeze and set her to learning the time to beat again.

  Then we all took a short rest and swapped around until dinner-time.

  Robert Gower came into the kitchen when we were at our dinner and took Mrs Greaves’s seat at the head of the table, a large glass of port in his hand.

  ‘Would you care for one of these, David?’ he asked, gesturing to his glass.

  ‘I’ll take one tonight gladly,’ David replied. ‘But I never drink while I’m working. It’s a rule you could set these young people, too. It makes you a little bit slow and a little bit heavy. But the worst thing it does is make you think that you are better than you are!’

  Robert laughed. ‘There’s many that find that is its greatest advantage!’ he observed.

  David sm