Meridon Read online

  ‘I’ll invite the mayor and the aldermen of Salisbury,’ Robert said. ‘Aye and ladies too. Local gentry, the JPs. That sort of person. We’ll put on a gala show for them. Proper chairs we’ll need,’ he said half to himself. ‘That’s in the afternoon. In the morning we’ll do a show for the village. Penny a time admittance. That’s our first and last show here and you can count it as your coming-out. After that we’re on the road and working for real.’

  I looked around the table and saw my own anticipation mirrored in the other bright faces. We had all practised for so long, we had all been cooped up here for so long. For Jack and Katie it had been a long tedious winter. But for Dandy and me it had been unprecedented. We had never been under a roof for so long before. We had never been in one place for so long before. We had never slept in the same bed under the same roof for the whole season. I was impatient to move on.

  ‘Here’s the programme,’ Robert said, pulling a dog-eared black-backed notebook from his jacket pocket. He flipped open the page and lit his pipe. We waited in silence.

  ‘Opening parade,’ he said. ‘That’s you two girls in your flying costumes with your capes on. Meridon and Jack in breeches riding Snow and Sea.’ He broke off and looked at me. ‘D’you agree to ride Sea into the ring, Merry? He’d look fine alongside Snow.’

  I nodded and he went on.

  ‘Followed by troop of little ponies with full tack and bells, and Morris and Bluebell bringing up the rear harnessed together.’

  Jack and I nodded, thinking about the horses.

  ‘First half is horses,’ Robert said. ‘There’s to be no catch-net for the first half.’ He glanced at me with a little smile. ‘Don’t look so white, you silly girl. We put it up in the interval.’

  I nodded and felt my colour come back to my cheeks.

  ‘Now,’ he said. ‘First act on is Meridon with the little ponies dancing. Just turns and pirouettes. Meridon, you’re to wear a riding habit and jacket and a little hat with a feather.’ He looked at me critically. ‘You’ve filled out,’ he said with some surprise. ‘I’d not noticed, Meridon. You’ll be quite pretty in the ring.’

  Everyone stared at me as if I were a not very welcome cuckoo.

  ‘You’ll fit Dandy’s riding habit from last summer,’ Robert said. ‘And you’ll look quite smart in it too.’

  He looked at my hair. ‘No hat,’ he said. ‘And wear your hair loose and long. It looks nice like it is. Don’t hack it about again.’

  I nodded. I was getting accustomed to being dressed with as much care and as little emotion as if I were one of the ponies.

  ‘Next: Jack’s rosinback act with Bluebell,’ Robert said returning to his list. ‘You can wear your new blue shirt, Jack, and your breeches.’

  ‘Not Morris as well?’ I asked.

  Robert shook his head. ‘He’s not ready,’ he said. ‘It takes years to get a rosinback perfect, this season he’s just to get accustomed to working in front of an audience. We’ll have him in the opening parade and in the historical finale. But we won’t use him as a rosinback in the ring yet.’

  I nodded. Robert opened his notebook again.

  ‘Then me,’ he said, ‘with Snow doing tricks. Counting and picking out flags. I’ll have him in his new harness and a new ostrich plume on the top. Meridon, you see to the plume and his tack.

  ‘Then Meridon does her rosinback act in her short red skirt and white shirt and Jack comes out the back dressed in his farmer costume.’ He paused. ‘Make a little red waistcoat to go with the skin, Merry.’ He glanced at Mrs Greaves. ‘Easy enough to make isn’t it, ma’am?’ She nodded.

  Robert went on. ‘Then Merry and Jack do the knockabout act, and last of all we’ll have the Battle of Blenheim. Dandy, you and Katie make sure the ponies have flags instead of bells in their harness. I’ll be in the ring for the Battle of Blenheim. Meridon, you’ll be changing.’

  ‘Into what?’ I asked.

  ‘Into your costume for the low trapeze,’ Robert said. ‘White breeches and blue silk shirt,’ he turned another page in the book.

  ‘Interval,’ he said. ‘During the interval William and Jack and I rig the trapeze frames and the catch-net. Dandy and Katie you sell drinks and sweetmeats and whatever. You’ll wear your flying clothes but with your capes on top.’ A little puff came from the top of his pipe. ‘Capes fastened properly. No tarting around,’ he said firmly. ‘You can take tips but remember you are artistes, not street walkers. All tips are to be handed over to me.’

  Katie and Dandy both looked offended. Robert paid them no heed at all.

  ‘After the interval we have Mamselle Meridon on the low trapeze, doing your tricks, Merry.’ I nodded. ‘And then we have the trapeze act. Finale with all of us taking a bow under the catch-net.’ He paused. ‘That clear?’ he asked.

  ‘No historical tableau?’ Jack asked.

  ‘No rape?’ I asked him with a little smile.

  Robert puffed on his pipe. ‘This is a Quality show,’ he said sternly. ‘No rapes. When we get out into the villages we’ll do the Rape of the Sabine Women at the end of the first half. Dandy and Katie are the Sabine women in their flying capes, unfastened. Maybe veils on their heads. Jack and Merry are the rapists on Morris and Bluebell.’

  All of us around the table nodded.

  ‘It’s to be two weeks from now,’ he said. ‘Shrove Tuesday. I’ll want to see all the costumes and all the tack ready and laid out on the Friday.’

  He looked at Mrs Greaves. ‘That give you enough time, ma’am?’ he asked.

  She nodded. ‘Can you make us some buns and some sweetmeats and some drinks on the day?’ he asked. She nodded again.

  ‘That’s all then,’ Robert said pleasantly. ‘We’ll work that Tuesday here, final practices and move out two days later.’

  ‘Starting the tour in Lent?’ Jack asked raising an eyebrow at his father.

  Robert grinned. ‘This tour is going to go through all high days and holidays,’ he said certainly. ‘This tour will play Sundays. This tour is unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. Wherever we go we are going to draw crowds. If the ground is too wet we’ll do a trapeze show. If we can hire a barn we’ll do horse shows. We won’t be able to pack everyone in even if we were to do shows all through the night of Good Friday!’

  Jack nodded. ‘Yes, Da,’ he said with his usual instant obedience. ‘Yes, Da.’

  Robert nodded at the sewing baskets on the welsh dresser. ‘Get on with your sewing then,’ he said. ‘You’ll need to have it all done in ten days’ time.’

  He left the room and we all made a concerted dash to the costume boxes and set to work. Even my stitches went better knowing that I would be wearing the costume in a fortnight’s time. The cloth which had seemed so intractable already had some of the special circus magic about it. We would be wearing it in the ring. It would be packed up. We would be moving on.

  I had never thought to see Katie, that hard-faced girl, in the vapours. But I had forgotten that she had never worked before a crowd. She was cool as a lady-in-waiting in practice: on the high trapeze, throwing tricks to the net, reaching out to pass over to Jack. But once she knew an audience was coming she started to miss her cue and fall.

  She got well jolted for a lesson, and she started to get a red sore back from the number of tumbles she took wrong into the catch-net.

  ‘I’ll never get it right,’ she moaned as she bounced unwillingly over to the ladder and went up again.

  I had finished with the ponies for the day and was watching them practise by the light of their lanterns, and warming my damp breeches on the back of their stove. I had not watched them much since David had gone and I expected to see Jack calling the time and telling them what tricks they should throw.

  He called the time for them, as I had thought he would. And he called ‘Pret’ when he was ready to catch them, and ‘Hup’ when he wanted them to swing from the board out to him. But to my surprise he was not the teacher or leader of the three.

&