Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) Read online

  I went in like a bolting horse. They were all on their feet, all crowding round, mobbing her on the ground by the back wall. I went through the crowd like a weasel through a henhouse. I felt someone brush me and I knocked them off their feet with my shoulders as I ran through them. I could see the edge of Dandy’s pink skirt and her pale bare leg twisted around.

  Behind me Robert was yelling. ‘Get back! Get away! Give the lass air! Is there a surgeon here? Or a barber? Anyone?’

  I pushed a little child to one side and heard him fall and whimper and then I was at her side.

  Everything was very slow and quiet then.

  I put my hand to the tumbled mass of black hair and the green and gilt ribbons and I gathered her up to me. Her shoulders were still warm and sweaty, but her head lolled back, her neck was broken. The top of her head was a mess of blood, but it was not pumping out. Her eyes stared unseeingly at the wall behind her, they were rolled back in her head so the whites showed. Her face was frozen in a grimace of terror, the scream still caught in her throat.

  I laid her down, gently back down on the ground and pulled the short skirt down over her bare legs. She was lying all twisted, her head and shoulders one way, her legs and hips the other, so her back was broken as well as her neck. There was a dribble of blood at the corner of her gaping mouth but that was all. She looked like a precious china doll smashed by a feckless child.

  She was dead, of course. She was the deadest thing I had ever seen. Dandy, my beloved, scheming, brilliant sister, was far far away – if she was anywhere at all.

  I looked up. Jack was struggling to undo his belt, I guessed his hands were shaking so much that he could not hold the buckle. He looked down at me from the catcher frame and he met my gaze. His mouth was half open as if he was appalled at what he had done. As if he could not believe what he had done. I nodded slowly to him, my eyes blank. It was unbelievable, but none the less he had done it.

  I stood up.

  The crowd all around me had fallen back. I saw their bright faces and their mouths moving but I could not hear anything.

  Rea was beside me. I turned to him and my voice was steady.

  ‘You’ll see she’s buried aright,’ I said. ‘In the manner of our people.’

  He nodded, his face yellow with shock.

  ‘Her clothes burned, her plate smashed, her goods buried with her,’ I said.

  He nodded.

  ‘Not the wagon,’ I said. ‘The wagon is Robert’s. But all the things she wore, and her bedding, and her blankets.’

  He nodded.

  ‘And her comb,’ I said. ‘Her ribbons. Her little pillow.’

  I turned away from the crumpled body, and Rea standing beside it.

  I went two steps and Robert held out his arms to me. I ignored him as if I had never loved him, nor anyone in all my life. I turned back to Rea.

  ‘No one but you may touch her,’ I said. But then I was uncertain. ‘Is that right Rea? Is that the way of our people? I don’t know how it is done.’

  Rea’s lips were trembling. ‘It shall be done in our way,’ he said.

  I nodded and I walked under the catcher frame, where Jack’s hands were shaking so hard he could not undo his belt. I did not look up again. I walked past Robert and felt his hand brush my shoulder and I shrugged it off without looking at him. I went through the barn door where I had stood like a fool when Dandy went laughing to her death, and I went out to where the horses were tethered.

  I heaved the saddle on to Sea’s back, and he dipped his head for the bridle. I could see the shine on the metal girth buckles and the bit, but I could not hear them chink when they rattled. I tightened the girth and led him across the grass to our wagon.

  Her bedding still smelled of her. A warm smell like corn-flowers, like hay. The wagon was scattered with her clothes, her ribbons, her hairpins, a mess of powder and an empty bottle of perfume.

  I stripped off my trapeze costume and I pulled the ribbons out of my hair. It tumbled down in a sweep of copper curls and I pushed it back. I pulled on my shirt and my working smock and my riding breeches. I had a pair of old boots of Jack’s and I pulled them on without a shiver. I reached under my mattress and pulled out my purse of ten guineas. I laid one on Katie’s pillow. She had kept her part of the bargain and left Dandy a free hand with Jack. She had earned her coin. I slipped the purse inside my breeches and tied the string to my belt. Then I reached into the hole in my mattress and took out the string with the two gold clasps. I fastened it around my neck and tucked it under my shirt, and I shrugged myself into an old worsted jacket which once had belonged to Robert and was warm and bulky. There was a flat cap stuffed in the pocket; I piled my hair into it and pulled it on my head.

  Katie was at the door of the wagon.

  ‘Robert sent me,’ she said breathless. ‘He says you’re to go to his wagon and lie down until he can come to you. He’s getting the crowd out of the barn.’ She hesitated. ‘Rea’s watching over Dandy,’ she said. ‘He’s covered her up with her cape.’

  She gave a little frightened sob and put out her hands to me for comfort.

  I looked at her curiously. I couldn’t for the life of me see what she had to cry about.

  I went past her, careful that she should not touch me, and stood for a moment on the step of the wagon. Sea raised his head at the sight of me and I unhitched his reins.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Katie said anxiously. ‘Robert said you were to…’

  She tailed off into silence as I jumped up into the saddle.

  ‘Meridon…’ she said.

  I looked at her and my face was like a frozen stone.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

  I turned Sea’s head and rode towards the edge of the field. People made way for me, their faces alight with interest, watching me avidly, recognizing me even out of costume. They had enjoyed a fine show tonight. The best we had ever done. Certainly the most exciting. It is not every day you see a girl flung across a barn into a flint wall. They should have paid extra.

  They parted either side of me as I rode towards the gate. Sea paused, looked down the road. South was towards the beach where we had ridden together that morning and I had tasted the salt on her hair when I had kissed her. I turned Sea’s head north and his unshod feet sounded soft on the mud of the lane. To our left the sun was sinking in a haze of pale saffron and apple-blossom clouds. Sea walked quietly, I rode him on a loose rein.

  I did not sob. I did not even weep inwardly. I rode carefully past the people walking back to their homes and talking in high excited voices about the accident and what they had seen! and her face! and that awful scream! I rode past them in silence and I kept Sea headed north until we were through the little village and heading for the road towards London. Still heading north, with Sea’s hooves making little squelchy noises in the ruts but quiet on the dried mud. North while the sun went lower and lower in the sky and the evening birds started to trill in the hedges which bordered the darkening lane. North, and I did not sob, or rage. I scarcely took breath.

  17

  I reached the road which plies along the line of the coast as it was growing dusky with the early grey twilight of spring. Sea turned to the right and I let him go where he would. It meant we were travelling east and I was glad of it for the sunset was now behind me. I did not want to ride into the setting sun, the colour of it hurt my eyes and made them sting as if I were going to cry. I knew I was not going to cry. I knew I would never cry again. The little isolated corner of affection which had been my love for Dandy had gone as swiftly and completely as she had gone. I did not expect to love anyone, ever again. I did not wish it.

  A stage-coach went past us going in the opposite direction towards Chichester and the guard on the back blew his horn merrily as he saw me. I turned the collar of the jacket up against the cooler evening air. It was not cold, but I was icy inside. The jacket could not warm me. I saw my hands were trembling slightly on the reins and I looked at them car