Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) Read online

  I stood up and pulled on my breeches. ‘D’you remember what your da said to Dandy our first evening?’ I asked. ‘I do. He warned her off you. He told her and he told me that he had a good marriage in mind for you and that if she ever became your lover he’d leave her on the road. She’s not looked at you since that evening, and neither have I.’

  ‘She!’ he said in the same voice as he had spoken of the village girls. ‘She’d come fast enough to my whistle. I know that. But don’t tell me that you don’t think of me to please my da, because I don’t believe it.’

  ‘No’, I said truthfully, careless of vanity. ‘No, it’s not the reason. I don’t think of you because I have no interest in you. It’s true: I don’t think of you any more than I do the horses.’ I considered him for a moment, and then some spark of devilry prompted me to say, absolutely straight-faced, ‘Actually, I think I like Snow better.’

  He stared at me incredulous for a moment, then with one graceful easy movement he jumped to his feet and walked away from me. ‘Gypsy brat,’ he said under his breath as he went away. I dropped back down on the bank and watched the sunshine on the ripples of the river and waited until he was well out of earshot before I laughed aloud.

  He did not bear me a grudge for that insult, for the next day he held me as firmly and as fairly as he had done the day before. It was my fault that I fell more and more often, and my fault when he lost his balance and fell backwards off the horse, and fell hard too, and hit his head.

  ‘Clumsy wench!’ Robert had scolded me, and clouted me lightly on my ear which made my own head ring. ‘Why don’t you lean back and let Jack guide you like you were doing yesterday? He’s had the practice. He’s got the balance. Let him take you. Don’t keep trying to pull away and stand on your own!’

  Jack was holding his head in his hands but he looked up at that and he smiled at me ruefully. ‘Is that what’s going wrong?’ he asked frankly. ‘You won’t lean back against me?’

  I nodded. His black eyes smiled into my green ones.

  ‘Oh forget it!’ he said gently. ‘Forget I ever said it. I can’t go on falling off a horse all morning. Let’s just do the act, shall we?’

  Robert looked from one to the other of us. ‘Have you two had a fight?’ he demanded.

  We were both silent.

  He took three steps away from us and then turned and came back. His face was stony. ‘Now look here, you two,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you this once, and it’s the only time. Whatever goes on outside the ring, or even behind the screen, once you are in the ring and up on the horse you are working. I don’t care if you take an axe to each other when your act is over. You can’t work for me unless you take this seriously. And you are not serious unless you forget everything – everything – but your act.’

  We nodded. Robert could be very impressive when he chose. ‘Now have another try,’ he said, and cracked the whip and called to Bluebell to canter.

  Jack vaulted up and went astride her and put his hand out to catch me and pull me up before him. He held the leather strap and got to his feet, his bare toes splayed out on Bluebell’s sweaty white and brown back. Then I felt his hard hand clutching in my armpit and I got up to my feet, gracelessly bow-legged, and then, while Robert shouted encouragement and abuse, I cautiously straightened my knees and leaned back towards Jack and let his body guide mine and his arm steady me. We did one whole circle without falling and then Jack let me jump down with a triumphant yell and somersaulted off himself.

  ‘Well done!’ Robert said. He was beaming at us with red-faced delight. ‘Well done you both. Same time tomorrow.’

  We nodded and Jack clapped my shoulder with a friendly hand as I turned away and took Bluebell by the head collar to lead her around and cool her down.

  ‘Mamselle Meridon the Bareback Horse Dancer!’ Robert said to himself very low, as he walked past the screen out of the field. ‘See Her Breathtaking Leaps Through a Hoop of Blazing Fire!’

  4

  Dandy and I had not been raised as proper gypsy chawies. When the weather had grown colder and the caravan was so clammy that even the clothes we slept in were damp in the morning, Da would get work as an ostler or a porter or a market lad in any of the bigger towns where people were not particular whom they employed, and the Parish officers were slow and lazy and did not move us on. We had no idea of a rhythm of seasons which took you regularly from one place to another and then returned you safe every winter to familiar fields and hills. With Da often as not we were on the run from card partners, little cheats or bad business deals, with no planned route or tradition of travelling. He never knew where he was going, other than to follow his nose for gullible card players, fools and bad horses, wherever they might be gathered together.

  Travelling with Gower’s Show was a different life. We never lingered in any one place because Robert had found a friend or had taken a fancy to a town. We moved fast and we moved regularly, every three days or sooner if the crowds showed any signs of slackening. We only stayed longer if we were working alongside a big fair which could pull crowds from miles and miles about. But at the end of October the season of the fairs was waning and the weather was getting colder. In the mornings I had to break the ice on the water buckets and the stallion had a blanket strapped on him at night.

  ‘Last week this week,’ Robert said when we stopped for dinner. Jack and I had been practising our bareback riding and for the first time I had stood without him holding me, though I still needed to keep a tight grip on the strap.

  ‘Last week for what?’ Dandy asked. She was slicing bread and she did not look up as she spoke.

  ‘Last week on the road,’ Robert said, as if everyone knew already. ‘We’ll go into winter quarters next week. Down at my house at Warminster. Then we’ll really start to work.’

  ‘Warminster?’ I said blankly. ‘I didn’t know you had a house at Warminster.’

  ‘Lots you don’t know,’ Robert said cordially through a hunk of bread and cheese. ‘You don’t know what you’ll be doing next season yet. Nor does she,’ he said indicating Dandy with a wave of bread and a wink to her. ‘Lots of ideas. Lots of plans.’

  ‘Is the barn ready?’ Jack asked him.

  ‘Aye,’ Robert said with satisfaction. ‘And the man is coming to teach us about the rigging and how the act is done. He says he’ll stay for two months, but I’ve got him on a bonus to teach the two of you quicker. He says two months are enough to start someone off if they’ve got the knack for it.’

  ‘For what?’ I demanded, unable to contain my curiosity.

  ‘Lots you don’t know,’ Robert said slyly. He took a great bite of bread and cheese. ‘Gower’s Amazing Aerial Show,’ he said muffled. ‘See the Horses and the Daring Bareback Riders! Thrill to the Dazzling Aerial Display! Laugh at the Pierrot and the Wonderhorse Dancing! See the Flying Ballerina! Gower’s Flying Riding Show – All the Elements in One Great Show!’

  ‘Elements?’ I queried.

  ‘Fire,’ he said, pointing the crust of bread at me. ‘That’s you, jumping through a blazing hoop. Air: that’s Dandy, she and Jack are going to train as a trapeze act. Earth is the horses and Water I don’t know yet. But I’ll think of something.’

  ‘A trapeze act!’ Dandy slumped down in her seat and I looked quickly at her. My own head was pounding in fright at the thought of her being up high and swinging from some perilous rope. But her eyes were shining. ‘And I get a short costume!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘One that shows your pretty legs!’ Robert confirmed, smiling at her. ‘Dandy, my girl, you were born a whore!’

  ‘With sequins,’ she stipulated.

  ‘Is it safe?’ I interrupted. ‘How will she ever learn to do it?’

  ‘We’ve got the act from Bristol coming to stay with us. He’ll teach Dandy, and Jack as well, how it’s done. You’ll learn too, my girl, see if we can conquer that fear of yours. An act with two girls up on the swings would be grand.’

  The mouthful I had just swallowed