Philippa Gregory - Meridon

‘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 came up from my belly into my throat again and I choked and retched and then pushed away from the table and bolted for the door. I was sick outside, vomiting the bread and cheese under the front wheel. I waited until I was steady and then I came in again, white faced, to where they were waiting, staring at me in amazement.

‘Were you sick at the thought of it?’ Robert demanded. He was so stunned he had forgotten to eat and was still holding his bread in mid air. ‘Was that it, lass? Or are you ill?’

‘I am not ill,’ I said. The metalic slick in my mouth made me swallow and reach for my mug of small ale. ‘I’m not ill in myself,’ I said. ‘But the thought of having to go up high on one of those things does make me ill. I am sick with fright.’

Jack looked at me with interest. ‘Well that’s an odd thing,’ he said unsympathetically. ‘I’d never have thought Meridon was nervy. But she’s as missish as a lady.’

‘Leave her be,’ Dandy said calmly. ‘You leave her be, Robert. I’m happy to learn how to do it. And if I am doing the Aerial Act you’ll need Meridon to do the horses. She can’t do both.’

‘Maybe not,’ Robert said half convinced. ‘And if the worst comes to the worst I could always buy a poorhouse girl and have her trained.’

I gulped again, thinking of the girl straight out of the workhouse in conditions worse than a prison and up a ladder to swing on a trapeze. But I nodded to Robert. I had no sympathy to waste on a stranger. I had no tenderness to spare. There was only one person in the world for me, and she was happy.

‘Yes, you do that,’ I said. ‘You know I’d try anything with the horses. But I cannot go up a ladder.’

Robert smiled. ‘You’re to give it a try,’ he said firmly. ‘A fair try. No one will force you to go up high but you’ll wait and see the swing before you make up your mind, Meridon.’

‘I’ll have too much to do with the horses,’ I said defensively. ‘I can’t be a bareback rider and swing on a trapeze.’

‘Jack will,’ he said. ‘You can too. I give you my word, Meridon; I won’t force you, but you’re to give it a try. That’s fair.’

It was not fair, but I had reached the hard core in Robert where he would not be moved.

‘All right,’ I said sullenly. ‘I promise I’ll try, and you promise that if I can’t do it, you get someone else in.’

‘Good girl,’ he said as though I had agreed rather than been forced into it. ‘And you’ll have plenty of learning with the horses. I’ll have you dancing bareback, aye, and going through a hoop of fire before the next season.’

I thought that was ambitious and I glanced at Jack but he had never in his life spoken one word against his father.

‘Can I learn it that quick?’ I asked.

‘Going to have to, lass,’ Robert replied with finality. ‘I’m not housing you and feeding you all winter for love of your green eyes. You’re going to work for your living at Warminster as you do now. Training the horses, and learning a bareback act, and doing what the trapeze man tells you. And you, miss,’ he turned sharply to Dandy. ‘You will get yourself off to a wise woman in the village and have her tell you about how to avoid getting a belly on you. I’m not spending a fortune training you how to swing from a trapeze to see you up there fat with a whelp. And you keep away from the village lads, too, d’you hear? It’s a respectable village, Warminster, and I go there every winter. I want no trouble with my neighbours.’