Philippa Gregory - Meridon

‘I want Wide,’ I said instantly.

She turned and stared at me. ‘You’re going to have a silk shirt and breeches, aye and a riding habit, and you still dream of that?’ she asked in amazement. ‘We’ve got away from Da, and we can earn a penny a day, and we eat so well, and we can wear clothes as fine as Quality and everyone looks at us. Everyone! Every girl wishes she could wear velvets like me! And you still think of that old stuff?’

‘’Tisn’t old stuff!’ I said, passionate. ‘’Tisn’t old stuff. It’s a secret. You were glad enough to hear about it when there was just you and me against Da and Zima. I don’t break faith just because I’ve got a place in service.’

‘Service!’ Dandy spat. ‘Don’t call this service. I dress as fine as Quality in my costume!’

‘It’s costume,’ I said angrily. ‘Only a silly Rom slut like you would think it was as fine as Quality, Dandy. You look at real ladies, they don’t wear gilt and dyed feathers like you. The real ones dress in fine silks, cloth so good it stands stiff on its own. They don’t wear ten gilt bangles, they wear one bracelet of real gold. Their clothes ain’t dirty. They keep their voices quiet. They’re nothing like us, nothing like us at all.’

Dandy sprang at me, quicker than I could fend her off. Her two hands were stretched into claws and she went straight for my eyes, and raked a scratch down my cheek. I was stronger than her, but she had the advantage of being heavier – and she was as angry as a scalded cat.

‘I am as good as Quality,’ she said, and pulled at my cap. It was pinned to my hair and the sharp pain as some hair came out made me shriek in pain and blindly strike back at her. I had made a fist, as instinctive as her scratching hands, and I caught her on the jaw with a satisfying thud and she reeled backwards.

‘Meridon, you cow!’ she bawled at me and came for me at a half run and bowled me back on to my straw mattress and sat, with her heavier weight, while I wriggled and tossed beneath her.

Then I lay still. ‘Oh, what’s the use?’ I said wearily. She released me and stood up and went at once to the mirror to see if I had bruised her flower-white skin. I sat up and put a hand to my cheek. It stung. She had drawn blood. ‘We’ve always seen different,’ I said sadly, looking at her across the little room. ‘You thought you might marry Quality from that dirty little wagon with Da and Zima. Now you think you’re as good as Quality because you’re a caller for a travelling show. You might be right, Dandy, it’s just never seemed that wonderful to me.’

She looked at me over her shoulder, her pink mouth a perfect rosebud of discontent. ‘I shall have great opportunities,’ she said stubbornly, stumbling over one of Robert’s words. ‘I shall take my pick when I am ready. When I am Mademoiselle Dandy on the flying trapeze I will have more than enough offers. Jack himself will come to my beck then.’

I put my hand to my head and brought it down wet with blood. I unpinned my cap hoping it was still clean, but it was marked. I would have complained, but what Dandy said made me hold my peace.

‘I thought you’d given up on Jack,’ I said cautiously. ‘You know what his da plans for him.’

Dandy primped her fringe again. ‘I know you thought that,’ she said smugly. ‘And so does his da. And so probably does he. But now I’ve seen what he’s worth, I think I’ll have him.’

‘Have to catch him first,’ I said. I was deliberately guarding myself against the panic which was rising in me. Dandy was wilfully blind to the tyrannical power of Robert Gower. If she thought she could trick his son into marriage, and herself into the lady’s chair in the parlour which we had not been even allowed to enter, then she was mad with her vanity. She could tempt Jack – I was sure of it. But she would not be able to trick Robert Gower. I thought of the wife he had left behind him, crying in the road behind a vanishing cart, and I felt that prickle of fear down my spine.

‘Leave it be, Dandy,’ I begged her. ‘There’ll be many chances for you. Jack Gower is only the first of them.’

She smiled at her reflection, watching the dimples in her cheeks.

‘I know,’ she said smugly. Then she turned to look at me, and at once her expression changed. ‘Oh Merry! Little Merry! I didn’t mean to hurt you so!’ She made a little rush for the ewer and wetted the edge of my blanket and dabbed with the moist wool at my head and my cheek, making little apologetic noises of distress. ‘I’m a cow,’ she said remorsefully. ‘I’m sorry, Merry.’

‘S’all right,’ I said. I bore her ministrations patiently, but to be patted and stroked set my teeth on edge. ‘What’s that noise?’

‘It’s Robert in the yard,’ Dandy said and flew for the trapdoor down to the ladder. ‘He’s ready for church and Jack and Mrs Greaves and even William with him. Come on, Merry, he’s waiting.’

She clattered down the stairs into the yard and I swung open the little window. I had to stoop to lean out.

‘I’m not coming,’ I called down.

Robert stared up at me. ‘Why’s that?’ he asked. His voice was hard. His Warminster, landlord voice.

He squinted against the low winter sun.

‘You two been having a cat-fight?’ he asked Dandy, turning sharply on her.

She smiled at him, inviting him to share the jest. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But we’re all friends now.’

Without a change of expression, Robert struck her hard across the face, a blow that sent her reeling back. Mrs Greaves put out a hand to steady her on her feet, her face impassive.

‘Your faces – aye and your hands and your legs and your arms – are your fortunes, my girls,’ Robert said evenly, without raising his voice. ‘If you two fight you must do it without leaving a mark on each other. If I wanted to do a show tomorrow I could not use Merry in the ring. If you get a black bruise on your chin you’re no good for calling nor on the gate for a week. If you two can’t put my business first I can find girls who can. Quarrelsome sluts are two a penny. I can get them out of the workhouse any day.’

‘You can’t get bareback riders,’ Dandy said, her voice low.

Robert rounded on her. ‘Aye, so I’d keep your sister,’ he said meanly. ‘It’s you I don’t need. It’s you I never needed. You’re here on her ticket. So go back up and wipe her face and get her down here. You two little heathens are going to church, and mind Mrs Greaves and don’t shame me.’

He turned and strode out of the yard with Jack. He didn’t even look to see if we followed. Mrs Greaves waited till I tumbled down the stable stairs pulling on my cap and patting my cheek with the back of my hand before leading the way out of the yard. Dandy and I exchanged one subdued glance and followed her, side by side. William fell in behind us. I felt no malice towards Dandy for the fight. I felt no anger towards Robert for the blow he had fetched her. Dandy and I had been reared in a hard school, we were both used to knocks – far heavier and less deserved than that. What I did not like was Robert’s readiness to throw us off. I scowled at that as we turned out of the gate and walked to our right down the lane towards the village church.

There was a fair crowd beside the church gate and I was glad then that I had not kept my breeches. All the way up the path to the church door heads were turned and fingers pointed us out as the show girls. I saw why Robert had been so insistent that we behave like Quaker servant girls and dress like them too.

He was establishing his gentility inch by inch in his censorious little village. He was buying his way in with his charities, he was wringing respect out of them with his wealth. He dared not risk a whisper of notoriety about his household. Show girls we might be, but no one could ever accuse any of Robert Gower’s people of lowering the tone.