Philippa Gregory - Meridon

Katie and Dandy had looked rather askance at all the rippling copper hair and long bare legs until they had seen the wagon with the flying rig. In gold letters it said ‘Robert Gower’s Amazing Aerial Show’ and it had a wonderful painting of Katie with her blonde hair streaming out behind soaring up to where a trapeze was painted in the top right corner. ‘Mamselle Katie!’ it said, the ‘e’ a little squashed for space.

The other side of the wagon I could not bear to look at. It was a picture of Dandy and I looked at it only once. She was supposed to be flying from the top left-hand corner down to the net. But because the sign-writer had been cramped for space it looked as if she were falling; falling down with her black hair rippling and a smile on her face. It said ‘Mamselle Dandy! The only girl flyer in the world!’ in scarlet. Dandy liked the picture because it showed her with long long legs and an enormously inflated chest. Also because Katie was put out that Dandy was called the ‘only’ flyer.

‘You do more than swing out and grab for him, and I’ll change the writing,’ Robert said firmly. I did not smile as Dandy did. I knew Robert was thinking that flyers fall often and hurt themselves often. There would be many a show in this long season when he would have only one girl flyer, and he was taking no chances.

The rig wagon was to be pulled by Lofty and driven by William. Bluebell pulled the wagon for us girls and we would take it in turns to drive. Even Katie could drive Bluebell. The horse was as steady on the road as she was cantering around the ring. Morris would pull the men’s sleeping wagon and the ponies would be split up and tied on in teams. Snow and Sea would be ridden in the mornings but tied on in the afternoons.

‘Have to take the chance,’ Robert said. ‘You and Jack won’t always want to be riding. You’ll maybe need to rest on the road sometimes. And Sea is steady enough now.’

I found I was sorry to say goodbye to Mrs Greaves. She was the first woman I had ever known who had spoken to me kindly, and on our last evening I lingered in her kitchen as if it had become some sort of refuge for me. Jack and Dandy had gone on ahead. Katie was throwing the last bits of rope and string into a bucket in the stable yard. I said a gruff farewell to Mrs Greaves and she turned from the slate sink and held out her arms to me.

I stepped back. I still had my old dislike of being pulled about, and she saw the gesture and the warmth went from her face.

‘God bless you, Merry,’ she said, and I was ashamed of my prickly coldness.

‘I am sorry,’ I said awkwardly, and I stepped forward and offered her my forehead for her kiss.

She put her hands on my shoulders, gently, as I would handle a touchy young foal.

‘Keep safe, dear,’ she said softly. ‘If you are ever in trouble and I can serve you, you should send for me.’

I stepped back and looked in her face. ‘How can I keep Dandy safe?’ I asked her, demanding an answer as if she should know everything, just because she was a woman old enough to be my mother who had put out her arms to me.

Her pale eyes fell before my urgent gaze.

‘You cannot,’ she said.

14

We only travelled a short way, that first day. I think Robert had planned the route to see how the journey went, to test the pace of the horses. We went north from Warminster, a little chalk-white lane still sticky with winter wet which skirted the great slope of Warminster Down on our right. We went slowly through the village of Westbury, and past the mill where the miller’s wife sold us some fresh-baked bread rolls which we ate as we rode. Robert had a hand-drawn map on his knee and ignored the signpost to Trowbridge. Katie and Dandy looked longingly down the road as we went past but Robert’s wagon led the way into a bank of trees ahead called Castle Wood. Jack and I were riding and we left the lane and the swaying wagons and rode ahead. Sea and Snow were well matched but we did not race, we cantered side by side under the fretwork of bare branches. Deeper in the wood to my left, a robin was singing.

When the horses were sweating and blowing we pulled them up and walked slowly, waiting for the wagons to catch us up. Robert’s wagon was in the lead and I trotted back to him.

‘We’ll stay at Melksham tonight,’ he said. He was back in his element on the driving box of the wagon, his pipe sending little contented puffs upwards to the wintry white sky. ‘You can ride on ahead and pick somewhere for us to pull in. Make sure there’s firewood near, we’ll need a good fire tonight.’

‘Cold?’ I challenged him.

He grinned and hunched his coat up around his shoulders. ‘It’s not midsummer,’ he conceded.

‘You’re well served,’ I said unsympathetically. ‘No one I know sets out in the middle of winter.’

‘Go ahead you hedge-bit,’ he said unperturbed. ‘And get the fire going before I pull in.’

Jack and I rode on and pulled in at the left of the road where there was some common ground and a little brake of woods with plenty of kindling. Jack hobbled the horses and rubbed them down while I went into the woods to fetch sticks for the fire. We had it lit and burning by the time the first wagon turned in.

William was handy at lining up his wagon, but Dandy had to take over from Katie who could only drive in a straight line. Then while we were taking the horses out of the shafts and feeding and watering them, Dandy strolled quietly off deeper into the wood. Katie watched her go with a scowl and muttered in Robert’s hearing that Dandy was skipping off without doing any work. Robert glanced at me as he was setting up the trivet for the pot and I told Katie to wait and see where Dandy had gone. Sure enough, she came back within the hour with three plump brown trout with a string through their gills swinging from her hand.

‘Tickled ‘em,’ she said to Robert’s glance of inquiry. ‘I know this stream, I’ve been here with Da and Zima. The keeper’s old and the squire don’t care about fish, he only cares about his game. I’d never touch a pheasant in these woods, not if it dropped dead at my feet I wouldn’t.’

She gutted the fish and washed them. There was a little bacon in our stores and she fried that and then tossed them into the smoking fat. They sizzled and grew brown. Katie and I took the bread from the crock and unpacked the plates and the knives, and by the time Robert, William and Jack had come from hobbling the ponies the meal was ready.

‘Damn,’ Robert said suddenly. ‘Forgot the salt again.’ He smiled at us all, impartially. ‘There’s always something,’ he said. ‘I can’t think how many years I’ve been on the road and yet there’s always something you forget. I made a list this time as well and Mrs Greaves packed every darned thing on it. And then I forget the salt!’

‘We’ll buy some,’ Dandy said. ‘I could go into Melksham this afternoon and get some. We’ll need some more bread too, and bacon.’

Robert nodded his approval. ‘One of you girls go too,’ he said. ‘Or William. I don’t want any one of you girls wandering around on your own. The show’s got to seem classy. You little whores have got to be chaperoned like young ladies.’

Katie and Dandy giggled, I smiled. There was no malice in Robert. He was miles away from the town where respectability was his ambition. He was once more the man who had sat in the sun and watched me work the little pony. Who had praised me for a job well done and then bought me in a job-lot from my cruel and doltish stepfather. He could call me a little whore if he chose. We were none of us any better than we needed to be when we were working on the road. We were a team again, we belonged together.

The next day set the pattern for the rest of the days of the tour. We got up at dawn, around five or six o’clock, and gave the horses water. Sea, Snow and the carriage horses got some oats as well; Robert said the ponies were as fat as butter and should make do with the grass in the fields and waysides. He liked early rising. He was always the first to wake, and it was his knock on the side of our wagon which waked Dandy and me. When we tumbled out into the sharp morning air Robert would be stripped to the waist shaving in cold water and when he finished he would ask one of us to tip the bucket over his head and shoulders. He would burst out of the icy deluge puffing and blowing, ruddy with health.