Philippa Gregory - Meridon

Robert kept Bluebell’s pace going with a flick of his whip at her heels for another circle of the ring while the people cheered that trick, and then Rea reached up to me and handed me a gilt rope and I skipped a few skips with it. It was a trick I still hated – I had to swing the rope myself and the movement of my arms put me off balance. Robert in the middle of the ring shouted, ‘Hurrah!’ at each skip but gave me a very hard look when he saw how low I was skipping. I remembered the Honoured Guest again, and skipped higher.

Robert’s whip cracked and Bluebell threw up her head and went a little faster. I kept my bright show smile on my face but the look I shot Robert was pure green anger. He knew how hard I found it to stay steady when Bluebell went faster, but he also knew that it made the trick look far more exciting. Rea disappeared through the barn door and Robert talked-up the finale of my act:

‘And now, honoured guest, ladies and gentlemen, Mamselle Meridon will perform for you her most daring and dangerous trick – a leap through a paper hoop! As performed before Countless Crowned Heads in Europe and Further Abroad!’

Everyone said ‘oooh!’ and I took half a dozen nervous little steps on Bluebell’s back and prayed Robert would send her no faster.

Rea jumped up on one of the hay bales at the ring’s edge and raised the hoop high above his head in readiness. At the next circuit he brought it down. Bluebell had seen it a thousand times and kept steady, fast and steady. I jumped into the paper centre, there was a second’s blindness and then my feet were solidly down on Bluebell’s rolling rump and the barn was filled with cheering.

People jumped to their feet and flung flowers and even a few coins, and I somersaulted off Bluebell’s back into the centre of the ring and took a bow with Robert holding my hand and sweeping his tall top hat down in a bow to me. Then he put his hands on my waist and I went up on to Bluebell’s back again to take another bow. Just as the cheers quietened there was a drunken yelling of, ‘Hurrah! wonderful!’ and Jack came weaving through the crowd.

I was watching the man from London and he gave a start at the interruption and looked to Robert to see what he would do to stop the drunkard ruining the show. Other people shouted, ‘Sit down!’ and one person tried to stop Jack but he slid past them and was into the ring and at the horse’s side before anyone could catch him. I saw the London man look anxiously at Robert and I smiled inwardly thinking that he was not as clever as he thought, that we could catch him with this trick to amuse the children. They were wide-eyed as ever; and their parents too were utterly silent, waiting to see what would happen to this man who dared to break into the most exciting show which had ever come to their village.

Jack took four steps back and made a little run at Bluebell and vaulted on her, facing her tail. He looked owlishly at my feet, and then up to my face. People started laughing as they saw the point of the joke and one by one the little children’s faces lit up as Jack spun himself around and ended up lying across the horse forwards, and then on his back. Robert clicked to Bluebell and she moved to the ring edge and started her reliable canter.

All I had to do was to keep my face straight and my feet on her back and my head up. Jack did the rest and there were gales of laughter as he scrambled from one side to another. We finished the act with him clinging around under her neck as we cantered around the ring. I glanced at the man from London. All his elegant town poise had gone. His cigar was out, he was rolling on his seat with laughter and there were actual tears from laughing on his cheeks. Robert and I exchanged one triumphant beam and Bluebell left the ring to a standing ovation and the welcome chink chink of people throwing their coppers into the ring and cheering me and Jack until they were hoarse.

16

The ponies went past us in a ripple of coloured flags as Jack and I slid wearily from Bluebell’s back. Dandy and Katie were back with a tray of buns and toffee, and a big pitcher of lemonade. Dandy nodded her head at the noise.

‘They liked your act, then,’ she said coolly.

Jack was triumphant. ‘They threw money and cheered!’ he said. ‘And the man from London was laughing and laughing. Whatever he thinks of the flying act, me and Meridon are made! It’ll be London for us!’

Dandy looked at him from under her eyelashes. ‘I reckon it’ll be London for all of us,’ she said. ‘I’ll go with you, Jack.’

‘They cheered so loud!’ Jack said, not heeding her. ‘I’ve never known it go so well.’

‘You were the funniest you’ve ever been,’ I said, giving credit where it was due. ‘You really looked like a drunken farmhand. When you came out from the back everyone thought you were a stranger. Even the man from London did. I saw him look at Robert and wonder what he was going to do.’

Jack nodded. ‘I saw his face when I first vaulted up,’ he said. ‘I nearly laughed myself. He looked as if he could not believe what he had let himself in for.’

I laughed. ‘But who exactly is he, Jack? Your da didn’t say.’

Jack glanced behind him but Robert was still in the ring doing the Battle of Blenheim with the ponies. We heard the audience take the tune from him and then they started singing ‘The Roast Beef of Old England!’ with the rounded drawl of Sussex in their voices.

‘He runs a show he calls a circus in London,’ Jack said in an undertone. Dandy and Katie were out of earshot, preening at the barn doors, ready to go in with their trays. ‘Da says he’s looking for acts that he can put on inside. He’s got a special-built building with a great ring and an entrance and an exit, and he charges people a shilling to go in!’

‘For one show?’ I asked.

Jack nodded. ‘Aye. And the money he is offering for an act is amazing! David knew him and told him about us. He’s come all this way to see us. My da is right, Merry; if he likes us, then our fortunes are made. He hires by the season and he buys an act he likes in gold for the season. We could make enough in one year to live on for the rest of our lives if we wanted!’

I thought at once of Wide. Dandy might have forgotten it, but I had spoken the truth when I said I never would. My dreams might be frightening, but they were clearer and clearer. The land of Wide could not be far from here, I knew it. I felt it every day. Every time we moved I wondered if the next day would bring me to a place which I had looked for all my life, as if someone might say: ‘Oh, this is Wide-fell, or Wide-moor, or Wide-land.’ I knew it was close. The landscape was like this one. The trees were the same, and the lightness of the sky. If Wide was near here and could be bought…I broke off my thoughts and turned to Jack.

‘How are you and Dandy?’ I asked.

Jack glanced at her back at the barn door. ‘All right,’ he said briefly. Then he shot me an imploring look. ‘Don’t ask me now, Meridon. Damn me, you do pick your times! My da’ll come out in a second and there’s a man from London in the front row! We’re as we always were. Hot as a pair of stray dogs, and a deadly secret. She has seldom a civil word for me, and I hate her as much as I want her. Now hush, Meridon. Ask Dandy. Don’t ask me. I try to not even think about it!’

Rea pulled back the doors and the ponies came out in a rush. Jack caught the two first through the door, and I grabbed the next. Rea got hold of two as they trotted past him, and the smallest followed on behind. We took them to their hitching posts and I left Rea to feed them and take their tack off them while I went to my wagon to change. Jack ran past me to his wagon to get into costume for his flying act.