Philippa Gregory: Meridon

I said nothing. Many of the words I did not understand. But I recognized the ring of the showground barker.

‘You like horses,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘My da buys them, or trades them. We both train them. We often sell children’s ponies. So I trains them.’

‘When will this one be ready?’ Robert Gower nodded to the grey pony.

‘Da wants to sell him this week,’ I said. ‘He’ll be half-broke by then.’

He pursed his lips and whistled soundlessly. ‘That’s fast work,’ he said. ‘You must take a lot of tumbles. Or is it your da who rides them?’

‘It’s me!’ I said indignantly. ‘I’ll lunge him all today and I’ll get on him tonight.’

He nodded and said nothing. I finished the ale and looked at the bottom of the mug. It had gone too quick and I had been distracted from savouring it by talk. I was sorry now.

‘I’d like to see your da,’ he said getting to his feet. ‘Be back for his dinner, will he?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I scrambled to my feet and picked up the whip. ‘I’ll tell him you want to see him. Shall he come over to your wagon?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And when you’ve finished your work you can see my horse show. Admittance Only One Penny. But you may come Complimentary.’

‘I don’t have a penny,’ I said, understanding only that.

‘You can come free,’ he said. ‘Either show.’

‘Thank you,’ I said awkwardly. ‘Sir.’

He nodded as gracious as a lord and went back to his bright wagon. I looked again at the picture on the side. The lady with the whip and the rearing white horse was dressed as fine as a queen. I wondered who she was and if she was perhaps his wife. It would be a fine life to dress as a lady and train horses in a ring before people who paid all that money just to see you. It would be as good as being born Quality. It would be nearly as good as Wide.

‘Hey you!’ he called again, his head stuck out of his caravan door. ‘D’you know how to crack that whip, as well as flick it?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I ought to be able to. I had practised ever since I was able to stand. My da could crack a whip so loud it could scare the birds out of the trees. When I had asked him to teach me he had thrown an old rag down on the ground at my bare feet.

‘Hit that,’ he had said; and that was as much help as he was ready to give. Days I had stood flicking the whip towards the target until I had gradually strengthened my little-girl wrists to aim the whip accurately at the cloth, and now I could crack it high in the air or crack it low. Dandy had once taken a stalk in her mouth and I had taken the seed head off it for a dare. Only once. The next time we tried it I had missed and flicked her in the eye. I would never do it after that. She had screamed with the pain and her eye had swollen up and been black with a bruise for a week. I had been terrified that I had blinded her. Dandy forgot it as soon as her eye healed and wanted me to crack a whip and knock feathers off her hat and straws out of her mouth for pennies on street corners; but I would not.

‘Crack it, then,’ said Robert Gower.

‘No,’ I said. ‘It would scare the pony and he’s done nothing wrong. I’ll crack it for you when I’ve turned him out.’

He nodded at that and a little puff of surprised smoke came from his pipe like a cottage chimney.

‘Good lass,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Meridon,’ I said.

‘Gypsy blood?’ he asked.

‘My mother was Rom,’ I said defensively.

He nodded again and gave me a wink from one of his blue eyes. Then his round fair head ducked back in under the doorway and the caravan door slammed and I was left with the young pony who had to be schooled enough for me to ride him that evening if Dandy and I wanted to go to the fair with a penny each.

I made it by the skin of my teeth. Da’s rule was that I had to get on the horse’s back without him kicking out or running off – and apart from a quiver of fright the grey stood still enough. And then I had to get off again without mishap. By working him all day until we were both weary I had him so accustomed to my nearness that he only threw me once while I was training him to stand while I mounted. He didn’t run off far, which I thought a very good sign. I did not work at all at teaching him to walk forwards or stop. They were not the conditions Da had set for a visit to the fair so I cared nothing for them. All he could do by the end of the day was stand still for the twenty seconds while I mounted, smiled with assumed confidence at Da, and dismounted.

Da grudgingly felt in his pocket and gave a penny to Dandy and a penny to me.

‘I’ve been talking business with that man Gower,’ he said grandly. ‘As a favour to me he says you can both go to his show. I’m going into town to see a man about buying a horse. Be in the wagon when I come back or there’ll be trouble.’

Dandy shot me a warning look to bid me hold my tongue, and said sweetly: ‘Yes, Da.’ We both knew that when he came back he would be so blind drunk that he would not be able to tell if we were there or not. Nor remember in the morning.

Then we fled to the corner of the field where the gate was held half-open by Robert Gower, resplendent in a red jacket and white breeches with black riding boots. A steady stream of people had been going by us all afternoon, paying their pennies to Robert Gower and taking their ease on the grassy slopes waiting for the show to start. Dandy and I were the last to arrive.

‘He’s Quality!’ Dandy gasped, as we dashed across the field. ‘Look at his boots.’

‘And he got dressed in that caravan!’ I said amazed, having never seen anything come out of our caravan brighter than the slatternly glitter of Zima’s best dress over a soiled petticoat grey with inadequate washing.

‘Ah!’ said Robert Gower. ‘Meridon and…?’

‘My sister, Dandy,’ I said.

Robert Gower nodded grandly at us both. ‘Please take a seat,’ he said opening the gate a little wider to allow us inside. ‘Anywhere on the grass but not in front of the benches which is reserved for the Quality and for the Churchmen. By Special Request,’ he added.

Dandy gave him her sweetest smile and spread her ragged skirt out and swept him a curtsey. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said and sailed past him with her head in the air and her glossy black hair in thick sausage ringlets all down her back.

The field was on a slight slope, levelling off at the bottom, and the audience were seated on the grass on the slope looking down. In front of them were two small benches, empty except for a fat man and his wife who looked like well-to-do farmers but not proper Quality at all. We had come in at the bottom of the hill and had to walk past a large screen painted with strange-looking trees and a violet and red sunset and yellow earth. It was hinged with wings on either side so that it presented a back-cloth to the audience and went some way to hiding the ponies who were tethered behind it. As we walked by, a youth of about seventeen dressed very fine in white breeches and a red silk shirt glanced out from behind the screen and stared at us both. I know I looked furtive, expecting a challenge, but he said nothing and looked us over as if free seats made us his especial property. I looked at Dandy. Her eyes had widened and she was looking straight at him, her face was flushed, her smile confident. She looked at him as boldly as if she were his equal.

‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Are you Meridon?’ he said surprised.

I was about to say: ‘No. I am Meridon and this is my sister.’ But Dandy was ahead of me.

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘My name is Dandy. Who are you?’

‘Jack,’ he said. ‘Jack Gower.’

Unnoticed, standing behind my beautiful sister, I could stare at him. He was not fair like his father but dark-haired. His eyes were dark too. In his shimmering shirt and his white breeches he looked like a lord in a travelling play – dazzling. The confident smile on his face as he looked down at Dandy, whose pale face was upturned to him like a flower on a slim stem, showed that he knew it. I looked at that smile and thought him the most handsome youth I had ever seen in my whole life. And for some reason, I could not say why, I shuddered as if someone had just dripped cold water on my scalp, and the nape of my neck felt cold.