Philippa Gregory - Meridon

‘This is Michael Fry,’ Will said. ‘Michael, this is Sarah Lacey.’

‘Hello, sister,’ the man said. ‘I do not call you by any title because I call no one by any title. I believe that we were all created equal and I show the same respect to you as I do to anyone else. You may call me Michael or you may call me brother.’

Sixteen years on the road had prepared me for all sorts of people. I had met men like Michael before.

‘Hello Michael,’ I said. ‘Are you the teacher here?’

He smiled and his dark face suddenly lightened. ‘I am the teacher of the young citizens,’ he said. ‘And in the evenings I read and talk with their parents. We study together to prepare ourselves for our work here, and our plans to expand this community so that it is an example for the rest of the country and a mission to them!’

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘Michael came to us three years ago from a community in Wales,’ Will said. There was laughter in the back of his voice, but it was not directed at Michael. ‘He has served the corporation very greatly in his advice to us, and by working with the children.’

Michael smiled at Will. ‘They are the future,’ he said. ‘They must be prepared for it.’

Will nodded. ‘This was set up as a school by your mother’s mother,’ he said. ‘When they started setting the place to rights and handing over to the workers. Before that it was a tithe barn.’ He looked at the height and length of it. ‘It makes you realize how costly are the benefits of a spiritual life,’ he said wryly.

‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

Michael flashed a smile up at me. ‘This was a barn where they stored the share of the crop they had to give to the church and to the vicar,’ he said. ‘We still have a vicar but he is supported by a small fee from the estate. We do not allow him to take his share of wealth when he has neither ploughed nor sown.’

I nodded. ‘He’ll like that,’ I said.

Michael choked on a little crow of laughter and Will grinned at me.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He does.’

‘Anyway, now it is a school in this end of it, and the other half is lodging for Michael and for the children whose parents are dead or run away. We have three at the moment.’

I nodded. I knew enough about village life to know this was unheard of. Orphans and pauper children should be taken to the local poorhouse where they dragged out a miserable childhood and were sold to employers as soon as possible. Rea and Katie had agreed that the poorhouse was worse than anything. ‘They hit me all the time,’ Rea had once told me, surprised at violence which was not done in anger but as routine. ‘Every morning before breakfast. For being a Rom.’

‘And in the middle section,’ Will went on, ‘is where the old people work who are no longer fit for outside work. They spin together, they mind the babbies when the mothers are away in the fields, they do some carving, they make up herbs. And we pay them a little for their work and sell the goods for the Wideacre corporation.’

An idea struck him. ‘You were brought up gypsy, weren’t you, Sarah? Could you show them how to carve those wooden flowers and dye them the pretty colours? We could sell them at Midhurst fair.’

I chuckled. ‘The only skills I learned were thieving and gambling,’ I said. ‘You don’t want me teaching a load of old women how to sharpen cards.’

Will laughed as well. ‘Nay,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you sharing those skills.’

‘And here,’ Michael said, gesturing to the open doorway, ‘this is my model school. When I came here there was a dame-school, it taught the children to be servants, to be farm-hands. Only a few learned to read, hardly any to write. They taught the girls to be house-servants and the boys to be ploughboys.

‘I changed that!’ he exclaimed. ‘They learn the same lessons with me: boys and girls. I will not have them taught differently. They all know how to steer a plough, they all know how to shoe a horse, they all know how to cook a meal for a family of four. Everyone should know these things and then the stamp of servitude and the idleness of the rich would be at an end!’

‘Oh,’ I said again.

Will was openly smiling at my bemused face.

‘But I also teach them skills which they would learn nowhere else,’ Michael said. ‘Here they learn to read, so that all the knowledge of the world is open to them. They learn to write, so that they can speak with one another even when they are apart. And I teach them the study of geography so they know where they are, and history, so they understand how it is that they are poor but the victors of the struggle are rich. And I teach them French so that they can talk with their brothers and sisters in the glorious republic of France.’

‘Oh,’ I said again. I closed my mouth because my jaw was gaping.

Will laughed aloud. ‘You will frighten Sarah with your Jacobinism,’ he said cheerfully. ‘She will think you want to cut off her head at least.’

Michael looked quickly upwards, and smiled. He had an endearing crooked smile, one of his front teeth was quite gone. I saw now that he was younger than I had thought. And his face was not ugly at all but somehow crumpled. His clothes were not as odd as they had first appeared. I had thought he was in costume, but I now understood that his clothes must mean something. That everything must mean something.

‘I do not want to guillotine my sister,’ he said simply. ‘How could I? She has been a poor girl and lived a simple life as we do. I am glad to welcome you to your home, sister. I hope you will find much worthy labour to undertake here.’

My mouth twisted a little wryly at the thought of my ‘simple life’ which had been all deceit and costume and magic and cheating; and as for worthy labour – I did not think I had done a day of what this man would consider worthy, or even honest, labour since I was born. But I did not want to explain this to him.

‘You cannot be glad I have come home,’ I said baldly.

He smiled at me again, that sweet smile which had so much confidence in it.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘There would have been a squire come to this village sooner or later, I am very glad it is you. You have lived among poor good people, you will have seen their sufferings. You will help us here to lead a better life. I do welcome you, sister.’

I stared at him suspiciously. Either he was an utter rogue or else a simpleton. It was not possible that he could be glad I had come home.

He turned to Will. ‘Would you like to come in, brother?’ he asked. ‘The young citizens would like to see their new sister.’

Will glanced at me. ‘No,’ he said, guessing rightly that I did not want to meet the children before I had time to think about their extraordinary teacher in this odd village. ‘Sarah is looking around today. She needs to get her bearings before she meets any more of us. Take them her greetings.’

Michael nodded. ‘Fraternal greetings,’ he said.

Will chuckled. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Take them her fraternal greetings and tell them she will see them later, tomorrow or the next day.’

Michael smiled at us both, and went back towards the school. We waited until we had seen the school door close and heard the rhythm of the rhyme break up into many high voices all asking questions, and then we turned our horses back towards the way we had come and past the church towards the Common.

‘He’s a great find,’ Will said. ‘You may think him odd at first but he has done more to help this village than anyone else. He has had experience of half a dozen corporations and communes and experimental farms and everything else. He was over in France in the early days of the republic. He is a member of every legal society you can think of – and a good deal more which would be called illegal, I imagine. We’re lucky to have him with us. It took a deal of persuading.’