Philippa Gregory - Meridon

Or I could go and be among them like an avenging fury, my eyes black with unsatisfied anger. This was my land here, I was the squire. I could name Jack as a killer, call Rea as a witness and no one could gainsay me. With my word against his, I could get Jack hanged. Not even Robert could stand against the squire of Wideacre on Wideacre land. I could confiscate the horses, send Katie back to the Warminster poorhouse, Rea back to the Winchester Guardians, send Robert to Warminster to die of shame. I was gentry now, I could settle my scores as gentry do – with the law and the power of the law. I could break them all with my squire’s law.

Or I could run now, from the power and from the boredom of the Quality life. I could put on my old clothes – their clothes, which they had given me – and tuck up my hair under my cap and go back to them. I knew how they would receive me, they would welcome me as a long-lost daughter, the ponies would whinny to see me. They would hug me and weep with me – easy, feckless tears. Then they would teach me how the acts had changed now she was gone, and where I could fit in the new work. I could walk away from my life here and leave the special loneliness and emptiness of Quality life. I could leave here with pockets as light as when I had arrived; and the man who hated gin traps and Mr Fortescue could run the land as they wished, and need never trouble themselves about me again.

I did not know what I wanted to see, what I wanted to feel. It seemed like a lifetime since I had walked away from them and said to myself that I was never going back. But I had not known then what it was to be lost.

After half an hour I could stand it no longer. I trod softly over to the wardrobe and pulled out my riding habit. Perry would be drinking alone in his room, perhaps humming quietly to himself, deaf to the rest of the house. Lady Clara would be writing letters in the parlour or perhaps reading in the library. Neither of them would hear my steps on the servants’ stairs. No housemaid that I might chance to meet would have the courage to interrupt Lady Clara to tell her that Miss Lacey had ridden out into the twilight. I could come and go as I wished in secret.

I dressed quickly, familiar now with the intricate buttons at the back, with the way to quickly smooth my gloves and pin the grey hat. It had a veil of net which I had never used but now I pulled it down. I glanced at myself in the mirror. My eyes glowed green behind the veil, but my betraying copper hair was hidden by the hat. I had eaten well all summer and my face was plumper. I was no longer a half-starved gypsy brat with a bruised face. If someone did not know who I really was, if someone thought I was gentry, they would have called me beautiful. My mouth pulled down at the thought. In my head I saw her dark glossy hair and her rosy smiling face, I thought how she would have looked in these clothes and there was no pleasure for me in them. I turned from the mirror and crept down the servants’ stairs which led straight down to the stable yard.

Sea had been brought in now that nights were getting colder and I went first to the tack room and then to his loose-box. Both were unlocked, they would water-up at twilight and lock up then. The light was only fading now. I humped his saddle myself and he lowered his head so that I could put on his bridle. As I tightened his girth and led him out, a stable lad came out of the hay loft and looked warily at me.

‘I’m going for a ride,’ I said, and my voice was no longer the muted tones of the young lady. I was Meridon again, Meridon who had ordered Rea, who could shout down a drunken father. ‘I’m going alone and I don’t want them told. Them, up at the house. D’you understand me?’

He nodded, his eyes round, saying nothing.

‘When they come to feed and water the horses and they find Sea gone you can tell them that it is all right. That I have taken him out and that I will bring him back later,’ I said.

He nodded again, boggle-eyed.

‘All right?’ I asked, and I smiled at him.

As if my smile had made the sun come out he beamed at me.

‘All right, Miss Sarah!’ he said, suddenly finding his tongue. ‘Aye! All right! And I won’t tell nobody where you’ve gone an’ all. Aye! an’ they won’t even know you’ve gone for they all went off to the ‘orses show and left me here on my own. They went this afternoon and they’ll have stopped at the Bull on the way back. Only I know you’re out, Miss Sarah. An’ I won’t tell nobody.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, a little surprised. Then I led Sea to the mounting block, got myself into the side-saddle and walked out of the yard.

I took the main drive to Midhurst, I thought Gower’s show would be on the south side of the town, quite near, and I was right. I could see the lamplight glinting from the half-open barn door from a while away. In the road, tethered, were a handful of horses belonging to farmers and their wives who had ridden over to see the show. There were even a few gigs with the horses tied to the fence to wait.

I checked Sea and looked at the barn. There was no one on the door so they were all working around the back. I thought my fine clothes and my hat with the veil would serve to disguise me, especially if they were all in the ring and I kept to the back of the crowd. I took Sea over to the side of the road and tied him alongside the farmers’ nags in the hedgerow. Then I picked up the swooping extra length of my riding habit skirt and strode up the path to the barn door.

I heard a great ‘oooh!’ as I entered and I slid in along the wall, steadying myself with the wall against my back. I feared I was going to be sick.

Jack was there. Jack the devil, Jack the child, Jack the smiling killer. Jack was standing on the catcher frame where he had been before. And it was as I had feared and as I had dreamed and as I had sworn it could not be. It was the same. It was the same. It was the same as it had always been. As if she had never been there, as slight as an angel on the pedestal board, as trusting as a child flying towards him with her arms out. Smiling her naughty triumphant smile because she had been so certain that she had won a great wager and earned herself safety and happiness for the rest of her life. It was the same as if he had not done it. It was just as if she, and I, had never been.

I shut my eyes. I heard him call, ‘Pret!’ as I had heard him call it a thousand times, a hundred thousand times. I heard him call, ‘Hup!’ and I heard the horrid nauseous ‘oooh!’ of the crowd and then the slap of firm grip on moving flesh as he caught the flyer, and then the ecstatic explosion of applause.

I should not have come. I turned and pushed my way past a man, heading back towards the door, the back of my hand tight against my mouth, vomit wet against it. As soon as I was outside, I clung to the wall and retched. I was sick as a wet puppy. And between each bout of sickness I heard again, Jack’s gay call of, ‘Pret!’ and then, ‘Hup!’ as if he had never called a girl off the pedestal bar to fling her…to fling her…

‘And so my lords, ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the show tonight. We are here until Tuesday! Please come again and tell your friends that you will always command a warm welcome from Robert Gower’s Amazing Aerial and Equestrian Show!’

The voice from inside the barn was Robert’s. Confident showground bawl. I would have known it anywhere. The braggish joy in his tone hit my belly like neat gin. I wiped my gloved hand around my mouth and went to the doorway and looked in.

People were coming out, well pleased with the show. One woman jostled me and then saw the cut and cloth of my riding habit and bobbed a curtsey and begged my pardon. I did not even see her. My eyes were fixed on the ring, a small circle of white wood shavings inside a circle of hay bales. In the plumb centre was Robert Gower, arms outstretched after his bow, dressed as I had seen him at that first show, in his smart red jacket and his brilliant white breeches, his linen fine, his boots polished. His face red and beaming in the lantern light, as if he had never ordered a girl to be taught to go to her death with a smile on her face and her hair in ribbons.