Philippa Gregory - Meridon

I pushed through the outgoing crowd and went, blind to their looks, towards the ring fence. I stepped over the bales and went on, right to the centre of the ring where in my own right I had stood and taken a call. Robert turned as I came towards him, his professional smile fading, his face beginning to look wary. He did not recognize me, in my fine riding habit with my long hair piled up under my hat. But he saw the quality of my clothes, and he gave a half-smile wondering what this lady might want of him. I stopped directly before him, and without warning raised my riding crop and slashed him – right cheek, left cheek – and stepped back. His hands were in fists at once, he was coming for me when he suddenly hesitated and looked more closely.

‘Meridon!’ he said. ‘It is Meridon, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ I said through my teeth. I could feel the anger and the grief rising like bile in my throat. ‘That blow was for Dandy.’

He blinked. I could see the weals from the whip growing red on his cheek. The people in the crowd behind me were murmuring, those at the doorway had turned back, trying to hear our low-voiced exchange.

Robert looked quickly around, fearing scandal. ‘What the devil is with you?’ he demanded, angry at the blow, his hand to his cheek. ‘And where the hell have you been? Whose clothes are they? And how dare you strike me?’

‘Dare?’ I spat out at him. ‘I dare strike you. When you killed her, when you let your whoreson murdering son kill her? And then you go on as if nothing had happened at all?’

Robert’s hand went from his red cheek to his forehead. ‘Dandy?’ he said wonderingly.

At her name something broke inside me. The tears tumbled out of my eyes and my voice choked as the words spilled out. ‘She did as she was told!’ I shouted. ‘David told her. “Let the catcher to his job,” he said. “You trust him to catch you. You throw the trick, let the catcher do the catching.”’

Robert nodded, his hand on the long ponies’ whip was shaking. ‘Aye, Meridon,’ he said. ‘Aye, I know. But what’s this to anything? An accident can happen. He caught her on that trick, we both saw him catch her. Then she slipped out of his hands.’

‘He threw her,’ I shouted.

He gasped and the blood drained from his face until the marks of the riding crop were livid streaks on his yellowish cheeks.

‘He threw her against the wall,’ I said, sparing him nothing. ‘He caught her perfectly and then as they swung back he threw her. He threw her out, beyond the safety net, against the back wall and broke her neck. She smashed into that wall, and was dead before I could hold her. She was dead while I still heard her scream. She was dead like a broken doll. He broke her.’

Robert looked like a man struck dumb of apoplexy, his eyes started, his mouth was blue.

‘My Jack…’ he whispered to himself. Then he looked at me again. ‘Why?’ he asked, and his voice was like a little whipped child.

‘She was pregnant,’ I said wearily. ‘She hoped to catch him, carrying his baby, your grandson. He did no worse than you, when you left your wife on the road. He’s your son right enough.’

Robert blinked rapidly, several times. I saw him choke a little and swallow down the sour taste in his mouth.

‘He killed her,’ he said softly. ‘She was carrying his child, and she’s dead.’

I looked at him and felt no pity for him as his plans and his pride tumbled around him. I looked at him with hot hatred, staring out of eyes which were dry again. ‘Oh aye,’ I said. ‘She is dead. And I’m dead too.’

I turned on my heel and left him, left him alone in the ring under the gently swinging trapeze, with the two marks of a whip cut on his pale face and his mouth trembling. I walked through the crowd which had gathered at the doorway, craning their necks to see the scene. They were pointing like that crowd had pointed in Selsey, all those lifetimes ago. I found Sea where he was tethered and looked around for a gate to use as a mounting block.

‘Here,’ a voice said and I blinked the haze from my eyes and saw two calloused hands clasped ready for my boot. It was Will Tyacke, standing beside Sea, waiting for my return.

I nodded and let him throw me up into the saddle. I turned Sea’s head for home and rode off without waiting for him. In a few seconds I heard his horse trotting and he came alongside me, without a word. I glanced at him. His face was impassive, I did not know if he had seen me in the ring – but I could be sure he would hear all about it next market-day. I did not know if he had been in earshot of my anguished shout at Robert, if he had heard her name, if he had heard my name of Meridon.

But no one ever knew anything by looking at Will. The glance he gave me back was as discrete as stone. But his brown eyes were filled with pity.

‘Back to Havering?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I said. I was as desolate as a chrysallis after the butterfly has flown. A little dry dessicated thing which has outlived its time and can tumble over and over and crumble to dust. ‘Nowhere else for me to go,’ I said quietly.

He did not drop behind me, like a groom guarding his mistress as he might have done, given that he was as angry with me as he had ever been with anybody in his life; but he rode beside me as if we were equals. And in the empty heartbroken hollows of myself I was glad of his company and felt less alone as we rode up the drive to Havering Hall and the stars came out unseen above the dark canopy of the trees.

‘Thank you,’ I said as we reached the stables and the lad came out to take Sea. My throat was sore. I must have screamed at Robert, back there in the ring.

He turned his gaze on me as dark as a magician. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Don’t marry him. It won’t hurt to wait a little.’

The yard was very quiet, the lad at my horse’s head stood still, stroking Sea’s white nose.

Will nodded. ‘The pain will fade,’ he said. ‘You will be less desolate in time.’

I shook my head, I even found a slight unconvincing smile. ‘No,’ I said huskily. ‘I never was very happy, even before I lost her. I don’t expect much joy now.’

He leaned forward and with his hardened dirty hand he touched my cheek, and my forehead, smoothing the tense hot skin, rubbing at my temples with roughened gentle fingers. Then, before I knew what he was doing he took my face in both his hands and kissed me, one soft kiss, full on the lips as confident as an acknowledged lover.

‘Good luck then, Sarah,’ he said. ‘You can always walk away from them all, you know.’

I didn’t pull away from his touch. I closed my eyes and let him do as he would with me. It made no difference at all. I put my hands up and closed my fingers around his wrists and held him, held his hands against my cheeks and looked into his eyes.

‘I wish to God I was dead,’ I said to him.

We stood there for a moment, in silence. Then Sea shifted restlessly and our grip broke. The lad at Sea’s head reached up for me and jumped me down from the saddle. Will stayed unmoving on his horse, watched me walk across the yard, the water trough shining like ice in the moonlight, watched the yellow lamplight from the house spill out in a square on the cobbles as I opened the back door, and then watched me close the door behind me and heard me shoot the bolts.

The next day we left for London, so Lady Clara’s spies had not time to tell her of the show, and of the young lady who looked like me, but who answered to another name.

We travelled heavy. I thought of the old days, of one wagon carrying everything a family of five would need. Of the first season when we travelled with bedding for four, costume changes, saddlery and a scenery backdrop all loaded in two wagons. Lady Clara and I travelled in the Havering carriage, Lord Peregrine rode alongside for his own amusement. Behind us came the baggage coach with all our clothes and with Lord Peregrine’s valet and two maids. Behind that came a wagon with various essentials necessary to Lady Clara’s comfort: everything from sheets to the door-knocker, and either side of this little cavalcade ranged outriders – stable lads and footmen, armed for this journey with blunderbuss and bludgeon in case highwaymen might stop us and rob us. By the end of the first hour, bored and restless, I heartily hoped they would.