Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) Read online

  She was so lovely I could hardly believe that she and I were sisters. She had braided her hair into four little flying plaits which fell each side of her face twisted with gilt and green ribbons. The rest of her black hair she had brushed loose and it cascaded over her shoulders and down her back. She had rouged her lips and her cheeks and had put a bit of cork-black around her eyes. She looked like some Arab princess. She looked strange and lovely.

  ‘Oh Dandy!’ I said. ‘You are so beautiful!’

  She smiled. The sweet beguiling smile of her childhood.

  ‘Am I?’ she said with innocent total vanity. ‘Am I beautiful, Jack?’

  He dropped the bell he was polishing and put out his arms to her.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, in the only tender tone I had ever heard him use towards her. ‘Yes, you are lovely.’

  Dandy floated towards him with a sigh, but then she suddenly saw the dirt on his hands and stepped back, fending him off. ‘Don’t touch me, you’re filthy!’ she exclaimed. ‘Anyway, there’s no time! Robert says I’m to help you dress, Meridon, and wash your hair. Go to the pump and I’ll bring the comb and a towel. Jack, you get washed too. You’re hands are black and they’re already waiting outside in the lane. Your da’s on the gate already.’

  I ran to do her bidding, but out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a brief resentful look which went across Jack’s face. He did not like taking orders from Dandy. He had not liked it on the trapeze swings, he liked it even less on the ground. And least of all did he like it when he had just, for the first time ever, held open his arms to her, openly, in broad daylight. He turned away, as sulky as a spoilt child, and went to his wagon. I watched the slouch of his back and thought how that little gesture of desire from him was curdling to resentment. I don’t think Dandy noticed him at all.

  The water from the pump was icy and it made me cold all through. I shivered in my wet shift as Dandy combed my hair and pulled roughly at the tangles.

  ‘If you combed it every day it wouldn’t tangle like this!’ she said crossly as I flinched and complained. ‘Now I’m going to plait it like mine!’

  ‘Oh leave be, do, Dandy!’ I begged. ‘It will take you ages, and I hate being fussed about.’

  ‘Robert wanted all us girls with the same hair,’ she said. ‘Katie’s wearing blue and gold ribbons in her plaits, me with green and gold, and you’ll have red. Now kneel down,’ she said inexorably. ‘It will only take longer if you fidget, Merry!’

  I knelt. The grass under my knees around the pump was soaked and made me cold. My wet hair hanging down my back dripped chilly droplets down my spine. The sun had lost its heat and I was shivering from the cold by the time Dandy had finished.

  ‘What were you going to tell me when we came into the field?’ I asked her. ‘What were you going to tell me about Jack?’

  The odd secretive look came over her face again. ‘Not now,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you after the show, when we’re not in such a rush.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, unwilling to wait. ‘But it’s nothing bad is it, Dandy?’

  She smiled at me, the warm complacent smile of a woman who knows she has everything. ‘Nothing bad,’ she said. ‘And if this man likes the flying act then that makes it better and better.’

  I would have pressed her for more, but Rea came running to tell us that Robert had opened the gate and had a full house already. Dandy and Katie must go quick and start selling drinks and sweetmeats.

  ‘And the man from London’s here,’ he said.

  ‘How d’you know?’ Dandy demanded, pausing in her flight. ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘Great driving coat,’ Rea said, very much awed. ‘Enormous buttons, huge capes, high high hat. And very shiny boots.’

  Dandy nodded. ‘I’m gone,’ she said and picked up her short skirts and dashed to our wagon for her cape.

  ‘You look nice, Merry,’ Rea said awkwardly. I knew I did not. Dandy and Katie had chosen colours to suit themselves. Neither of them had thought how I would look with red ribbons in my copper hair. The colours screamed at each other. Dandy had scraped my curls roughly into plaits, and tied them too tight, so that the skin on my scalp and forehead was sore. I was scowling with the discomfort.

  ‘I know I don’t,’ I said unhelpfully. ‘But it doesn’t matter.’

  Rea grinned sympathetically. ‘Shall I take them out for you again?’ he offered.

  I shook my sore head. ‘I don’t dare!’ I said. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to get ready.’

  I ran off to my wagon and Rea went back to watch the gate and collect the pennies of latecomers.

  As soon as I was dressed in my blue riding habit I went back out to the horses with my working smock pulled over the top.

  This was rich farming country, good flat land with a dark fertile soil. The barns here were huge, big enough for all of the horses to be inside at the same time. As soon as he had seen the extra space in the corn-rich counties Robert had put the little ponies in the opening parade and we had trained them to go two by two behind Snow ridden by Jack. I came behind all of them on Sea. Then Dandy and Katie came riding in dressed in their flying capes, both sitting sideways bareback on Morris. Bluebell brought up the rear with his steady reliable canter and two billowing flags set in either side of his harness. It was a good start to the show but it meant that all the horses had to be ready at once.

  Jack was already behind the barn with the ponies, screwing the bells into the ponies’ headbands. Rea was trying to put a plume into Sea’s headband, who was tossing his head and shying away from the bright feather although he had seen it a hundred times before. Rea was cursing him in a soft gentle voice, careful not to frighten him more.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ I said. ‘You put the coats on Bluebell and Morris.’

  Each of the rosinbacks now had a little cape in the bright pink of the girls’ flying capes. They should have been in the box for the horses’ special tack, with the plumes and the bells.

  ‘They’re not here!’ exclaimed Rea.

  We had a few moments of whispered rage. Jack blamed me, but I could clearly remember folding them and putting them away the night before. Rea swore they had been there a moment ago and Jack cursed him and said he must have lifted them out and laid them down somewhere. Rea denied it, and I told Jack to stop trying to swing the blame to one of us and help look. In the midst of all the confusion and anger Dandy came swaying up as lovely as an angel with her pink cape floating behind her, and the horses’ capes over her arm. She had taken them to brush them clean. Jack cursed her roundly for not telling us, and Dandy smiled back at him as if nothing could touch her, as if she cared nothing for his anger or for his likes and dislikes. I felt that same coldness I had felt when the water had run down my back while she was washing my hair. I shuddered.

  Robert opened the big double barn door and put his head out to see us. Behind him I could hear the clatter of many people crowded into the small space.

  ‘Everyone ready?’ Robert asked. He was red with suppressed excitement, but trying to be calm. ‘Good audience tonight. Full up. And the man from London is here to see the show.’

  He had himself well under control, but I could see that his hand on his whip was shaking. ‘This could be the making of us,’ he said softly. ‘I cannot tell you how important it is you work your best tonight.’ His voice was almost imploring. He looked around. ‘Horses ready, Meridon?’

  ‘Yes, Robert,’ I said, and I smiled at him. He might have worked me until I was weary through to my very bones with tiredness, but he was a man with one goal in view and I could not help but smile with pleasure to see him coming steadily and surely towards it.

  ‘Well, better start then!’ he said. He stepped back into the barn and I could imagine him striding into the very centre of the floor. We had scattered fresh woodshavings down that morning and Robert’s boots would look as black and shiny as Quality against the whiteness. We had put down hay bales to mark out a ring for the horses and all the
little children would be sitting on the other side of them, their faces wide-eyed, looking over the top. Behind them would be the double row of benches reserved for the Quality and for those willing to pay thruppence a seat. Behind them was a row of straw bales for the twopenny spectators, and behind them, and standing in the doorway, and scarcely able to see at all, were the people who could afford nothing more than a penny but who clapped the horses longest and loudest for they knew – as the front benches did not – how long and hard you have to work with a horse to make him mind a whisper.

  ‘My Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen; and Honoured Guest!’ Robert bawled. An immediate hush descended on the barn. It was so quiet I could hear Jack tapping his thumbnail against his teeth.

  ‘Stop that Jack, it’s irritating,’ Dandy said softly.

  ‘We are proud to present, tonight, and for three nights only, Robert Gower’s Amazing Equestrian and Aerial Show!’

  That was our cue. Rea threw his slight weight against the big double doors and thrust them open. Jack wiped the scowl off his face and rode into the ring, head up, smiling. Snow picked up his feet and pranced when he heard them gasp at the size and the beauty of him and tossed his head so that the new ostrich plume waved.

  I nodded at Rea who was holding the keeper-reins of the front pony and he sent them in behind, their bells jingling. There was an instant ‘aaahhh!’ from the little children which spread to the adults; as if none of them had ever whipped a horse to death in their lives. I slid a finger under Sea’s girth to check it was tight enough and glanced behind me to see that Dandy was all right. She was up on Morris’s back already and she smiled at me, her satisfied secretive smile.

  ‘Go on, Merry!’ Rea said urgently, and I dragged my eyes away from Dandy’s smooth inscrutable face and rode into the ring and smiled at the ripple of applause that greeted me. I was not won to vanity by that. They were clapping because I was slim and dainty and because the horse was tall and moved with his head up as proud as a hunter. The lithe slimness of my body gave me a claim to be a beauty in the ring, and the blue riding habit did the rest. Besides, as Robert had taught me, they had paid their money to see beautiful women and fine horses and they would try to see nothing else. I smiled and got another round of applause.

  Any vanity I had nurtured would have been put to flight by Dandy and Katie’s entrance. The audience cheered and stamped their feet at the very sight of the girl flyers on the back of the big horse. Katie and Dandy nodded their heads as gracious as a pair of queens. We all did two rounds of the ring before Jack led the way out.

  Rea caught the ponies as they came out and turned them around for me to take in. Jack took Sea from me, and led him and Snow to their hitching posts. Dandy was responsible for Morris and Bluebell who knew well enough to go to their place and stand still. Robert had stayed in the ring as we had circled around and bowed to the roar of applause as we went out. He waited a few seconds to give me time to tumble off Sea and stand at the head of the ponies behind the closed barn door. Then when the crowd was hushed again, after the excitement of the opening parade, he cracked his whip and with much flowery introduction presented Mamselle Meridon and the Dancing Ponies!

  The act went well. The ponies had been getting better every day since we had been on the road, they were getting their exercise just by moving from one village to another. They had slimmed down too, and they looked better than when I had learned to train them in Robert’s field at Warminster. They watched me carefully enough and I made sure that I made my cues clear to them. Step forward, whips up: stop. Turn around whips held out sideways meant circle round the ring. Whips twirled meant pirouette. We finished the act with them all backing slowly towards the barn door and then kneeling down to take a bow. I stood before them and smiled at the crowd, looking for the man from London.

  He was not hard to spot. He sat in the front row smoking a large cigar with a fat glowing ember held perilously close to the bale of straw before him. He was smiling at me, and he put the cigar between his teeth to slide his gloves off his large hands and clap hard: three times. I dipped an awkward little bow – I could never learn Dandy’s graceful sweep of a curtsey – and then I had the ponies circle the ring once more before sending them out and taking another bow before going out myself.

  Rea caught the ponies as they came out and took them to their hitching posts. I pulled my smock on over my riding habit as soon as I was out of the ring, and went to help Jack with Bluebell and Morris.

  ‘She’s gone to get some more drinks and buns,’ Rea said seeing my glance around for Dandy. I nodded. I pulled back the barn door for Jack as he strolled into the ring when his father announced him. Then Rea heaved back the double door and I gave Bluebell and Morris a hearty slap each on the rump and sent them in for Jack’s bareback riding act.

  ‘Did you need her?’ Rea asked. ‘I could run and fetch her. You don’t need me here.’

  ‘No,’ I said absently. ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘She has a shadow tonight,’ Rea said suddenly.

  I jerked up my head to look at him. His eyes were hazy, vague. He saw my stare and he met my eyes and smiled at me. ‘Don’t look so scared Meridon! It’s what my grandma used to say. When she was dukerin – fortune-telling! I just thought that Dandy looked as if she had a shadow.’

  ‘Is that bad luck?’ I demanded. ‘Would it be bad luck for her to do the trapeze tonight?’

  ‘It would be bad luck for anyone trying to stop her!’ he said fairly. ‘No. I don’t have the Sight, Meridon. And neither did my grandma, really. I don’t know what made me say it.’

  ‘Well, keep your mouth shut till you do know,’ I said sharply. ‘And get ready to catch the horses. Jack’s finishing.’

  I heard the roar of applause that greeted the end of Jack’s act and Rea hauled the barn doors open and caught Bluebell and Morris as they cantered steadily out. Jack ran after them, his face shiny with sweat, his eyes sparkling.

  ‘He likes me! He clapped me!’ he said. ‘Da is really pleased!’

  ‘Good,’ I said dryly, thinking of the measured three claps.

  ‘Three claps he gave me!’ Jack said as if it were a bouquet of flowers flung at his feet.

  ‘All three!’ I said sarcastically. Then I turned to get Snow, as I heard Robert inside the barn shout:

  ‘The amazing, the mind-reading, the magical counting horse!’

  Snow went in and I went back to my wagon, pulling off my working smock as I went. Dandy was unpacking food into trays in the men’s wagon and I stripped off my riding habit without anyone to help me with the buttons at the back. I shook out the little red skirt and put it on. The red waistcoat was smart – close-fitting. Mrs Greaves had trimmed it with a little left-over gold braid. It matched the gilt and red flying ribbons in my hair – even if my copper curls clashed appallingly. I tugged my working smock atop the lot and then pushed my bare feet into a pair of clogs and trotted back to the barn for I heard the applause at the end of Robert’s act with Snow.

  Bluebell was ready for my rosinback act, with a warm blanket over her so she did not cool after her work with Jack, and fresh rosin on his broad rump.

  I kicked off my clogs and Rea gave me a leg-up so I was sitting astride. I got to my feet as we heard Robert starting his patter, and stood balancing carefully on Bluebell’s back: ‘The graceful, the charming, the brilliant Mamselle Meridon!’

  There was a burst of applause from inside the barn, I took Bluebell’s strap to steady me and nodded at Rea and he pulled back the door. I went in upright, standing high on Bluebell’s back, the top of my head just clearing the barn door, and there was an ‘oooohhh!’ from the audience as Bluebell thundered into the ring and Robert cracked the whip. I tossed my head and my hair streamed out behind me. I kept my balance, and I did not come off, but I was tired and not ready to work my best, not even for the man from London. Three times we circled the ring, as I got my balance steady and let Bluebell establish her stride. Then Rea came darting out from a crack in
the doors with a little gilt stick. He stood at the side of the ring and held it out at shoulder level as Bluebell went cantering around. He dipped it down for me to jump it, and I watched it carefully and then bobbed over, landing solidly and surely on Bluebell’s broad back.

  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.