Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) (18 page)

I shrugged and stood up. Dandy had been likely to lose her maidenhead young, and I could have stopped it as easily as stopping the wind blowing. The affair might cool within weeks and my worry would have been for nothing. Certainly when we were working together on the road under Robert’s eye there would be fewer opportunities for pleasuring. Jack had told her clearly that he would not love nor marry her, and she had taken him with that knowledge to satisfy his lust and hers. I judged they had enjoyed the private use of our room for long enough and crept down to the foot of the ladder. By the time I clattered slowly up they were huddled into their clothes and Jack was tending the fire. He nodded at my sullen face and took himself off to wash before dinner.

Dandy shot me a sideways glance. ‘I’ve had him,’ she said.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I was on the stairs.’

She nodded. Neither of us had ever been house-dwellers, we never minded being overheard.

‘Will that be enough for you now?’ I asked her. ‘Have him for pleasure, as you said, and leave the rest alone.’

She pulled the bow that tied her hair and the great black wave tumbled down over her face. ‘Oh surely,’ she said, from underneath it, and retired to her pallet and started brushing it through.

I stared at her in silent frustration. She was putting up a wall around her thoughts as surely as if she had told me to mind my own business. We had both learned that trick. Dandy could lie with her lover, learn her skill, wash her body in front of me without embarrassment. She and I were raised in a wagon, we had no sense of private place. Our private rooms were all in our own minds and she could shut me out of her plans and imagination as surely as I could close her out of mine.

‘You won’t be able to have him without Robert knowing when we’re on the road,’ I said warningly.

Dandy swept back a wave of glossy black hair. She smiled at me, her eyes were sated. She looked as if she knew what she was doing and was well pleased.

‘I’ll be ready to move on by then,’ she said sweetly. ‘Don’t fuss, Meridon, you’re like an old mother hen. I know what I’m doing. I’ve got ten weeks.’

I turned from her and stared into the fire, the fire which Jack had tended for us. If I were a real Romany I should see in the fire what the danger was which sent shivers up my spine. If I had the Sight instead of pretending to it, and a few worthless dreams of Wide, I should know what I feared so. I turned my fears over in my mind like the mother hen she called me, turning her eggs. Robert could abandon us in his rage when he found that Dandy and Jack had lain together. I knew that did not matter now. There would be other shows which would be glad to have us. Dandy had a unique skill and I had special talent. Dandy was the only girl flyer in the country and I was the best trainer and rider I knew. We had ten guineas (nine, thanks to Dandy’s desires) and a fifty-pound hunter. We would not starve. It was not the fear of being left by Robert which clutched at my heart.

Dandy might fall. But Dandy always might fall. She was skilled and Jack was a good catcher. They had been taught well and they were practising daily. Robert had sworn that they would never work without the catch-net. The height might make me sick with fear but it did not trouble Dandy. And her happiness was sound enough. I knew she was hot for Jack but it was partly lust and partly pique because he had fancied Katie. I did not believe in love. I had never seen such a thing. I had never seen a man or a woman in love. I had never seen a man or a woman do anything except please themselves. While Dandy wanted Jack I thought she would be able to have him. If his da spoiled sport when we were on the road she could make her choice to leave him go, or find ways to be with him. Either way it was Dandy’s amusement. Not her life’s need.

‘Are you done? Old Mother Merry?’ Dandy asked me mockingly. She had tied up her hair again and had a fresh kerchief tied at her neck. She had been watching me as I stared at the flames, and she had read my face aright. ‘Worried all you can?’ she taunted me.

‘Yes,’ I said. Then I put my finger on the one, last fear. ‘You are sure the old woman showed you how to stop a baby,’ I said. ‘And told you when you are safe to lie with a man?’

Dandy chuckled, a deep rich laugh and her blackberry eyes danced. ‘Oh aye,’ she said. ‘There’s a time when you cannot make a child, and a time when you will. There’s herbs which will help you do it, and herbs which will make it less likely. There’s some nasty stuff which turns your guts half inside out but washes a baby out if one is started. I know how to make sure I don’t get with child.’ Her black eyes teased me. ‘And how to get a belly on me if I wish it,’ she said.

‘You would not wish it,’ I said stiffly.

Dandy chuckled. ‘And let Katie be the only one up on the high trapeze in a pink stomacher, Meridon? You must be mad!’

February was freezing and cold. In early March there was a thaw but then it froze hard again. Robert made us work in all weathers and we all four grew bored and rebellious, but we kept our complaints to ourselves. We all set to costume and harness making, Mrs Greaves teaching Dandy and me to sew. We were less handy than either Jack or Katie. He had been making costumes and harness all his life and she had learned a speedy careless stitch in the poorhouse. Only Dandy and I puckered up the cheap silk with great ungainly running stitches where we should have hemmed. Time and time again Mrs Greaves made us rip it back and start at the beginning, until the fabric grew damp and grimy from handling.

‘It’ll wash,’ she said placidly when I complained that the costumes would be spoiled before we ever wore them.

Dandy and Jack had less time to be alone but generally they would offer to water the horses last thing at night and Katie and I would give them a clear half-hour to satisfy the horses’ and their own needs before we pulled shawls over our heads and ran out into the cold from the back door to the stable block.

I only asked Dandy about the progress of her love affair once; she never volunteered information. I thought it unlikely she would hold Jack for long, already he was flirting, furtive and roguish, with Katie while we sat around the kitchen table sewing. Dandy’s black eyes snapped at Katie but her smile to Jack was steady and sweet. I only spoke to her once in those long cold ten weeks. It was when I was tacking up the little ponies in the new harness and Dandy was there polishing the bells and fitting them on for me.

‘You can’t love him,’ I said positively.

She brushed back a dark wave of hair and smiled at me. ‘Nay,’ she said. ‘I don’t think any of us has a lot of faith in love.’

‘Then why go on?’ I asked. I was genuinely mystified.

Dandy smiled a slow smile, she was as sleek as a stroked cat these days. ‘Oh chilly little Meridon, you’ll never understand,’ she said. ‘I like it. If it was not Jack it would be another man. I like the touch of his hands and his lips and his body inside me. And the feelings are getting better and better. I like it more and more.’

‘But you don’t like
him
more and more,’ I argued. ‘You don’t like him giving Katie the glad eye.’

Dandy grimaced. ‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘And if that little whore so much as smiles at him she’ll feel the weight of my hand. But I want Jack still.’

‘For pleasure?’ I asked. One of the little ponies threw his head up because the harness was too tight. I loosened it. It was new stiff leather and my fingers were freezing. I cursed under my breath.

Dandy passed the bell over to me and watched me screw it into the socket at the crown of the headband.

‘He is part of my plans,’ she said grandly. Then she gave me a wink. ‘I’ll be wedded and mistress of this house before I’m done, Merry, I promise you.’

I flinched and the little bell rang shrilly like a warning.

‘Don’t count on winning Robert’s consent,’ I said. ‘I spoke to him and he called us gypsy trash. He don’t want Romany blood in his family, Dandy. Don’t count on his agreement. Take Jack for pleasure if you must. But look forward too far and you’ll fail.’

I moved to the next pony and Dandy handed me the bridle.

‘You always worry so,’ she said idly. ‘Leave be, Merry. I know what I’m doing, and you know nothing about courting and how it is between a lad and a lass then. Leave be. You don’t understand.’

I shrugged at that, feeling a little sour. Then I tacked-up the rest of the ponies and led them out into the boggy field to practise their paces on the melting ground.

‘We’re going to do a gala,’ Robert announced. He had dined in
his dining room with Jack, while Dandy, Katie, William, Mrs Greaves and I ate in the kitchen. Robert came through the door, port glass in one hand, pipe in the other. Jack followed him and they both seated themselves at the kitchen table. Mrs Greaves melted away, towards the stove. William went to fetch some more wood and then hovered within earshot with the wood-basket.

‘I’ll invite the mayor and the aldermen of Salisbury,’ Robert said. ‘Aye and ladies too. Local gentry, the JPs. That sort of person. We’ll put on a gala show for them. Proper chairs we’ll need,’ he said half to himself. ‘That’s in the afternoon. In the morning we’ll do a show for the village. Penny a time admittance. That’s our first and last show here and you can count it as your coming-out. After that we’re on the road and working for real.’

I looked around the table and saw my own anticipation mirrored in the other bright faces. We had all practised for so long, we had all been cooped up here for so long. For Jack and Katie it had been a long tedious winter. But for Dandy and me it had been unprecedented. We had never been under a roof for so long before. We had never been in one place for so long before. We had never slept in the same bed under the same roof for the whole season. I was impatient to move on.

‘Here’s the programme,’ Robert said, pulling a dog-eared black-backed notebook from his jacket pocket. He flipped open the page and lit his pipe. We waited in silence.

‘Opening parade,’ he said. ‘That’s you two girls in your flying costumes with your capes on. Meridon and Jack in breeches riding Snow and Sea.’ He broke off and looked at me. ‘D’you agree to ride Sea into the ring, Merry? He’d look fine alongside Snow.’

I nodded and he went on.

‘Followed by troop of little ponies with full tack and bells, and Morris and Bluebell bringing up the rear harnessed together.’

Jack and I nodded, thinking about the horses.

‘First half is horses,’ Robert said. ‘There’s to be no catch-net for the first half.’ He glanced at me with a little smile. ‘Don’t look so white, you silly girl. We put it up in the interval.’

I nodded and felt my colour come back to my cheeks.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘First act on is Meridon with the little ponies dancing. Just turns and pirouettes. Meridon, you’re to wear a riding habit and jacket and a little hat with a feather.’ He looked at me critically. ‘You’ve filled out,’ he said with some surprise. ‘I’d not noticed, Meridon. You’ll be quite pretty in the ring.’

Everyone stared at me as if I were a not very welcome cuckoo.

‘You’ll fit Dandy’s riding habit from last summer,’ Robert said. ‘And you’ll look quite smart in it too.’

He looked at my hair. ‘No hat,’ he said. ‘And wear your hair loose and long. It looks nice like it is. Don’t hack it about again.’

I nodded. I was getting accustomed to being dressed with as much care and as little emotion as if I were one of the ponies.

‘Next: Jack’s rosinback act with Bluebell,’ Robert said returning to his list. ‘You can wear your new blue shirt, Jack, and your breeches.’

‘Not Morris as well?’ I asked.

Robert shook his head. ‘He’s not ready,’ he said. ‘It takes years to get a rosinback perfect, this season he’s just to get accustomed to working in front of an audience. We’ll have him in the opening parade and in the historical finale. But we won’t use him as a rosinback in the ring yet.’

I nodded. Robert opened his notebook again.

‘Then me,’ he said, ‘with Snow doing tricks. Counting and picking out flags. I’ll have him in his new harness and a new ostrich plume on the top. Meridon, you see to the plume and his tack.

‘Then Meridon does her rosinback act in her short red skirt and white shirt and Jack comes out the back dressed in his farmer costume.’ He paused. ‘Make a little red waistcoat to go with the skin, Merry.’ He glanced at Mrs Greaves. ‘Easy enough to make isn’t it, ma’am?’ She nodded.

Robert went on. ‘Then Merry and Jack do the knockabout act, and last of all we’ll have the Battle of Blenheim. Dandy, you and Katie make sure the ponies have flags instead of bells in their harness. I’ll be in the ring for the Battle of Blenheim. Meridon, you’ll be changing.’

‘Into what?’ I asked.

‘Into your costume for the low trapeze,’ Robert said. ‘White breeches and blue silk shirt,’ he turned another page in the book.

‘Interval,’ he said. ‘During the interval William and Jack and I rig the trapeze frames and the catch-net. Dandy and Katie you sell drinks and sweetmeats and whatever. You’ll wear your flying clothes but with your capes on top.’ A little puff came from the top of his pipe. ‘Capes fastened properly. No tarting around,’ he said firmly. ‘You can take tips but remember you are artistes, not street walkers. All tips are to be handed over to me.’

Katie and Dandy both looked offended. Robert paid them no heed at all.

‘After the interval we have Mamselle Meridon on the low trapeze, doing your tricks, Merry.’ I nodded. ‘And then we have the trapeze act. Finale with all of us taking a bow under the catch-net.’ He paused. ‘That clear?’ he asked.

‘No historical tableau?’ Jack asked.

‘No rape?’ I asked him with a little smile.

Robert puffed on his pipe. ‘This is a Quality show,’ he said sternly. ‘No rapes. When we get out into the villages we’ll do the Rape of the Sabine Women at the end of the first half. Dandy and Katie are the Sabine women in their flying capes, unfastened. Maybe veils on their heads. Jack and Merry are the rapists on Morris and Bluebell.’

All of us around the table nodded.

‘It’s to be two weeks from now,’ he said. ‘Shrove Tuesday. I’ll want to see all the costumes and all the tack ready and laid out on the Friday.’

He looked at Mrs Greaves. ‘That give you enough time, ma’am?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘Can you make us some buns and some sweetmeats and some drinks on the day?’ he asked. She nodded again.

‘That’s all then,’ Robert said pleasantly. ‘We’ll work that Tuesday here, final practices and move out two days later.’

‘Starting the tour in Lent?’ Jack asked raising an eyebrow at his father.

Robert grinned. ‘This tour is going to go through all high
days and holidays,’ he said certainly. ‘This tour will play Sundays. This tour is unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. Wherever we go we are going to draw crowds. If the ground is too wet we’ll do a trapeze show. If we can hire a barn we’ll do horse shows. We won’t be able to pack everyone in even if we were to do shows all through the night of Good Friday!’

Jack nodded. ‘Yes, Da,’ he said with his usual instant obedience. ‘Yes, Da.’

Robert nodded at the sewing baskets on the welsh dresser. ‘Get on with your sewing then,’ he said. ‘You’ll need to have it all done in ten days’ time.’

He left the room and we all made a concerted dash to the costume boxes and set to work. Even my stitches went better knowing that I would be wearing the costume in a fortnight’s time. The cloth which had seemed so intractable already had some of the special circus magic about it. We would be wearing it in the ring. It would be packed up. We would be moving on.

I had never thought to see Katie, that hard-faced girl, in the vapours. But I had forgotten that she had never worked before a crowd. She was cool as a lady-in-waiting in practice: on the high trapeze, throwing tricks to the net, reaching out to pass over to Jack. But once she knew an audience was coming she started to miss her cue and fall.

She got well jolted for a lesson, and she started to get a red sore back from the number of tumbles she took wrong into the catch-net.

‘I’ll never get it right,’ she moaned as she bounced unwillingly over to the ladder and went up again.

I had finished with the ponies for the day and was watching them practise by the light of their lanterns, and warming my damp breeches on the back of their stove. I had not watched them much since David had gone and I expected to see Jack calling the time and telling them what tricks they should throw.

He called the time for them, as I had thought he would. And he called ‘Pret’ when he was ready to catch them, and ‘Hup’ when he wanted them to swing from the board out to him.
But to my surprise he was not the teacher or leader of the three.

It was my sister, Dandy.

‘Katie’s got to do the angel pass,’ she called across to him. And when Katie murmured that she had done it twice already she said firmly:

‘With a leg cocked like a pissing dog. You do it again Katie and stretch out this time, or you’ll do it over and over.’

I craned my neck to look up at this new, authoritative Dandy. Katie did the pass and Jack took her by her leg and her foot and then tossed her up towards the trapeze. Katie snatched at it, and fell with a despairing wail to bounce harmlessly into the net.

Dandy called across to Jack.

‘That was your fault Jack! She was right as she came over, but you let her go too late. She needs to get away at the crest of your swing or she can’t reach out to get the trapeze.’

Jack nodded, his face dark with irritation. ‘That’s enough for one evening,’ he said. ‘We’re bound to make mistakes late in the day.’

‘We’re not wrapping up yet,’ Dandy said briskly. ‘I’ll try the high pass to you. We’ll just touch hands to see if we’re right.’

Jack nodded and readied himself in his harness, stretching out towards her.

I turned my back and heard but did not look round when he called ‘Pret’ and then later ‘Hup’, then I heard the catch-net twang and I heard Dandy say mischievously:

‘You can look now, Meridon, I’m down in one piece.’

They finished their practice then; Dandy pushed her feet into her clogs and came over to me by the stove.

‘How come you decide the tricks?’ I asked. ‘I thought Jack would.’

Dandy shrugged. ‘He couldn’t see what Katie was doing wrong. I do the tricks, Jack just catches, it’s easy for me to see what’s amiss.’ She shrugged her shoulders impatiently. ‘He’s damned idle, Meridon. If he was calling the tricks we’d be finished by noon every day.’

I nodded, and Katie and Jack joined us and we said no more.

Katie’s nerves got no better as the date of the performance approached. When she laid out her costume for Robert’s inspection on the Friday evening her hands were shaking so much that the sequins rattled. Robert was surprisingly sympathetic.

‘You’ll do,’ he said kindly to her. ‘Just do it as it was in practice.’ He looked at Jack. ‘Is she reliable in practice?’

Dandy answered, not Jack. ‘She’s a bit lazy,’ she said. ‘But she can do it when she works at it. She’ll work at it in front of an audience. I should think she’d be better then, than she is in practice.’