Meridon

13

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.’

Robert nodded. ‘Good,’ he said. He turned to me. ‘Nervous, little Merry?’ he asked.

I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘All I have to do is to let Jack knock me off Bluebell, and God knows I’ve done that enough times.’

Robert smiled. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘I’m happy.’

He had reason. The takings added up to pounds for the gala performance and the pennies of the village people at their show made the sack of money as heavy as a couple of saddles.

The ponies behaved well, even the three bought at Salisbury who had never been in front of an audience before. Bluebell was as steady as she always was, Morris threw his head up at the noise and the cheers, but I had harnessed them so tight to Bluebell he virtually had to breathe in time with her. People laughed till they cried at the act Jack and I did when he pretended to be a drunk farmer. It had never gone better, and at the end when we cantered around the ring with me standing high and Jack going around under Bluebell’s neck the Quality audience got up from their benches and cheered as loud as common folk.

Dandy and Katie were well tipped during the break, but I saw Dandy walk with her head as high as a queen. She kept her eyes open for any likely young bucks, but her mind was on her trapeze act and Robert had no grounds for complaint when she came back with an empty tray and a purse which chinked with pennies.

They cheered my trapeze tricks as if they were something prodigiously skilful and brave. I suppose to people who had never seen such a thing before, the top of the swing when I was above their heads, seemed very high. It did not frighten me, even when I swung back and could see their faces below me. I knew if I hung straight that my toes were only a foot above the ground. I felt safe enough.

The queasy chum of fear in my belly was for Dandy’s flying act. I was such a fool I could not even stay in the barn to watch her. I went out the back to where we had tethered the ponies and I put my arm around Sea’s warm neck and listened to the sounds and guessed what they were doing.

There was the rustle of anticipation as Jack did handstands and chin-ups on his frame, and then a murmur of approval as Dandy and Katie posed at the top of their frame. Then I heard the gasp as either Dandy or Katie gripped the trapeze and swooped down off the pedestal. I flexed my arms around Sea when I heard that. And then there was a great ‘ooh!’ from the audience and a burst of clapping as one of them reached out from the trapeze to Jack’s hands. Then there was another gasp as he swung her out, made that little twist, and passed her up to the swinging overhead bar. A great roar of applause told me that she was safe on the pedestal again.

Four times I tightened my grip on Sea’s neck, sweating even in the frosty air, listening for the gasp as Dandy came off the board, the ‘ooh!’ as she swung, the ripple of applause as she was caught and then the uproar when she was safely back on the board or somersaulting down into the net. Sea shifted uneasily. I was squeezing him so tight, and he could smell my fear. Then I heard a great scream from the audience and my stomach churned bile. Dandy had finished her act by dropping from her bar so she was utterly free in the air, into Jack’s hands and then somersaulted down into the net. There was a roar of applause and another shriek as Katie and then Jack tumbled downwards and bounced safely up to their feet. Then there was a roar of applause as people called for the act again and shouted, ‘Bravo!’ and then I heard the chink of coins as people tossed money into the ring.

Robert Gower called out into the darkness from the barn door.

‘Meridon! It’s over! Come in and see your sister! Come and take your bow!’

They were cheering and cheering as if they would never stop. I heard a volley of curses as a bench was tipped up and crashed down on someone’s toes.

Robert called for me more urgently and then went in to take his bow.

They had their finale without me that night. I was out at the back in the field retching helplessly into the frosty grass. Even as I took care to vomit away from my clean white breeches I could have laughed at myself for my stupid girlish nerves. But my laugh would have been bitter.

Two days later, as Robert had planned, we moved out. We started early, we had packed the night before. All the new gear was stowed in the fresh-painted wagons. There was the repainted picture of Snow rearing before the lady on the side of Robert’s wagon. But he had ordered the sign-writer to paint her riding habit blue and her hair bright copper. She looked like me, so I had my portrait on the side of the wagon with ‘Robert Gower’s Amazing Aerial and Equestrian Show’ written in red curly letters all around. On the back of the wagon was a picture of the little ponies, and on the other long side there was a picture of me and Jack in matching blue shirts and white breeches standing side by side up high on the back of Bluebell and Morris – both looking more noble and a good deal wilder than usual. At the top of the right-hand corner was another picture of me in my short skirt jumping through a hoop of fire – a trick which existed nowhere but in Robert’s imagination at the moment. And there it said, in blue paint, ‘Mamselle Meridon the horseback dancer!’

Katie and Dandy had looked rather askance at all the rippling copper hair and long bare legs until they had seen the wagon with the flying rig. In gold letters it said ‘Robert Gower’s Amazing Aerial Show’ and it had a wonderful painting of Katie with her blonde hair streaming out behind soaring up to where a trapeze was painted in the top right corner. ‘Mamselle Katie!’ it said, the ‘e’ a little squashed for space.

The other side of the wagon I could not bear to look at. It was a picture of Dandy and I looked at it only once. She was supposed to be flying from the top left-hand corner down to the net. But because the sign-writer had been cramped for space it looked as if she were falling; falling down with her black hair rippling and a smile on her face. It said ‘Mamselle Dandy! The only girl flyer in the world!’ in scarlet. Dandy liked the picture because it showed her with long long legs and an enormously inflated chest. Also because Katie was put out that Dandy was called the ‘only’ flyer.

‘You do more than swing out and grab for him, and I’ll change the writing,’ Robert said firmly. I did not smile as Dandy did. I knew Robert was thinking that flyers fall often and hurt themselves often. There would be many a show in this long season when he would have only one girl flyer, and he was taking no chances.

The rig wagon was to be pulled by Lofty and driven by William. Bluebell pulled the wagon for us girls and we would take it in turns to drive. Even Katie could drive Bluebell. The horse was as steady on the road as she was cantering around the ring. Morris would pull the men’s sleeping wagon and the ponies would be split up and tied on in teams. Snow and Sea would be ridden in the mornings but tied on in the afternoons.

‘Have to take the chance,’ Robert said. ‘You and Jack won’t always want to be riding. You’ll maybe need to rest on the road sometimes. And Sea is steady enough now.’

I found I was sorry to say goodbye to Mrs Greaves. She was the first woman I had ever known who had spoken to me kindly, and on our last evening I lingered in her kitchen as if it had become some sort of refuge for me. Jack and Dandy had gone on ahead. Katie was throwing the last bits of rope and string into a bucket in the stable yard. I said a gruff farewell to Mrs Greaves and she turned from the slate sink and held out her arms to me.

I stepped back. I still had my old dislike of being pulled about, and she saw the gesture and the warmth went from her face.

‘God bless you, Merry,’ she said, and I was ashamed of my prickly coldness.

‘I am sorry,’ I said awkwardly, and I stepped forward and offered her my forehead for her kiss.

She put her hands on my shoulders, gently, as I would handle a touchy young foal.

‘Keep safe, dear,’ she said softly. ‘If you are ever in trouble and I can serve you, you should send for me.’

I stepped back and looked in her face. ‘How can I keep Dandy safe?’ I asked her, demanding an answer as if she should know everything, just because she was a woman old enough to be my mother who had put out her arms to me.

Her pale eyes fell before my urgent gaze.

‘You cannot,’ she said.