Meridon. Philippa Gregory

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СКАЧАТЬ and the one before that. But now that’s your job and I do the heavy work in the house and anything else he asks me. Whatever he tells me to do, I does it. And as long as I please him, I sleep sound in a bed and I eat well. I ain’t never going back into the poorhouse again.’

      Dandy shot a look at me which spoke volumes. ‘How much does he pay you?’ she demanded.

      William leaned against the stable door and scratched his head. ‘He don’t pay me,’ he said. ‘I gets my keep, same as Mrs Greaves and Jack.’

      ‘Mrs Greaves gets no money?’ I demanded, the picture of the smart respectable woman clear in my mind.

      ‘He bought her out of the workhouse too,’ William said. ‘He gives her the housekeeping and she feeds well out of that. He gives her some money every quarter for her laundry bill and new aprons. But he doesn’t pay her. What would she want money for?’

      ‘For herself,’ I said grimly. ‘So that if she wanted to leave she could.’

      William gave a slow chuckle. ‘She wouldn’t want to do that,’ he said. ‘No more than I would. Where would she go? There’s only the workhouse, for there are no jobs going in the town, and no one would take a servant who had left without a character. There’s plenty as tidy and neat as her in the workhouse – why should anyone take a woman off the street? Why should anyone pay wages when the workhouse is full of paupers who would work for free with their keep?’ William paused and looked at Dandy and me. ‘Does he pay you?’ he asked.

      I was about to say, ‘Yes,’ but then I paused. He did indeed pay me, a penny a day. But out of that princely sum I had repaid him for my shirt and my breeches, and I wanted to buy a jacket for the winter too. I had no savings from my wages. He had paid out the pennies and when I had saved them into shillings, I had paid them back. I looked at Dandy; he paid her the odd penny for minding the gate and she still picked the occasional pocket. ‘Do you have any money saved, Dandy?’ I asked.

      ‘No,’ she said. ‘I had to repay Robert for the material for my riding habit. I still owe him a couple of shillings.’

      ‘We’re all treated the same then,’ William said with doltish satisfaction. ‘But you have a real pretty room of your own up the ladder.’

      He pointed to a rough wooden staircase without a handrail which went up the side of the stable wall. I checked that all the horses were safely bolted in, and then Dandy and I clattered up the twelve steps to the trapdoor at the top. It lifted up and we were in the first room we had ever owned in our lives.

      It was a bare clean space with two mattresses of straw with blankets in each corner, a great chest under the window, a fire of sticks laid in the little black grate, and two little windows looking out over the stable yard. The walls were finished in the rough creamy-coloured mud of the region, and the sloping ceiling which came down to the top of the windows was the underside of the thatched roof – a mesh of sticks and straw.

      ‘How lovely!’ Dandy said with delight. ‘A proper room of our own.’

      She went at once to the broken bit of mirror which was nailed to one of the beams running crosswise across the room and smoothed her hair back from her face. ‘A looking glass of my own,’ she breathed, promising herself hours of delight. Then she dropped to her knees and examined the ewer and bowl standing in lonely state on the chest. ‘Real pretty,’ she said with approval.

      I ducked my head to look out of the window. I could see over the stable yard and across the lane to the yard and cottage on the far side. Beyond them was a glimpse of green fields and the glitter of light on a broad river.

      William’s brown head appeared comically though the trapdoor. ‘Come for your tea,’ he invited. ‘It’s ready in the kitchen. You can bring your things up later.’

      Dandy rounded on him with all the pride of a property dweller. ‘Don’t you know to knock when you come to a lady’s bedroom!’ she exclaimed, irritated.

      William’s round face lost its smile and his face coloured brick red with embarrassment. ‘Beg pardon,’ he mumbled uncomfortably, and then ducked down out of sight. ‘But tea is ready,’ he called stubbornly.

      ‘We’ll come,’ I said and taking Dandy firmly by the arm I got her away from the mirror and the ewer and would not even let her stop to examine the great chest for the clothes we had not got.

      Our first two days in Warminster were easy. All I had to do was to care for the horses, to groom them and water them, and discover the boredom of cleaning out the same stable over and over again. Travelling with horses I had never had to wash down cobblestones in my life, and I did not enjoy learning from William.

      Dandy was equally surly when Mrs Greaves called her into the kitchen and offered her a plain grey skirt and a white pinny. She clutched to her red skirt and green shawl and refused to be parted from them.

      ‘Master’s orders,’ Mrs Greaves said briefly. She stole Dandy’s finery while she was sulkily changing, and took them away to be washed but then did not return them. Dandy collared Robert as he was inspecting the stable the same afternoon.

      ‘I warned you,’ he said genially. ‘I told you there’d be no whoring around this village. They’re God-fearing people, and my neighbours. You’ll cause all the stir you want at church tomorrow morning without being as bright as a Romany whore.’

      ‘I’ll not go to church!’ Dandy said, genuinely shocked. ‘I ain’t never been!’

      Robert glanced at me. ‘You neither, Meridon?’ he asked. I shook my head.

      ‘Not been christened?’ he asked in as much horror as if he had been anything but godless himself when we were on the road.

      ‘Oh aye,’ Dandy said with reasonable pride. ‘Lots of times. Every time the preacher came round we was christened. For the penny they gives you. But we never go to church.’

      Robert nodded. ‘Well you’ll go now,’ he said. ‘All my household do.’ He looked at me under his bushy blond eyebrows. ‘Mrs Greaves has a gown for you too, Meridon. You’ll have to wear it for going in the village.’

      I stared back, measuring the possibility of defiance. ‘Don’t try it my girl,’ he advised me. His voice was gentle but there was steel behind it. ‘Don’t dream of it. I’m as much the master here as I am when we’re in the ring. We play a part there, and we play a part here. In this village you are respectable young women. You have to wear a skirt.’

      I nodded, saying nothing.

      ‘You always did wear a dress, didn’t you?’ he asked. ‘That first day I saw you, you were training the horse in some ragged skirt, weren’t you? And you rode astride in a skirt as well, didn’t you?’

      ‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘But I like boy’s breeches better. They’re easier to work in.’

      ‘You can wear them for work,’ he said. ‘But not outside the stable yard.’

      I nodded. Dandy waited till his back was turned and then she picked up her dull long grey skirt and swept him a curtsey. ‘Mountebank squire,’ she said; but not so loud as he could hear.

      I said nothing about the dress destined for me. But that night, at supper in the kitchen, Mrs Greaves pushed a petticoat, chemise, grey dress and pinny across СКАЧАТЬ