Meridon. Philippa Gregory

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СКАЧАТЬ in under the doorway and the caravan door slammed and I was left with the young pony who had to be schooled enough for me to ride him that evening if Dandy and I wanted to go to the fair with a penny each.

      I made it by the skin of my teeth. Da’s rule was that I had to get on the horse’s back without him kicking out or running off – and apart from a quiver of fright the grey stood still enough. And then I had to get off again without mishap. By working him all day until we were both weary I had him so accustomed to my nearness that he only threw me once while I was training him to stand while I mounted. He didn’t run off far, which I thought a very good sign. I did not work at all at teaching him to walk forwards or stop. They were not the conditions Da had set for a visit to the fair so I cared nothing for them. All he could do by the end of the day was stand still for the twenty seconds while I mounted, smiled with assumed confidence at Da, and dismounted.

      Da grudgingly felt in his pocket and gave a penny to Dandy and a penny to me.

      ‘I’ve been talking business with that man Gower,’ he said grandly. ‘As a favour to me he says you can both go to his show. I’m going into town to see a man about buying a horse. Be in the wagon when I come back or there’ll be trouble.’

      Dandy shot me a warning look to bid me hold my tongue, and said sweetly: ‘Yes, Da.’ We both knew that when he came back he would be so blind drunk that he would not be able to tell if we were there or not. Nor remember in the morning.

      Then we fled to the corner of the field where the gate was held half-open by Robert Gower, resplendent in a red jacket and white breeches with black riding boots. A steady stream of people had been going by us all afternoon, paying their pennies to Robert Gower and taking their ease on the grassy slopes waiting for the show to start. Dandy and I were the last to arrive.

      ‘He’s Quality!’ Dandy gasped, as we dashed across the field. ‘Look at his boots.’

      ‘And he got dressed in that caravan!’ I said amazed, having never seen anything come out of our caravan brighter than the slatternly glitter of Zima’s best dress over a soiled petticoat grey with inadequate washing.

      ‘Ah!’ said Robert Gower. ‘Meridon and …?’

      ‘My sister, Dandy,’ I said.

      Robert Gower nodded grandly at us both. ‘Please take a seat,’ he said opening the gate a little wider to allow us inside. ‘Anywhere on the grass but not in front of the benches which is reserved for the Quality and for the Churchmen. By Special Request,’ he added.

      Dandy gave him her sweetest smile and spread her ragged skirt out and swept him a curtsey. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said and sailed past him with her head in the air and her glossy black hair in thick sausage ringlets all down her back.

      The field was on a slight slope, levelling off at the bottom, and the audience were seated on the grass on the slope looking down. In front of them were two small benches, empty except for a fat man and his wife who looked like well-to-do farmers but not proper Quality at all. We had come in at the bottom of the hill and had to walk past a large screen painted with strange-looking trees and a violet and red sunset and yellow earth. It was hinged with wings on either side so that it presented a back-cloth to the audience and went some way to hiding the ponies who were tethered behind it. As we walked by, a youth of about seventeen dressed very fine in white breeches and a red silk shirt glanced out from behind the screen and stared at us both. I know I looked furtive, expecting a challenge, but he said nothing and looked us over as if free seats made us his especial property. I looked at Dandy. Her eyes had widened and she was looking straight at him, her face was flushed, her smile confident. She looked at him as boldly as if she were his equal.

      ‘Hello,’ she said.

      ‘Are you Meridon?’ he said surprised.

      I was about to say: ‘No. I am Meridon and this is my sister.’ But Dandy was ahead of me.

      ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘My name is Dandy. Who are you?’

      ‘Jack,’ he said. ‘Jack Gower.’

      Unnoticed, standing behind my beautiful sister, I could stare at him. He was not fair like his father but dark-haired. His eyes were dark too. In his shimmering shirt and his white breeches he looked like a lord in a travelling play – dazzling. The confident smile on his face as he looked down at Dandy, whose pale face was upturned to him like a flower on a slim stem, showed that he knew it. I looked at that smile and thought him the most handsome youth I had ever seen in my whole life. And for some reason, I could not say why, I shuddered as if someone had just dripped cold water on my scalp, and the nape of my neck felt cold.

      ‘I’ll see you after the show,’ he said. The tone of his voice made it sound as if it might be a threat or a promise.

      Dandy’s eyes gleamed. ‘You might,’ she said, as natural a coquette as ever flirted with a handsome youth. ‘I have other things to do than hang around a wagon.’

      ‘Oh?’ he asked. ‘What things?’

      ‘Meridon and I are going to the fair,’ she said. ‘And we’ve money to spend, and all.’

      For the first time he looked at me. ‘So you’re Meridon,’ he said carelessly. ‘My da says you can train little ponies. Could you manage a horse like this?’

      He gestured behind the screen and I peered around it. Tied to a stake on the ground was a beautiful grey stallion, standing quiet and docile, but his dark eye rolled towards me as he saw me.

      ‘Oh, yes,’ I said with longing. ‘I could look after him all right.’

      Jack gave me a little smile as warm and understanding as his da.

      ‘Would you like to ride him after the show?’ he invited. ‘Or do you have better things to do, like your sister?’

      Dandy’s fingers nipped my arm but for once I ignored her. ‘I’d love to ride him,’ I said hastily. ‘I’d rather ride him than go to any fair, any day.’

      He nodded at that. ‘Da said you were horse-mad,’ he said. ‘Wait till after the show and you can go up on him.’

      He glanced towards the gate and nodded as his father waved.

      ‘Take your seats,’ Robert Gower called in his loud announcing voice. ‘Take your seats for the greatest show in England and Europe!’

      Jack winked at Dandy and ducked behind the screen as his father shut the gate and came to the centre of the flat grass. Dandy and I scurried to the hill and sat down in expectant silence.

      I sat through the show in a daze. I had never seen horses with such training. They had four small ponies – Welsh mountain or New Forest, I thought – who started the show with a dancing act. There was a barrel organ playing and the boy Jack Gower stood in the middle of the ring with a fine purple coat over his red shirt and a long whip. As he cracked it and moved from the centre to the side the little ponies wheeled and trotted individually, turning on their hind legs, reversing the order, all with their heads up and the plumes on their heads jogging and their bells ringing ringing ringing like out-of-season sleighbells.

      People cheered as he finished with a flourish with all four ponies bending down in a horse curtsey, and he swept off his purple tricorne hat and bowed to the crowd. But he exchanged a look with Dandy as if to say that it was all for her, and I felt СКАЧАТЬ