The public like lasses, Robert announced at supper that night. I want you riding in the ring, Meridon. And Dandy youre to cry-up the show with Jack every day. Stay in your costume to take at the gate.
What shall I wear? I asked. Robert looked at me critically. I had wearied of brushing my thick mass of copper hair every day and had started cutting out the tangles and the hayseeds. Dandy had exclaimed at the ragged edges I had left and had trimmed it in a bob, like a country lad. The natural curl had made it into a mop of red-gold ringlets, which tumbled about my head like an unruly halo. I had gained no weight over the summer of good living with the Gowers though I had grown taller. I was as lanky and as awkward as a young colt while Dandy had the poise and the warm curves of a young woman.
Im damned if I know, Robert said chuckling. Id put you in a pierrot suit for half a crown. You look like a little waif, mophead. If youre going to grow as bonny as your sister, youd better make haste!
What about dressing her as a lad? Jack said suddenly. He was wiping out his bowl with a hunk of bread, but he paused with sticky fingers and smiled his confident smile at me. No offence, Meridon. But she could wear a silk shirt and tight white breeches and boots. You look at her when shes in those old trews of mine, Da, she looks unladylikebut it would work in the ring. And she could do a rosinback act with me. Jack pushed his bowl to one side. Hey! he said excitedly. Dyou remember that act we saw when someone came out of the crowd? The show outside Salisbury one time? We could do something like that and I could come out from the back, pretending to be a drunk, you know, and come up on the horse and knock Meridon off.
More falls, I said glumly. I had enough of them when I was breaking horses for Da.
Pretend falls, Jack said, his eyes warm on me. And they wouldnt hurt. And then she could get up on the big horse, and do a bit of bareback work.
Robert looked at me speculatively.
Bareback work in the breeches, he said. The riding and clowning in a riding habit. Thatd look better dressed as a girl. Two acts and only half a costume change. He nodded. Would you like to do that, Meridon? he asked. Id pay you.
How much? I said instantly.
Hapenny a show, penny a night, he said.
Penny a show, I said at once.
Penny a day whether we have a show or not, he offered, and I stuck my grimy hand across the table and we closed the deal.
My training started the next day. I had seen Jack vaulting on and off the big skewbald horse, and I had ridden her often enough. But I had never tried to stand up on her. Robert set her cantering around the field and Jack and I rode astride together, me sitting before him. Then he got to his feet and tried to help me up. The pace, which seemed as smooth and as easy as a rocking chair when I had been seated on her back, was suddenly as jolting as a cart over cobbles. With a helpless wail I went off first one side, and then the other. And one time, earning myself a handful of curses and a cuff on the ear from Jack, I knocked him off the back of the horse as I went.
Robert called the practice to a halt when I had managed to get up and stand for a few seconds. Do it again tomorrow, he said, as mean with praise as ever. Not bad.
Jack and I went down to the river together and stripped off down to our sweat-stained shirts, and waded into the water to cool our bruises and our tempers. I floated on my back in the sweet water and looked up at the blue sky. It was September and still as hot as high summer. My pale limbs in the water were as white as a drowned man. I kicked a fountain of spray upwards and then looked at my feet with the ingrained dirt around the toenails with no sense of shame. I turned on my front and dipped my face into the water and then dived right under until I could feel the cold water seeping through my curls to my scalp. That made me shudder and I surfaced again, kicking and blowing out, and shaking the wet hair out of my eyes. Jack was out already, lying on the grassy bank in his breeches, watching me.
I came out of the water and it flowed in streams down my neck. The shirt was slick and cold against me and Jacks eyes followed the little rivulets of water down over my slight breasts where the nipples stood out against the wet thin fabric, down to the crotch of my legs where the shadow of copper hair showed dark under the cloth.
Dyou not mind working as hard as a lad when youre growing into a woman? he asked idly.
No, I said shortly. Id rather be treated as a lad by your father and you.
Jack smiled his hot smile. By my father, yes possibly. But by me? Wouldnt you like me to see you as a young woman?
I walked steadily on the sharp stones at the river edge on my hardened feet and picked up my jerkin and pulled it on. I was still bare-arsed but Jacks knowing smile had never caused me any discomfort and I was untroubled by his sudden interest in me.
No, I said, Ive seen how you are with women.
His hand waved them away down river. Those! he said dismissively. Those are just sluts from the villages. I would not treat you in the way I treat them. Youd be a prize worth taking, Meridon. You in your funny breeches and my cut-down shirts. Id like to make you glad to be born a woman. Id like you to grow your hair to please me.
I turned and looked at him in frank surprise.
Why? I said.
He shrugged, half moody, half wilful. I dont know, he said. You never look twice at me. You never have looked twice at me. All this morning you have been in my arms and you have clung to me to save yourself from falling. All this morning you have had your body pressed tight against mine and I was feeling you, aye and wanting you! And then you strip your clothes off in front of me and get into the water as if I was nothing more than one of the horses!
I stood up and pulled on my breeches. Dyou remember what your da said to Dandy our first evening? I asked. I do. He warned her off you. He told her and he told me that he had a good marriage in mind for you and that if she ever became your lover hed leave her on the road. Shes not looked at you since that evening, and neither have I.
She! he said in the same voice as he had spoken of the village girls. Shed come fast enough to my whistle. I know that. But dont tell me that you dont think of me to please my da, because I dont believe it.
No, I said truthfully, careless of vanity. No, its not the reason. I dont think of you because I have no interest in you. Its true: I dont think of you any more than I do the horses. I considered him for a moment, and then some spark of devilry prompted me to say, absolutely straight-faced, Actually, I think I like Snow better.
He stared at me incredulous for a moment, then with one graceful easy movement he jumped to his feet and walked away from me. Gypsy brat, he said under his breath as he went away. I dropped back down on the bank and watched the sunshine on the ripples of the river and waited until he was well out of earshot before I laughed aloud.
He did not bear me a grudge for that insult, for the next day he held me as firmly and as fairly as he had done the day before. It was my fault that I fell more and more often, and my fault when he lost his balance and fell backwards off the horse, and fell hard too, and hit his head.
Clumsy wench! Robert had scolded me, and clouted me lightly on my ear which made my own head ring. Why dont you lean back and let Jack guide you like you were doing yesterday? Hes had the practice. Hes got the balance. Let him take you. Dont keep trying to pull away and stand on your own!
Jack was holding his head in his hands but he looked up at that and he smiled at me ruefully. Is that whats going wrong? he asked frankly. You wont lean back against me?
I nodded. His black eyes smiled into my green ones.
Oh forget it! he said gently. Forget I ever said it. I cant go on falling off a horse all morning. Lets just do the act, shall we?
Robert looked from one to the other of us. Have you two had a fight? he demanded.
We were both silent.
He took three steps away from us and then turned and came back. His face was stony. Now look here, you two, he said. Ill tell you this once, and its the only time. Whatever goes on outside the ring, or even behind the screen, once you are in the ring and up on the horse you are working. I dont care if you take an axe to each other when your act is over. You cant work for me unless you take this seriously. And you are not serious unless you forget everything everything but your act.
We nodded. Robert could be very impressive when he chose. Now have another try, he said, and cracked the whip and called to Bluebell to canter.
Jack vaulted up and went astride her and put his hand out to catch me and pull me up before him. He held the leather strap and got to his feet, his bare toes splayed out on Bluebells sweaty white and brown back. Then I felt his hard hand clutching in my armpit and I got up to my feet, gracelessly bow-legged, and then, while Robert shouted encouragement and abuse, I cautiously straightened my knees and leaned back towards Jack and let his body guide mine and his arm steady me. We did one whole circle without falling and then Jack let me jump down with a triumphant yell and somersaulted off himself.
Well done! Robert said. He was beaming at us with red-faced delight. Well done you both. Same time tomorrow.
We nodded and Jack clapped my shoulder with a friendly hand as I turned away and took Bluebell by the head collar to lead her around and cool her down.
Mamselle Meridon the Bareback Horse Dancer! Robert said to himself very low, as he walked past the screen out of the field. See Her Breathtaking Leaps Through a Hoop of Blazing Fire!
4
Dandy and I had not been raised as proper gypsy chawies. When the weather had grown colder and the caravan was so clammy that even the clothes we slept in were damp in the morning, Da would get work as an ostler or a porter or a market lad in any of the bigger towns where people were not particular whom they employed, and the Parish officers were slow and lazy and did not move us on. We had no idea of a rhythm of seasons which took you regularly from one place to another and then returned you safe every winter to familiar fields and hills. With Da often as not we were on the run from card partners, little cheats or bad business deals, with no planned route or tradition of travelling. He never knew where he was going, other than to follow his nose for gullible card players, fools and bad horses, wherever they might be gathered together.