Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) by Philippa Gregory Page A

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 the wide scrubbed table. There was even a plain white cap folded stiffly on top of the pile of clothes.
    ‘For church tomorrow,’ she said.
    I raised my green eyes to her pale blue ones. ‘What if I don’t want to go?’ I asked.
    Her face was like a pat of butter smoothed blank by fear and suffering. ‘Better had,’ she said.
    I picked them up without a word.
    They were strange to put on next morning. Dandy helped me with them, and spent hours herself, plaiting and replaiting her hair until it was to her satisfaction in a glossy coronet with the little white cap perched on top as far back as she dared. In absolute contrast I had pulled my cap down low, and stuffed as much of my copper mop inside as I possibly could. I regretted now my impatient hacking of my hair with the big scissors we used to trim the horses’ tails. If it had been longer I could have tied it back. Cut ragged, it was a riot of curls which continually sprang out.
    I straightened the cap in front of the mirror. Dandy was retying her pinny ribbon and not watching me. I stared at myself in the glass. It was a much clearer reflection than the water trough beneath a pump, I had never seen myself so well before. I saw my eyes, their shifting hazel-green colour, the set of them slanty. My pale clear skin and the fading speckle of summertime freckles. The riotous thick curly auburn hair, and the mouth which smiled, as if at some inner secret, even though my eyes were cold. Even though I had little to smile for.
    ‘You could be pretty,’ Dandy said. Her round pink face appeared beside mine. ‘You could be really pretty,’ she said encouragingly, ‘if you weren’t so odd-looking. If you smiled at the boys a bit.’
    I stepped back from the little bit of mirror.
    ‘They’ve got nothing I want,’ I said. ‘Nothing to smile for.’
    Dandy licked her fingers to make them damp and twirled her fringe and the ringlets at the side of her face.
    ‘What do you want then?’ she said idly. ‘What d’you want that a boy can’t give you?’
    ‘I want Wide,’ I said instantly.
    She turned and stared at me. ‘You’re going to have a silk shirt and breeches, aye and a riding habit, and you still dream of that?’ she asked in amazement. ‘We’ve got away from Da, and we