‘My oath, what a whore,’ I exclaimed to Dandy under my breath.

Her black eyes were blazing. ‘The damned she-dog!’ she said. ‘I’ll scratch her eyes out if she tries anything on with Jack!’

‘You can hardly be surprised,’ I said. ‘She’s been here a good three weeks. Surely she was like this all along?’

Dandy was almost incoherent with temper. ‘No! No!’ she said. ‘D’you think I’d have stood for it? With my Jack? Not a damned look, not so much as a whisper. All she’s done is work night and day on the trapeze and learned to swing. She never so much as glanced at him!’

‘Why now, then?’ I asked puzzled.

Dandy scowled dreadfully towards the bright lights of the kitchen which shone over the darkening garden. ‘It’s you,’ she said suddenly. ‘It must be you. She’s never done it before. She thinks he’s after you. He came down the ladder all showy to please you, and he put his arm around you. He’s been asking for you every day, and he went to Salisbury twice to buy you flowers and once for fruit. His da never told him wrong for wasting the time either. She must think he’s courting you and she’s trying to cast poison.’

I gaped. ‘She’s mad,’ I said blankly. ‘Doesn’t she know what Robert would do if he thought any of us were setting lures for Jack?’

‘No,’ Dandy said swiftly. ‘She’s hardly seen Robert. He’s been training the horses all day, while we’ve been working. He’s never told her what he plans for Jack. He’s hardly spoken to her.’

We stood for a moment in silence gazing at each other and then suddenly we both broke into laughter. ‘Oh don’t! Oh! Don’t!’ I said, holding my sides. ‘My ribs still hurt! Don’t make me laugh, Dandy!’

‘Won’t he be absolutely wild when he finds out!’ Dandy crowed. ‘Won’t she catch it then! It’ll be back to the poorhouse for her! Act or no act!’

I stopped laughing for a moment. ‘That’s a bit hard,’ I said. ‘It’s a high price to pay for being a bit of a flirt.’

Dandy’s face was stony. ‘Who cares?’ she demanded. ‘I won’t have her hanging on Jack. If Jack goes with any one of us, he goes with me. I’ve been ready enough to keep things cold between us because his da ordered it and you begged me; but if she is crawling all over him I’m damned if I see him taken away from me!’

‘Now Dandy, it’s nothing,’ I said swiftly. ‘It’s probably as you say – that she was trying to tease me, to put me in my place. She doesn’t know that none of us court Jack. That none of us work like that. I’m back sleeping in the stables tonight. I’ll tell her then.’

Dandy tossed her thick black hair and looked mulish. ‘I’d rather we just told Robert that she was chasing Jack and let her go back to wherever she came from,’ she said unkindly. ‘I don’t like having her in my room. I don’t like her hanging on Jack. I saw him first. He saw me. He’s had eyes for me from that first day, Merry. We only did nothing to please his da. You know that.’

I thought a moment. I remembered Jack’s hot eyes upon me, and how he had asked me if I dreamed of him. I thought of him watching me as I swam and being angered by my indifference.

‘He’s a coquette as bad as her,’ I said without sympathy. ‘He’d go with any girl who flattered his vanity, and he’d be challenged by any girl who kept him at a distance. I’d not be surprised to see him take up with her.’

Dandy grabbed my arm. ‘I mean this, Merry,’ she said rapidly. ‘I’ve held off from him because I wanted to see how the land lay with his da, and it’s been so different here. I wanted to see if there was any chance of this damned future that Robert plans for him. But I wanted him when I first saw him. And I want him still.’

I held her away from me and looked at her carefully. I knew Dandy, I had watched and loved her as close as a mother, as intently as a lover. I knew she was only speaking half the truth. The part which she would not admit was her vanity and her pride. She could not stand the thought that Jack might go into the hay loft with the pretty fair-headed pauper when he had obeyed his father and not laid a finger on Dandy for month after tempting month. Dandy had been the prettiest girl any of us had ever seen for so long, that the thought of coming second best was enough to overset her.

‘Oh come on, Dandy,’ I said reasonably. ‘I know you fancy him. He’s a nice enough young lad. Vain as a monkey, but nice enough. But you know how Robert is about him; he looks very high for him. There’s no chance for anything more for you than a kiss and a romp. You could do better than that. When you’re Mamselle Dandy you’ll meet better men than Jack could ever be. It’s as Robert says: if you keep your head then you could marry well. That’s better than a roll in the hay with a lad whose father could ruin you if he caught you.’

For a moment she looked uncertain, but then we heard the trapdoor to the upstairs room at the stables slam and Dandy’s eyes blazed.

‘The little whore!’ she said, and she tore herself out of my grip and raced towards the stables.

I tried to run after her but my ribs still hurt, and my shoulder. I followed on behind, and by the time I reached the stables Jack was tumbling down the stairs shrugging his jacket on. He gave me one of his naughty sideways grins.

‘Hey, Merry,’ he said. ‘Dandy’s thrown me out of your room, says she wants to change into her gown for dinner. I’ll see you later.’

‘What were you doing in my room, Jack?’ I asked him, curious for his answer.

He gave me a wink. ‘Nowt serious, Merry,’ he said.

‘Hasn’t your father warned you off Katie?’ I asked curiously.

Jack’s dark gaze twinkled. ‘Half of Warminster has had her,’ he said. ‘My da wouldn’t waste his breath. He knows I won’t let it affect my work. He knows she won’t get a belly on her. He knows it’s not loving. He don’t care.’

Jack beamed at me for a moment. ‘Are you jealous, Merry?’ he asked softly. ‘Did you think I was kissing the soft hairs on the back of her neck, and licking the hollow between her shoulder blades? Did you want that for yourself?’

I stepped backwards so that he could see my face clearly in the light of the horn lantern. I knew my face was calm, my eyes clear, unmoved.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I did not want that for myself. I will never want that. Not from you, not from any man. I wondered if you were man enough to go against your da’s word or if you would stay a virgin all your life to please him. Now I understand, you’ll only have your poke where he permits.’

Jack flushed brick-red with anger at that gibe.

‘I don’t admire your taste,’ I said loftily. ‘But don’t forget that your da only allowed her. He said you were not to have Dandy.’

Jack threw his hands up in impatience. ‘Dandy!’ he said. ‘She’s all you ever think of!’

‘Don’t you think of her?’ I demanded, quick as a hawk in training to a lure.

Jack shrugged. ‘Not much,’ he said lightly. ‘I can live without her.’

‘Good,’ I said, and I meant it. Robert Gower was the only man in the world who would feed and house Dandy and me while I was bruised and battered and unable to work and while Dandy had no skill she could sell on her own. We were as dependent on him as if we were his pauper servants. I knew now that Dandy desired Jack and I feared she would make a set for him. The only thing which stood between us and the frozen road out of Warminster was Jack’s respect for his father’s wishes.

‘Don’t forget your da said you were not to look at her,’ I insisted.

Jack shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes at the darkening night sky. ‘Merry, you carry on like some prioress. I don’t want your damned sister. I could do with a roll in the hay. Katie offered it for free. I’d do it with Katie, I wouldn’t touch Dandy with a ten-foot barge pole. All right?’

‘All right,’ I said at last.

I hoped to God it was.

11

I expected to find Katie with her shirt ripped and her face scratched. Poorhouse brat she might be, Warminster whore she might be, but I did not think she would exceed my sister in the art of dirty fighting. But when I climbed slowly up the stairs to the loft-bedroom they were sitting side by side brushing each other’s hair and giggling together.

‘He put his hand down the inside of my shirt!’ I heard Katie say. Dandy giggled delightedly. ‘I said to him: “I don’t know what you’re looking for down there, Jack!”’

Dandy rocked with laughter at this sally. ‘You never did!’ she said. ‘What did he do then?’

‘He took my hand and put it down his breeches!’ Katie said triumphantly.

‘And?’ Dandy prompted.

Katie’s sharp hungry little face grew avid. ‘He was hot,’ she said. ‘He was hard as a stallion to a mare.’

I was watching Dandy’s face and I saw a shadow of absolute envy pass across it. But she laughed merrily enough.

‘I’m sorry I came in and spoiled sport then!’ she said lightly. ‘Would you have done it with him, if I had not come in?’

‘Oh aye!’ Katie said at once. ‘I was hot for it too!’

She and Dandy fell into each other’s arms and rocked with laughter. Dandy’s eyes met mine across the fair head and her dark eyes were cold as ice.

‘I’m surprised he dares,’ she said. ‘When Merry and I joined the show his da told us plain that there was to be no courting.’

Katie’s smile was world-weary. ‘’Tis hardly courting,’ she said. ‘It’s just a bit of fun. You’d hardly call it courting. We’re neither of us new to it. And neither of us would speak of love. Mr Gower told me I was to mind my ways in the village. He didn’t say nothing about at home.’

‘But you don’t care for Jack?’ Dandy asked sharply.

Katie laughed lazily, put her hands to her head to pin up her tumbling blonde hair. ‘I cared enough a minute ago,’ she said lazily. ‘I’d have cared to do it with him then. But I don’t mind now. If I get needful I can sneak down to the Bush in the village. There’s a couple of lads down there I know well. They’ll meet me behind a hedge somewhere so Mr Gower don’t know. They’ll give me a penny as well.’