When I came to, I was in bed; not in my own bed but in the pretty lime-washed room at the back of Robert Gower’s fine house. When my eyelids quivered I could hear Robert’s voice telling me in a muted whisper that I was safe in his house. He knew I could not open my eyes to see for myself. I was stone blind.
Robert Gower sat with me. He ordered Jack and Dandy back to work at once, as soon as they had carried me into the parlour and William had gone at a gallop for the Salisbury surgeon. Robert would not trust the Warminster barber. Dandy had sworn at him and said she would not leave my side but Robert had pushed her out of the room and said she might come and sit with me but not until she had swung on the high trapeze and done every single trick she had already learned.
I wanted to cry out that Dandy should not go up there, that it was too terrifying, too high for anyone, especially my beloved sister. But my throat was wracked with pain, the only noise I could make was a helpless rasping sob, and the hot tears squeezed out of my swollen eyes and stung as they ran down my scraped cheeks.
‘It’s for her good,’ Robert said softly. I could tell from his voice that he was standing beside me. ‘She’s to go up at once or she’ll brood over your fall and lose her nerve, Meridon. I’m not being cruel to her, or to you. David said the same.’
I would have nodded my head, but the very sinews of my neck felt as if they had been ripped out. I lay in silence, in my blind blackness, and I felt the sofa underneath me roll and shift as I lost consciousness again. ‘And who will look after Dandy when I am dead?’ I thought as the world slid away from me.
She was back beside me when the surgeon arrived, but she was crying too hard to be of any help to him; easy, sorrowful tears while she washed the blood off my face with a cloth which stung as if it were on fire. I felt for her in my private darkness and whispered: ‘Dandy, am I going to die?’
It was Robert Gower who held me gently so that the skilled man could feel all around my fiery neck. He had gentle hands, and I could feel him taking care not to hurt me. But every part of my neck and shoulders and throat, even the skin of my scalp, was searing with pain. It was Robert Gower who laid me back on the pillow and unbuttoned the shirt so that the man could feel my ribs. Each touch was like a burning brand but I did not cry out. Not from bravery! My throat was locked so tight I could make no sound.
‘She’s bad,’ the surgeon said at last. ‘Broken nose, contusion of the head, concussion, ricked neck, dislocated shoulder, cracked rib.’
‘She’ll be well again?’ Robert asked.
‘It will be nigh on a month at least,’ the voice replied. ‘Unless she takes a fever, or an ague from shock. But she seems tough enough, she should survive it. I can set the shoulder now.’
He leaned towards me; in my pain-filled darkness I could feel his breath on my cheek.
‘I have to twist your arm so that it fits back into the socket of your shoulder, miss. It will hurt, but it will be better for you when it is done.’
I could say neither yes nor no. If I could have spoken I would have begged him to leave me alone.
‘Best go out, Dandy,’ Robert said. I was glad he was thinking of her.
I listened intently and I heard her footstep go to the door and the click of the latch. The surgeon took hold of my hand; my fist was clenched against the pain, and Robert took hold of my aching shoulders. They twisted hard with sudden force and the pain and the shock of it made me scream aloud until the darkness swallowed me up and everything was gone again.
Next time when I awoke I knew where I was. My eyes were still bruised tight shut but I could smell the lavender scent on the sheets, and I could feel the lightness of the room on my swollen eyelids. In the garden I could hear a solitary robin singing a rippling dancing tune. Some of the pain had gone. The shoulder felt better, as he had promised me it would. The eyes were eased with pads of something cool and wet. My head ached as if it had been pounded like a drum; but in the middle of my pain I smiled. I was alive.
I had truly thought that I was going to die. Yet here I was, under sweet-smelling linen sheets, with winter sunlight on my closed eyelids. Alive – able to care for Dandy, to keep her safe. Able to smell the clear scent of lavender. I felt my bruised face turn upwards in a little smile.
‘Don’t know what you’ve got to smile about.’ Robert Gower spoke gruffly, he was sitting somewhere at my head. He had been so quiet I had thought myself in the room alone.
‘I’m alive,’ I said. It came out as a rasping croak, but I could at least speak.
‘You are,’ he said. ‘You’re the luckiest little kitten which ever escaped a drowning, Meridon. I thought you were dead when I saw David bringing you into the kitchen with blood everywhere and your arm hanging as if it were broken. Mrs Greaves shrieking, Dandy crying and hollering at David. David cursing himself and all of us for not listening to you! The whole thing was a damned nightmare, and now here you are looking like a wagon drove over you, and smiling as if you are happy!’
My smile stretched a little broader at that, but broke off in a wince as my neck hurt me. ‘I am happy,’ I said hoarsely. ‘Is Dandy all right?’
Robert made a little ‘tsk’ noise of impatience. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘She’s down in the kitchen eating her dinner. I said I’d sit with you while they ate.’
I said nothing, and we sat in silence for long minutes while the robin sang outside in the garden and the shadows on my eyelids grew darker.
Then I felt a gentle touch, as soft as a robin’s feather on the clenched fingers of my hand.
‘I am sorry, Meridon,’ Robert said softly. ‘I would not have had you hurt for the world. We’re all sorry that you went up. You need never go up again. I’ll get a poorhouse girl tomorrow to start training. You can stick with the horses.’
I shut my eyes on that thought and started the slide into sleep where my bruises would not hurt me and the smell of lavender might make me dream of Wide. I heard, as if from a long way away, Robert whisper: ‘Good-night, my brave little Merry.’ Then I thought I felt – but I must have been mistaken – the featherlight touch of lips on my clenched fist.
He was as good as his word and I heard from David and from Dandy that the workhouse girl started the next day. She was chosen because she had been a farm worker in wheat country – a lifetime of heaving stooks had given her hard muscles in her belly and arms. David also told me (though Dandy, notably, did not) that she looked ravishing up high on the pedestal. She had long blonde hair which she let fly free behind her. She had no fear of heights and no nerves, and though she started a whole month behind the other two she was swinging from the high trapeze and doing the simplest of tricks into the net within a few weeks.
The surgeon had ordered me to rest and I was glad to lie still. My face was awful. I had two black eyes which closed so tight that for the first three or four days I was fully stone blind. I had broken my nose when my knees cracked up into my face, and for the rest of my life it would be slightly skewed.
It was many days before I was able to walk down across the field to see them working. I passed the horses on the way and saw Sea in the far corner of the field, his coat a deep grey shimmer. Robert had promised me that no one would touch him while I was ill. He might grow a little wilder, but he would have no fresh memories of rough handling. He was fed with the other horses, and brought indoors when nights were cold. But while Robert trained them and taught them their new tricks, Sea was left out in the field.