‘Yes,’ I said. Then I put my finger on the one, last fear. ‘You are sure the old woman showed you how to stop a baby,’ I said. ‘And told you when you are safe to lie with a man?’

Dandy chuckled, a deep rich laugh and her blackberry eyes danced. ‘Oh aye,’ she said. ‘There’s a time when you cannot make a child, and a time when you will. There’s herbs which will help you do it, and herbs which will make it less likely. There’s some nasty stuff which turns your guts half inside out but washes a baby out if one is started. I know how to make sure I don’t get with child.’ Her black eyes teased me. ‘And how to get a belly on me if I wish it,’ she said.

‘You would not wish it,’ I said stiffly.

Dandy chuckled. ‘And let Katie be the only one up on the high trapeze in a pink stomacher, Meridon? You must be mad!’

13

February was freezing and cold. In early March there was a thaw but then it froze hard again. Robert made us work in all weathers and we all four grew bored and rebellious, but we kept our complaints to ourselves. We all set to costume and harness making, Mrs Greaves teaching Dandy and me to sew. We were less handy than either Jack or Katie. He had been making costumes and harness all his life and she had learned a speedy careless stitch in the poorhouse. Only Dandy and I puckered up the cheap silk with great ungainly running stitches where we should have hemmed. Time and time again Mrs Greaves made us rip it back and start at the beginning, until the fabric grew damp and grimy from handling.

‘It’ll wash,’ she said placidly when I complained that the costumes would be spoiled before we ever wore them.

Dandy and Jack had less time to be alone but generally they would offer to water the horses last thing at night and Katie and I would give them a clear half-hour to satisfy the horses’ and their own needs before we pulled shawls over our heads and ran out into the cold from the back door to the stable block.

I only asked Dandy about the progress of her love affair once; she never volunteered information. I thought it unlikely she would hold Jack for long, already he was flirting, furtive and roguish, with Katie while we sat around the kitchen table sewing. Dandy’s black eyes snapped at Katie but her smile to Jack was steady and sweet. I only spoke to her once in those long cold ten weeks. It was when I was tacking up the little ponies in the new harness and Dandy was there polishing the bells and fitting them on for me.

‘You can’t love him,’ I said positively.