Joe burst out laughing. "Nothing,” he said. He put his hand to his face and pulled out his glass eye. “Like to hold it, would you?”
He was about to put the glass eye back when he heard a young girl’s voice calling him by his name. He spun around to see where she could be.
“Did you hear that?” said Joe. “She was calling me.”
Then the sweet voice called again. They had no idea what she was saying, except that this time it was Sam who recognized his name.
“How about that? She’s calling me too. She sounds French, she does.”
Yann called out, “
Mon ami
. If you understand what I am saying just answer
oui
.”
“Yes,” mumbled the actor.
“
N’ayez pas peur
. Don’t be afraid. Just tell them I am keen to meet them. When the moment’s right, try and get free. I will say
Allez!
When you hear that, move.”
“What’s she saying?” said Sam in a state of great excitement.
“I can tell you, good sirs, if you would do me the honor of removing the knife from my neck.”
Joe put down his weapon. “Tell us then, in as few words as possible.”
“My French is a little rusty, but surprising as it seems she sounds mighty keen to meet you gentlemen,” said the actor.
“Hey, hey!” said Sam. “What else is she saying?”
“She says she’s lonely and would like some kind gentleman to keep her company and buy her a drink.”
“We’re in luck,” said Joe.
“I tell you she’s mine. I heard her first,” said Sam.
His friend spat on his glass eye and polished it on his sleeve. “Give me a chance to get my looks back in, and then, when she sees us, she can take her pick.”
The girl spoke again. “Are you ready?”
At that moment, apparently out of nowhere, Yann appeared. The two rogues were so startled that Yann was able to snatch Joe’s looks from him before disappearing into the fog again.
“Hey, give that back unless you want me to wring your wretched little neck,” cried Joe.
The sweet-voiced girl suddenly spoke again. “When I throw the glass eye, you are to make a run for it.”
“What’s she saying now?” asked Sam.
“She’s asking what keeps you so long,” said the actor, hardly believing that the gods could have been so kind as to send this angel.
Yann shouted,
“Allez!”
and threw the glass eye up into the air. Both men together made to catch it, as Mr. Trippen, free of their clutches, ran for his life, swiftly followed by Yann. Once back in the main square they both stopped, the actor holding a pillar and gasping for breath.
“My dear young sir, I cannot thank you enough for your bravery in the face of such terrifying and, may I add, murderous villains. May I ask the name of my savior?”
“Yann Margoza.”
“I have to report,” Mr. Trippen carried on, standing up, “I have to report that I felt my dying moment upon life’s tentative stage had come. Its drama in its myriad forms rushed before my misty eyes, my courage slipping from me like a shadow when I thought of my darling Mrs. Trippen and the young Trippens all left fatherless.”
“Do you always use so many words?” asked Yann, smiling.
“They are like bonbons for the tongue, my young friend.” He took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. “Lucky, weren’t we, about the young girl being there. I can’t imagine what she saw in those two rogues. But I can assure you that the fairer sex is one of life’s mysteries, a folly of Mother Nature’s creation, for never has there been anything more delightfully irrational and tantalizing upon the face of the earth than woman. If it were not for Delilah, Samson and the temples would still have stood; if it were not for Cleopatra, Caesar—”
"’Allo!”
came a voice. “Why did you run away so quickly?”
Mr. Trippen spun around, his face pale. “Alas, my young man, she has followed us. Those two ruffians will be here in a moment. I tell thee, young sir, we are undone!”
“Didn’t you realize?” said Yann. He began to laugh. “That was me pretending to be a woman.”
“No! That is incredible,” said Mr. Trippen. “Why, my dear sir, I had no idea I was talking to a fellow thespian.” He looked earnestly at Yann. “I see now a touch of the Hamlet about you. A noble yet tragic face. Where did you learn to speak such excellent French?”
“In France,” said Yann.
“You are French?” said Mr. Trippen, surprised.
Yann nodded.
“And English is not, I take it, your native language?”
“No. I have just started to exercise my tongue with it,” said Yann with a chuckle.
“A natural, a born natural.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Yann. “I wish you a safe journey home. Good night.”
“Wait, wait my dear young friend, not so fast. Mrs. Trippen would never pardon me if I didn’t bring my savior home for supper.”
“At this hour?” asked Yann.
“Why, this is the hour, sir, when the Trippens gather after the curtain has fallen on the day, to mull over an actor’s life, to reminisce of days gone by, helped in no small part by a good port wine. My wife, having danced the Fairy Queen tonight at Sadlers Wells, will, I believe, have a chicken simmering in its juices on the fire, the bottle, ruby red, breathing in the air.”
Up to that moment Yann had forgotten quite how hungry he was. The thought of the chicken simmering away was enough to make him say yes.
They walked toward the Strand together.
Mr. Trippen looked as pleased as punch with himself and did not stop singing:
“Hey ho the wind and the rain,
For the rain it raineth every day”
all the way home.
The Trippens lived in a ramshackle house in Maiden Lane, a cul-de-sac that ran parallel to the Strand. Mrs. Trippen was a little sparrow of a woman, and the four Trippen children ranged in age from nine downwards. The youngest was screaming at the top of his lungs in a crib made out of a box on which the words
Seville Oranges
were written. Clothes hung halfway across the room, but apart from the orange box and a few baskets, it appeared empty of all furniture. Mrs. Trippen, standing over the range stirring a pot, looked as if she had been crying, while the three older Trippens were standing in the doorway in descending height with tragic looks printed across their small faces.
“Why, love of my life, the apple of my eye, the rosebud of my bosom! Where are the table and chairs? Where is the cupboard?”
Yann didn’t wait to be introduced. He went over to where the baby lay red and near hoarse with screaming and picked the little thing up, rocking him back and forth until peace was restored.
“The bailiffs,” said Mrs. Trippen, when at last she could be heard above the din, “have taken the beds and all the furnishings of our humble lives.”
“Not the chicken! Pray tell me they did not take the chicken, or for that matter the ruby wine.”
“No,” wept Mrs. Trippen, “but the shadow of the debtors’ prison once more looms over our heads.”
“We are not to despair,” said Mr. Trippen firmly. “Tonight could have ended in tragedy. Mrs. Trippen, you could have been widowed and our children left fatherless if it hadn’t been for that young Hamlet there holding the baby.”
At this momentous news Mrs. Trippen threw herself into her husband’s arms and swooned, reviving when smelling salts were administered. The children, obviously well-used to walking furniture and late-night meals, fetched more boxes while their father went outside and brought in a spare door, laying it across the crates to make a table. A sheet was thrown over that, and with the children and adults perching at various heights on a mixture of crates and baskets, the family sat down to eat. At one o’clock the meal was finished and the three Trippen children had fallen fast asleep in the next room while the baby slept contented in his orange box.
Yann lay on the floor by the burning embers of the fire, stretched out on his back, his head on his hands, and thought how strange that one event can change a life. One stupid mistake and another path is closed.
The bells rang out on the hour, every hour, in the quietness of the night. In that topsy-turvy house he came to regret bitterly the opportunities that had been given him and not taken.
The next morning Henry Laxton was to be found in his study in Queen Square, looking tired and anxious. He had been out half the night searching for Yann and now, washed and shaved, he was staring out of the window and drinking his black coffee.
Vane, the valet, who had also been out looking, brought in a bundle tied up with string.
“Any news?”
“I have just retrieved this, sir,” he said, unrolling Yann’s coat.
“Dear God, don’t tell me you found that lying in the gutter?”
“No, sir, in a pawnshop. It appears that young Master Margoza managed to get a fair sum for it this morning.”
Henry Laxton laughed out loud with relief. “Then at least the boy hasn’t been robbed or knifed, or worse. Do you know where he is?”
“This, sir, is the address he gave the pawnbroker. Maiden Lane.”
Henry Laxton arrived at the house to find Mr. Trippen sitting on an upturned crate. A fire was blazing away and the room had a pleasing aroma of hot buttered toast; Yann, having gotten up early to pawn his coat, had bought provisions. Mr. Trippen was flabbergasted to see such a fine gentleman standing in the doorway and regretted much that he hadn’t, as planned, gotten dressed, but was still to be found in his battered housecoat and cap.
“You find me at a disadvantage, sir,” he said, bowing.
Mr. Laxton handed him his card and Mr. Trippen read it with interest. The word
banker
danced before him.
“I believe that you have a young man staying with you who goes by the name of Yann Margoza.”
“I have that privilege, sir, and a finer and more talented young person I have yet to meet.”
“I take it, then, he is not here?”
“No sir, he has taken the young Trippens out for the benefits of fresh air and—”
Mr. Laxton interrupted him. “The young man is in my charge.”
“Of course, sir. I am in no way kidnapping him, I can assure you of that. By Jupiter, sir, he saved my life! A brave one is that boy, sir, a young Hamlet, indeed a Henry the Fifth on the battlefield of Agincourt.”
With many theatrical gestures that near exhausted him, Mr.Trippen related what had happened in Covent Garden. Henry Laxton found himself warming to the actor, and an idea came to him.
“I am unfortunate, Mr. Trippen, in that unlike you I am not a father.”
“Three girls, and one son and heir.”
“You are a lucky man indeed. I wish my wife and I had been so blessed. I wonder, sir, if I might confide in you?”
“By all means! Discretion is my middle name.”
Mr. Laxton told the actor as much as he thought he needed to know about Yann’s background and the death of Têtu.
“He was placed in my care. I found him a tutor, a Mr. Rose, who, unknown to me, saw fit to try and beat the spirit out of him.”
“I should think his petals were sent flying.”
“Knocked out cold,” said Mr. Laxton, smiling at the memory of all the chaos Yann had caused.
Mr. Trippen clapped his hands with delight. “In my humble experience, the cane only teaches the child to loathe the tutor, despise the lesson, and scorn all the benefits that education might bring.”
“I entirely agree,” said Mr. Laxton. “Tell me, how would you go about teaching such a boy as Yann?”
“I would never keep him tied to a desk. That way nothing would be learned. No, I would show him London, take him to galleries, the theater; fire his imagination. Then when it caught I would tell him about the magic of books. Never let him become bored, sir.”
Mr. Laxton listened while taking in the lack of any furniture.
“Forgive me,” said Mr. Trippen, suddenly changing the subject and looking dejected. “You catch the great Touchstone at a considerable embarrassment.” He waved his hand around the room by way of explanation.
“Have you just moved here, and are waiting for your possessions to arrive, or are you in the process of leaving?” asked Mr. Laxton.
“Neither, sir,” said Mr. Trippen. “I am between tides, so to speak. You know the expression ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men.’ In my case the tide was not taken. I was recently given the opportunity to be a full-time tutor. I turned it down, believing the stage to be my one and only true calling. A foolish moment. Now, alas, debt’s dagger hangs over me.”
“I have a proposition to put to you,” said Mr. Laxton, “and if the idea suits, it may be one way out of your little difficulty with the debt and may help me with the boy.”
“Sir,” said Mr. Trippen, sitting bolt upright, “I am all ears.”
Yann returned with the little Trippens to find the house remarkably quiet. The girls ran upstairs giggling, followed by Yann carrying the sleeping baby, and entered the room to see their parents seated on boxes, both looking solemnly ahead of them as if they were in church on Sunday, their attention held by a gentleman who was leaning on the mantelpiece. It was Mr. Laxton.
Yann stood there feeling stupid and embarrassed, as Mr. Trippen ushered his little family out of the room and left them together. He was thinking so hard about what to say that it took him a moment to realize that Mr. Laxton was already talking.
“I owe you an apology, Yann. I underestimated you. I didn’t understand what Mr. Cordell meant when he said Têtu had told him you were talented. It was my stupidity not to see that straightaway.”
Whatever Yann had been expecting to hear, this was most definitely not it. Mr. Laxton’s kindness floored him. He looked up and was amazed to see genuine concern in the man’s tired face.
Finally Yann said what he had thought he would never admit to anyone, least of all to Mr. Laxton.
“I bitterly regret leaving as I did. My only excuse is that I thought you would be better off without me.”