The Laxtons took no notice whatsoever of the gossip, and employed another tutor who had no more control over Yann than the dreadful Mr. Rose. He lasted only a month before storming out of the house, announcing that the boy was unteachable.
Finally free of his tutors, Yann took to leaving the house without permission and going off by himself to explore London. The vulgar tongue of the streets began to intrigue him: It was a stewpot of words and sounds that he was hungry to taste. It took him no time to speak these earthy words with a near-perfect Cockney accent.
All attempts at keeping him at home failed. Locked doors and high windows were no barrier to him. He would frequently climb down the side of the house at night without being noticed by the night-watchman. He had always found the darkness friendly: It was like a huge overcoat, one he was well used to wearing. He could see almost as clearly in the dark as in the day, and had never understood people’s fear of it.
For all the trouble Yann caused the Laxtons, they could not help liking the boy. There was nothing timid in his nature. He was fearless, stood up and fought, despised injustice, and cared little about the injuries he received. Mr. Rose was an ass of a man for not seeing how clever the boy was. Anyone who had a tongue that could master English this quickly was no fool. Têtu had been right when he told Cordell the boy had talent. The problem lay in how to make him see the opportunities he was merrily throwing away.
Mrs. Laxton understood better than her husband what Yann felt. She too had been sent near mad by grief, and it was the memory of what she had gone through that made her brave.
Late one foggy March night she waited in Yann’s room for him to come back from one of his escapades. He looked sheepish as he climbed through the window to see her sitting there in the dark. He was certain he was going to be punished. Instead she lit a candle and invited him to sit down.
“What is it you want?” she asked.
“To go back to Paris.”
“Why?”
“I want to find out what happened to Têtu.”
“You know what happened, he was shot. It was a terrible tragedy for you. Why do you think he sent you here?”
Yann shrugged his shoulders.
“No, that won’t do,” she said sharply. “You are a clever boy. Now, tell me again.”
“To learn to speak English, and I can now.”
“You have the accent of the street and the manners of a ruffian. Your friend Têtu went to Mr. Cordell and told him you were talented, that you deserved to be given an opportunity, that there was a lot more to you than meets the eye. What I have seen is a stubborn, unhappy Gypsy who is too wrapped up in himself to see what his friend sacrificed for him.”
“I am a Gypsy,” said Yann through gritted teeth, realizing that he was about to break down. “I don’t belong here, not in your world. Not in all this softness. Not imprisoned by walls—”
“When I was nine my mother died,” Mrs. Laxton interrupted. “She was very pious, and I believed that the only reason she had left me was because I had been naughty. I was lucky; I had a loving older sister who helped me to understand that she hadn’t left me behind for anything I had done.” She leaned forward and touched Yann’s hand. “It’s not your fault Têtu died. You couldn’t have caught the bullet; you are not a magician.”
Yann felt burning hot tears sting the corners of his eyes.
“I should have stayed with him—I shouldn’t have run.”
He was suddenly aware that Mr. Laxton was standing in the doorway, listening.
“Stayed to be killed,” Mr. Laxton said. “That would have been a waste.”
“We are here to help you,” said his wife softly, “but you refuse to let even a chink of light into that dark space in your head.”
“I don’t want anything from you. I don’t want your help. I never wanted to come here!” Yann was shouting now, so angry at the tears that wouldn’t stop rolling down his face, joining together under his chin. “Save your money and save your pity. I want none of it!”
Blast the tears, why didn’t they stop?
“The door is open. If you want to go back to Paris, go,” said Henry Laxton. “I am not your jailer. You are not a slave, you are a free man.”
Yann bolted down the stairs two at a time. He pushed past the startled doorman and out into the foggy night air.
Henry Laxton leaned over the banisters and watched him go. “Well, that’s that. What a fine mess we’ve made.”
His wife put her arms around him. “Mon chéri,” she said, “don’t despair. I promise you, this is not the end. It is just the beginning.”
chapter thirteen
If ann only stopped running when he reached Seven Dials. The sound of his feet on the pavement was the drumbeat that finally calmed him down. Gasping for breath he leaned against the corner of a building, grateful for the thick fog, and laughed out loud at his own stupidity. Well, he thought bitterly, I can’t go back there again.
He felt certain that the Laxtons would be mighty pleased to be rid of him. Mrs. Laxton had called him a Gypsy! He was a Gypsy. What did any of it matter now? He pulled the collar of his coat up, the biting cold tickling its way through the seams. He could hear around him the distorted voices of people sounding as if they were underwater, their words swimming before them, their owners following, appearing out of the fog like phantoms before disappearing again.
As the cold found its way into his bones it dawned on him exactly how alone he was. Like a small pebble on a stony beach.
He shook his head. He had been a complete fool. What did he have? Nothing, just the clothes he stood up in, not a penny to his name. He looked down at his coat. In the morning he would pawn it. That should give him some money, at least enough for a day or so. For the time being he would just have to keep on walking.
He made his way toward Covent Garden, where the audiences were spilling out of the theaters. All those people, eager to be home! Sedan chairs vying for business, boasting how fast they went. Carriages lined up, horses snorting.
Maybe he should try to find work in the theater, though he wondered quite what he had to offer. The ability to throw his voice was surely not enough, not now that he couldn’t read minds. That gift had abandoned him. It belonged to another time.
The bells of St. Martin’s were chiming eleven o’clock as he walked away from the piazza. It was going to be a long, cold night.
On the last stroke he heard someone call out for help. It was a sharp, urgent cry that was strangled the minute it had found a voice.
Yann stopped and listened. It was the cry of a desperate man. The fog made it hard to work out where he was. He heard nothing more.
Then he caught the growl of voices coming from down an alleyway that smelled worse than the river Seine on a hot day. Through the fog a little way ahead of him he could make out two men who seemed to have a third man held hostage against the wall.
Yann moved quickly out of sight. The men didn’t notice him.
From what he could see, the one nearest him looked like a fish-eyed monster, his hand as wide as a shovel covering the third man’s mouth, while the second, a ratlike creature, egged him on.
“What have we got here, Sam?” said the fish-eyed monster.
“A gentleman in a fine coat!” leered Sam. “With shiny buckles on his shoes! Hey, Joe, I reckon we’ve caught ourselves a plum pudding of a gent!”
“Go on, take it off,” said Joe, taking his hand away from the gentleman’s mouth and pulling at the coat.
“Please, my dear commodious sirs,” cried the gentleman, “I am but a poor thespian and this is my humble costume. I wear it to trip the light fantastic and earn my meager bread and cheese. The buckles are nothing more than paste, for I am but a poor Malvolio whose yellow stockings are thus gartered.”
“You what?” said Sam.
“Let’s take him to Dr. Death,” said Joe. “He’ll shut him up. He pays handsome for a good healthy body, he does.”
All this was too much
for the actor, who let out a muffled moan. “My stars above, no I beg thee, let not my night’s candle be so rudely snuffed out. I implore you, gallant gentlemen, to spare me!”
Sam was now rifling through his pockets. “Nothing,” he said despairingly. “He ain’t got nothing, not even a penny.”
“Must be a bleeding actor, then.”
“My dear sir, my name is Mr. Trippen of Drury Lane. You aren’t going to kill the famous Touchstone the Clown, are you? Think what the papers will say.”
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, fetch
ed 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.