by Avi
Upon the farthest wall of the station, a huge clock with Roman numerals had been mounted. The time was eight-thirty-five.
“Follow me,” Mr. Clemspool said, wrapping one arm around Laurence so that the two of them moved in lockstep. Together, they made their way across a large crowded space amid bulky piles of boxes and trunks. Laurence saw many families—or so he thought they were—grouped around their possessions. He wondered if they too were going to America.
“There’s my friend,” Mr. Clemspool announced, deftly turning Laurence away so that the boy faced the way they had come. “Now, Master Worthy, I won’t be but a twinkling. You must remain right here.” He placed a firm hand on Laurence’s shoulder and squeezed. “Do not move!” he ordered in a severe voice. “I intend to keep my eye on you. Once I return, I’ll find a decent place for you to rest.”
Laurence stood where he was and began to eat the third bun. It was much easier to have someone make decisions for him.
But once he had eaten the bun, Laurence grew impatient. Not entirely pleased to be relegated to waiting, he glanced in the direction of the clock. Mr. Clemspool was still talking to the man he had referred to as his old friend. This gentleman was dressed in fashionable clothing that fairly glowed with newness. His tall top hat was brushed, his boots bright and shiny, his shoulder cape—with fur trimming on the collar—luxurious. One eye was covered with a patch.
Laurence fairly jumped. For one heart-plunging second, he thought he was looking at the scoundrel who had robbed him of his money in London the night before. He wished the man would turn so he could see his full face, but he did not. Then Laurence told himself this man could not possibly be the same person. That cad had been in London. This man was in Liverpool. The eye patch had to be merely a coincidence. Other men wore eye patches. Furthermore, the boy reminded himself, he had already made a number of bad judgments. He must make no more. With that thought, he made himself turn away.
Within moments Mr. Clemspool returned. “Very good then, Master Worthy,” he cried. “You’ve done exactly as you were told. I admire that in a young man. Now, I shall give all my attention to you!”
Leaving the station, they stepped out into Lime Street. Facing them was a colossal stone building with many huge columns, guarded by two massive sculptured lions. Laurence gasped.
“Saint George Hall,” Mr. Clemspool said with a casual wave of his hand, as if the building were an old acquaintance. “One of the marvels of this city of wealth!”
The building was as big as any Laurence had seen. Its size succeeded in making him acutely aware of his weakness and isolation.
Under Mr. Clemspool’s guidance, they turned left and came upon a thoroughfare full of carriages, wagons, carts. Buildings of dark stone were festooned with bright commercial signs proclaiming where agents, packagers, shippers, deliverers, and a hundred more services pertaining to the ocean trade might be found.
“Liverpool!” Mr. Clemspool announced with an expansive gesture. “The second city in England! Half a million people, Master Worthy! Not a place—to make my point precisely—you’d wish to be adrift on your own, eh?”
“No, sir,” Laurence replied truthfully.
At the curb, a row of hansom cabs waited for people emerging from the station. The first driver—a man with a stiff gray beard, a tall hat, and a long, trailing green scarf around his neck—peered down from his high perch. “All right, gents, where might you be going?”
“Royalton Hotel,” Mr. Clemspool called up. “Grove Street.”
The driver wrinkled his nose. “That boy there, he’s a bit dirty and bruised, ain’t he?”
Embarrassed, Laurence turned away.
“You are altogether correct,” Mr. Clemspool replied briskly. “It’s that wretched railroad. But be assured, my good man, there will be an extra shilling for you to wink the old eye.”
“Right-o!” the driver returned with newfound enthusiasm for dirty passengers.
Mr. Clemspool held open the carriage door for Laurence to get in, which the boy did. Mr. Clemspool took the seat by his side. “Almost there!” he enthused.
The driver made a clucking noise and flicked the reins. With a clatter of hooves, the horse trotted off.
As Laurence sank back in the upholstered seat, Mr. Clemspool lifted the carriage blanket and tucked it about the boy’s knees. The attention, the appropriateness of it, was all wonderfully familiar and comforting. This was life as Laurence knew it, as it should be.
With half-closed eyes, he considered his benefactor. He felt truly grateful to the man. But then, he told himself, why shouldn’t Mr. Clemspool be kind? Was he not merely treating him the way he’d been treated from his birth?
But as the cab bounced over the cobblestone streets, the image of the man with the eye patch drifted back into his mind. Laurence now regretted having turned away without studying the man’s face. He would have liked to feel reassured that this was not the man from London. But with a shudder and a shake of his head, he once again strove to dismiss the thought.
Mr. Clemspool noted the tremor. “You seem to be troubled by something,” he remarked solicitously. “Are you?”
“No, nothing,” Laurence replied, and shut his eyes. It was wrong, he told himself, to be suspicious of those who were treating you properly.
They soon reached the Royalton Hotel, a modest four-story brick building on a quiet street. Ordinary houses stood on either side. No great snarl of traffic or mobs of pedestrians crowded the way. Indeed, the place was quite isolated.
“Come along now,” Mr. Clemspool urged, holding Laurence’s arm firmly as he stepped from the cab. The boy was about to say there was no need to hold him so tightly when a uniformed attendant greeted them with a bow, called Mr. Clemspool by name, picked up his bag, and indicated the hotel door. Once inside, Mr. Clemspool let go of Laurence.
In the foyer was a table behind which sat a man, dressed formally. “Ah, Mr. Clemspool, sir,” he said as he rose to his feet, “so good to see you again.”
“Pleasure to be here,” Mr. Clemspool returned, lifting his hat. His bald head gleamed. “My son,” he announced, making a wave of his fingers that encompassed Laurence.
The man bowed. “Mr. Hudson at your service,” he said to Laurence.
“We’ve just come down by railroad from London,” Mr. Clemspool explained. “I must apologize for the boy’s condition. Quite filthy, I know. He tripped at the station. Made a terrible mess. Ruined his fine clothing and bruised his face. Indeed, I fear the lad is none too well. Quite exhausted and overwhelmed by it all, you see.”
A startled Laurence gazed at his protector. To be introduced as his son did not seem right. That was taking liberties. As for the reasons given … Laurence wished he were not so tired and disoriented. He hardly knew what to say.
Mr. Hudson seemed unconcerned. He made several references to previous visits, the weather, the tides, and inquiries as to the length of Mr. Clemspool’s stay, as well as the nature of the accommodations needed. “The usual?” he concluded by asking.
“Quite sufficient,” Mr. Clemspool returned.
In a matter of moments, Mr. Clemspool and Laurence were in their rooms. There were two rooms, both with beds. One was situated near the door, the other toward the back and reachable only by going through the first room.
“You shall stay there,” Mr. Clemspool said, indicating the second, farthest room. “It looks out on the street and is pleasant and bright. I shall take this one near the door. Will that be agreeable?”
“I’m sure,” said Laurence, bewildered by the ease of this business.
“I do hope you didn’t mind my saying you were my son, Master Worthy,” Mr. Clemspool offered with a generous swirl of his fingers, as if sweeping the air of cobwebs. “It saves explanations. For now, hasten yourself into bed. You don’t look well, my friend. I shall procure some real food and some proper clothing for you.”
Mr. Clemspool went on so briskly, Laurence had no time to respond. Besides,
the thought of a bed pushed all worries from his mind. He made his way into the farthest room. There, he used the basin and pitcher of water that stood upon a small table to wash his hands and face.
With a sigh, Laurence stripped himself of his dirty, tattered clothing, leaving them—as he usually did at home—in a pile on the floor. Then he slipped on the nightshirt that hung from a wall hook. Its softness was delightful. At last he crawled up on the high four-poster bed and crept deep beneath the covers. The delicious smell of clean cotton sheets was luxuriant. The fluffiness of three goose-down pillows, the gentle weight of wool blankets … like home.
Mr. Clemspool poked his head in at the door. “Comfy?” he inquired sweetly.
“Oh, yes, sir,” Laurence purred with contentment. His eyes were already half-closed.
“Master Worthy,” Mr. Clemspool announced as he came another step into the room, “I shall leave you to get some food.” Glancing at Laurence and seeing that the boy’s eyes were shut, he swooped up the soiled clothing. With practiced hands, he patted it down, finding and removing what remained of the money, then left the clothing on the floor where it had been.
Laurence, suspecting nothing, lay snug in bed. Half-asleep, he listened to the click of the lock in the door as Mr. Clemspool left the room. Did the locking bother him? Not at all. A locked door meant he was cared for, safe. Moreover, the sweetness of the bed proved to be so blissful that a sleep of total confidence was not long in coming.
Don’t cry, Maura,” Patrick pleaded. He was blaming himself for getting them into such a dreadful place. “You mustn’t. We won’t be here long,” he promised. “We won’t.”
Even as he spoke, the man who had been reading stood up. “Welcome, welcome, welcome,” he called across the dirt floor. “Do not loose hope,” he added. “As the poet said, ‘True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings; Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.’ Richard Three.”
The very brightness of the greeting in such dismal surroundings made Patrick think the man was not in his right mind. But Maura momentarily forgot her wretchedness. She turned to consider the speaker.
He was a long, lanky man—thirty or so, she guessed—with so little flesh upon his bones that when he stood it seemed more an unfolding than a rising. His smile was as wide as his face. His large brown eyes and a thatch of straw-colored hair hanging like a tasseled curtain over his face and ears conspired to create the look of a simple fellow.
“My dears,” the man said in a deep singsong voice, “you are distressed. The truth is, none of us would be here if we were not so.” He spread his arms wide enough to encompass the whole world. “Do tell me,” he coaxed, “what are the particulars of your grief?”
“Forgive us, sir,” Maura said, ashamed to have been caught weeping against the wall. “We’re emigrants just off the boat. We meant to go to the Union House but were informed it had burned to the ground the night before. There was nowhere else to go but here.”
“Ah-ha!” cried the man dramatically. “Who provided you with that information?”
“The fellow who brought us here,” Maura explained. “No doubt he was meaning to be kind.”
“Kind!” the tall man reacted with scorn. “If you trusted in that, you would believe the new year starts four times with each season because someone told you so. Let me assure you, my dear, that the Union House stood yesterday, stands today, and will stand tomorrow.”
“But he told us—”
The man held up his long-fingered hands to cut Maura off. “My dear young lady, they will tell you anything.”
“Who will?” Patrick asked, alarmed.
“The runners, dear boy, the runners. Like rats, they infest Liverpool.” He wiggled his fingers like the galloping legs of a rodent. “Some work alone. Some are paid by houses. Others join associations. They will do anything to get people like you to lodge where it’s profitable for them. Perfectly legal but most unfortunate. Believe me, there are hundreds of establishments such as this.”
“But why?” Patrick said, beginning to grasp the extent of his folly in listening to Mr. Toggs.
“To get your money,” the man replied. “And they’ll keep you here until it’s gone or you’re in debt. Then, dear friends, you shall never leave.”
Maura covered her face with her hands.
“Are you saying, sir,” Patrick asked with growing resentment, “that this Mr. Toggs lied to us?”
“I know nothing about Mr. Toggs in the particular, but of course he lied,” the man exclaimed with a grandiose gesture of arm and hand. “For a runner to tell the truth would be as miraculous as for the sun to shine at midnight. Avoid him and all his kind. I presume you are on your way to America.”
Maura and Patrick nodded.
“I need hardly have asked. Nor did your Mr. Toggs. If you unfurled a banner that read ‘Going to America!’ it would be no easier to see. And from Ireland too, I’ll venture. Of course you are,” he added as the O’Connells nodded a second time. “But then most of Ireland and much of Germany and Scotland are going. All by way of Liverpool. All innocent lambs ready to be shorn of wool!
“My dears, I can guarantee it: You are not likely to see that young man again!” As if he had finished a speech on a stage, the man took a bow.
Patrick appealed to Maura with a look that begged forgiveness. Though she would not say, “I told you so,” she would not forgive him either. Instead she turned away.
“But then,” the man continued in his cheerful way, “you have gotten to Liverpool. And now that you are here, we must get you out. You’ve met Mrs. Sonderbye, I presume?”
“Was she the woman who took our money?” Maura asked wearily.
“You describe her to perfection!” exclaimed the man with glee. “Mrs. Sonderbye is a force to be reckoned with.
“But forgive me,” he said suddenly, folding himself into another bow. “I’ve forgotten my courtesy. My name”—he touched his narrow chest—“is Horatio Drabble, actor. Late of London and the provincial stages, intent upon refurbishing my career in America. Mind, I do only Shakespeare, he who—as Johnson said—‘was not of an age but for all time.’
“I do all the principal tragical parts,” Mr. Drabble went on. “Richard Three. ‘Now is the winter of our discontent.’ King Lear. ‘Blow, winds, crack your cheeks!’ Hamlet. ‘To be or not to be, that is the question!’ Macbeth. ‘Is this a dagger I see before me, its handle toward my hand?’” With every phrase, Mr. Drabble struck a different dramatic pose.
“But,” he continued apace, “since I have—at the moment—no proper stage to perform upon, I make every moment a performance.” Mr. Drabble bowed as if expecting applause. When he received none—only stares of puzzlement from Maura and Patrick—he merely went on with the same good cheer as before. “But come along, my dears, we’ve got some mostly dry straw here. You can settle right down and be one with us.”
Mr. Drabble fluffed up some rotten straw with his hands. “There,” he offered, patting the top of the heap, “have a seat.”
Patrick sat next to Mr. Drabble. After a moment Maura joined him.
“I’d offer tea and cake,” the actor confided as he pushed the hair out of his eyes, “but the truth is, I have nothing but my talent. Have no fear, though. Dinner will be served eventually. I suggest we sup together, but first, might I beg the privilege of your names?”
“If you please, sir, my name is Patrick O’Connell. And this is my sister, Maura.”
“Patrick and Maura. Excellent!” Mr. Drabble returned. “We’ve got a Bridgit here as well as a Sarah, Nell, and Kathleen. Then there is John, Roger, Godfrey, Brian, Jonathan, Peter, and Sean.” He pointed to each person, whether awake or asleep. “Mostly from your Ireland. If you stay long enough—which I earnestly pray you do not—you’ll know us as well as we’ll know you.”
“Mr. Drabble,” Maura said stoutly, “we’re intending to go to America in a couple of days.”
“We have tickets,” Patrick said.
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Mr. Drabble quickly put a thin finger to his lips and leaned forward. “Be careful what you say, dear boy,” he whispered while glancing around at the other inhabitants of the basement.
“Once,” he said, keeping his voice low, “we all had tickets. Don’t you think a ticket is a metaphor for life? Who is born who does not have a ticket to somewhere? Alas, our tickets are lost or stolen. Gone, like so much confetti. Believe me, Liverpool is swollen with people without tickets. But enough, I wish to hear your story, truly.”
Patrick was more than willing to relate all that had happened from the time their father left Ireland to their own arrival in Liverpool, including their meeting with Ralph Toggs.
Mr. Drabble, who listened intently throughout, sighed when it was done. “My dears, may I offer some advice?”
“Please, sir,” returned Maura, “we’d be much obliged.”
“Many people—myself included—are eager to go to America. Thousands do. But not these,” Mr. Drabble said while gesturing to the others in the basement. “Not I.”
“Faith then, sir, why not?” Maura asked.
“Poverty,” Mr. Drabble replied. “It brought us here. It keeps us here. To be without money in Liverpool is to be lost. People pour into this city ready, nay, desperate, to go abroad. America. Canada. Australia. Ah, but this”—he used his hands to encompass the basement—“is a money trap. The longer you stay, the less likely it is you will leave, for your money will be siphoned away. If you are to meet your father as planned, we must act quickly! You said you have tickets. For what ship?” he whispered. “When?”
“The Robert Peel,” Maura answered low. “It will be sailing in two days’ time.”
“God willing, we shall have you on it,” Mr. Drabble said earnestly. “And I shall salute you from the quay. Of course, there is a medical exam to be accomplished first. You must have that.”
“We didn’t know,” Maura said, quite alarmed.
“Not a thing to fear, my dear. But it must be done else your tickets won’t be stamped. Without a stamp, you can’t get on your boat. Many don’t know till it’s too late. I myself shall take you to the place where the exam is done. But for now, I think you need some rest.”