Sat, May 19 2012
Role Reversal (an Action Workshop Scheme) part 0/?
"Now, lads, let's not be hasty," Phileas Fogg said nervously, grateful that at least he did not stammer. His breath came white in the chill November air – just past sundown, it would freeze, before morning. "I'm sure that everything can be straightened out easily enough with a simple – explanation – "
But the techniques of misdirection and persuasion that had served him so well growing up in Lesser Great Barnardshire (in Cumberland) did not work as well on these city toughs as they had on plowmen and even tinkers. Phileas could see out of the corner of his eye that one of the four had moved as Phileas himself had moved, to cover Phileas' right; that left two in front of him, and one on his left, and nothing at his back except for a cold wet wall. Stinking, to boot, and the London city stink was different from the stink of Phileas' home, and a good deal less salubrious. No trees, either, on whose lower branches he might hope to swing and gain an advantage there. He was in for it; and by the looks of it, what he was in for was more than a simple beating, but what had he done?
"Pretty boy is a pretty talker, an't he?" one of the men growled. He sounded amused, to Phileas, but Phileas had a pretty fair idea that whatever the joke was he wasn't going to like it. "Asks too many questions, though, about things that don't concern him. Prying into the affairs of his betters, he is. We think he needs a bit of education."
As though the deacon had not taught Phileas his letters well enough. Phileas didn't bother to reply, trying to make up his mind what he was going to do next. He'd been ganged up on before, from time to time, but this was serious. No broken bit of wood or discarded broom to use as an extemporized weapon, no, not in London, not in these glory years of Victoria's rule when every scrap of rag or wood that might be found discarded was gleaned up to warm yet another of the army of the dispossessed that had swallowed up his sister. It was just him, and four of them. If he let them lay hands on him it might be the end – Rebecca's trail would have gone hopelessly cold by the time he would be able to pick it up again, if they did not kill him outright, if he didn't die of the beating that seemed sure to come –
"Education?"
The voice was clear and firm and pleasantly tenor in pitch, and came out of the darkness with a suddenness that seemed to disconcert Phileas' attackers as much as it surprised Phileas himself. He hadn't realized that there was somebody there. Neither, as it seemed, had the four men; they simply stood and stared as a man came strolling with confident ease out of the shadows, talking as he came. "I've an interest in education. Especially in the rural areas, Cumberland, I think? What's your name, boy?"
Phileas froze where he stood in mid-step, having taken the opportunity that the distraction represented to move himself into a position between the man on his left and the wall. He hoped and prayed that the four men hadn't noticed, that the man who had interrupted wouldn't call attention to his ploy. Seemed to be a gentleman, by his clothing, but surely not much more than a boy himself? Not a tall man, but solid, and so beautifully dressed. "Fogg," Phileas said, and had to swallow hard to get the spit to speak. "Phileas Fogg, if you please, sir. What's yours?"
Had he really said that? He couldn't believe that he'd really said that. The young toff laughed, and he really did look not one year older than Phileas' own twenty-three years, when he laughed. "Phileas Fogg. From Cumberland. You're hired on to Branson's crew at the Odeon, I think, Frankie? Am I right?"
Whoever he was, he had set them all off right and proper, and Phileas couldn't help but admire the ease and smoothness with which it had been done. Those men had been ready to beat him half to death, just moments gone past. And now they all struck Phileas as nothing less than four school-boys caught with their mitts in the buttermilk.
"That's right, Mr. Verne, sir. One of Harker's plays, but if you've got one coming up I'll leave him in a minute for the chance – "
Verne. There was something very vague in the back of Phileas' mind that told him that a Verne person was involved in the theaters, here in London – all over Europe, perhaps. Maybe Rebecca had run away to the theaters. Maybe this Verne person could help Phileas find his sister.
"If you mean to have a chance to work on Harker's play you will go on about your own business," Verne said, and there was no mistaking that tone of chill command. "If you hope to work in any plays in London ever again, you'll present yourself at my kitchen door by ten o'clock tomorrow morning, with a full report. I'll deal with your pupil. Run along."
It was as though they had forgotten all about Phileas; they hardly spared a glance for him. One by one they filed out of the alleyway, pressing themselves against that noxious filthy wall to avoid offending the gentleman by touching the elbow of his garment; when they were gone the gentleman pulled something out of his breast pocket, and hunted around for some utensil or another, and struck a flame. A cigar. The gentleman was smoking a cigar.
"And now you," the gentleman said. His voice was perfectly calm, perfectly cordial, but Phileas had seen what had just happened and could not relax. Had he only gone from the frying pan to the fire? "What am I to do with you, young Fogg? I think you'd better come with me and tell me all about it. Whatever it is. The back- alleys of London are no place for a farm-boy to be wandering in the middle of the night."
Phileas heartily agreed. There was only one thing that could ever have drawn him into such a place, and that was the same thing that meant that he could not do as the gentleman suggested, whether or not going with the gentlemen to tell him all about it was a better fate or a worse one than being beaten and left for dead by four toughs. "Thank you all the same, sir," Phileas said. "I'm very much obliged to you. But I can't afford to take the time, you see, sir. I don't know what they've done with Rebecca but I know that I'm closer to finding her, and I must find her, sir, you understand. She's my own sister."
"Now, now," the gentleman laughed. Stepping forward he took Phileas by the arm and turned to go out of the alley. He had a grip like a blacksmith's; it was astonishing. "It was not a suggestion. I need to get you into safe haven before Frankie and the boys report back to their master, so just come along with me and don't give any trouble, and we'll see that you get fed. Phew. And washed. Isn't that right, Jean?"
"I am not knowing how we are going to fit this climbing-pole," someone – Jean, clearly enough – said dubiously, from the shadows behind Phileas. It made Phileas jump near out of his skin. "We will have to be wrapping him in a sheet."
He was a significant degree taller than Mr. Verne, that was true, but clearly at the disadvantage. And it was also true that he hadn't stopped for three days, not since he'd gotten to London, not since he'd found the first person who remembered a pretty girl with a sharp tongue and the most amazing flame-red hair. "My sister," Phileas insisted, knowing better than to try to wrest his arm from the gentleman's cordial grip but doing his best to dig his heels into the dirt of the alley's pavement. "She'll be lost. She's my sister. I can't, sir. Please, Mr. Verne."
"If you're dead you'll be no good to yourself or your sister," Mr. Verne said cheerfully. "I'll make you a deal. You come with us and have a bite to eat and tell us all about it. Then we'll all go look for your sister. I have some sources of my own, maybe I could help."
And the man who went with the other voice had the unmistakable air of a man who could tie young men from the farm country into knots without thinking twice about it. Phileas' heart fell, and he fell with it as long days without food or drink or sleep caught up with him. All but unconscious on his knees in the alley-way Phileas had time to say no more than "Rebecca, love, I'm sorry," before the world went black.
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