Journey to the River Sea

The youth raised his eyebrows. ‘Who told you that?’ He turned to the noticeboard and took down an envelope. ‘Here – front row of the stalls. Saved for the police chief but he hasn’t turned up. Eaten by a croc, most likely.’

‘Would that be all right?’ asked Maia, not wanting to waste time in explaining about crocodiles on the Amazon. ‘But I don’t know if I’ve got enough money.’

She felt for her purse but the boy waved it away. ‘It’s free for friends of the company. Better hurry up, it’s started.’

Slipping into her seat, Maia was glad the theatre was dark. The twins couldn’t stop her coming exactly, but she didn’t want to be seen by them all the same.

Then in an instant she was in New York, in a grocer’s shop where little Cedric was talking to his friend the grocer about the wickedness of the aristocracy.

Clovis was good. He didn’t look seven of course – or even eight or nine – but in his sailor suit with his wig of long fair curls, he certainly looked like an appealing little boy. And his voice was steady – a clear, high treble. Maia could feel the children in the audience hanging on his words.

Now a gentleman from England came on stage – a lawyer rather like her own Mr Murray – and with him was Dearest, Cedric’s mother, who explained to her son that he was really a lord. Clovis was being very good about calling his mother Dearest – even better than on the boat.

Maia forgot her worries and settled down to enjoy the play. Soppy or not, Little Lord Fauntleroy was a good story, and when the little boy was given a lot of money which he gave to his poor friends and did not keep for himself, a great sigh went round the audience.

Maia stayed in her seat during the first interval, and kept her head down. The twins were several rows further back and hadn’t seen her, but she could hear them giggling about something and then nagging their mother to buy them some more chocolates.

In the second act, little Lord Fauntleroy and Dearest reach the great castle which he will inherit and Cedric melts the hard heart of the old aristocrat, his grandfather. In the book he also made friends with a large, fierce dog but the Goodleys had left the dog out which was a pity. It was really very touching how just by believing that his grandfather was a good man, Cedric was making him become good, and Maia wondered if it might work with the twins. If she really believed they were kind, would they become kind? By now Maia had forgotten all her anxieties; Clovis was really a very good actor and the audience was loving him.

The last act, as in most plays, is the exciting one. A wicked woman turns up at the earl’s castle and pretends that her son is the real Lord Fauntleroy. Of course it turns out not to be true, but everyone is very much upset, though Cedric, needless to say, behaves beautifully. When he thinks he may not be the real Lord Fauntleroy, Cedric doesn’t worry at all about not being rich and grand any more – all that worries him is the thought that his grandfather might stop loving him. And he turns to him and puts his hand on the old man’s knee and says, ‘Will I have to stop being your little boy?’

And it was on this moving sentence that it happened. Clovis turned his face to the old man, and began his speech – and suddenly his voice cracked. He stopped, tried again ... and this time he said, ‘Will I have to stop being your little boy?’ in a deep bass voice.

If no one had taken any notice, it would probably have righted itself. Everyone was on Clovis’ side. But the twins started it; they giggled and tittered; their titters grew louder, and then the other children who had held back joined in and in a moment the audience was laughing and the children were falling about. Not all of them. Not Netta, not Sergei ... certainly not Maia, who sat with her hand over her mouth.

But enough of them. Enough to go on jeering and laughing through the next two speeches – and then Clovis gave a gasp, and turned and ran away into the wings.

And the curtain came down.

Maia had been standing outside the stage door for half an hour. She had no idea how she was going to get home, but she couldn’t leave Clovis in this state of misery. Many of the actors had gone past, but not him. At last she pushed open the door. There was a babble of loud voices talking about cancellation, about financial losses and disaster and disgrace. Everyone was angry, everyone was in a state.

‘Can I see Clovis?’ she asked bravely, and they motioned with their heads to the stairs which led to the dressing rooms.

It took her a while to find him in the huge theatre, but at last she pushed open the right door and found her friend, face down on a couch, with his shoulders heaving.

‘Clovis, don’t! You mustn’t be like that. It’s something that can happen to anyone and you were terribly good until then.’

He sat up. His face was blotched; he was still crying.