Clopin did a different puppet show the next morning. Not a true story, as his tale of Quasimodo had been, but a fine tale all the same. Belle recognised the story from one of the books she'd read while living with her father in the village, before... the incident. Clopin was quite clever with the way he 'grew' the beanstalk for the story, and the children were all very impressed.
Belle was glad she had gotten to see it before she and her father left for the castle. They were to set out as soon as they had shared breakfast and hitched up Phillippe.
"Did you enjoy the tale?" Clopin asked Belle when she descended from her window and approached his after the children had dispersed.
"I did," she agreed with a smile. "I read that story in a book once," she admitted. "But the way you told it... You give such life to your performances," she praised with delight.
"I try," he said with a slight bow.
"Will you join us for breakfast again?" Belle asked hopefully.
Clopin took one of Belle's hands gently, and lay his other hand over the one of hers he had captured so lightly. "It would be a pleasure and an honour," he answered her.
"Papa and I leave Paris today," Belle said softly, eyes fixed on his gloved hands that held one of her own as though it were a captive butterfly.
"Ah," Clopin sighed sadly. "Everybody is leaving poor Trouillefou behind," he lamented. "First Frollo died, though I grant you, I shall not miss him. But yesterday the captain and Esmeralda decided that they would marry, and now you, Mademoiselle Leburinrusée, leave for your castle."
"You will still have Quasimodo," Belle offered in teasing comfort.
"Perhaps I should sequester myself away in the bell tower as he does," Clopin suggested with a melodramatic whisper. "For it seems I am so ugly that everybody runs away from me as well, even when I wear this mask all the time," he added, and touched the edge of his mask for emphasis.
"You are not," Belle assured him, and reached up to cup his cheek. "With or without the mask."
"Oh?" Clopin asked. "And when have you seen me without my mask, Mademoiselle?" he queried with a sly smirk. "I am quite sure that I have never been without it in your presence."
Belle blushed. "Come in for breakfast," she insisted, and reclaimed her hands so that she could hurry ahead of him inside.
Curious and confused, Clopin quickly closed up his wagon and followed after her.
A simple breakfast was already laid out, and as they ate, Maurice questioned him on how he got the beanstalk of his morning's show to grow, and quizzed him on the style and method of the making of his cart – with scatterings of speculations through the conversation on how one technique or another might be useful when building his inventions.
"Well, time to hitch up Phillippe," Maurice decided as he got up from the table. "Belle?"
"I'll be right there Papa," she promised. "I..."
Maurice chuckled. "I'll leave you two kids to have a moment," he said fondly. "But know that I'll hear most anything you say to each other. We don't exactly have thick walls between the kitchen and the yard."
Belle nodded her understanding. "Wait a moment?" she requested of Clopin as soon as the door closed behind her father.
Clopin nodded, unsure but willing to go along if it would satisfy a little of his curiosity.
Belle rushed out and up some stairs, then back down again with something wrapped in cloth held tightly against her chest. She kept it pressed to her chest as she sat down at the table once more, then set it down and unwrapped it.
"A mirror?" Clopin asked, now truly confused.
Belle nodded and took it by the handle. "I would like to see my father, please," she said to the mirror. It grew bright and with a flash the surface of the mirror no longer reflected her face. She turned it so that Clopin could see.
Gingerly, he took it from her hold as he stared, entranced, at the perfectly normal sight of Maurice hitching a wagon to a horse. He looked up to Belle. "Do you think it could show me my father?" he asked.
Before Belle could answer, the mirror's surface flashed brightly once again, and reflected back a patch of earth, weeds coming up between the blades of grass.
Clopin's eyes stung, and he could not tear his gaze away from that sight. A patch of earth with weeds growing through it. As a child, he hadn't known which was worse: the possibility that his father was dead – he had not seen his father's execution after all – or the possibility that he suffered in the dungeons of the Palace of Justice. Now... it seemed that whatever had been his father's fate when Frollo had caught him, now his parents were together in heaven.
Belle had hurried around the table to sit at Clopin's side as soon as she had seen his eyes go glassy with un-shed tears. When she'd seen what he could not tear his eyes away from, she wrapped an arm around his back and gently took the mirror from his hands. She set it face down on the table, and gently pulled Clopin to her until his face rested against her collar.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to him.
"You were not the one that killed him," Clopin answered, his voice harsh with choked sobs. "I am actually glad, because now I know that he is no longer suffering at Frollo's hands. Before, I could only hope."
Belle nodded her understanding, but continued to rub her hand up and down his back as she held him to her, offering what comfort she could.
"So, this mirror is how you have seen me without my mask?" Clopin asked after a few more moments of getting his tears back under control.
"Oui," Belle answered, and a blush rose across her cheeks.
Clopin straightened once more in his seat at her side, and noticed the blush. "Should I ask what else you have seen me without thanks to this little mirror?" he asked softly.
Belle bit her lip. "Non," she eventually answered, just as softly, as she shook her head slightly and found that she suddenly could not meet his eyes as the glow of her cheeks darkened further.
Clopin smirked. "Will you be taking this mirror with you when you go?" he asked.
"Non," Belle answered again, and shook her head more firmly. "It will stay in my room."
Clopin chuckled.
Belle smiled back, then quickly wrapped up the mirror and hurried to return it to her room. "I will miss you while I'm gone," she admitted to Clopin when she returned to the kitchen.
Clopin removed his hat and his mask, and set them on the table, leaving his face and his receding hairline completely on display for Belle as she stood there before him. Actually, he blamed Esmeralda for that. Much as he loved her, the stunts she'd pulled at the most recent Feast of Fools had definitely been the cause of the large amounts of his hair come out when he'd run a brush through it the next morning.
Gently, Clopin took Belle's right hand in both of his as he stood from his seat. Bending slightly, he tenderly pressed his lips to her fingers, just passed the knuckles so that his nose rested on the back of her hand and he could breath in the scent of her skin.
"Clopin..."
"Belle?" Maurice called from the yard.
Clopin whipped his hat and mask back on before the man re-joined them in the kitchen. "You said you wanted to say goodbye to the bell ringer before we left as well, didn't you?" he asked.
Belle nodded. "Y-yes, Papa," she agreed. "Quasimodo doesn't have many friends, and I'd feel bad if I left without telling him."
"Then I'll meet you at the north gate," he told her. "Just don't be too long."
"I won't Papa," Belle promised, and turned to Clopin when her father left back to Phillippe and the cart. "Will you walk with me to the cathedral?" she asked.
"It might perhaps be better for you if I did not," Clopin answered her, a little sadly. "My people are more accepted than they were a few days ago, but..."
Belle nodded in saddened understanding and resigned acceptance.
~oOo~
Clopin wandered the horse market after he left Belle's company. He did want an animal to pull his cart, but he wasn't sure... well, a goat had been enough before, and had provided milk besides. A horse would be more expensive, he was sure, even the ones lined up to be slaughtered because they were no good to anybody any more would cost more than a goat.
Clopin blinked in surprise as his eyes lit on one particular horse that was tied up for sale as meat rather than as an animal to ride or pull a cart.
Frollo's horse.
"Monsieur," Clopin said to the gentleman who was in charge of the sale of the animals. "Why is Frollo's horse for sale as meat? It is a fine-looking animal," he enquired.
The man shrugged. "Frollo's horse is probably as mean as the man himself was. No one wants to try," he said, and grunted with dissatisfaction. "Even the butchers are passing the animal over for fear that being Frollo's will have made the meat taste bad."
"How much for the beast?" Clopin enquired, a thought teasing his mind. Frollo's horse put to pull the cart of a gypsy. The idea was nearly delicious with irony.
"It's a loss to me," the man said. "You may have it, if you only take it from my stables."
Clopin smiled brightly and pranced towards the animal happily.
Gently, he stroked the great horse's jaw as he untied the rope that had held the animal. "There now," he cooed softly. "You are not as mean as your last master was, are you?" he asked it, and he was genuinely curious to learn the answer to that. "It is all just sad prejudice, isn't it? You're a beautiful animal, and you're going to come with me," he informed the creature, and with a tug on the rope that was hung about the horse's neck, he led it away to his cart.
Along the way, he spent a few coins on apples. They would suit him well for his lunch, and do an excellent double duty as bribes to the horse that was now his. After all, though Frollo had had a carriage, Clopin was fairly sure that it had been one of the guard's horses that it got hitched to, not this magnificent animal.
The horse immediately nosed the bag that Clopin had put the apples in hopefully.
Clopin laughed, shook his head, and continued on his way back to his cart. He quickly learned – to his pleasure – that the horse really was a more gentle, patient, docile animal than reputation had suggested.
"Hmm," Clopin mused as he hitched the animal to his cart. "I wonder what Frollo called you," he commented to the horse. "No matter really," he decided. A quick check as he made sure of the harness and he was assured that he had a mare, rather than a stallion or gelding. "I will call you Rochelle," he decided, and cut her a slice of apple.
"You bought Frollo's horse?" Esmeralda demanded incredulously from behind him.
Clopin turned. "She was given away to me, in point of fact," he answered her with a crooked smirk as he rested against the horse that was now his. "Frollo's reputation stuck to her, but all to my benefit."
"Are you going somewhere?" Esmeralda asked as she hesitantly approached the large, somewhat intimidating animal. Genuinely gentle disposition or not, there was a lot of fear that went hand-in-hand with seeing this horse coming down a Paris street.
"Yes," Clopin answered simply. "You told me to go after her, did you not?" Clopin quipped with a slight smile. "Your bride price is settled and paid, you may marry your captain whenever you like, so I do not have to dally for your sake."
Esmeralda grinned in delight and threw herself at Clopin.
He laughed with her as he swung her around so that he wouldn't fall from her momentum, and set her back on her feet easily.
"Go!" Esmeralda cheered for him softly and kissed one cheek then the other where they appeared beneath his mask. "Go and win the heart of your Belle!"
Clopin laughed. "I have your blessing, then?" he teased.
Esmeralda shook her head fondly. "You know you do," she answered with a smile.
Clopin nodded and looked down at Djali. "You're the chaperone while I'm gone," he informed the goat. "You make sure that the captain does nothing that is untoward before the wedding."
Djali bleated happily and pranced around Esmeralda's feet.
"And say goodbye to Quasimodo from me?" he requested of Esmeralda.
She nodded, hugged him once more, then let him climb up onto his cart. "I'll walk with you to the gate," she insisted.
~oOo~
Quasimodo had offered to escort Belle to the north gate where her father was waiting for her, and to her delight, that meant she hung from his shoulders as he swung between the eaves of the buildings between the cathedral and where Maurice waited for her. If her delighted shrieks of laughter echoed and drew attention to them as they travelled, well, they only elicited smiles of amusement from the people on the street.
"Thank you Quasimodo," Belle said happily when the boy landed and gently set her on her feet on the street. "That was fun."
"My pleasure," Quasimodo answered with a smile.
"Quasimodo!"
Belle and Quasimodo looked up in surprise.
"Esmeralda!" Quasimodo called back, and raised a hand to wave to her. "What are you doing all the way out here?" he asked.
"I could ask the same thing about you," Esmeralda answered with a chuckle. "Hello Belle," she greeted the other woman, and wrapped her arms around her.
"Esmeralda," Belle answered as she returned the embrace. "Hello Djali," she added when Esmeralda released her, and bent to pat the kid on the head.
Djali bleated his own greeting.
"Belle is leaving Paris for a while," Quasimodo explained to Esmeralda, "and visited me at Notre Dame to say goodbye. I escorted her from the cathedral to here."
"Across the rooftops!" Belle added happily.
Esmeralda laughed. "That is quite an exciting ride," she agreed. "Clopin is leaving Paris as well," she added with a gesture to the cart she'd been walking along side of.
"Quasimodo, I am glad to see you my friend," Clopin said, and leapt down from his cart. "I may convey may farewell to you myself, rather than needing Esmeralda to say it for me."
"Clopin," Quasimodo greeted with a smile, then frowned. "You're leaving Paris too?"
Clopin nodded. "January isn't usually the time to travel, but when a gypsy feels that he cannot stay within a city any longer, then he must obey the urge," he explained. Then he chuckled. "If the weather is very bad, it will drive him back soon enough," he added with a wink.
Quasimodo chuckled, and Belle tugged Esmeralda away to properly meet her father. They hadn't exactly had much opportunity for that yet after all.
"Well," Clopin said, "if he does not find somewhere else to find shelter until the roads call him again," he added with a wistful look in Belle's direction.
Quasimodo looked from Clopin to Belle and back, then smiled to himself. "Maurice is a carpenter, you know?" he commented. "I myself made a hobby of carving when I wasn't tending to my chores and duties to the bells."
Clopin looked down at Quasimodo. "Are you getting at something, my friend?" he asked archly.
Quasimodo hummed and looked over Clopin's cart. "Will that be big enough for two people?" he asked, ostensibly ignoring Clopin's query. "You may have to have a new one made to fit comfortably. Of course, Maurice is getting on a bit now, so he probably doesn't have the hands or the eyes for delicate work any more."
"You are getting at something," Clopin noted wryly.
Quasimodo chuckled. "Making a new cart together might be a good way for you to bond with your future father-in-law," Quasimodo joked, "and I'd be pleased to help with the carving when you return to Paris."
"Merci, mon ami," Clopin said softly.
"Of course, if you hurt Belle," Quasimodo continued in that same pleasant tone, "then I will simply have to discover how you would perform as a clapper in one of the bells."
Clopin laughed happily and clapped Quasimodo on the back. "You know, I said something very similar to the captain when he came to me asking permission to marry la Esmeralda," he commented.
Quasimodo chuckled. "I promised to tie him to the roof of Notre Dame, in full armour, where the pigeons like to nest," he supplied quietly. "And to leave him there for a week."
Clopin joined in the soft laughter. "Between your threats and mine, the captain won't dare upset Esmeralda."
Quasimodo smirked. "Just so long as you don't forget that there's a threat waiting for you if you ever upset Belle," he said.
Clopin nodded. "I've got to win her heart first," he pointed out.
Quasimodo nodded in acceptance.
"Monsieur Trouillefou," Belle called as she returned to where Clopin and Quasimodo had stood by his cart while she and Esmeralda talked with her father. "Esmeralda tells me that you are leaving Paris as well?"
"Does she really?" Clopin asked archly. "She is lucky she it too big now to place over my knee for telling secrets."
Esmeralda laughed. "I didn't know it was a secret," she said. "You weren't exactly being subtle," she pointed out with a wave towards Clopin's cart and horse.
"True," Clopin allowed.
"Are you travelling with a particular destination in mind?" Belle asked.
Clopin shook his head. "If you would not object, Mademoiselle, I would like to see the castle you told me of," he suggested.
Belle smiled. "Papa and I would be glad to have your company," she said. "Wouldn't we, Papa?" she called over her shoulder.
"Hmm? What?" Maurice asked.
"We would be happy to have Monsieur Trouillefou travel with us," Belle repeated.
"Oh certainly!" Maurice agreed. "And, Belle, speaking of travelling?" he prompted.
Belle nodded and bid a last farewell to Quasimodo, Esmeralda and Djali, then climbed up onto the cart beside her father.
"Bon voyage!" Quasimodo and Esmeralda called after them as first Belle and Maurice, then Clopin, rolled out of the city's north gate.