Les Jardins du Luxembourg! I’d heard of them. They were the elegant gardens that surrounded Le Palais du Luxembourg itself and it was here that ladies strolled with their tiny dogs, where men walked with their pipes and smart conversations. Paris’s garden, I thought. Wouldn’t it be a lovely place to bump into him? To spend a little time?
I smoothed my hair and hurried after him, into the garden. Inside, it was even more beautiful—with the Palais’ golden columns and its fountains sparkling in the sun, and the shady promenades beneath the line of trees … It suited him.
Marius sat down on a wooden bench, partly shaded. I sat down on another bench a little distance from him. He took a book from his pocket, crossed his left leg over his right leg, and started to read.
He looked so peaceful that I couldn’t go to him. I just watched him. I wondered what I might say to him, how to start a conversation—and I imagined his answers, in my head. Only when the shadows lengthened did he stand up and fold his book away. He walked quickly as if following somebody, like I was following him. But out on the boulevard Saint-Germain, he looked from left to right and scratched his head. Whoever he’d been following was gone.
* * *
He started to go there every day. He chose the same bench in the sunshine and always carried a book. I also saw that he always wore the same clothes—a suit with a cravat and polished shoes. They seemed a strange choice for hot weather but he looked handsome in them.
I will speak to him today, I thought. I thought this most days.
But one day I told myself, Today is the day. I’d brushed my hair and washed my clothes, and I’d eaten mint to sweeten my breath: I was ready to walk by his side, again. I found I couldn’t sit on the bench where I normally did because an old man was sleeping on it, hat tipped over his face, so I found another. This one was beside a rose bush. Its roses were deeply perfumed—such a sweet smell among the city’s stench. The flowers half hid me so I had to move them to see Marius’s face.
From this new angle I could see that his eyes weren’t on the pages at all. Had they ever been? He was just pretending to read, because his eyes were actually looking toward an avenue of trees.
I didn’t understand. What was he looking at? I followed his gaze.
Two people were sitting on a bench, as he was. One was a man with graying hair and a soft, kind face (no yellow coat; the yellow coat was gone) and the other was a girl with sunshine-colored hair.
Everyone has daydreams. I’ve had plenty of them. I used to dream of finding a Louis d’or coin on the ground or of my mother throwing me up in the air with delight, crying out, Eponine! Later, I had daydreams of a prince passing by on a white horse: he’d point at me and say her and I’d be plucked from my life and into a better one.
Then there was Marius—and all these daydreams fell away.
After our sunset walk through Paris, I had just four daydreams in the world and I handled them like jewels.
In the first, Marius was sitting on his bench in Les Jardins du Luxembourg. He turned and said, “Will you join me, Eponine?” and I nodded and sat beside him. From there, he told me all about the world—politics, travel, art, love. We smiled at each other and like this, we passed the day.
In my second daydream, he was walking. His face struck up like a match on seeing me: “Eponine! Why! I was thinking about you at that very moment …” He came to me, took my hands and kissed them and said, “I must tell you—oh, I must tell you—the truth is, I’m lost without you. Since we walked back from the Café Musain together, I cannot sleep or eat …”
In my third daydream, it wasn’t a book in his lap. It was a notebook and he was writing poetry in it: I know what true beauty is; it’s Eponine. He thought this, despite my torn dress and muddy feet.
But my fourth daydream was my favorite. It was a wordless dream: He didn’t speak in it and I didn’t either. He simply found me in Les Jardins, touched my cheek very lightly. Were we by the fountains? Sometimes. Or in those half-lit avenues. Then he held me as gently and his nose would touch my nose and like this I felt safe and loved.
Those were my four daydreams. Over and over, I cradled them.
But they died as I moved those roses aside. They died when I saw Marius’s face—filled with love? Desire? Wonder?—looking at another girl’s face.
* * *
Look. Oh no, no, no …
I stumbled away from my bench and onto my knees, my hands to my mouth. Cosette? Could it really be her? She wasn’t wearing a sackcloth anymore, just as I thought she would not. Instead, she wore a floral-printed frock with a cream lace trim and a bonnet with a satin bow. She sat so neatly—with her hands in her lap and her ankles pressed together—that I almost didn’t recognize her. But I did; I knew it was her.
There was no doubt. The girl who’d slept in cobwebs. The girl who’d scrubbed every floor—left right, left right—on her knees.
Euphrasie. But Maman calls me Cosette.
The gentleman was Jean Valjean. Age had grayed his hair at the sides and he seemed wider in the chest—but he still had the same kind face I remembered. He was glancing at what she held.
A book, like Marius. And like Marius, she was only pretending to read it. Her eyes were fixed on his.
I brought my hands away from my mouth. They are staring at each other. They were. I looked down at the ground where I was kneeling, at the stones and rose petals, but all I could think of was their faces. How they’d smiled at each other, across the flower beds.
Eight years since I had seen her.
* * *
I felt lots of things: grief, sorrow, jealousy. I felt stupid for thinking he could ever love me too because what was I? Stupid, for having washed your face, and eaten mint, and felt hopeful … I felt shocked as well, as if I’d dropped a wondrous thing—glass-made and dazzling—and it’d broken into a million pieces so that I had nothing left at all.
This too: I felt angry. It rose up like a river and it flooded everything.
That brat and the boy I loved.
* * *
It isn’t fair, it isn’t fair. I’ve tried to be good. I’ve looked for beauty in all things and I’ve been kind when I can be and I’ve only ever stolen because I was ordered to … I’ve prayed for little Gavroche. I’ve picked peaches for a crippled man and I’ve been thankful for the tiny things—like the stars and birdsong and a warm chestnut …
She has everything! She’s got beauty and grace and nice clothes and a father who loves her! It’s not fair that she has Marius too.
I marched from Les Jardins. I kicked a stone. I muttered, “What’s the point?” And I remembered my mother’s words from many years ago: Then be cruel! Cruel! It’s what will save you.
* * *
I was so angry. And sad and jealous and lonely. I’d wanted him to like me. I’d wanted his sunshine after years of cold and dark. The pebble in my heart was back, and it went knock … knock … knock … louder and stronger than ever.
And I wasn’t the only angry person in Paris. Everyone is fed up of their poverty and rumbling bellies while the king eats veal with silver knives and forks. Everyone is tired of feeling hopeless and grubby and cold, like me. We all wanted to rise up in anger. Fight. Kill.
I ran up the stairs of the Gorbeau thinking, I’ll be cruel again. I’ll hiss and spit at her and I’ll make her sorry for having a pretty face …
I would not be kind anymore. I would be a true Thenardier like I promised I’d be, long ago.
I flung open the door. My parents looked up. Maman was using a stone to crush a bone for its marrow and Papa was smoking his pipe.
“Eponine? What’ve you got? Money or jewels?”
“Better than that. I’ve found a rich man.”
“What? Where?”
“In the Jardins du Luxembourg.”
Maman dropped the stone, hobbled forward. “How do you know he’s rich? Is he dressed smartly? Well spoken?”
“No, not smartly. And I haven’t heard his voice.�
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“Then how do you know? He might be quite poor!”
I shook my head. He had money, I was sure: How else could he dress Cosette in such fine clothes? Nor had I forgotten the Louis d’or that he’d placed in a wooden shoe, eight years before. “I’m certain he’s rich. He’s careful with his money, that’s all. But he’ll give to a worthy cause, I reckon—like a starving child …”
My father gave his foxy smile. “I like this … You’re sure? He’ll give?”
“As sure as I can be. I think we should give him one of Papa’s letters. We should give him the very best letter that Papa has ever written!”
“In Les Jardins du Luxembourg, you say?”
“Yes. I could give him the letter and trick him.” I felt vengeful, on fire. “We must get every penny from him!”
* * *
Papa began to write the note. He was careful: He wanted the perfect letter. He began to write it and then, irritated, threw the paper in the fire. He started a second time and then roared with frustration, “This is rubbish! I’ve got to write something subtle … clever. This letter must be just right!”
I watched him. I sat by the window, chewing my fingernails.
After several days he said, “What’s his name? This man? Do you know?”
I nearly said, Yes, Papa—it is Jean Valjean. But something stopped me and I kept the secret inside. Papa would, surely, recognize the name. He’d pause and narrow his eyes and say, Didn’t we meet him once … Didn’t he buy that wretched Cosette? For far too small a sum? Ha! That nasty do-good of a man … They hated him and they might do more than trick him with letters, if they knew who he was. Papa still had that bone-handled knife.
* * *
This is my consolation: I thought of tricking him with the letter, but that was all. I didn’t want to hurt him or Cosette and so I never said their names.
I was heartbroken. But I never wanted their deaths.
He loves her. I looked at my reflection in shop windows or the passing glass of carriages. I thought, Why her, not me? But I knew why.
I’d always known she was beautiful. I was four years old when we met, and even then her hair was gold and shiny. She wore sackcloth and she scrubbed the grease from the walls yet I watched her and thought, I wish I looked like you.
What part of Cosette had made the people in Montfermeil whisper Poor dove when they saw her, or Such a pretty thing … before moving on with their own small lives? She was neat. She had elegance so that even when she swept the yard, she did so very daintily. Her hair curled at the ends. Her lips were rose-colored. Her eyes were like pools—blue, deep, reflecting the trees and the sky.
In Les Jardins, she looked exactly the same. She was older but she was still Cosette. I stood on the rue Christine. It was evening. I could see my reflection in the candlemaker’s window. Of course he loves her, not me, I thought—for the girl who looked back at me was drab and bruised and impossibly thin. All the thistles in the world had not made her hair tidy; knots still hung on it with feathers and twigs. Her collarbone stuck out. Her forehead was lined. She didn’t have either a waist or a chest to speak of. Her lips were cracked and dry.
Of course he’d choose Cosette. It would be like choosing between a puddle and the sea. A snapped stick and a springtime tree. A pebble and a mountain.
I was so silly to think he’d love me. Silly to think he liked walking beside me, that day.
* * *
I stole again. I returned to being the Eponine from the Sergeant of Waterloo who plucked rings off fingers, snapped buckles off shoes. I did no good deeds. I only thought, Why bother? It didn’t seem worth it anymore.
I walked home with sous in my pockets. A wind blew and the few, thin trees were turning brown.
Autumn was coming. My hopes for a better life—for a kind and loving one—were blown away with the leaves.
It took several weeks. Then at the start of October I woke to find Papa standing over me, holding the letter. “Done,” he said. “My best letter yet! Your turn now.”
It began:
Monsieur,
Forgive me for writing to you, and for troubling you in such a way. I write humbly, and if any inconvenience or discomfort should occur as a result of this letter, then I apologize sincerely and on my knees …
* * *
I looked up at him, amazed. This didn’t sound like Papa at all.
He cracked his knuckles, smiling. “Impressed? Well, I thought I should be polite. He’s a gentleman, you say?”
I read the rest of the letter. In it, he’d written:
We are dying, Monsieur, my children are. We have our wits but wits cannot always feed us. Others may steal, in these dark times, but we are good, religious folk and wouldn’t steal a feather from a passing bird. All we can do is ask for help from other godly souls like you, Monsieur …
* * *
“Take it to him. Cough. Say you are ill. Look thinner than that.”
“Look thinner?” How could I make myself look thinner?
“Dirty your face!” called Maman. “Use ash from the fire! Let’s find horse dung in the street, and …”
They tried these things. They smeared my face and clothing until Papa nodded. “Better. But still … it isn’t quite enough. A cough and a dirty face are good but we need more.” He thought for a moment. Then he raised his hand. I looked up at it and wondered why it was there. Then he hit me. His fist met my cheek and I fell against the fireplace. The pain was quick and hot.
“Luc!” Maman squawked. “What did you strike the girl for? She’s been stealing well for us lately!”
I felt a warm trickle coming from my nose. It pooled on my top lip and I tasted blood.
“To mark her, you stupid woman! She’s got to look as poor and needy as we can make her. A swelling will rise up now. She can say she was robbed in the street or that she was injured whilst defending a poorer soul than herself, or perhaps she struggled against a man who wished her to enter into dark dealings, and her noble heart refused to … It’ll get his pity, you see?”
I caught my nosebleed in cupped hands. My cheek began to swell up, closing my right eye so I could hardly see.
Papa was triumphant. “See? See how awful she looks?”
Maman mopped my bloodied hands with her skirt. “Stop whimpering, child. Your father’s right; this is a good plan. We’ll leave some blood on your face because it does make you look more pitiful. Now, deliver your letter. Go!”
* * *
Autumn’s smell was in the air—woodsmoke, leaves. I stumbled toward Les Jardins du Luxembourg past the old tannery, the quarries, and the pits. Past the graveyard.
I made it to boulevard Saint-Germain. I didn’t care that people were staring at my bleeding face. For nearly a month, all I’d thought of was him and her. Marius and Cosette.
Les Jardins du Luxembourg looked different—the trees were coppery and the flowers were mostly gone. It was nearly a month since I’d been there; what if they didn’t come here anymore, if it was too cold to read their books in the open air? His bench was empty. No Marius.
I blinked painfully. What of Cosette and Jean Valjean?
There. There they were, but they weren’t sitting. Instead they were walking arm in arm, scuffing through the fallen leaves. She wore a coat trimmed with fox fur and his muffler was high around his neck.
I didn’t have a scarf of my own. Instead, I half hid my face with my waist-long hair. Eight years had passed but I didn’t want to risk them recognizing me.
Briefly, I felt very guilty. But then I remembered, He loves her, not you. Cosette, who has everything, and it made me walk toward them.
“Monsieur? Un moment, s’il vous plaît?”
They turned.
I felt like I was standing in the tavern in Montfermeil again. Was it Christmas Eve? Was I a child, playing with the cat?
“Mademoiselle? Can I help?” He saw the threadbare clothes and the peeling skin and the dirt. He stared through my hair at my swolle
n eye and bloodied nose. His gaze seemed kinder than it had ever been.
Cosette gasped—a dainty, feminine gasp. “Papa! Her face! The poor creature …”
I thought, Be cruel. Be cruel, Eponine.
I held the letter out. “Would you read this, Monsieur? I feel ashamed to have to trouble you and your daughter in this way—and please, shoo me away if I offend you with my rag and tatters. Others do; I’m used to it. Only, please know that we are very desperate and I choose you because you have a kindly face …”
He read the letter. Cosette read it too, leaning on his upper arm. She murmured, “Mon Dieu,” very sadly. Then Valjean folded the letter. He looked at me, shifted his jaw from side to side.
“Dying, you say?”
“Yes, sir. My sister is so thin—far thinner than I am. She can’t have long to live.”
“And the injury? To your face? That looks freshly done.”
“Defending her, Monsieur. She was set upon by some terrible men and I fought them because she is too weak to fight herself.”
He stood very still as he listened.
“Forgive me for showing this note to you. If you’re unable to assist, then I will only thank you for your time and move elsewhere. We have no choice, you see …”
“And where do you live, precisely?”
I flinched. Where do we live? I didn’t think he’d ask this. “The Gorbeau tenement.”
“Is it far?”
“In Salpêtrière. The long, dark building that faces the beginning of the rue des Gobelins.”
“Near the tannery?”
“Yes, near there.”
“I know of it. I’ll come to you shortly.”
I was shocked. “What? You’ll come? To the Gorbeau?”
“Yes, I will—because I wish to see your poverty myself. I wish to see your poor, malnourished sister so that I can understand how best to help her. Money alone might not be enough. Tell your family to expect me. I shall be with you by the evening.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. He’d come to the Gorbeau? What would my parents say? He was meant to simply give me some coins—a franc or two—here, in Les Jardins.
A Little in Love Page 10