I was still a long way away when I realized he was there, that it was definitely him. He was sitting down against the wooden fence like a farmer’s son, his hands in his pockets. For a moment he wasn’t the well-dressed gentleman with a book in his hand but just a boy with messy hair and his shirtsleeves rolled up.
I approached him slowly. Everything inside me was fluttering like wings.
“Monsieur Marius?”
He stood and turned, surprised. He took his hands from his pockets and stepped back from me. A shadow passed behind his eyes and I thought, He knows. He knows that night was my idea.
“You,” he said. He looked disappointed and mistrustful too. It made me tearful to see it; I didn’t want him to look at me this way.
I held out my hands, as if to reassure him. “Oh, Marius! Please don’t think badly of me or judge me. It wasn’t all my fault, I swear it!”
“Isn’t that all we have? To judge a person by their actions?”
“Perhaps. But a person can make mistakes and people can change too.”
“Our walk back from Café Musain that evening … You seemed so … gentle. We talked of dreams … It was a lovely walk, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And then I learn that you lured a man to the tenement! I heard him calling for help, Eponine! He was in fear for his life so I ran into the corridor and was about to break down your door when the police came.” He shook his head. “They meant to kill him. And it was all your idea? I heard your family saying so, as they were taken away. Have I completely misunderstood who you are?”
“No, you haven’t! Not at all! And it was never my idea to hurt a single soul! Maybe I thought we could get money from him, I admit that—but I never meant for him to go to the Gorbeau or be so hurt or so afraid. Marius, I’ll regret my part in that terrible night for the rest of my life. That’s the truth.”
He thought about this. “You went to prison, I hear?”
I nodded. “We all went. Maman died inside. Azelma and I were released because we were too young to be there.”
He seemed to soften then. His frown went away. He gave a single nod, as if understanding me, and sighed heavily. “Your father’s the true villain in your family, I think.”
“He’s meant to be in prison for years and years—but Azelma said she’d help him escape.”
“And has she?”
“I don’t know. I’ve not seen them since and don’t want to. I don’t want to live that life anymore, Marius. Can you believe me? All I’ve ever wanted is something better.”
He tilted his head, like he often did. “Yes, Eponine … I can believe you. Poverty makes people act against their heart, I know. People must make hard choices, just to survive.” He took a step toward me and touched my arm as if consoling me. I filled up with relief—He doesn’t hate me. “Where are you living, now?”
“A tree.”
“What?”
I smiled. “I know. But it’s clean and safe, and I haven’t fallen out yet.”
Did he smile too? I couldn’t tell because he looked away. “You’re right, Eponine. A person can change very suddenly. They can change in a moment …”
“You’ve changed too?”
“Yes. Not through prison, I’ve never been to prison. But I’ve changed through something else—which is perhaps like a prison in how tightly it keeps hold of me. Sometimes I can hardly breathe! I can’t do a single thing without thinking of her.”
I stood very still.
“I’m captured by her. By love …”
I whispered, “I know.”
“You know? About love?”
His surprise stung me. “I know I wear rags and I’m skinny and knotty-haired, and I know I’ve done bad things in my life—but this doesn’t mean that I don’t know what love is.”
“Really? You’ve been in love?”
“Is it so hard to imagine? Just because I am thin and poor …” I paused, a little breathless. I was scared to say the words, but I managed them. “I love someone so much it hurts.”
“I know that love! That’s the love I feel!”
I gave him a smile but I knew it was a sad one. It was all I could manage.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “For thinking so badly of you. I heard your parents blaming you and so I assumed … But I believe you now, Eponine. I know you had no wish to hurt Valjean that night. You wouldn’t do such a thing.”
Now I nearly laughed with relief. But I had to add one more thing: “When we walked back through Paris, from the Café Musain, I wasn’t pretending to be someone else. That was me.”
He smiled. “I know. I liked her.”
We stood as the sun rose higher. If I’d stretched out, I might have touched him, but I didn’t. I took a deep breath. I knew it would hurt but I had to ask: “So … who is she? This girl you love so much?”
“I don’t know her name,” he said, his face lighting up. “But I saw her for the first time in the summer—the day after our evening walk! The next day! I’d walked to the Jardins du Luxembourg—do you know them?—to read, and I looked up from my book … At first, I didn’t think she was truly beautiful: She didn’t capture my heart as soon as I saw her. But I couldn’t stop watching her, all the same—as if there was something of greater beauty to her than her face alone. Her soul? Her spirit? Then she looked up and saw me—and I wondered if I was looking at a part of me I hadn’t known I’d lost but had found now, because I felt like I knew her! When she looked at me, she became beautiful. Our eyes met and my heart filled up … Oh, it was exactly like you said! I felt so full of love I could barely hold it in! From then on, she has been all I can think of … The months have passed but my love hasn’t faded. I think of her as I walk or eat or read … I have thought of her when I was with my friends at the Café Musain … even as the crowds have been shouting about revolution and Lamarque and changing France all I can think of is her, her, her. I used to take myself off to Les Jardins so many times, hoping she’d be there—and often she was. But she was always with a man—her father, I think … Then I saw her father in the Gorbeau tenement on that awful night—the night you were part of!—and I’ve not seen her since. Has she left Paris? I’m so scared she has! I walk the streets looking for her, Eponine! I search markets and churches, and I look for her bright hair! And I come to this field because I overheard her speaking about it, once—a meadow near Les Invalides with cornflowers in it … This must be the place, mustn’t it? Look at the flowers!” He paused, rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.
He’d never said so much to me.
I felt so much pain inside me that I thought I might cry. It was a proper pain, like someone had taken a knife and stabbed me. I thought I might fall down in that field. Instead, I closed my eyes and I thought, Make him happy.
I had to try. “Marius?”
“Hm?” He sounded so tired.
With shaking words, I whispered: “I know her name. It’s Cosette.”
He looked up. “What? You know her?”
I nodded.
“How? How on earth can you know who I love?”
“I saw you. In the Jardins du Luxembourg. I know the lady you were looking at.”
He blinked. “You do? You know her? But she is so elegant and well dressed! She’s a lady! How … ?”
I knew how it seemed. Her and me. Like sun and rain. “She was named Euphrasie at birth but no soul has ever called her that. She’s always been Cosette.”
His eyes flashed and he took my wrists. “My God! How … ? Speak to me!”
He clutched my wrists to his chest as if they were all that mattered to him, my wrists and nothing else. His eyes were bright and his breath was warm upon my face.
“We grew up together,” I said, trying to stop myself trembling. “It’s hard to believe, I know, for she is so beautiful and I’m not, but we were raised in the same house. In a village called Montfermeil.”
“Montfermeil … ,” he repeated dreamily. “How? How did it happen?”
“Her mother was very poor. She was destitute. Abandoned by her husband, I think, and she couldn’t work and care for the child. So she left Cosette with my parents. She paid my parents to clothe her and feed her and house her …” I looked down. I couldn’t tell him anymore.
“And the man who’s always with her? You say she has no father …”
“He came one Christmas. He said that Cosette’s mother had died, and her dying wish had been for him to care for her only child. So he came to Montfermeil and paid a fine sum to my parents for her. He bought her a doll.”
“Paid your parents? Why did he pay them?”
I winced. “She’d worked for them. She’d been very useful and they wanted … compensation …”
Marius understood me. He shifted his jaw. “When was this?”
“We were nine, or nearly. So long ago.”
He let go of my wrists, exhaled. “And he has cared for her ever since?”
“I think so.”
“And has she been happy?”
“I can’t imagine she’s wanted for anything.”
“And tell me: is she”—he paused, swallowed as if the words were hard for him—“betrothed at all?”
“I can’t be sure of my answer. But no, I don’t think she is.”
I hesitated, then. I knew there was more to say, that she loved him too—but I felt scared of saying it. I felt scared because then he’d leave me; he’d run from this field and my life, looking for her, and what if he never saw me again? Never even remembered me? Lived his whole life with only Cosette on his mind, for always? These felt like my last few moments with him.
Marius. My love for him would never stop. He had my heart and always would—but his heart, I knew, was not mine.
I took a deep breath. “She thinks of you, Marius—just as you think of her …”
Marius gasped. He seized my wrists again. “What? What? Oh, how do you know this? Does she speak to you?”
“No, but I’ve seen her. I can tell …”
“Oh!” He smiled a wide, bright smile and looked up at the sky as if thanking it. He held my wrists so tightly that I could feel my heartbeat thumping there, beneath his hands. “Where is she, Eponine?”
“On the rue Plumet.”
He let go of me. I stumbled back from his grasp, and knew that his world was different now. I’d changed it with my words and it had been so hard to do. He pushed his hands up into his hair and he did this in the way I’d always wanted to do with my own hands, into the very roots of his hair. “Cosette! What a name …”
I had come this far. I had to tell him everything, so I said, “The house isn’t far. Shall I take you there?”
“Would you do that? For me?”
I thought, Of course. I’d do anything in the whole world for him, however much it hurt.
We walked side by side. He wanted to walk very quickly but I didn’t because I wasn’t sure when I’d get the chance to walk with him again. I listened to his footsteps and his breathing. He swung his hands as he walked and I thought of Monsieur and Madame Lefevre, back in Montfermeil, always holding hands.
“I’ve been looking for you a long time,” I whispered. “Six months.”
“What?” He looked shocked. “Six months?”
“Maybe five. A long time, anyway.”
“Why?”
“In prison, I made a promise to myself—to be kind, where I could. I thought you would be happier if you knew where Cosette lived. So I had to find you.”
He smiled in disbelief. “But you hardly know me. And how did you find me? Where did you look?”
“I asked people. I went to the Gorbeau. I’d seen you in the Jardins du Luxembourg so I went there too. The Café Musain, of course.”
“The Musain? You went there? It’s men only.”
“I know. A friend of yours wouldn’t let me inside. His name was Enjolras and he told me to tell you me that they’re making plans and need you back.” I glanced across. “What plans?”
He pressed his lips together for a moment. “Enjolras wants a fairer France as we all do. The rich are so wealthy that their ceilings are gold-painted and yet the poor are so poor they’re eating dirt in the street—how’s that fair? How can we have a king with diamonds and rubies and his huge, powdered wig, when people don’t have bread?” He shook his head. “Our country needs changing. Lamarque will change it. We’ll fight the king’s armies in the street until they’re defeated and Lamarque can take over, and make France a republic again.”
I felt uneasy. “You’ll fight? In the street? But the armies have cannons and muskets …”
“We’ve got muskets too. And we will build barricades to protect us.”
“But what if you’re wounded? You might die!”
“Some will die, I’m sure of it. There are always deaths, in a war. But, Eponine, shall I tell you the truth? Last summer, I’d have fought a thousand wars for France. I told you, didn’t I? That I was patriotic?”
“And now?”
He sighed. “Now … well, I still love France. The revolution must happen, Eponine, I still believe in that! But now that I know what love is … How could I risk my life? Now that I know Cosette exists?”
I looked away. He won’t fight or die. That was a comfort, at least.
* * *
We walked in silence the rest of the way. But in my head there were so many words turning over and over that I couldn’t be sure which words to take out and whisper to him. I wanted to tell him how often I’d followed him. How Paris seemed so much better once I knew he was in it. I wanted to tell him about the Lefevres, as alike as their chimneys. And I wanted to say, Someone tried to kiss me and I pretended it was you but I just felt sad. I wished it was you.
But I didn’t say these things. Of course not.
“Here we are.”
“This is it? Where she lives?” He walked toward the gate and shook it. “It’s locked—locked! How can I get to her?”
“We wait.”
“Wait?”
“She walks in the garden every evening.”
“What time?”
“Early. As the birds are roosting.”
“How long must we wait, then? Five hours? Six?”
His impatience hurt me and I felt my lip tremble. How I wish it was me he wanted to see. But I managed to smile. “Maybe. But we can sit in this elm tree and rest …”
He paused, looked up. “That’s the tree you sleep in?”
“Yes. My little home.”
He half smiled. “It’s a good tree. But I’ll stand beneath it, I think, because I don’t want to tear my clothes on it or make them dirty …”
He wanted to look smart for her. I ached—but I understood.
I climbed into the branches and looked down on his thick, soft hair. And we waited for her, Marius and I. The hours passed, and I knew those hours were my only chance to share my heart with him. If I was ever going to tell Marius that I loved him and that he’d changed my whole world, then it was now, as I sat in the tree. But he loves Cosette. What good would it do? I kept my heart to myself.
I liked being high in the branches. I felt safe, as if the tree was cradling me and saying, Don’t be sad, Eponine. Poor thing … But also, I felt like I could protect him. No harm could come to him—no guns or soldiers or cholera—if I was looking down on him like the stars look down on all of us.
* * *
After awhile, those stars came out.
Marius glanced up. “It’s getting dark. The birds are roosting, Eponine. Will she come now?”
We both heard the sound. It was the shush … shush … of skirts and it came nearer.
He moved forward and took hold of the iron gates again. I saw her through the branches and she looked more beautiful than ever. Her dress was powder-blue and her hair had ribbons in it and she carried a fan, its fine strap looped over one wrist.
“Cosette!” he called out.
She jumped. She dropped the fan and didn’t pick it
up again. Instead, she pressed her hands to her mouth and stared at him. “Can it be … ?”
“It is your name? Cosette?”
“It is! And what’s yours?
“Marius.”
She came closer. “Marius …”
“For so long, you’re all I’ve thought about.”
“And all I’ve thought about,” she whispered, “is you.”
* * *
Long, long ago I was walking near the church in Montfermeil. It must have been midsummer because the air was thick with heat and the sun was so bright I was squinting and as I paused, a butterfly—white with orange tips—settled on my arm. I was so amazed by this little thing of beauty that I could hardly breathe because what if my breathing disturbed it, and it flew away? I didn’t even blink because it was so beautiful.
They were like that.
Cosette unlocked the gate and let him in. In the garden, they looked at each other and gently took each other’s hands.
I stayed in the shadows. This was their moment, not mine. As I watched them, a tear rolled down my cheek, and then another.
Without taking their eyes off each other, they walked toward the house and stepped inside.
* * *
Yes, a person can change. It can happen with the smallest of things—and I might have had a good heart, but I still felt so sad that I thought my body would break with it. He was gone. He was hers. All those dreams I’d had—what good were they now?
But you’ve brought him happiness, Eponine; he is happy because of you—and that was my only comfort as I cried and cried, feeling so lonely, in my house of leaves.
He left at sunrise. He crept beneath my tree without looking up. From one of the windows Cosette watched him go.
I slid down the trunk and spent the rest of the day in the city because, for the first time in so long, I could walk its streets without having to look for him. I didn’t have to search crowds for his voice or his dimpled smile. I could simply walk where I chose to. So I went to Montmartre, Les Champ de Mars, and Bastille. I went to the place de la Révolution where the guillotine used to be. For decades, its blade had dropped onto neck after neck in that square but it had been moved now, and so the place de la Révolution was empty. A few crows called out. I stood and thought, So many people died here … These rooftops would have been the last thing they ever saw, before kneeling.
A Little in Love Page 14