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Always Get Our Share

Author's Introduction: Hello all, and thank you for deciding to give this story a look. It means a lot, as always. A few things to please keep in mind ... One, this story will be written strictly from Éponine's point of view, with the occasional segment from Cosette's point of view, just to give a little dynamic, though this will only happen once every few chapters. Two, this story is, like all my stories for Les Mis, based off the musical with details from the Brick.
Trigger warnings: some scenes of child abuse, but probably nothing too dark. I think a T rating is safe.
My cover image for this story features Natalya Angel Wallace as Young Éponine in the 2012 movie.

For my own reference: 7th fanfiction published, 5th story for Les Misérables.

oOo

Chapter One: Playmate

September 1818

When Éponine Thénardier came into the world in the late summer of 1815, everyone said she was the most beautiful baby ever born. Or so her mother told her.

Éponine had no way of knowing if that was true or not, but then, she didn't think to doubt it. She was just a little over three years old, and what three-year-old would ever doubt her parents? She liked to sit on Maman's lap and listen to the story of her own birth, of how the midwife came and cradled the newborn, how she handed the baby to Maman and said she'd not seen a more beautiful infant all her life. Éponine was young enough that she didn't question the fact that Maman told her little sister Azelma the exact same story, and of course she'd been too young to remember the birth of her sister, as Azelma was just one year her junior.

What Éponine did know, however, was that she was still a pretty little girl, and Maman always took care to be sure she and her sister looked their best. She helped them bathe every day and scrubbed their little bodies clean with soap and a washcloth in the wooden tub. She ran a brush through Éponine's ebony locks every day and curled it into ringlets. Though she attempted to do the same with Azelma's auburn curls, but the younger Thénardier girl's hair was stubborn and refused to be moulded, so it was always a mess under her bonnet. But Maman gave her two daughters the best dresses their family could afford, all lace and frills, and the end result was that both sisters always looked like life-size porcelain dolls in the window of a toy shop.

And it paid off. All the travellers who stopped by her parents' inn told her so, or sometimes she overheard them telling Maman and Papa. The travellers said so all the time, and it made her giggle. She liked to hear them say it. "Madame, Monsieur," they would always say, "you are blessed to have two such beautiful little girls. The elder especially, she's simply precious."

Éponine's life was one of simple, carefree routine, the life of any somewhat privileged three-year-old girl. She had her own little bedroom with a cot and a patchwork quilt that Maman had made when she was a baby. Maman and Papa said that when her sister was a little bigger she and Éponine would have to share the room, but she didn't mind. She would wake whenever she pleased, and then she would usually go downstairs and play with her dolls in the eating room, within the view of the inn's guests. Then Maman would prepare Éponine and her sister for the day and let them go out and play some more. There was a sort of swing attached to the great big wheel of a cannon to swing on outside, and Maman would push them. She had many lovely dolls, which Maman bought from the magasin de jouets in the main square. She had no beautiful porcelain dolls with white china cheeks and real hair, but she had many big rag dolls with buttons for eyes and yarn for hair, and though she yearned to have one of the big porcelain dolls, she had enough toys that she was happy with them. The only problem was that she had to share all her toys with Azelma. Éponine also had many beautiful dresses and bonnets, prettier than those of her rag dolls. She liked to wear them and to spin around in them in front of the looking glass. Éponine didn't know how to read, but she had a big book of fairy stories that Maman sometimes read to her from. It was in these dresses she spent her days, playing with those same dolls, being read to from that same book, swinging on that same swing, and each day would end with a hot meal at a little table in the kitchen that only she and Azelma ate at, and after they ate, they might play another half hour before Maman sent them off to bed. Azelma was barely over two, and she still slept in a tinier cot with bars on the side, in Maman and Papa's chambers. But Maman always came into Éponine's room at night and tucked her in with a kiss before turning out the oil-lamp and leaving the door ajar as she left, just as Éponine liked it.

They never went to church on Sundays, but sometimes, if the inn was busy, Maman would tell Éponine to put on her "Sunday dress", force her to wear it, explain to her that she must tell the guests that they had attended Mass that day in the village's local cathedral. Éponine hated the dress, which was grey and stiff and hot, and she hated it when, sometimes, the travellers asked her which part of the day's service she'd liked best. Éponine never knew what to say, for she didn't know anything about what church services were like, so she simply stated, "The prayers," and for some reason it would cause all the guests to laugh.

There were, of course, other little girls in Montfermeil, many of them Éponine's own age. But she didn't see them or play with them very often, because the inn was located in the very outskirts of town, so it would be spotted by the travellers on their way to a bigger city farther away. Montfermeil might have been a rather small village, and the walk to the main square a short one, but their business was here at the inn, so that was where Éponine stayed. She would be able to play with the other children when she got a bit older and started to go to school, Maman and Papa always told her when she expressed her sullen feelings over the matter to them. For now, she had her sister, and all her lovely toys, and wasn't that enough? But Azelma was usually boring, so Éponine still yearned for a playmate. On occasion, some of the travellers who stopped by would have a little girls with them, and Éponine loved to play with them. Other times there would be little boys and the pair of them would run about outside, chasing each other and getting dirty. Maman would always scold her for soiling her nice dress and running about like "some wild thing", but Éponine liked to play the rowdier games anyway and never listened.

So when, mere weeks after her third birthday, a young woman came by with a little girl about Éponine's own age and that little girl stayed at the inn even when the young woman left, Éponine was thrilled.

Éponine and her sister had been playing on the swing when another little girl they'd never seen before came running up to them and asked if she could play too. She was blonde, had a big bow in her hair, and wore a pink dress. Éponine remembered thinking that this little girl didn't have clothing as nice as her own, and had silently gloated over the fact. But just as she'd been about to tell the girl that yes, she could play too, a lady came hurrying after the girl and scolding her for running off. The lady wore a white dress and had long, wavy brown hair to her waist and nice brown eyes, and when she came by the inn, Éponine thought her rather pretty. She was a traveller, though it was uncommon for women to travel alone, but Éponine knew she was travelling, for she was carrying a large valise.

After that the pretty lady in white started talking to Maman, and Éponine, sulking over the fact she was no longer being pushed on the swing, had proposed they play a different game. She and the blonde little girl, whose name was apparently Cosette, had dug up worms in the ground with sticks, and they both shrieked in delight whenever they uncovered one of the squirming little creatures. The girls took well to each other, so Éponine was happy when this Cosette and her Maman spent the night at the inn. But in the morning, the girl's Maman had left, leaving her daughter (and the valise) behind.

At first, Cosette had cried and had been no fun at all the entire day. She hadn't wanted to play anything. Maman told Éponine that the little girl, Cosette, was going to live with them a while, and that was that. At first she told Éponine she could play with the other girl if she wished to, so long as she remembered Cosette was a pauper child and a lesser girl compared to Éponine.

Éponine hadn't really understood what that meant, but she'd shrugged, indifferent, before running off to find her new playmate. Cosette was sitting on the stoop, still crying, and Éponine sat down next to her. "Don't cry, silly," she'd said. "Your maman will be back and for now we can play. Do you want to help me dig up more worms?" Cosette had sniffed and shaken her head and gone right on crying, so Éponine had sauntered off and gone to play with her dolls instead, for of course it was no fun to dig up worms by herself (there'd be no one to shriek with!) and Azelma wouldn't want to play. But when Éponine asked Cosette the same question the next day, the blonde girl had nodded shyly, and they spent the next several hours under the sun digging up worms.

Afterwards, Éponine showed Cosette all her dolls, which of course she had many of. Cosette had just one doll, a rag doll like Éponine's that was so small it fit into her apron pocket and which was a weatherbeaten hand-me-down apparently given to her by her Maman, and so she was entranced by Éponine's dolls.

Over the next week or so, Éponine had been happy to play with Cosette, who was much more fun than Azelma, because she went along with whatever Éponine said. Still, Azelma played with them too. Once, Maman took Azelma and Éponine to the village for a rare outing for sweets. Sweets were expensive, so Maman and Papa rarely bought them for their daughters, but when they did, it was like heaven on their tongues. Éponine had wanted Cosette to come too, so she could show her the big porcelain dolls in the window of the toy shop, and a reluctant Maman had agreed. She bought hardened honey candies and a small tarte au citron for each of her daughters, but she'd not gotten anything for Cosette. Éponine had wanted to give her new playmate a piece of her tart, but Maman had said, "Don't be silly, ma fille précieuse. That tart is for you." So Éponine ate the tart and the honey candy by herself, and afterwards, she and Cosette looked at dolls in the window of the toy shop before walking back to the inn.

oOo

Cosette had been staying with them for perhaps a month and a half when, as Éponine was going to bed, she saw her new playmate huddled on a pile of rags under the stairs. She crouched down next to her and questioned her on the matter. "Why are you sleeping there?" During the time she'd been here, Cosette had slept in one of the unoccupied guests' rooms.

"Your Maman says I am to sleep here from now on," Cosette had replied, and shrugged. It was by now just past November; it must surely be cold under the stairs, far from the warm fireplace of the upstairs parlour, and surely a pile of rags would not serve as a comfortable mattress. But if her Maman had said so, then Éponine had no reason to say anything. Perhaps the rooms were full tonight. Éponine never paid any attention to the number of clientele, she just knew when they were there. So she said to Cosette, "Oh," and kept climbing the stairs.

The next morning, while eating her morning porridge and honey on bread with Azelma, Éponine looked around and spotted Cosette serving the other customers their own breakfast in the next room. Maman came up to her daughters and crouched down next to their table. "Now, mes filles," she said, and her voice was so stern and serious that Éponine and Azelma stopped eating to listen. "I've something very important to tell you both. As you know, Cosette is a pauper child. We've been very good to her and cared for her over the past while but now it's high time she got to do some work around the inn. And work is what she will do. I don't want either of you to ask her to play with you anymore, for that's not her place. Her maman's all but abandoned her, and since that's the case then you clever girls must know that we won't be able to raise her ourselves. She'll need to work for her keep, you see. So, if you see Cosette working, just leave her. That's her place."

Éponine was confused. "But Maman, I thought you said she would be staying with us a while until her maman came back. Her maman didn't leave her, did she?"

"She did," their Maman replied. "And has left us with a burden, too. Do you understand, mes filles précieuses? Later today we will be going to the square and shall be selling Cosette's clothing, so if there's a dress of hers you like I suggest you pick it out before we go." After that, she stood and left, considering it the end of the matter.

"I like her yellow dress," Azelma announced once Maman was gone. Éponine had seen Cosette wearing the yellow dress too, and had privately envied her for having it. It was the only dress Cosette had that was nicer than any of her own. She glared at her sister.

"No. I want the yellow dress. You may pick another one."

An argument broke out between the two, but when they went upstairs and pulled the yellow dress from the valise of clothing that Cosette's Maman had left, they discovered the dress was just a little bit short on Éponine, but it fit Azelma just fine, despite the fact that the sleeves were a bit long. Éponine silently fumed at this, for there were no other dresses of Cosette's that she fancied, but so as to show off to Azelma she took the best stockings she could find in that valise, and they fit her alright.

After Maman had helped her bathe, and combed her dark hair as always, Éponine put on her best red dress and the new stockings. The fact that she could now dress herself always made her feel quite grown up. She observed, as she met her sister on the landing, that Azelma had chosen to wear and to show off the yellow dress that day. Of course, Azelma was too small to know how to dress herself, and Maman was doing up her buttons. Éponine sat on the stairs and rocked one of her dolls while she waited for Azelma to be ready, and when her sister was, she turned to Éponine and beamed.

Then Maman took Azelma's hand in one of her big fists, and held the valise in the other. Éponine followed just behind, still holding her doll. As they stepped outside, she saw Cosette with a large broom, struggling to sweep up the fallen leaves on the front stoop. She was crying quietly, but she looked up when she saw Azelma and asked quietly, "Isn't that my dress?"

"It's Azelma's now," Maman snapped. "Keep working." And she went on walking with Éponine and Azelma to the main square, all the while muttering about how Cosette was a useless brat. For some reason Éponine didn't question any of it. She never questioned Maman, for she saw no reason to. She kept walking with her Maman and her sister, cradling her doll and not looking back.