The Truth Once Spoken
Shekiah: Did we write something serious? For shame.
Alunaer: Well, not half bad if we do say so ourselves.
Shekiah: This is Montreuil, back when, ahem, 'Monsieur Madeleine' was mayor. We don't own Les Mis, R/R please!
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It had been just a few months, but it seemed like hundreds of years. Winter was fading into spring, but there was no joy in the hearts of the occupants of the small hospital near the outskirts of Montreuil-sur-mer.
The rest of the town was rejoicing the end of a cold and particularly harsh winter. This year, however, due to the benevolence of their mayor, far less lives had been claimed. Celebration could be heard in the streets, and the flowers were just beginning to force their way through the frozen ground of Madeleine's humble garden. In all its humility, the true beauty of the coming season was beginning to crack its icy constraints.
However, happiness was absent in the heart of a young woman who lay unwittingly dying, and her modest caretakers.
A man, aging about fifty, walked into a dimly lit room. He left his muddy boots at the door, and smoothed a lock of russet hair, speckled with gray, from his forehead. His expression was solemn.
"How is she fairing today, sister?" inquired the mayor softly as he stepped into the warmth and comfort of the hospital ward.
"Not very well, I fear," sighed Sister Simplice, knowing precisely the patient to whom he referred. He was always concerned for the young mother. "Mademoiselle Fantine is in much pain. She continues to call for Cosette, but she's less aware today than usual. Would you care to see her?"
"I suppose," replied Madeleine, taking mournful strides down the short hallway to the ward in which the suffering woman rested. It pained him to see her grievances, but his daily visits kept her alive.
He shut the door slowly and quietly behind him, not wanting to disturb her. The mayor surveyed the forlorn countenance of the desperate young woman before him. Fantine's eyelids flickered rapidly in a fevered sleep, and a hot tear rolled down her cheek. Her eyes, blue underneath the closed lids, had once been glorious and radiant with the happiness of life, but now showed a pain and anguish that went deeper than any human wound.
Walking up to her bedside table, Madeleine removed a bouquet of withered flowers from the blown glass vase. He put in their place a bundle of wildflowers, new and full of life. He poured a small stream of water from another glass pitcher into the long neck of the vase, laying the dry flowers down on the painted iron surface of the table.
Staring down mournfully at the old blooms, Madeleine glanced at the sleeping Fantine. They are so like her, he thought sadly. Once innocent and full of life, now gone.
Madeleine looked away from Fantine's frail frame, wishing that he could do something, anything, to even lessen her agony. He heard her murmur subconsciously, and, listening closer, could just make out the barely contiguous thoughts that ran rampant through her vehement mind.
"Cosette… debt… will they give her… but he shall bring her… he must… his promise…"
Fantine's brow furrowed, and she bit her lip slightly. Her breath was hot and bated as she ran through nightmares that were all too real. But, suddenly, her expression calmed and the lines in her forehead smoothed away. Madeleine could see a trace of the young woman she once had been. She must have been lovely…
"But… he loves me… doesn't he?… why else… "
The mayor wondered to whom she referred. He might have laughed, had the situation not been so serious, and had she not looked so helpless. Probably some past flame, or lover. She must have had some, back in her younger days. But how old was she? Twenty-five? Probably even less.
"He can't… he doesn't… but Tholomyés… "
Fantine bolted upright and let out a feeble cry, lifting her pale arms as though to shield herself. Madeleine instinctively placed his hand on her shoulder, and slowly her convulsions ceased. She lay back down, gasping.
Slowly, her pale eyes opened. She looked up at the mayor, and looked to be in thought for a moment.
"Cosette?"
"Soon, very, very, soon," Madeleine promised for the hundredth time.
Fantine's face broke in to a hideously beautiful smile, revealing the black gap that two pearly front teeth had once occupied.
They sat in silence for a few moments, Fantine contemplating excitedly the arrival of her daughter, and Madeleine feeling guilty. He felt as though he was lying to her, telling her this, but there was nothing else he could do to give her something to live for.
Eager to break the awkward moment, Madeleine lifted his hand to her now shoulder length hair. It was thick and wavy, and framed her face beautifully, despite the fact that it had been neglected as of late and needed a brushing.
"Your hair is growing back well," he commented, brushing a stray lock behind her ear. She smiled, but still looked a little sad.
"My hair grew out much darker than it was before. It was blonde, actually. It used to be so pretty… "
"It still is," Monsieur Madeleine assured her more quickly than he had intended, sounding somewhat wistful.
"He used to say so. He'd always wind flowers in it, and make me laugh, telling me that if I grew it any longer it would turn into a horse's tail." Fantine laughed shakily, her full lips pale and sad. Another tear, pearly and opaque in the candlelight, spilled from her glassy eyes.
"What happened to him?" the mayor asked offhandedly, hoping to satisfy a vague curiosity. Who was this uncaring, heartless man?
"He… left… he went away!" Fantine said spitefully. Her voice became shrill. "He left us, he didn't even look behind. He knew, too! He knew about Cosette, but he left anyway, he left without saying goodbye!"
Madeleine realized that he was leaning back slightly, blown away by this sudden outburst. So this man was Cosette's father. He had to be. Madeleine had often wondered about this.
Fantine smiled vaguely, lifting a hand to wipe away her tears. Madeleine could see slight grooves in her cheek; obviously, tears were nothing new to her.
The woman turned her head with a bit of an effort to look Madeleine in the eye in the eerie candlelight. "And what of you, Monsieur? Have you ever known love? Oh, I sound so insulting. Of course you have…"
"You'd be surprised…" Madeleine sighed. He never had time for love. Since he was a child, he had been toiling night and day for his family, for himself… for the law. One would expect him to have felt a surge of animosity at this thought, but he was far beyond those days.
Fantine's eyes clouded curiously, as if a window had shut behind them. She looked up questioningly at Madeleine, asking silently what he meant.
Madeleine sighed, bowing his head once.
"When I was younger, I never really had time for myself. I was always working… life never really had a meaning for me." He concluded this statement with a mournful glance. Fantine closed her eyes sadly.
"Life stopped being worthwhile for me a long time ago." Fantine's words were softly spoken, but they carried an undercurrent of wretchedness that would make the coldest heart melt. "I am only twenty-four, monsieur, and already everything has been lost to me."
Madeleine stared. Twenty-four? And her child is how old… eight? Nine?
"I know, about Cosette… you may have guessed by now that I wasn't married to her father, Tholomyés… "
This was news. He had heard some despicable rumors among the factory women. But they were mostly talk, as it was their nature. Satisfying a vague gap in their lives, that ought to be occupied by money, or even love. Instead, they had to satisfy this by depriving the above from other people.
"You left Cosette with the innkeeper man, am I correct? How many years ago?"
"She was one year old. So, seven years. I haven't seen her, but I'd recognize her anywhere. I know I would. I just have to," Fantine smiled wistfully at the ceiling. "I'll know her when you bring her. I wonder what she'll be wearing? The little wardrobe I left with her she will have long grown out of. I did provide her with a wool skirt; make sure she wears that. I don't want her to catch a chill."
"I shall be certain of this," he promised, staring at the uncertain glimmer of sunshine penetrating the gray atmosphere out the window. Fantine followed his gaze for a moment and smiled, drifting into a light and beautiful sleep that was brightened by Madeleine's words about Cosette.
Madeleine cast his eyes sadly down at the sleeping figure, caught as she was by his lies of poisoned honey. Only so much longer can this sustain her, he thought ruefully. Some dreaded day, the truth will surface . . . and then, what will become of her?
The lies are destroying her, from the inside out.