"And Cosette?" she asked. Her face was shining—lined with brown wrinkles and grey splotches of illness, framed by frizzled silver hair, but shining nonetheless. "I knew you were there. I was asleep, but I saw you. I've seen you for a very long time. I've been following you in my mind all night long. You were in a glory, surrounded by all sorts of angels!"
The mayor was silent. Standing still in the doorway, he glanced around the room almost guiltily, refusing to let his eyes rest upon Fantine, who was at this point seated upright in bed and leaning toward him eagerly. His darting eyes found the crucifix: he gazed on it and ran one strong hand through his thick, dark hair, still making no answer to Fantine.
"Tell me where Cosette is," she said, the smile gradually slipping off her face. "Why didn't you set her on my bed the moment I woke?"
"I don't think you're well enough," he murmured at last, still staring fixedly at the little crucifix on the wall. "Fantine, you must wait to see her."
"But I am well, Monsieur le maire! Give me my beautiful little one, and you shall see how well I am!" She turned to Sister Simplice, who had drawn the curtain back from the bed a moment ago and was still poised there, her white face reflecting the concern of the mayor's. "My sister, make him bring me my little girl! You shall see then, sister, that she has my yellow hair, the hair I used to have, and pretty blue eyes. Like a little china doll, with her bright cheeks. Did the Thénardiers give her white linen and keep her clean? Don't you think her pretty, Monsieur le maire? I'll bet you'd never know it, but I used to be her equal in beauty. Am I being vain, my sister? Oh, Monsieur le maire, you were so good to fetch her for me! All night I have been surrounded by white visions, by people dressed in white, and I knew they were watching over us all."
Pausing, she turned to Madeleine and smiled, revealing the hollow space in the front of her mouth.
"How old is she now? How long has it been? One, two, three, four… seven years old! I am well enough, Monsieur le maire, and I shall be very good. Do bring her in!"
And she rearranged herself on the bed, folding her hands into her lap and aligning her shoulders.
"Lay back, my dear," murmured Sister Simplice, her troubled eyes fixed on the mayor, who was still staring at the crucifix.
His gaze suddenly dropped to Fantine, who was now lying compliantly against the white sheets and beaming at him. A trace of her former beauty had returned in those moments: her cheeks were turning rosy and the deep lines of worry seemed to have faded from her brow and her twinkling blue eyes. "Are you sure you are well enough?" he sighed.
Keeping her thin lips pressed tightly together, Fantine nodded energetically.
"Very well," sighed Madeleine, and he stepped away from the door. "Sister Perpetue?"
The other nun, a broader, ruddier woman than Simplice, entered the room with a wretched little creature who, upon spying Madeleine, let out a tiny squeak and hurried to bury her face against his vest, her red, calloused fingers curled protectively against her hollow cheeks.
"She looks just like her mother, doesn't she?" Perpetue said from the doorway, her arms akimbo as she glanced from the little girl to the woman on the bed and back again.
"That will do," the mayor said sternly. "You may go, sister."
The woman left.
Now Madeleine's and Simplice's eyes were on Fantine, who in turn was gaping at the ragged little girl leaning against the mayor.
Her mouth had dropped open and she stared, furrowing her brow and squinting at the pitiful little thing, which was trembling despite the fire popping on the hearth. At length, Fantine's countenance changed; a nervous smile trembled across her lips. She looked up at Madeleine. "What is that?" she asked politely. "Where is my daughter?"
Sister Simplice let out a little sigh that was almost a whimper, her knuckles whitening as she tightened her grip on the curtains.
Whispering to the child in a comforting tone, Madeleine gently took both of her shoulders and turned her around to face Fantine, who was sitting up again, her glistening brow still contorted in confusion.
The girl kept her head bowed in fear and humility, affording Fantine a view of her dirty, matted hair and her pronounced collarbone, so thin it looked like it would snap if pinched between two fingers. The girl was wearing a mud-caked rag that might have once been a dress, mostly a dark, indiscernible colour with lighter bits around the stretched neck, one entire shoulder exposed. On her feet were rough-looking wooden clogs.
"Monsieur le maire," Fantine said, the pitch of her voice slowly rising, "Monsieur le maire, what is that? What is that? Where is my little daughter? Where is my child? Where is my daughter?" she started forward as though she would leap up from the bed, but at that moment a crystal laugh rose up from outside: a little girl was playing below, running in the yard and singing.
And then Fantine fell back on the bed, her shoulders, as frail as those of the little girl Madeleine still supported, shaking with a horrible silent laugh. "How wicked you are, Monsieur le maire!" she panted, coughs interrupting her at every breath. "How wicked of you to bring that thing to me when my own little angel stays outside, unable to see her poor mother. No doubt she will not recognise me. Bring me my child, Monsieur le maire, please bring her to me! If I can withstand this mean joke of yours of course I am well enough to see my little daughter. Do let me see her, Monsieur le maire," she said, the words trailing off into a whisper.
In one quick motion, Madeleine swept the trembling little child into his arms and carried her out of the room. "You were right, Perpetue," he said as he passed the sister. "We should have waited."
"And given that poor little thing a good scrub," the nun added, delivering the child's head a clumsy pat. "Bring her on in here, then, Monsieur le maire," she sighed. "We'll see what's under all this dirt."
Cosette was afraid for a moment when the big man, her rescuer, left her side; her fear only grew as the rough woman snatched off her dress and shoes and dropped her into a metal tub. The water she poured over her was warm, though, and it wasn't long until the greyish chunk of soap in the woman's hands filled the bath with foam, and Cosette could not help but smile as she pressed her palms together and watched the lather disappear between them. She did not even mind the woman using a rag to scrub and scratch at her skin until all the dirt was off, but her scalp began to ache as a small pile of combs that had lost teeth in her hair accumulated at the side of the tub. Once the woman seemed to have finished, she sighed and wiped her heavy hands down the front of her coarse dress. "Now, dunk yourself under and rinse the soap off," she instructed, leaning back.
Cosette slid down beneath the water, letting its soothing warmth slowly envelop her tired little body, and she imagined she could feel an entire layer of dirt lift up and float serenely to the surface, a heaviness drifting away from her and leaving only a flutter of hope.
Monsieur Madeleine had placed a little wooden chair in the hallway, and he had not moved from the little girl's door for hours. He sat with his head against the wall, eyes closed, only the constant flexing of his jaw muscles attesting to his consciousness. No one dared interrupt his vigil.
There was no sound from inside the room—even if there was, it would have been difficult to hear over the ravings of the mother, who had begun crying out for her daughter, cursing the doctor for keeping the child away and Sister Simplice for holding her back. Madeleine would have taken the child to her immediately, but Perpetue had told him that something else had come to light once the dirt had been scrubbed from the little girl's face. One of her eyes was blacked, that was obvious at once, but the child was covered in other welts and bruises, some of which could be hidden by a conservative dress.
The doctor emerged from the mother's room flanked by the two nuns; Perpetue closed the door firmly.
The doctor spoke first.
"She is worse. The strain of the morning did not rest well with her."
Madeleine narrowed his eyes at the closed door, rising to his feet. "Is it too bad to see the girl again? She swore to me that seeing the child would cure her, monsieur; you saw what happened after my departure for Montfermeil."
"And we've dressed her in white linen, the way she expected her to look," Perpetue added, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. "Sister even found an old blue ribbon to tie back her hair."
"Her hair is only a little darker than the mother's used to be," Simplice murmured, gazing at the floor. "When the child awakes, certainly Fantine will want to—"
Perpetue interrupted, "Maybe we should wait, messieurs. Wait until the child... heals."
"Well," said the doctor, rubbing his hand over his shaven chin, "there is always that hope. I leave it to your discretion, Monsieur le maire, and urge you all to think of the health of the woman. It is true also that at this point there may be no recovery no matter what you do." He bowed quickly. "As for me, I must see to poor Mère Garavel, and I'm afraid I haven't much more time to tarry," and he retreated.
None of the three remaining figures moved from the reveries for a long time. Sister Simplice kept her head bent and her eyes trained on the floor; Perpetue was still leaning against the wall, glaring out the window; Monsieur Madeleine stood tall, his face to the door of Fantine's room while his thoughts travelled past it. "And Cosette?" he asked at length.
Neither of the nuns met his gaze.
Cosette was asleep on a cloud, wrapped in white cotton sheets with a real pillow under her head. At first, she had had to fight the feeling that she would dirty the clean fabric upon touching it; then she had realised that, with the warm fire flickering on the hearth—a fire, for her!—the blankets were simply too heavy, and she kicked them away.
Then, after a moment, she climbed down from the bed, pulled the blankets off, and folded them carefully, saving one thin sheet for herself.
As she was carrying the pile of blankets toward the armchair she saw a movement from the corner of her eye: there was a little looking-glass lying on the bedside table. Depositing the blankets into the chair, Cosette slipped over and took the mirror up in her hands, turning it to see her face.
She stifled a gasp. Her hair was a dark shade of blonde, almost brown, and it was light, practically floating around her shoulders and even shining in the dim light of the fire. The few times Cosette had seen her reflection, her hair had been one thick, heavy mass of tangled curl and dirt. The coarse woman had made it look like a doll's hair!
She flipped the mirror over and dropped it facedown onto the table.
That pampered little girl was no one she knew. That was not Cosette.
Simplice sat with Fantine all night, her candle fluttering in the chilly breeze of the half-open window as she kept her head bent over a book of prayers. The woman had finally calmed herself, lying still among the sheets with wide, glassy eyes, her mouth opening and closing like a dying fish.
It was a long, heavy night punctuated only by the chiming of the mantel-clock in the salon and the occasional brush of footsteps as the mayor passed in the hall, pausing first at the girl's room, and then outside this one.
At long last, dawn crept into the sky. Simplice kept her position as her candle, its wick spent, gave a final shudder and went out. The morning light was still too dim for reading, so the woman let her eyes travel up to Fantine.
The mother was staring at her, horror splayed across her face.
"Fantine?" the good woman whispered. "Can I help you in some way, my dear?"
Fantine's mouth drifted open and closed once before her voice creaked out, bringing with it a tiny trail of blood that leaked from the corner of her mouth and onto the white pillow. "She's dead, isn't she?"
Simplice had been fumbling with a handkerchief, but at these guttural words she stopped. "Oh, no, dear! The child sleeps in a room on this very hall!"
"My child is dead."
Sister Simplice rose to her feet and hurried out of the room.
Fantine watched her go. "My child is dead," she rasped softly.
Cosette was tucking the edges of the sheets under the mattress when the nicer woman entered, took her hand, and led her across the hall. "Your mother wants to see you again, dear, now that you've been cleaned up."
Cosette nodded.
The woman led her to that other room and pushed open the door.
This was the room where that frightening woman had screamed at her. Cosette did not want to go in, not without her rescuer, but she knew better than to disobey the wishes of the nicer woman. She did not want the nicer woman to have to hit her. She followed her in.
The room was almost empty but for the glowing embers of a dying fire and the large white bed with its sweeping canopy. Cosette started toward the fire, thinking to stoke it, but the nicer woman tightened her grip on her fist, and the girl turned to the big white bed.
The frightening woman was there, but she was not screaming now. She was lying across the bed with one arm dangling over the edge, the blankets twisted all around her body. The white pillow had fallen to the floor, the fabric splattered red with blood. Bloodstains, Cosette thought—terrible to have to wash.
The woman was gawping at her, her eyes round and motionless and her lips parted to reveal a gap in her front teeth. Long lines of dried blood trailed from the corners of her mouth to her pointed chin.
The nicer woman dropped Cosette's hand with a gasp; she ran out of the room, calling for Monsieur Madeleine. The door swung shut behind her.
Cosette was alone with her mother.
Mother. Cosette turned the word over in her mind. This was her mother. She moved slowly forward, aware that the woman would not yell at her now, and raised two red fingers to touch the hollow cheek. Her skin was still warm.
Cosette lowered herself to the floor, her shadowed eyes fastened to her mother's motionless ones, and allowed a tiny smile to twitch at the corner of her mouth. One lifeless arm dangled over the side of the bed; Cosette took her mother's hand in hers and pressed it to her chin.
"Hello, mama," she whispered, her voice hoarse.
When Madeleine came into the room, Fantine's fingers had stiffened around Cosette's. He had to break the bones in the dead woman's hand to free the child from her grip.