A/N: I want Eponine to have a love for music… Poor girl. By the way, I might borrow some songs from other musicals, there might be some songs that could fit a particular scene and I envisioned that this story could be sung through… oh! My head filled with musical notes. Bad! However, sorry if I have some grammar mistakes, I know I have many…
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN LES MISERABLES
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CHAPTER 2: THE LADY ALL IN WHITE
By the inn at Montfermeil, there lived an inn keeper named M. Thenardier and his wife. The couple was known throughout town as cons and clever swindlers. Whatever bad reputation they got, publicity, whether good or bad is still publicity. Thenardier's inn is still a highly popular place among travelers, drunks and whores.
At times, M. Thenardier and his wife would appear as a saintly couple. Whether they did good or bad, nobody wasn't absolutely sure... Just, a cold winter night, a devastated Fantine carried her little daughter in her arms.
"I'll do anything you'd ask," the woman pleaded by M. Thenardier and his wife. "Just let my child stay here... She needs a place to stay in this cold, cold night..."
"And what would you give?" Mme. Thenardier would snarl at the woman, whose tears were enough to clean the innkeeper's wife's feet.
"Anything!" the woman cried in despair "just please accommodate my daughter here, just keep her warm and fed... Just give me time an' I'll pay you ten francs for my poor Cosette!"
"Ten francs you say? Where on earth could you get ten francs?" Mme. Thenardier would ask the crying Fantine all curled up in the floor.
When the woman did not speak, the mistress of the inn gave a sigh... "You are wasting your time y'know? Money is a hard thing to come by these days... If you ain't got money, you ain't getting any charity."
Fantine looked into the eyes of Mme. Thenardier. The funny thing is, that Fantine's tear stained bare face looked more beautiful than the Thenardier, whose face was outrageously powdered up and whose lips bled by biting too much.
Eponine watched the whole exchange without her parents' knowledge. It was indeed a cold winter night and in her innocent little heart, she knew that people should really stay inside.
A little girl stared at her across the room. The little girl was pale, her hair golden as the sun and her eyes blue as the clear sky. Her clothes looked dull and plain, which contrasted little Eponine's frilly floral prints. She looked cold and weak, but with a determination to live.
The two little girls exchanged glances. Each wondering what kind of life the other one had.
Cosette, the little blonde girl gave a small smile which might mean 'Hello, nice to meet you, my name is Cosette'. The little brunette girl across the room was about to do the same thing when M. Thenardier's voice roared in the room:
"EPONINE!"
Eponine's heart raced. Her father knows that she is there listening to things she isn't supposed to listen.
"Up to your room little mademoiselle, or else..." Mme. Thenardier said in a gentle but threatening voice. The little girl with red-brown hair left for her room immediately without looking back at the girl, who's clear blue eyes followed her until she disappeared.
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When Eponine reached her room, she did what she always did: play with Nina. Her thoughts drifted to the little blonde girl... 'Does she have her own doll? Does she name it and play with it like the way I do?'
Her musings were broken when her mother entered the room... "Eponine my dear, vacate your toys and dresses from the storage room, we have a very special guest, and she'd be staying there... That little girl with shabby clothing, she is the one who'll stay over... Do you understand?"
"Mama, isn't the room small and cramped? She could share my bed if she wants to..."
"No!" Mme. Thenardier exclaimed "Girls like you could never associate with girls like her! Am I clear Eponine?"
The little girl nodded
"That's my good girl" Mme. Thenardier smiled as she placed a kiss on her daughter's forehead. "Just get ready for bed; you could fix your clothes tomorrow,"
"But," Eponine wanted to protest but she was afraid that her mother might reprimand her. She thought about where the poor girl would sleep tonight.
She expected her mother to tuck her to bed, but it seemed that her mama is tired and after she gave a kiss and bade goodnight, she didn't even looked twice at Eponine who wanted to be tucked in her bed.
XXX
A few hours after, in a small warm bed, Eponine shifted rather violently under her covers. A scary monster seemed to have chased her that night...
"Mama!"
Her little voice squeaked in the dark room. Later, the little girl was already at her feet, her eyes full of tears crying for her mother. Her little form gently slipped out of her room in search for her mother. As she tries to navigate her way through, she hears a low melodious hum by the kitchen, it soon turned out that it belonged to the woman and her child.
Fantine cradles Cosette in a place near the stove, the warmest place in the room. She sang to her little girl as she stroked her hair.
"So look with your heart and not with your eyes
The heart understands, the heart never lies
Believe what it feels and trust what it shows
Look with your heart the heart always knows"
Fantine sang in low, but beautiful voice. Cosette would hum along as if the song was sung to her a thousand times.
"I love you my dear Cosette," Fantine would whisper to her daughter. "Someday, you'd find people who will love you, be good and they will love you back,"
"But I don't want anyone else, I only want you mama! Don't leave me here! It's scary!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry Cosette... My poor Cosette, I need to work. One day we'll leave this place and live in a castle on the cloud..."
The little girl's face lit up. "Really, you think so? That we would live in a castle on a cloud?"
"Yes my dear, but we must be patient; a time would come that we would be together. My Cosette, my Cosette I'll be back soon... When you see me as a lady all in white, we would live in a castle on a cloud... Hush now and sleep, my dear Cosette..."
Eponine watched Fantine kiss her child, caressing her blonde hair over and over... Slowly tears formed by the woman's eyes. Eponine would describe her tears like gentle rain falling on golden ground. Eponine decided to leave them and continue to search for her mother... Her thoughts, wandering if her mother could sing her a beautiful lullaby...
She soon found her mother by the inn's "tavern". The place was noisy and unfit for a child her age. The whole den was filled with drunken people and women with outrageous make-up. She spotted her mother sitting beside a man unfamiliar to her. She watched as her mother's hand reached the man's breast pocket to pick up a folded bill and then stuffed the stolen money between her breasts.
She called for her mother over and over again, but the woman seemed to not hear her. The room was so noisy and smoky; tears were starting to well up her eyes. She never knew that such wild things could happen at night... Everything, so new, so scary, she remembered the monsters in her dreams... So scary for a little girl of four nearing five!
Little Eponine started to sob. She wanted her mama to cuddle her right now. She saw how the woman in the kitchen sings her daughter to sleep; she wanted her mama to do the same. "Mama... Mama..." she started to call between her cries.
"And who is this little girl cryin'?" a drunk man by the table suddenly blurted out and then everyone stopped at the little girl in her frilly night gown.
"Eponine," Her father said as he picked her up from the floor. "What are you doing here?"
Her father smelled bad, and Eponine could not figure out where the smell came from. His face was red, very red from intoxication. When Mme. Thenardier saw her daughter in her drunken husband's arms, she quickly grabbed Eponine away from him.
"Don't you ever hold your daughter in that state! Oh look at you! You are such a mess..." Mme. Thenardier scolded her husband. The whole room roared with laughter.
"Look who is being a good parent," one person in the room remarked.
"Shut up Claude!" the woman with hilarious make-up said in a high pitched voice. "The little mademoiselle is cute like a doll!"
"My little Eponine is my doll..." Mme. Thenardier said as she tried to wipe her daughter's tears. "Now, hush my little Eponina... What is troubling you? Didn't your father and I tell you to never leave your room at night?"
"I'm sorry... I can't sleep... There were monsters chasin' me..."
"Aww... Monsters chasin' my little Eponine," M. Thenardier said "My little girl just had a nightmare!"
The whole room of drunks, whores and desolates laughed as if little Eponine's nightmare was a joke.
"That's enough," Mme. Thenardier told her husband who is still amused with the joke he came up with. She carried her daughter close "Your daughter monsieur, is terrified, how could you be so heartless?"
"One day she'd learn my dear," her husband replied "One day she'll learn that there are more monsters out there... In the streets outside her room... And that evil takes form in people like us."
"Enough!"
"Come on my dear, you know what I am saying is true. Eponine would later face these evils outside, especially with a cute face like hers..."
"You are out of your mind monsieur!" She slapped her husband which created more laughter in the room "Come Eponine, let's go and wait for the morning till your father gets his sanity back."
Mme. Thenardier then carried her frightened daughter to bed.