Grantaire had been Enjolras' constant companion for the previous three decades - a relationship that was tacitly understood by many and referred to obliquely and with hostility by some of the more reactionary journalists and once, in a memorable incident, unmistakably alluded to during a particularly heated debate in the National Assembly. But Enjolras' reserved general demeanor, his cold refusal to respond to ad hominems and his complete separation of his public and private life largely protected his home life from scrutiny.
Most, seeing only the upright, scrupulous Friend of the People (as it pleased the more left leaning sections of the press to call him, prompting a delighted Courfeyrac to dub him "Marat" in their private circle) believed – or chose to believe – that the irascible individual who was always at his side really was his secretary, as he was vaguely referred to when official acknowledgement was necessary. It served as a title for his companion for those functions Enjolras attended, who worked late with him in his chambers and who travelled with him both for business and those short austere holidays he took when worn down by the unceasing round of public duties.
It was Courfeyrac also who, years before, had irreverently smirked at both of them and suggested that Grantaire was Enjolras' secretary in the same sense that some men liked to install pretty "housekeepers" in their homes. Grantaire had risen to the occasion and pointed that the comparison fell down because he hardly had beauty to recommend him, and because his skill at assisting Enjolras with his speeches and papers was more impressive than the average mistress' ability to run a household. "In short, I'm more utilitarian than decorative!" he concluded. Enjolras shook his head, but did so with a smile and a murmured "you are quite indispensable to me" before he changed the subject.
And it had all begun because Grantaire had gone out into the rain one day.
He had not intended to do so. The day was miserable, he was happily advanced on the road to thorough drunkenness, and he was irrationally irritated with Enjolras for not sending for him, choosing instead to send his summons to Bossuet.
That Grantaire had given Enjolras no reason to trust him and had more or less blundered in most tasks he offered to undertake made no difference to his irrational, petulant anger at Navet's coded message. He was seldom very rational regarding the object of his idolatry, and it stung unreasonably that Enjolras assumed that he would not come if called – or worse, that he had not even thought of Grantaire at all. He wavered a few minutes, tempted to stay where he was, half wishing to prove himself, unable to decide. He had not been on the streets in 1830 with his friends. Perhaps this time –
It took Bossuet and Joly rising to their feet to make up his mind, Joly's feet tangling around each other as he looked for his cane, grumbling about the onset of pneumonia and Bossuet laughing about the holes in his coat letting the water into it and then letting it drain out.
"Well, far be it from me to miss Enjolras' funeral!" he observed as he struggled into his coat.
And so he walked out into the rain with his friends in the direction of the Boulevard Bourdon, straining for an air of nonchalance in the burgeoning crowd as his eyes darted everywhere, hoping to light on a tall, slim blond figure whose elusive grace and incandescence not even the grime of a Paris funeral in the grey drizzle could diminish.
The atmosphere on the streets made him uneasy, a discomfort that penetrated through his slowly dispersing haze of alcohol the closer they came to their destination. All around him were men with set, grim mouths, ominously silent crowds, and glimpses here and there of weapons under coats and visibly outlined beneath workers' smocks that were soaked through with rain. Something was going to happen, a thunderclap was going to burst over their heads, and who could say how this day might end?
