BARRON


The carriage ride home was a long one. On purpose. Marius directed the driver this way and that, until he had run out of money to pay him with and had to be dropped off at the church his Grandfather had taken him to as a child. It was a great distance from the Gillenormand Chatole, but Marius was prepared to walk. And besides, that shadowy house was the last place he wanted to be at the moment. The clouds that had long been forming in his young mind had now transformed into a storm, and storms have to blow around for a time, before they can settle down.

His father's note had given him proof, however small, that his father was not the man he'd always been told he was. This made his Grandfather a liar, and therefore he knew he could trust nothing he had once thought to be true.

'Then again, that wasn't much...'he thought. But his brooding was interrupted, as the congregation had begun to sing. 'It must be midnight mass'. The heir decided to enter the chapel, and, finding his childhood seat empty, took his place and joined the song. Just as he was beginning to find peace in the rousing harmony, Marius felt a shaky tap on his shoulder. He turned around, raising his eyebrows.

"Excuse me Monsieur," began the middle aged working-man behind him, "would you mind...staying after the service tonight? You make me think of someone...That is, I'd like to talk to you, if you don't mind."

Marius nodded. "Of course." As the mass went on he found himself staring into the candles as the words of the Latin Sermon wafted through his mind. Marius understood Latin completely. His mind simply would not focus. When he finally heard the words "Amen" Marius found himself jumping from his seat, he was so eager to hear what the strange man would have to say. But the stranger put a finger to his lips and told the boy with his eyes to wait until the chapel was empty. Marius nodded again, curiosity rising like a puddle in a rainstorm.

It seemed to take hours for the crowd to trickle out, and of course, right at the last, there was an elderly woman hobbling out at the pace of a snail. Finally, when the great oak door was shut behind her, the stranger introduced himself. "My name is Father Mabeuf. And yours, Monsieur?"

"Pontmercy. Marius Pontmercy. But, Father, what about-" he tilted his head to the ancient priest, who was still putting out the candles.

"Oh don't mind him, he's deaf as dirt, poor fellow!" Mabeuf laughed, loudly enough to shake the church's stone pillars, but the old man didn't even look up from his work. "Now. You're sure your name is Pontmercy? Are you the son of the poor Baron Pontmercy?"

"Yes Monsieur."

"And this is the church you attended as a child, and always sat in that very peu?"

"Yes Monsieur." Marius was shocked to the point of wariness.

"Well be not alarmed my boy, I simply wish to ask a favor of you. And that is this: Go and visit your father, for he is something of a friend of mine-"

"I can't," said Marius, rather bluntly, "he is dead."

"Oh, how sorry I am to hear of that. Your father was a good-"

"Can you tell me about him?" the boy asked, then added, "I apologise, Monsieur. Please excuse me for interrupting. Very rude of me."

Mabeuf laughed again. "Oh Marius, there's no need for any of that old Royalist hogwash around me! As if curiosity about one's lost father was a crime. Sit down boy, across from me, and I'll tell you."

By the time Pontmercy and Mabeuf had shaken hands, and said their goodbyes, the later had in his hands a list of things he'd written down to remember about his father.

His father had loved his mother more than life itself. Mabeuf had met him in the Napoleonic Wars, and said there wasn't a minute that passed when he wasn't speaking of her.

In fact, as Mabeuf put it, "I'd have been mighty annoyed with the old bludger, had he not saved my life once, and getting himself slashed across the face in the process. You'd think I was mighty special to him, but I wasn't. Pontmercy was always saving people."

He was, apparently, an exact replica of his father. Only taller.

When Napoleon was exiled by "them blasted Britts", and Louis Philippe had been made king, his father had come home to an empty home. His wife, buried with her richer relatives, and his only son, "carted off to live with the Bourgeois".

"Yer evil grandfather-sorry, but it's true-said contact between you two was impossible. If your father had ever so much as said hello to you in person, Gillenormand said he'd cut you off. But you did get his letters, didn't you? He spent hours on those things." Marius hadn't. Only a false, cold version concocted by his grandfather.

The King didn't like him wearing his title since it came from Napoleon. But his father didn't care. "I remember one time they asked him not to wear the Baron symbol. Told him it was false, and treason." Mabeuf laughed again. "Well, your father told them! Asked them, polite as can be, if he would be aloud to wear his scars, and assured them that while it might have been treason to fight for the people of France, it certainly wasn't false. They left him alone after that.

He spent his days taking care of his flower garden, and coming here every sunday. Not particularly for the service, but to stand behind that there pillar, and watch his son. Church was the only place he could come and visit you, you see?"

Marius put the list with what was now his most prized possession, his father's will, in his left coat pocket. And, thanking his new-old friend, Marius left the church. He knew he'd return here often, but never again, he vowed, would he set foot in the Gillenormand house. For now, homeless as he was, he had become the Baron, Marius Pontmercy.